Issue11【Triple Week】第7次练习by danielgaoys

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Should all nations support the development of a global university for the purpose of solving the world's most persistent social problems, as the speaker assert? In a sense, I tend to agree that with the efforts from all nations’ students, it might be helpful to solve such kind of problems.  Nevertheless, such a university would pose certain kinds of risks which all participating nations must be careful to minimize, otherwise it would lead to some unfavorable result.

One compelling argument for a global university has to do with the fact that almost all countries over the world are facing the same kinds of global challenges. Many global problems, such as global warming, the financial crisis, regional wars or famine, happen in some counties, but will influence other counties. Consider, for example, a financial crisis in one country can spell trouble for many foreign companies, many of which are now multinational in that they rely on the raw materials and labor forces of other nations.  This problem would carry grave social consequences in all the related countries -- increased crime, less job position, starvation, insurrection, and so forth. Solving these kinds of global problems requires worldwide cooperation -- where a global university could plays an extremely important role.

Another compelling argument in favor of a global university is that international academic cooperation is imperative for solving the global problems we face today. Faculty and students from different countries would bring diverse cultural and educational perspectives to the problems they trying to solve.  Students in the global university can learn how other nations address certain persistent problems and the differences of the same social problems in different countries. These kinds of comparison between the social problems in different nations would be helpful and instructive for the students to find out a solution for their own country. What's more, many basic principles used to solve enduring social problems know no national boundaries, thus a useful insight or discovery can come from a faculty or student from any country.

Notwithstanding the foregoing reasons why a global university would help solve many of our most persistent social problems, the establishment of such a university poses certain problem, which must be addressed in order that the university can achieve its objectives.

First of all, such a university would require support from all nations of the world. Not only the financial support is needed, but also a political agreement and willingness to cooperative are needed in great demands.  All nations would need to agree on which problems demand the university’s attention and  resources as well as which fields of academic research are worthwhile, given that some nations might wish to advance their agendas.

Moreover, the university should not try to reach any one-bottom solution to a social problem, considering each nation has its own special cultural background and consequently different sense for ethics. Attempts to enforce such uniform solution on all nations would bring about unfavorable impacts on inter-state relationship and the university itself. Any researcher, student or nation blind to this point will eventually pay a heavy price.

To summarize, given the increasingly number of worldwide social problems, a global university makes good sense. However, careful policies and procedures should be made to prevent the potential risks I have mentioned above. As long as every participating nations consider problems from a global view and the university's faculty and students are careful to remain open-minded about difference between different nations, a global university would be beneficial to solving world's social problems.