Alex Zivkovic – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com Breaking news from the Farm since 1892 Tue, 03 Feb 2015 06:37:48 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://stanforddaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cropped-DailyIcon-CardinalRed.png?w=32 Alex Zivkovic – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com 32 32 204779320 New EBF broccoli painting builds on stolen painting’s themes https://stanforddaily.com/2015/02/02/new-ebf-broccoli-painting-builds-on-stolen-paintings-themes/ https://stanforddaily.com/2015/02/02/new-ebf-broccoli-painting-builds-on-stolen-paintings-themes/#comments Tue, 03 Feb 2015 06:37:48 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1094745 Months after a painting of two broccolis having sex was stolen from the Enchanted Broccoli Forest, the painter of the original has created a new work in the series. Produced during this quarter’s Creation Day, the new painting again features two anthropomorphized broccolis having sex.

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Months after the original broccoli sex painting went missing, India Emerick '15 created a new painting for the house.  (SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily).
Months after the original broccoli sex painting went missing, India Emerick ’15 created a new painting for EBF.
(SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily).

Months after a painting of two broccolis having sex was stolen from the Enchanted Broccoli Forest, the painter of the original has created a new work in the series. Produced during this quarter’s Creation Day, the new painting again features two anthropomorphized broccolis having sex.

 

Diverse subject matter to combat heteronormativity

Despite hanging the painting in the old painting’s location, the motivation to create the new piece was not to replace the old one, said artist India Emerick ’15.

“I would really like the original back because I think they would make a cool series,” she said. “But I made the first one on our fall Creation Day, and on our winter quarter Creation Day, I just decided it would be cool to do a different sexual position and, you know, mix it up.”

The new painting features two female-bodied broccolis engaging in oral sex while the stolen painting had shown a presumably heterosexual pair in copulation.

“We really took the stolen painting as an opportunity to combat heteronormativity in EBF and produce something that maybe talks to some different groups and different kinds of people,” said Imani Howard ’15, the community manager who originally discovered, back in November, that the painting had been stolen. “We have people here of all vegetable persuasions so we really wanted to feed them all.”

The original title, “Eat Your Vegetables,” came from a Facebook comment Emerick read. She believed it was a double entendre, given that this friend is a “cunning linguist,” so it was apt for her painting’s subject matter to play on both meanings.

Continuing with this dual vegetable metaphor, Emerick hopes to create more art that reflects the diversity of human sexuality.

“Next quarter [I’m] probably going to make a more inclusive, all-vegetable-and-fruit orgy,” Emerick mused.

 

New security measures

Despite a “complete radio silence” on the old painting’s whereabouts, Emerick and Howard are hopeful that the original painting will return, given the precedent for finding stolen paintings and this particular work’s rather conspicuous subject matter.

When asked if she had given up, Howard said, “Absolutely not, we had a painting stolen last year during fall, and it got returned during spring.”

“Hopefully we’ll get it back,” Emerick added. “I feel like the word spread pretty far.”

To protect the new painting, they are looking into extra security measures such as more secure bolts to fasten it to the wall and potentially a new, more prominent — and thus better protected — location in the main lounge. For now, “Eat Your Vegetables” rests in the first painting’s location, but they have sealed the door nearest to the work of art for its protection.

“The door that we believe the first painting was stolen through is now permanently sealed,” Howard said.

In the meantime, though the new painting is displayed, they hope for the public’s help in finding the old painting and want to remind people that it could be in a variety of spaces, like a bush or someone’s dorm.

“We’re relying on word of mouth to try to find the old one,” Emerick said.

 

 

Contact Alex Zivkovic at aleksa ‘at’ stanford.edu.

 

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Cloudy tap water on campus explained https://stanforddaily.com/2015/01/14/cloudy-tap-water-on-campus-explained/ https://stanforddaily.com/2015/01/14/cloudy-tap-water-on-campus-explained/#respond Thu, 15 Jan 2015 07:43:22 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1093849 After students reported cloudy tap water, R&DE has said that the tap water is safe to drink.

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After students raised concerns about tap water that had a “milky appearance,” administration from R&DE Student Housing reported that the water on campus remains safe to drink.

In an email to students in east campus residences, R&DE explained that they had contacted Stanford’s water provider as to the cause of this cloudy water. Land, Buildings and Real Estate (LBRE), which provides water to campus, clarified that the unexpected change in appearance was due to a water main break. Increased volumes of water can cause air to become entrapped, they explained, which affects the opacity of the water.

The email reassured that “water quality is monitored on a daily basis and continues to comply with all regulatory standards.” Though the water is safe to drink, to remove the milky appearance, the email suggested that people should just let the water stand for approximately 30 seconds.

Contact Alex Zivkovic at aleksa ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Students protest at Circle of Death for Ferguson https://stanforddaily.com/2014/10/28/students-fill-circle-of-death-for-ferguson-awareness/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/10/28/students-fill-circle-of-death-for-ferguson-awareness/#comments Tue, 28 Oct 2014 07:21:09 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1090790 For four and a half hours today, students gathered around the roundabout colloquially known as the Circle of Death to raise awareness for the situation in Ferguson as part of an invitation to come to a talk the same night, entitled Ferguson: America’s Movement for Racial Justice.

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For four and a half hours yesterday, students gathered around the roundabout colloquially known as the Circle of Death to raise awareness for the situation in Ferguson as part of an invitation to come to a talk the same night, entitled Ferguson: America’s Movement for Racial Justice. The protest, beyond raising awareness with signs, lasted for four and a half hours to match the length of time Michael Brown’s body was left outside in Ferguson on Aug. 9.

