2. 职称英语
  3. Although "naming rights" have proliferated in American higher education for

Although "naming rights" have proliferated in American higher education for

游客2023-12-25  29
问题     Although "naming rights" have proliferated in American higher education for the past several decades, the phenomenon has recently expanded to extraordinary lengths. Anything to get an extra dollar out of donors is fair game. I know colleges and universities sorely need to raise funds in these times of fiscal constraints, but things have gotten a bit out of hand.
    Universities and colleges have long been named after donors-think of Harvard, Yale, Brown, and many others. John Harvard would hardly get a bench named after him today, given the modesty of his gift of books for the library back in the seventeenth century. Now it takes much more to get one’s name on a college. One institution, Rowan University of New Jersey, changed its name (from Glassboro State College) not long ago when a large donation was made. Buildings, too, have been affected. Traditionally, they were named after people such as distinguished scholars or visionary academic leaders; now they’re often named after big donors.
    Why is all of this happening now? The main motivation for the naming frenzy is, of course, to raise money. Donors love to see their names, or the names of their parents or other relatives, on buildings, schools, institutions, professorships, and the like. Increasingly, corporations and other businesses also seek to benefit from having their names on educational facilities. Today, no limits seem to exist on what can be named. If something does not have a name, it is up for grabs—a staircase, a pond, or a parking garage. Once all the major facilities have titles, lesser things go on the naming auction block. Colleges and universities, public and private, are all under increased pressure to raise money, and naming brings in cash.
    It is unproductive. Separate branding weakens the focus and mission of an institution and perhaps even its broader reputation. It confuses the public, including potential students, and feeds the idea that the twenty-first-century university is simply a confederation of independent entrepreneurial domains.
    The trends we see now in the United States, and perhaps tomorrow in other countries, will inevitably weaken the concept of the university as an institution that is devoted to the search for truth and the transmission of knowledge. All this naming distracts from the mission of an institution that has almost a millennium of history and cheapens its image. It is a sad symbol indeed of the commercialization and entrepreneurialism of the contemporary university. [br] In the 4th paragraph, the word "unproductive" probably means ________.
选项 A、naming cannot bring benefits to the donating businesses
B、separate naming yields a broader reputation for a university
C、out-of-hand naming weakens the goal of higher education
D、naming cannot raise enough money for a university’s development
答案 C
解析 unproductive的本意为“非生产性的；徒劳的；不毛的；不生产的”，根据第四段的内容“Separate branding weakens the focus and mission of an institution and perhaps even its broader reputation.”可知，一些与商业利益联系的研究机构的命名形式，削弱了研究机构本身的重心和使命，甚至削弱其广泛的声誉。所以C项“无法控制的命名趋势消弱了高等教育的目标”符合题意。A项“命名不能给捐献企业带来好处”，B项“单独的命名为一所大学产生广泛的声誉”，D项“命名不能给一所大学的发展筹集到足够的资金”，这三项和文意不符。
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