2022年10月30日 VOA慢速英語：美國小型大學使用課程共享來添加新課程

 

Dylan Smith is in his second year at Adrian College, a small liberal arts school with about 1,600 students in the state of Michigan.
迪倫·史密斯 (Dylan Smith) 在阿德里安學院 (Adrian College) 上二年級，這是一所位于密歇根州的小型文科學校，約有 1,600 名學生。
 
When Smith was looking at colleges, he liked the small college environment at Adrian. And the school wanted him to join its football and wrestling teams. But Smith did not think a liberal arts education would help him get a job, so he planned to study supply-chain management at Michigan State University, which has nearly 50,000 students. Supply-chain management is a field of study on how to handle the flow of goods and services from raw materials to businesses.
當史密斯在看大學時，他喜歡阿德里安的小型大學環(huán)境。學校希望他加入足球和摔跤隊。但史密斯認為文科教育不會幫助他找到工作，因此他計劃在擁有近 50,000 名學生的密歇根州立大學學習供應鏈管理。供應鏈管理是一個研究如何處理從原材料到企業(yè)的商品和服務流動的領域。
 
But then Adrian College added supply-chain management to its offerings. That made him change his mind and attend Adrian.
但隨后阿德里安學院在其課程中增加了供應鏈管理。這使他改變了主意并參加了阿德里安。
 
"I couldn't say no to getting the degree I wanted from a smaller school instead of at a big university where you're looking at 200 students in a class," said Smith.
史密斯說：“我不能拒絕從一所規(guī)模較小的學校而不是在一個班級有 200 名學生的大型大學獲得我想要的學位。”
 
Course sharing
課程分享
 
An increasing number of mostly small, liberal arts colleges in the United States are drawing students like Smith by sharing courses online with large universities.
美國越來越多的小型文理學院通過與大型大學在線共享課程來吸引像史密斯這樣的學生。
 
The move is a way for small colleges to deal with decreasing numbers of students going to college. In the past ten years, 81 small, private colleges have closed in the U.S. And nearly two-thirds of high school seniors now say a college degree is not worth the cost. The information comes from a New America and Third Way study.
此舉是小型大學應對上大學人數(shù)減少的一種方式。過去十年，美國關閉了 81 所小型私立大學，近三分之二的高中生表示， 大學學位不值得付出代價。該信息來自新美國和第三路研究。
 
 
Rick Ostrander is an assistant to the president at Westmont College in southern California. He said, "Course sharing lets us maintain what we are, which is small and residential, but compete on selection and price."
Rick Ostrander 是南加州韋斯特蒙特學院的校長助理。他說，“課程共享讓我們保持了我們的本來面目，即小型和住宅，但在選擇和價格上競爭。”
 
"Hundreds of schools are going to go out of business if we don't figure this out," said Jeffrey Docking, the president of Adrian College. The school has used course sharing to add 17 fields of study in just the last two years, including computer science, web design, cybersecurity and public health.
“如果我們不解決這個問題，數(shù)百所學校將會倒閉，”阿德里安學院院長杰弗里·多克說。僅在過去兩年中，學校就使用課程共享增加了 17 個學習領域，包括計算機科學、網(wǎng)頁設計、網(wǎng)絡安全和公共衛(wèi)生。
 
Parminder Jassal is head of Unmudl which is developing technology to make it easier for colleges to share courses. She said, "We've been sharing through Airbnb. We're sharing cars. We're sharing everything. Higher education is probably the last place the idea of sharing is finally hitting."
Parminder Jassal 是 Unmudl 的負責人，該公司正在開發(fā)技術(shù)以使大學更容易共享課程。她說，“我們一直在通過 Airbnb 共享。我們共享汽車。我們共享一切。高等教育可能是共享的想法最終出現(xiàn)的最后一個地方。”
 
More programs, less cost
更多的程序，更少的成本
 
Some employers say liberal arts study develops important skills for the workplace, such as the ability to write well and solve problems. But students and their parents worry that a liberal arts education will not be enough to get the kind of jobs they want.
一些雇主表示，文科學習可以培養(yǎng)工作場所的重要技能，例如寫作和解決問題的能力。但學生和他們的父母擔心，文科教育不足以獲得他們想要的那種工作。
 
Getting a good job was the most important reason students gave for going to college, a study by the University of California at Los Angeles' Higher Education Research Institute showed.
加州大學洛杉磯分校高等教育研究所的一項研究表明，找到一份好工作是學生上大學的最重要原因。
 
A 2021 study by the Federal Reserve found that half of the students who earned bachelor's degrees in liberal arts said they would now choose a different field of study.
美聯(lián)儲2021 年的一項研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，獲得文科學士學位的學生中有一半表示他們現(xiàn)在會選擇不同的學習領域。
 
Through course sharing, small liberal arts colleges can quickly add the technical programs that students want at less cost. Some community colleges and historically Black colleges and universities are also choosing to use course sharing.
通過課程共享，小型文理學院可以以更低的成本快速添加學生想要的技術(shù)課程。一些社區(qū)學院和歷史上的黑人學院和大學也選擇使用課程共享。
 
Adrian College says new programs that it has added through course sharing brought 100 additional students over the last two years. That is equal to more than $8 million in the total cost over four years of those students' education.
Adrian College 表示，通過課程共享增加的新課程在過去兩年中增加了 100 名學生。這相當于這些學生四年教育的總成本超過 800 萬美元。
 
It is also less expensive for a college to pay for course sharing than to hire new professors. For many colleges, developing new programs themselves takes too long and costs too much. The firm EAB estimated that it costs as much as $2.2 million to develop a new study program.
與聘請新教授相比，大學支付課程共享費用也更便宜。對于許多大學來說，開發(fā)新項目本身需要的時間太長，成本也太高。EAB公司估計，開發(fā)一項新的學習計劃需要花費高達 220 萬美元。
 
"The way that higher education has always worked is, if I wanted to offer those courses to students, I would have had to go out and hire a faculty member, add those courses and see if students would take them," said Ann Fulop, a vice president at Eureka College in Illinois. The school used course sharing to add a computer science study program this year.
“高等教育一直以來的運作方式是，如果我想為學生提供這些課程，我將不得不出去聘請一名教員，添加這些課程，看看學生是否愿意接受它們，”Ann Fulop 說，伊利諾伊州尤里卡學院的副校長。學校今年通過課程共享增加了計算機科學學習計劃。
 
President Docking of Adrian College said, "If we're willing to work together, and share some courses, we can offer many, many more… programs for very little cost."
Adrian College 校長 Docking 說：“如果我們愿意一起工作，分享一些課程，我們可以以很少的成本提供更多……更多的課程。”