You Xiaoli

Professor, School of Politics and Public Administration, Soochow University

Recently, the news that a top university in China has drastically reduced the proportion of liberal arts students has attracted a lot of attention. Because the plan was developed to meet the needs of the era of artificial intelligence, it is more eye-catching than the news that a top university in Beijing has reduced the size of its liberal arts enrollment two years ago.

Now it seems that many discussions from the media, experts and netizens about this ultimately boil down to whether the liberal arts are "useful" or "useless". If this debate continues, I am afraid that it will not only be digressed from the topic, but will never reach a basic consensus. Because the leader of this reform is to explicitly recognize that the liberal arts are useful and very important, but to reduce the size of the liberal arts. In their eyes, the "use" of liberal arts lies in "refinement", and the liberal arts that are not "refined" have no "use". This seems to be a value judgment, but it is actually a realistic judgment, that is, liberal arts majors that cannot compete for honors, funds, and rankings for the school are not "useful".

Of course, universities are never outside of reality. Since it is in reality, it is bound to be affected by reality. Therefore, adapting to the requirements of the times is also the proper meaning of the university as a university. Especially with the advent of the era of artificial intelligence, the emergence of various new productive forces has an unprecedented impact on the whole society, and universities are unlikely to stay out of it. As a public university, it is also incumbent upon us to serve the construction of the country.

However, in the face of the great changes of the times, universities as educational institutions also need to have considerable stability, and cannot lose their basic concentration under the impact of large artificial intelligence models.

Adapting to the needs of the times and sticking to the basic determination are a pair of contradictions, and the ideal state is to balance each other. In reality, however, this balance is not easy to achieve, and it often leads to a one-sided situation. This is the current situation of domestic universities, where "adapting to the needs of the times" is obviously more important than "sticking to the basic determination".

以 “交叉”命名学院和专业就是一例。大学是以学科为细胞的，多数学科经历了百年以上的积累和沉淀，已经形成了完整的学科体系。更重要的是，这些学科体系并非是封闭的，它们的开放性足以应对学科交叉的需要。然而，近几年某些大学设置的“交叉”专业甚至“交叉”学院，从名称上就有些让人不知所云，其本身的科学性也值得怀疑。“交叉”是动词或形容词。动词或形容词不可作为专业和学科名称本是常识。“交叉”也是一个极普通、宽泛的词汇，以此命名专业和学院既无法体现学科主体，又无具体专业指向，其外延更是无限的，显然与大学学科的专业性不协调。

The purpose of interdisciplinarity is to broaden the scope of knowledge, while the emerging so-called majors and colleges are all set up with the goal of "detailing". This kind of detailed research direction does not constitute an independent discipline, and such an intersection not only has inherent contradictions, but also deviates significantly from form and content. As a result, many "intersectional" institutions are only established in a short-term and strategic manner, with only "timely" significance, and little long-term value.

The reason why universities should adhere to a minimum of stability is that stability is not only necessary for education, but also the basis for scientific research, especially original research. This stability (or basic concentration) is first embodied in the fact that the university always takes itself as the main body, and uses the external trendy things as a tool to enrich itself, so as to maintain the subject, not the other way around.

There is fierce competition for scientific research, but this competition is not like in the economic field, where there is no competition or substitution, and "success" is measured by money. It should be complementary, shared, and co-developed based on interests. Therefore, the content of scientific research is always higher than the form. "Early results, fast results" is gratifying, but basic innovation is often "slow work out of fine work".

One of the reasons for the reduction of liberal arts at prestigious universities is "to serve the nation's construction." However, this type of "service" is not singular. Because "national construction" includes both hardware construction and software construction. To a certain extent, the importance of "software construction" such as "the improvement of national cultural literacy" is greater than the improvement of the level of material civilization. What's more, the impact of AI models on humanity and society as a whole also needs to be evaluated by humanities and social science scholars. From this point of view, "serving national construction" should at least be "two rounds at the same time".

The "social server" model of Stanford University in the United States has achieved great success in the combination of "industry, academia and research", but this does not require all universities to move closer to it. Even in the United States, there are successful examples such as Harvard University and Princeton University that are different from the "Stanford model".

All universities in China have their own traditions, and it is more in line with the university's philosophy of "giving full play to their advantages and making up for their shortcomings" than swarming to catch up with the trend. In the face of the "artificial intelligence fever", on the one hand, it is necessary to analyze rationally and strive to adapt; On the other hand, we should be wary of non-scientific "off-site factors" fueling the fire.

Interdisciplinarity is not about abandoning the original disciplines, but about "disciplinary integration" on this basis. Failure to pay attention to the original disciplines means abandoning the relatively well-established foundations of the past. Without a foundation, there is no way to produce original results.

It should be noted that it is not the modesty of the university to give up basic and original research to a business technology company, and to beat the side drum by itself, but a dereliction of duty of the university.