“Our plan was to dramatically decrease the flow of traffic around the circle of death and once we had that objective we started thinking about the safest way to do that, and we came up with these four lines on each of these four major ways into the Circle of Death, alternating individuals with signs so they can see traffic in both directions,” Clayton Evans ’15 said of the origin of the idea.

Monday afternoon, student protesters surrounded the Circle of Death and urged bikers to "slow down for Michael Brown." (KRISTEN STIPANOV/The Stanford Daily)
The protest, beyond raising awareness with signs, lasted for four and a half hours to match the length of time Michael Brown’s body was left outside in Ferguson on Aug. 9. (KRISTEN STIPANOV/The Stanford Daily)

The protestors standing nearest the circle were silent, while one person on each side spoke outward from the circle, shouting “Slow Down for Michael Brown” at bikers who rode past. Protester’s signs included messages reflecting solidarity for the unvoiced and #MoralMonday. The event was intended to be silent so that the dialogue surrounding Ferguson would happen primarily at the Cemex event later that night, not on the sidewalk.

Some of the people today were sympathetic, demonstrators said, yet others asked who Michael Brown was, which left some participants stunned.

“I guess when the first person who asked me who Michael Brown was, I kind of just repeated the question to myself like ‘Woah are we really asking this question?’” Lindsey Redd ’17 said. “But because I got this response six times, I realized how necessary this protest is and how necessary this event tonight at Cemex is going to be — the fact that people don’t know who this man is and that people don’t know that this is a problem is a problem in itself.”

This event began several weeks ago when Tianay Pulphus ’15 reached out to several students who, like herself, had ties to St. Louis in an attempt to respond to Ferguson’s national call to action. Measha Ferguson-Smith ’17 and Evans were involved in the early stages of brainstorming. Once they had the key idea, they worked with administrators, the Department of Public Safety and sympathetic groups to ensure there would be no arrests, no danger to passersby and a good showing of people.

“We wanted to be sure that people knew what we we’re doing because a lot of people are still unaware of Michael Brown, of his story, of the larger story of the many Michael Browns who have had their lives claimed by police officers, vigilantes, whatever it may be,” Measha Ferguson-Smith ’17 said. “So the flyer was definitely to clarify that message. It was our voice in this demonstration because we didn’t want to put our participants in danger by voicing in response to any sort of opposition, so we had the flyers just to speak for us.”

Demonstrators hope that the event ensured that people attend the talk later last night.

“I think it was extremely useful to choose today because we had an outlet for individuals but we know that some people have no idea who Michael Brown is; some people know but don’t know what to do, and some people know but have never even heard of the event or even knew it was happening,” Pulphus said. “And this was a way to make sure that people were aware and knew about this early enough but also late enough so that they can actually just go to it.”

Contact Alex Zivkovic at aleksa ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Etchemendy outlines behavioral guidelines for housed Greek organizations https://stanforddaily.com/2014/09/28/etchemendy-outlines-behavioral-guidelines-for-housed-greek-organizations/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/09/28/etchemendy-outlines-behavioral-guidelines-for-housed-greek-organizations/#comments Mon, 29 Sep 2014 05:49:01 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1088288 In a letter to the Presidents of the Inter-Fraternity Council and Inter-Sorority Council, Provost John Etchemendy outlined a new policy regulating housed fraternal organizations on campus, stating that an organization will lose its eligibility for on-campus housing if there is one major violation or three minor violations of University policy or law during any one school year.

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In a letter to the Presidents of the Inter-Fraternity Council and Inter-Sorority Council, Provost John Etchemendy outlined a new policy regulating housed fraternal organizations on campus. Etchemendy discussed the new policy in a meeting with IFC and ISC presidents, multicultural Greek presidents and members of the African-American Fraternal & Sororal Association.

This letter, written to the IFC and ISC council presidents and later circulated among Greek life residents, says that an organization will lose its eligibility for on-campus housing if there is one major violation or three minor violations of University policy or law during any one school year.

“Just as individuals who misbehave can lose the privilege of living on campus, a fraternity or sorority that allows bad behavior on the part of its members or in its house, can lose the privilege of on-campus housing,” Etchemendy wrote.

As defined in this letter, major transgressions will include such violations as “a serious injury caused by overconsumption of alcohol, sexual assault by a member, drugging or spiking drinks served at the house, failing to call for needed medical help for seriously intoxicated students, or hazing.”

Minor transgressions will include “failure to follow University rules for parties, serving alcohol to underage students or distributing intolerant or disrespectful comments about others.”

Incidents will be evaluated as major or minor by a three-person panel selected by the Provost’s office consisting of a faculty member, a staff member and a student. Matters of sexual assault will also include the University’s Title IX Coordinator.

These incidents can be violations on the part of an organization’s members or just any incident that occurs in its house.

Explaining the logic of this decision, Etchemendy says that “group housing on campus is a privilege, not a right” and later goes on to suggest that, though violations may be the actions of the few, the organization should still be held accountable.

“If the organization does not carefully select and police its members, and some of those members behave badly, we can only conclude that the group does not have the capacity to meet the University’s expectations of respectful conduct while living together on campus,” Etchemendy explained.

If housing is lost, the house will be reassigned to another fraternity or sorority or will be operated by Residential and Dining Enterprises for an indefinite amount of time with no stipulation that the house organization in question will eventually regain the house.

