哈佛大学校长离职演讲

哈佛大学校长离职演讲由刀豆文库小编整理，希望给你工作、学习、生活带来方便”。

Good bye and good luck!

by Lawrence H.Summers, President of Harvard University

Today, I speak from this podium a final time as your president.As I depart, I want to thank all of youwith whom I have been privileged to work over these past years.Some of us have had our

disagreements, but I know that which unites us transcends that which divides us.I leave with a full heart, grateful for the opportunity I have had to lead this remarkable institution.Since I delivered my inaugural addre, 56 months ago, I have learned an enormous amount—about higher education, about leadership, and also about myself.Some things look different to me than they did five years ago.The world that today’s Harvard’s graduates are entering is a profoundly different one than the world administrators entered.It is a world where opportunities have never been greater for those who know how to teach children to read, or those who know how to distribute financial risk;never greater for those who understand the cell and the pixel;never greater for those who can master, and navigate between, legal codes, faith traditions, computer platforms, political viewpoints.It is also a world where some are left further and further behindbut desperately in need of wisdom.Now, when sound bites are getting shorter, when instant meages crowd out eays, and when individual lives grow more frenzied, college graduates capable of deep reflection are what our world needs.For all these reasons I believedin the unique and irreplaceable miion of universities.Universities are where the wisdom we cannot afford to lose is preserved from generation to generation.Among all human institutions, universities can look beyond present norms to future poibilities, can look through current considerations to emergent opportunities.And among universities, Harvard stands out.With its great tradition, its iconic

reputation, its remarkable network of 300,000 alumni, Harvard has never had as much potential as it does now.And yet, great and proud institutions, like great and proud nations at their peak, must surmount a very real risk: that the very strength of their traditions will lead to caution, to an inward focus on prerogative and to a complacency that lets the world pa them by.And so I say to you that our University today is at an inflection point in its history.At such a moment, there is temptation to elevate comfort and consensus over progre and clear direction, but this would be a mistake.The University’s matchle resourcesdemand that we seize this moment with vision and boldne.To do otherwise would be a lost opportunity.We can spur great deeds that history will mark decades and even centuries from now.If Harvard can find the courage to change itself, it can change the world.