faculty

将“faculty”分解为“fact”和“ulty”。想象“fact”是一个事实，而“ulty”像两个并排的铲子（ult-ly）。记忆画面：两个铲子一起挖掘出“事实”，象征着一个学术机构或群体的能力，这就是“faculty”（全体教职员工）的意思。

faculty 能力，才能，全体教职员

来自词根fact, 做，词源同fact,effect.即做事情的能力，才能等。后用来指全体教职员。

faculty

faculty: [14] If one has a faculty for doing something, one finds it ‘easy’ to do. The word comes, via Old French faculte, from Latin facultās. This was a parallel form to facilitās (source of English facility [15]). Both were derived from Latin facilis ‘easy’ (whence English facile [15]), an adjective formed from the verb facere ‘do’. Since facilitās more closely resembled facilis, it retained its connotations of ‘easiness’, whereas by the classical period facultās had more or less lost them, coming to mean ‘capability, power’.
=> facile, facility

faculty (n.)

late 14c., "ability, opportunity, means, resources," from Old French faculte "skill, accomplishment, learning" (14c., Modern French faculté) and directly from Latin facultatem (nominative facultas) "power, ability, capability, opportunity; sufficient number, abundance, wealth," from *facli-tat-s, from facilis (see facile).

Academic sense "branch of knowledge" (late 14c.) was in Old French and probably was the earliest in English (it is attested in Anglo-Latin from late 12c.), on notion of "ability in knowledge" or "body of persons on whom are conferred specific professional powers." Originally each department was a faculty; the use in reference to the whole teaching staff of an entire college dates from 1767. Related: Facultative. The Latin words facultas and facilitas "were originally different forms of the same word; the latter, owing to its more obvious relationship to the adj., retained the primary sense of 'easiness', which the former had ceased to have before the classical period." [OED]

1. Faculty members complain that their students are unprepared to do college-level work.

学院的老师们抱怨说他们的学生还很不适应大学的课业。

2. She was Dean of the Science faculty at Sophia University.

她是上智大学科学院的院长。

3. Faculty members devote most of their time to scholarly research.

全院教师大部分时间都用来从事学术研究。

4. How can faculty improve their teaching so as to encourage creativity?

教师们如何才能改进教学以激发创造性呢？

5. The Bush Foundation has funded a variety of faculty development programs.

布什基金会已经资助了许多教员发展项目。

【gift, genius, aptitude, talent, capacity, capability, faculty, ability, competence】
这组词都有“能力，才能”的意思，其区别是：
gift: 着重个人的天赋的才能或在某方面的显著本领，常暗含不能用一般规律作解释的意味。
genius: 语气最强，指天赋的高度才能与智力。
aptitude: 多指先天或后天习得的运用自如的能力，常暗示接受能力强，能迅速掌握一种学术训练或艺术技巧。
talent: 着重指人某方面具有可发展和倍养的突出天赋才能，但语意比genius弱。
capacity: 侧重指人的潜在能力，通常不指体力，多指才智，尤指接受与领悟能力。
capability: 多用于人，指胜任某项具体工作的能力，也指本身具有、尚未发挥的潜在能力。常与of或for连用。
faculty: 指特殊的才能或智力。
ability: 普通用词，指人先天的或学来的各种能力。
competence: 正式用词，侧重指令人满意的业务能力与水平，达到胜任某项工作等的要求。