Associate Dean of Residential Education Nate Boswell said that he thought the Provost developed the new policy as a call to a higher standard for the campus as a whole and that he expects all campus organizations to be evaluated against this new policy annually.

Etchemendy also alluded this letter to one that was sent to students on May 30 — addressing leaked fraternity emails from Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel — earlier this year as another call to reflect on community values and obligations.

“We are very appreciative that Provost Etchemendy took the time to outline and explain this new policy to the leadership of the Greek community in person,” said Everett Watson ’15, IFC president. “He stressed the need for cultural shift within our community here at Stanford and also told us that he is optimistic that we will be able to do so.”

Contact Alex Zivkovic at aleksa ‘at’ stanford.edu or Catherine Zaw at czaw13 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Stanford alumni talk 21st century activism https://stanforddaily.com/2014/09/26/stanford-alumni-talk-21st-century-activism/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/09/26/stanford-alumni-talk-21st-century-activism/#comments Fri, 26 Sep 2014 22:20:20 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1088464 #HandUpStanford brought Kelsei Wharton ’12, Dereca Blackman ’91 and Rahiel Tesfamariam ’00 to campus to discuss the new wave of online activism and their own personal stories engaging the communities they assist.

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“Where do you find your space in activism?” asked Jan Barker Alexander, associate dean of students and the director of the Black Community Services Center.

The attempt to answer this question brought out over 100 students to the Black Community Services Center on Thursday night to listen to three alumni discuss their own experiences with community activism.

The event, called #HandsUpStanford, brought Kelsei Wharton ’12, Dereca Blackman ’91 and Rahiel Tesfamariam ’00 to campus to discuss the new wave of online activism and their own personal stories engaging the communities they assist.

 

Online activism in recent years

The first question by the moderator was on the concept of trending hashtags and so-called “passive activism” where people post messages but are accused of enacting little change. Following the Mike Brown shooting in Ferguson, the hashtags #IfTheyGunnedMeDown and #BlackLivesMatter gained national attention on Twitter and Facebook.

Tesfamariam, though acknowledging such passivity can exist, did not agree with the sentiment that social media is an ineffective means for change.

“Social media is seen as something teenagers do for recreation,” said Tesfamarian, but she added that if you take the “social” out, it is just media like any other traditional news.

“People don’t recognize social media as a social movement because people understand social movements as the 1960s,” she elaborated. “Evolution is changing the way in which we mobilize and people are still valuing old methods.”

 

Early starts as activists

For both Blackman and Wharton, the origins of their activism came out of considering their own identities in the framework of the society they found themselves in.

When Blackman was admitted to Stanford, many of her peers at her Massachusetts boarding school suggested her acceptance was contingent on her being a black woman.

“I never felt unworthy of Stanford, and I think Stanford was lucky to have me,” Blackman said, of her time here. “And it was clear there were a lot of people that needed to talk to me.”

Both in her high school and at Stanford, people asked Blackman about her hair or about her community at home, and it was in these interactions that she found herself educating others on matters of race and class.

“I was an activist when I answered people’s questions,” Blackman said. “People challenged my own experiences and authenticity.”

For Wharton, it was pervasive images of black men getting arrested on his television screen that lead him to seriously consider race and racism in America.

“It made me start questioning my future as a black man,” he said of these images. Currently, he works with the Black Youth Project, helping people who, like him in his teenage years, may have similar concerns about race in this country.

 

Causing change

The three activists stressed the importance of being mentored and mentoring others. Tesfamariam said that the mentors she had in her life expected an exceptional work ethic in return for their mentorship. Blackman echoed this sentiment, saying that she only mentors the people who come to her offering assistance.

“There is no success without a successor,” Tesfamariam said. “You need mentors who reflect the different parts of your ideas.”

Blackman advised that keeping a diverse circle close to you will also allow movements to more easily launch around significant events.

“The dreamers, the builders, and the sustainers—that’s the core you need to build a real movement,” Wharton said.

“If you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready,” Blackman advised the crowd.

 

National outreach

While many students asked about how they could best go home and apply their activism to their communities, the panel suggested that activism can take many forms and occur in many places.

“Your community is bigger than where you grew up,” said Blackman who found her call to activism not in her hometown of Detroit, but thousands of miles away in Oakland.

Similarly, Tesfamariam no longer works on the ground with communities, but says that her work as a writer may be equally as fulfilling, noting that the internet allows activists to have a global capacity for change. She cites pieces like her recent “10 Ways to Make Activism a Lifestyle and Not a Fad”  as ways that she may be indirectly fueling and helping local campaigns.

Though change sometimes occurs around large events, the panelists insisted that change can happen everyday either by organizing a network or actually launching a campaign,

“Reflect on your communities,” Wharton asked, calling for action. “What kind of action can you take today?”

 

Contact Alex Zivkovic at aleksa ‘at’ stanford.edu.

 

 

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Cinco de Mayo observances cause student protests https://stanforddaily.com/2014/05/06/cinco-de-mayo-observances-cause-student-protests/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/05/06/cinco-de-mayo-observances-cause-student-protests/#comments Tue, 06 May 2014 08:52:06 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1085311 Students demonstrated near the Braun Music Center on Monday in an effort to educate the campus community about the history of Cinco de Mayo and protest the alleged cultural appropriation of the day’s Mexican heritage.

