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北京大学英语新闻网/Peking University News
PKU News, Beijing, April 9, 2004: Dr. Lee Bollinger, president of Columbia
University, delivered a speech under the name of Globalization on Higher Education
later this afternoon in the Yingjie Exchange Hall of Peking University.
Dr. Bollinger first addresses an argument to all the audience: what is the universities‘
responsibility towards our society and community in such a global context? He raises
3 major forces that affecting current societies: changing role of market and business
values, internationalized government and impact brought by recent development of
mass communication. he concludes accordingly that we intellectuals should respond
to new changes and carry on research over reshuffled topics.
Dr. Bollinger, scholar focusing his research interests on constitutional law, illustrates
his idea furthermore with his own personal experience during the 1940's to 1950's. In
view of then rather hotly discussed issue about racial discrimination, Lee Bollinger,
who then was studying in the University of Oregan, focused his research interests on
the First Amendment of American Constitution. Among several of his published
works, many are focusing on this issue, including Eternally Vigilant: Free Speech in
the Modern Era, Images of a Free Press and The Tolerant Society: Freedom of
Speech and Extremist Speech in America.
After his speech, the president of Columbia University expresses his willingness of
inviting new applicants from Peking University for future enrollment to Columbia
University, not only on the graduate level, but also on the undergraduate level.
The Columbia University visits Peking University as part of its 250 anniversary
celebration and also its long-standing regional ties with Asia and East Asia.
Columbia University has been actively engaged in East Asia and Asian studies for
more than a century. The University was one of the first colleges in the United States
to develop an Asian curriculum for undergraduates. The campus houses one of the
largest East Asian libraries outside Asia with 750,000 volumes of Chinese,
Japanese, Korean, Tibetan and Western-language materials, and more than 5,500
periodical titles. Columbia‘s Weatherhead East Asian Institute (WEAI) has
contributed significantly to the understanding of modern East Asian for more than
fifty years.
Dr. Lee Bollinger became the nineteenth President of Columbia University on June
1st, 2002. Before this he was the twelfth President of the University of Michigan. He
is also fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an honorary fellow of
Clear Hall, Cambridge University, and a member of the boards of the Gerald R. Ford
Foundation.
Edited By : Hu Xianhong
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