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CHARLOTTE SAGAN/The Stanford Daily
CHARLOTTE SAGAN/The Stanford Daily

Students demonstrated near the Braun Music Center on Monday in an effort to educate the campus community about the history of Cinco de Mayo and protest the alleged cultural appropriation of the day’s Mexican heritage.

“We were thinking we want to have a demonstration given that today is Cinco de Mayo to raise awareness about the issues of cultural appropriation and why a lot of people can be offended by things that go on on this day,” explained Brenda Muñoz ’14.

Cultural appropriation refers to actions that trivialize aspects of a culture by not respecting a custom’s symbolic significance or the history of a style of dress or other artifact. On Cinco de Mayo, protestors noted, many students wear serapes, sombreros, and fake mustaches in an effort to dress “Mexican.”

In addition to the offensive costumes, students also expressed concern that the meaning of the Cinco de Mayo holiday has become lost for most Americans. The holiday is celebrated more often in the United States than in Mexico because it marks a specific, regionally celebrated battle between Mexico and France, rather than Mexican independence generally.

“I just feel like Cinco de Mayo and St. Patrick’s Day have just become holidays that have just become the norm now to just drink and people have just accepted and haven’t really stopped to think about that it’s really offensive,” said Karen Oropeza ’17 about the holiday’s misrepresentation.

From demonstration to protest

Around the start of the demonstrations, several allegedly intoxicated students stole and later destroyed two of the demonstrators’ posters.

“I was in my room with my roommate, and we heard people making a ruckus outside,” said Krista Fryauff ’15. “One had a Mexican flag draped around their neck, holding handles of alcohol.”

According to Fryauff, the intoxicated students in question were screaming and disturbing the area, including partying in the fountain in White Plaza after they ripped the posters. Demonstrators described their actions towards the demonstration as threatening toward the Latino community.

“It was very jarring to see that, especially on this campus which in my experience has been a very open and respectful place,” said Maria Acosta ’14.

Following that disruption, demonstrators sent emails to various email lists expressing their outrage and asking for more support at the demonstrations.

Today was supposed to be more about awareness,” Muñoz said. “I think the last three hours the purpose has kind of changed into a protest in a way to assert our presence.”

Before the protests

The Cinco de Mayo demonstrations followed the events of this past week, which saw several controversies over the ways the University community recognized the holiday.

A planned Mexican-themed party hosted by Pi Beta Phi—titled “Pi Phiesta”—prompted members of the Latino community to call a meeting with the sorority to explain their objections to the theme of the event.

“I attended the meeting where we discussed [the event] with the Pi Phi president as well as other members of Comunidad and Greek life administrators,” Oropeza said. “I would like to think that their intentions weren’t to offend people but yet I am very surprised that [the] administration had not realized that this event has been happening for such a long time.”

Though the event had retained the same theme for several years previously, the organizers changed this year’s programming to feature a summer theme instead.

“By the time we had talked to them for the meeting that we had on Friday they had already decided they were going to change the theme so it ended up being Pi Phi Paradise, I think, and it was just ocean, beach-y, summer,” said Annie Phan ’16, an ethnic theme associate at Casa Zapata.

Last Thursday, Stern Dining hosted a Mexican-themed dinner on May 1, with traditional Mexican food in celebration of the upcoming holiday. Some members of the community expressed concern over the sombreros worn by many of the Dining Ambassadors, the dining staff and various student attendees.

 

Andrew Vogeley contributed to this report.

Contact Alex Zivkovic at aleksa ‘at’ stanford ‘dot’ edu.

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Town hall discussion addresses concerns about faculty diversity https://stanforddaily.com/2014/05/05/town-hall-discussion-addresses-concerns-about-faculty-diversity/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/05/05/town-hall-discussion-addresses-concerns-about-faculty-diversity/#respond Mon, 05 May 2014 08:50:40 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1085264 Last Thursday night, the Stanford Asian American Activism Committee (SAAAC) held a town hall discussion that sought to address concerns over faculty diversity and help plan a campaign calling on the University to make changes to its hiring and tenure processes.

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Last Thursday night, the Stanford Asian American Activism Committee (SAAAC) held a town hall discussion that sought to address concerns over faculty diversity and help plan a campaign calling on the University to make changes to its hiring and tenure processes.

The meeting followed the recent denial of tenure to Assistant Professor of English Stephen Sohn, a decision that prompted the circulation of a petition calling on administrators to reconsider the decision and the voicing of more general concerns about the tenure process.

Thanh Nguyen ’14 MA ’14, one of Sohn’s advisees, began the meeting by discussing past tenure denial cases that dealt with questions of studying diversity in academia, including Professor of History Estelle Freedman, Akhil Gupta, Robert Warrior and Lora Romero.

Freedman’s bid for tenure in 1982 was initially denied because her work was described as too focused on women and women’s issues, according to Co Tran ’17, one of her current students.

“Now, feminist studies is an established field at almost all universities,” Tran said.

Sohn has focused largely on exploring less popular topics – including queer theory in Asian American literature and speculative fiction – which Nguyen framed as vital to academia given their novelty.

The sensitivity of Sohn’s case is further exacerbated by the small size of the Asian American Studies program in terms of faculty and, consequently, course offerings. Several students at the meeting expressed concern over the future of the program at Stanford, particularly if fewer diverse faculty are made available to teach these courses.

In particular, some students noted that while the undergraduate population of Stanford is 41 percent white, 74 percent of faculty are described as “non-minority.”

Though a Faculty Diversity Initiative exists, some students, including Nguyen, criticized it for being unclear and as having had little notable success in hiring and then retaining minority professors.

Melvin Boone ’14 criticized the program for devoting insufficient attention to the retention of professors, noting that many minority professors are hired and then fired later.

SAAAC is currently organizing letter-writing campaigns to Provost John Etchemendy Ph.D. ’82 over Sohn’s failure to receive tenure. However, the group also expressed their intent of taking on diversity issues in general and incorporating the work of other groups on campus.

However, their first goal remains prompting the University towards reconsidering Sohn’s bid for tenure, according to Sammie Wills ’16. Following that, the group plans to ask the University to increase transparency in the tenure process and grant more funding to community centers.

 

Contact Alex Zivkovic at aleksa ‘at’ stanford ‘dot’ edu.

 

In a previous version of the article, Estelle Freedman was misrepresented in stating that she had lent her support to SAAAC’s tenure campaign for faculty diversity and for Stephen Sohn. Freedman had never stated that she supported either campaign. The Daily regrets these errors.

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Students petition in support of professor’s tenure https://stanforddaily.com/2014/04/08/students-petition-in-support-of-professors-tenure/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/04/08/students-petition-in-support-of-professors-tenure/#comments Tue, 08 Apr 2014 08:46:17 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1084206 Following the recent denial of tenure to Assistant Professor of English Stephen Sohn, a petition calling on Provost John Etchemendy Ph.D. ’82 and Dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences Richard Saller to reconsider the School’s decision has garnered over 1,400 signatures—including those of several prominent Asian-American authors and scholars—to date.

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Courtesy of Linda A. Cicero
Courtesy of Linda A. Cicero

Following the recent denial of tenure to Assistant Professor of English Stephen Sohn, a petition calling on Provost John Etchemendy Ph.D. ’82 and Dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences Richard Saller to reconsider the School’s decision has garnered over 1,400 signatures — including those of several prominent Asian-American authors and scholars — to date.

 

The argument

The petition, created by Debra Pacio ’15, argues for granting Sohn tenure on several grounds, including the potentially deleterious impact of the loss of a minority faculty member in the humanities.

“With his imminent departure, Stanford will lose one of its already-few Asian American Studies professors, and we will continue having barely any tenured Asian-American faculty members in the humanities,” wrote Annabeth Leow ’16 in an email urging people to sign the Change.org petition.

The petition also voices concern over the future of student research and education at Stanford in Asian American Studies.

“People who have commented on the petition are really big people in Asian American Studies,” said Sunli Kim ’15. “Which is why a lot of us are like ‘I don’t think he would have been evaluated as an Asian-American scholar’ because clearly based on all of the support he is getting from the scholarly field and the literature world he would have probably passed — so it must have been as an American-ist and then what are the implications then?”

Students also singled out Sohn’s unique contribution to the department. Beyond drawing in Asian American literature to English classes on other topics — a body of work often not studied in classes concerning narrative theory — Sohn often focuses on the intersections between Asian American Studies and other academic disciplines.

“If you look at the kind of classes professor Sohn is teaching they demonstrate his familiarity with so many different fields — he’s taught a seminar on trauma theory — so he is very familiar with the psychoanalysis of trauma,” Leow said. “He’s taught a class on gender and sexuality in Asian-American literature so there’s that queer and feminist theory going on. He’s taught on transnational Asia Pacific and transnationalism and cosmopolitanism and diaspora studies are also a different field.”

In a public Facebook post that has since been shared widely with the petition, Thanh Nguyen ’14 M.A. ’14, one of Sohn’s advisees, challenged the University’s decision by alleging that he was evaluated purely for his scholarship on more traditional British and American literary canon.

“Does the School of H&S expect one of our few Asian-American professors at Stanford to ‘play the game’ and write thousands of pages about dead white men, whose literary value does not need any more boosting?” Nguyen wrote.

 

A shrinking department

For many of Professor Sohn’s supporters, his failure to obtain tenure sheds light on the struggling Asian American Studies department, which has few students and fewer professors.

The denial follows on the heels of last year’s department town hall meeting, at which the department discussed the future of the major with students, faculty and alumni.

The Asian American Studies department has two core faculty members — Professor of Comparative Literature David Palumbo-Liu and Professor of History Gordon Chang M.A. ’72 Ph.D. ’87 — who sustain the program alongside Professor of Education Anthony Antonio M.S. ’92, the program chair.

According to Kim, the department held a meeting last year to address how the major and minor programs were decreasing in popularity because students weren’t fully aware of the program’s offerings.

“There’s also this cycle that happens where because there are such few faculty at a time that are able to teach so many classes in a year — like, it’s a lot of work — it’s really difficult to take the required amount of classes and match up those schedules according to what you need in order to graduate with that major or minor,” Kim said.

Many students noted that the department might need a more dependable rhythm of classes if it hopes to continue. Kim envisioned a worst-case scenario in which the department’s scholarship eventually dies off at Stanford because of its lack of visibility.

“Fewer students take [Asian American Studies classes] and therefore fewer classes are offered and it just becomes a vicious circle where eventually in the end there will be neither of either group — either professors or students,” Kim said.

Students of ethnic studies often encounter challenges meeting course requirements because of the specificity required of their majors. For example, as a major in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (CSRE) major, one can take classes that are listed under CSRE or classes that are listed under these four other majors in the CSRE department. However, if a student is majoring in a specific subset, like Asian American Studies or Chicano/Latino Studies, the majority of the required classes must be listed within those specializations.

“If you look at the course list that is sent out at the start of every quarter there is a lot less choice because there are a lot fewer classes offered,” Leow said.

One potential solution involves creating more classes that are cross-listed across multiple specializations. Sohn’s dismissal further deepens the issue given that many of his classes were cross-listed, and — according to Kim — few other professors have courses that touch on issues that would merit their cross-listing with Asian American studies.

Another potential solution calls on the department to hire more professors. Currently, the Asian American Studies department relies heavily on professors from other universities to teach classes here at Stanford.

“We’ve really been depending in a lot of Asian American or Asian Studies focused classes on taking professors from other schools and other campuses to Stanford rather than creating them here,” Kim said.

With the shrinking department, the diminishing number of resources for students in the field is concerning as well.

Both Leow and Kim had hoped to have Sohn serve as a thesis advisor in the future, and like several others are seeking new advisors. However, these students have found few professors that share their research interests and fewer that have time available to dedicate to new students.

“So you’re losing out on these students who could have gone on to produce more work that will not be produced, so it’s not just one person or a few people. It becomes cumulative,” Leow said.

While the lack of resources for students has broader implications for the future of the field, Sohn’s denial of tenure is especially concerning given the small number of professors remaining in the department, according to students.

“When your two tenured faculty professors have been here for so long, there’s no replenishment of talent going on in the department,” Leow said. “If you’re not putting more people on that tenure line into the tenured faculty, where is this replacement going to come from?”

Without tenure, Sohn is only guaranteed to remain at Stanford for another year.

Contact Alex Zivkovic at aleksa ‘at’ stanford ‘dot’ edu.

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BeHop optimizes Wi-Fi networks in Escondido Village https://stanforddaily.com/2014/04/03/behop-optimizes-wi-fi-networks-in-escondido-village/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/04/03/behop-optimizes-wi-fi-networks-in-escondido-village/#respond Thu, 03 Apr 2014 19:38:53 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1084028 BeHop, a Stanford research project that aims to better manage dense Wi-Fi networks, has proven successful in trials in Studio 5 of Escondido Village.

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BeHop, a Stanford research project that aims to better manage dense Wi-Fi networks, has proven successful in trials in Studio 5 of Escondido Village.

BeHop seeks to optimize network success in high-density areas — like Stanford’s campus — by allowing sharing of Internet access points in homes, colloquially called “hops.” Instead of encountering locked accounts, users can fluidly move between access points—whether they be their own or others.

The name of the project, according to lead researcher Yiannis Yiakoumis M.S.’09 Ph.D ’14, is a combination of the jazz style bebop and the last “hop” of the network in the home.

“If I am in my home and I’m far away from my access point, I can use my neighbor’s access point,” Yiakoumis explained. “We’re trying to research how we can put this together where on one hand we can have a network that is very easy for the user to set up and another that we can optimize infrastructure so that it is fast, reliable, not slow and etc.”

The concept for the project arose from the challenges present in large cities of crowded, dense networks.

“To give you some sense about density, we did some experiments in San Francisco and on average you get to see around 30 home networks from your own home,” Yiakoumis said.

Yiakoumis explained that the BeHop project would install an access point in the user’s apartment or studio, allowing them to access the user-intuitive network as they normally would. Those access points for the BeHop project support higher rates of connection than the existing equipment in Studio 5. In addition, the coverage is better for most students since the access point is directly in the students’ room.

“I have lived in Studio 5 for four years now and I remember that there were periods when I had to connect with the hardwire to get decent streaming speed,” said Alexandros Manolakos M.S. ’12 Ph.D. ’17, a BeHop user. “As far as I am concerned, I never had to do this after I installed the new router.”

“Also, they offer a free monthly subscription to Netflix,” Manolakos added.

In exchange for these services, the research team receives written feedback from participating students via a complaints form, but more importantly collects information on the network service and data transmission.

“We are seeing up to four times improvement in some basic networking metrics,” he added.

Yiakoumis stressed that there is no added privacy or security risk of BeHop given that the network is Stanford’s and all data information is anonymous.

“We do not collect any personal information — we just keep it low-level networking metrics and for this we’re anonymizing any sensitive information.”

In addition to providing the underlying network, IT Services have explored the potential for a broader rollout of the technology.

“IT Services believes this emerging technology holds a lot of promise for enabling innovative solutions to current network challenges and simplifying the delivery and operation of the overall network structure,” wrote Nancy Ware, director of strategic planning and communication in IT Services, in a statement. “We are actively exploring possible uses of this base technology and we will continue to assess its role in the future of Stanford’s production network.”

Yiakoumis said that he has similar goals, expressing hope that the technology would find broader use on campus and potentially in cities around the world.

“For the short term we want to increase our user base: we want to put more access points,” Yiakoumis said. “In the long term, some of the ideas can be applied to the way we set up home networks or networks in these dense areas.”

 

Contact Alex Zivkovic at aleksa ‘at’ stanford ‘dot’ edu.

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Class of 2018 admit rates lowest in University history https://stanforddaily.com/2014/03/28/class-of-2018-admit-rates-lowest-in-university-history/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/03/28/class-of-2018-admit-rates-lowest-in-university-history/#comments Fri, 28 Mar 2014 22:15:35 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1083802 Stanford admitted 2,138 students to the Class of 2018 in this year’s admissions cycle, producing – at 5.07 percent – the lowest admit rate in University history.

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Montag Hall, undergraduate admissions office

Stanford admitted 2,138 students to the Class of 2018 in this year’s admissions cycle, producing – at 5.07 percent – the lowest admit rate in University history.

The University received a total of 42,167  applications this year, a record total and a 8.6 percent increase over last year’s figure of 38,828. Stanford accepted 748 students in December through the Office of Undergraduate Admission’s restrictive early action program and extended offers to 1,390 more applicants on March 28. A further 958 students have been placed on the waitlist.

Fewer students were admitted to the Class of 2018 than the Class of 2017, due to the increase in Stanford’s yield rate which has increased over 5 percent in the past four years, according to Colleen Lim M.A. ’80, Director of Undergraduate Admission. The decreased acceptance rate is due to fewer students being admitted from an increased application pool.

“Stanford’s reputation of excellence around the globe has most certainly impacted our application numbers,” Lim said. “As an example, on Wednesday, March 26, we posted a blog on our admission page to announce our decision release date –  in less than two days, the admissions blog has been visited by 9,166 people from 116 countries and all 50 states.”

Richard Shaw, Dean of Admission and Financial Aid, spoke of the uniqueness of the class, which features students from 50 states and 71 countries.

“Of course the beauty of these young people is that they truly represent the broad and deep diversity of the world,” Shaw said.

This year’s admit rate continues a trend of increasing selectivity in the University’s admissions process. The University extended offers to 5.7 percent of applicants in 2013, 6.6 percent in 2012 and 7.1 percent in 2011.

By March 28, a number of peer institutions had also released their acceptance rates for the Class of 2018.

Like Stanford, four of the Ivy League colleges — namely  Yale, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and Cornell — reported their lowest admissions rates yet of 6.3, 7.3, 9.9, and 14 percent respectively. Meanwhile, Harvard and Columbia reported slightly increased acceptance rates of 5.9 and 6.9 percent respectively.

Admitted students have until May 1 to accept the University’s offer.

Contact Alex Zivkovic at aleksa ‘at’ stanford ‘dot’ edu.

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Stanford’s privacy infrastructure well-adapted to U.S. Department of Education’s digital concerns https://stanforddaily.com/2014/03/12/stanfords-privacy-infrastructure-well-adapted-to-u-s-department-of-educations-digital-concerns/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/03/12/stanfords-privacy-infrastructure-well-adapted-to-u-s-department-of-educations-digital-concerns/#respond Wed, 12 Mar 2014 15:25:59 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1083276 On Feb. 25, the U.S. Department of Education released a document providing guidance to educators at the K-12 and collegiate level about how to best protect student online privacy given the increase in the use of online educational services.

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On Feb. 25, the U.S. Department of Education released a document providing guidance to educators at the K-12 and collegiate level about how to best protect student online privacy given the increase in the use of online educational services.

In a public letter, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said that “as an education community, we have to do a far better job of helping teachers and administrators understand technology and data issues so that they appropriately protect privacy while ensuring teachers and students have access to effective and safe tools.”

The guidance highlighted parts of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA) related to online education. Both of these laws apply to K-12 schools as well as institutions of higher education, like Stanford.

While numerous suggestions were made to promote administrative compliance with privacy concerns, few of these changes will affect Stanford, which already has such structures in place, said David Behinfar, the University’s director of privacy.

 

Stanford’s response

The guidance is largely in response to a letter by Senator Edward Markey from October 2013 in which Markey expressed concern about how information is protected when using online resources.

Secretary Duncan agreed with Senator Markey’s concerns, highlighting the need to emphasize what constitutes privacy violations—particularly in K-12 institutions.

“As you note, the efficient collection, analysis, and storage of student information can help educators find better ways to educate students,” Duncan wrote in his letter to Senator Markey. “When outsourcing school functions, however, schools must ensure that vendors and service providers are properly protecting student information.”

The timing of this new concern, Behinfar believes, is related to the rapid increase in online education that is occurring today.

“Whereas many years ago, you would use a fax and phone machine, today it’s email and video conferencing,” he said. “I think education is following that same pattern because the youth of today is so used to having computers and texting and emailing that the options for online content, learning…[is] expected almost.”

The biggest challenge to privacy concerns in the digital age, Behinfar noted, is that often violations can go unnoticed by those who aren’t trained to see them. However, he believes Stanford has committed to addressing privacy concerns and foresees little institutional change for most elite universities, particularly ones that are financially stable at the moment.

“I understand it in respect to the K-12 aspect but for higher education, I think that this is something that has been in place by having these administrative resources so that that level of review isn’t being skipped or overlooked,” Behinfar said of the guidelines.

Due to a lack of resources that provide training for teachers about these laws or to handle legal complaints, K-12 schools or public universities with financial difficulties may not be able to keep up with the changing online landscape, Behinfar noted, unlike institutions like Stanford which handle privacy issues through multiple offices.

“We have a whole legal department, we have IT security department, we have a privacy office, we have a number of academic offices that have administrative responsibilities and a procurement office, which really all contribute to protecting privacy in important ways,” Behinfar said.

 

Registrar privacy concerns

Stanford, with CourseWork and the use of online transcripts, has led the way in terms of using online resources securely, but it also treats internal information with the same scrutiny.

Stephen Shirreffs, associate University registrar, explained that his department works closely with IT and legal departments to keep internal records on students protected.

“There’s four kinds of data: prohibited, restricted, confidential and public,” Shirreffs said. “So student records come under confidential and there’s a certain set of rules that apply to confidential data—we just follow them, strictly.”

“For our systems, we are first adopters of any security directives from the information security office,” Shirreffs added.

Beyond technical security, there is also a clear list of who can gain access to which types of files. Through this process, simple tasks by administrators like checking units for graduation can be done without additional review.

Shirreffs noted that he personally never has access to student records because his office is in charge of protecting and then sharing information with those with a “legitimate” need—most often administrators, though occasionally legal entities.

“There are authority structures in place for using the student information system which specify who can look at what records, and typically we are looking at administrators who are looking at data entries or making determinations about your academic progress, or your advisor,” Shirreffs explained. “So your advisor has a special authority to look into your information.”

Beyond holding academic information and enrollment data, the Registrar also actively collects—and then protects—information from students during the academic year. One such example is the annual student check-in, which must be completed during winter quarter in order to lift the class enrollment hold for spring quarter.

“Student check-in is an attempt by us to collect various information that we have an interest in having or that is federally mandated,” Shirreffs said. “All of that information is strictly private unless it is covered by directory information. For example, we collect ethnicity there for federal reporting purposes, but you’re also allowed to decline to state.”

Some information on students, however, is automatically public. This is called directory information and includes the student’s name, email address and information on the student’s academic association with Stanford, including degrees earned, field of study and student theses.

All information except for name can be removed from the website through a student’s request. To remove one’s name, one must undergo a total FERPA block, which is rare.

“A total FERPA block means we couldn’t even admit that you attended this University,” Shirreffs explained, noting that there have been cases, but that they are rare and require an application and a discussion with the Registrar’s office.

While the Registrar focuses mostly on student data and secuirty, Behinfar noted that Stanford’s dedication to privacy extends beyond protecting students.

“It’s not just student data,” Behinfar said. “There’s several classes of information that have this heightened level of scrutiny and need for protections.”

 

Contact Alex Zivkovic at aleksa ‘at’ stanford ‘dot’ edu.

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Stanford ranks fourth in world for teaching and research, third for reputation https://stanforddaily.com/2014/03/11/stanford-ranks-fourth-in-world-for-teaching-and-research-third-for-reputation/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/03/11/stanford-ranks-fourth-in-world-for-teaching-and-research-third-for-reputation/#respond Wed, 12 Mar 2014 04:56:44 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1083205 Stanford was ranked fourth in the annual Times Higher Education World University Rankings, trailing behind the number one Caltech and the tied Harvard and Oxford at second.

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Stanford was ranked fourth in the annual Times Higher Education World University Rankings, trailing behind the number one Caltech and the tied Harvard and Oxford at second.

The World University Rankings employ 13 criteria centered mostly on teaching, research and citations (30 percent each) with 7.5 percent coming from international outlook of its people and research, and 2.5 percent coming from the income a university receives from industry for its research.

The first-ranked Caltech has a score of 94.9/100, while Stanford’s score was 93.8, trailing behind Harvard and Oxford by 0.1 points.

By subject, Stanford placed first in arts and humanities and social sciences, second in engineering and technology (behind MIT), and fifth in clinical, pre-clinical and health, physical sciences and life sciences.

In the World Reputation Ranking, another ranking by the same group which instead considers the opinion of academics around the world, Stanford placed third, behind Harvard in first and MIT in second.

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Polio-like outbreak identified in California https://stanforddaily.com/2014/02/26/polio-like-outbreak-identified-in-california/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/02/26/polio-like-outbreak-identified-in-california/#respond Wed, 26 Feb 2014 10:21:17 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1082715 A new polio-like illness has affected at least 20 children in California over the past 18 months, in an outbreak first identified by Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital pediatric neurologist Keith Van Haren.

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A new polio-like illness has affected at least 20 children in California over the past 18 months, in an outbreak first identified by Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital pediatric neurologist Keith Van Haren.

In a report on the “new type of acute flaccid paralysis” that will be presented to the American Academy of Neurology’s annual meeting in April, Van Haren notes that the five cases he studied did not regain motor function even after treatment.

While the exact cause of the disease is unknown, researchers suspect it may be caused by a virus, as two of the patients tested positive for enterovirus-68.

Van Haren emphasized to CNN that this new disease is not an epidemic. However, he encouraged parents to immediately take children to a doctor if they exhibit any symptoms of paralysis.

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Junior Cabinet awards ‘fun grants’ for personal projects https://stanforddaily.com/2014/02/25/junior-cabinet-awards-fun-grants-for-personal-projects/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/02/25/junior-cabinet-awards-fun-grants-for-personal-projects/#comments Tue, 25 Feb 2014 09:18:11 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1082645 Five proposals from members of the junior class have received $100 “Winter Quarter Fun Grants” from the Junior Class Cabinet in the initiative’s first year.

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Five proposals from members of the junior class have received $100 “Winter Quarter Fun Grants” from the Junior Class Cabinet in the initiative’s first year.

First imagined during a d.school brainstorming session in an effort to foster the creation of new, high-quality events and opportunities for the junior class, the pilot program received 35 proposals.

“This is a chance to do anything you can imagine for your friends, for your community, for your class, for yourself—just tell us why!” wrote Natalya Thakur ’15, one of six junior class presidents, in an email to all juniors at the start of February.

Megan Kurohara ’15, another class president, emphasized that the purpose of this grant is to help personal projects. Thakur explained that such projects might include helping out a friend in need or thanking resident fellows or staff.

This year’s winners drew inspiration from a number of sources to come up with their proposals, from a literature-inspired idea to resolving real technical issues on campus.

Michael Stern ’15 kept his proposal simple.

“Essentially, I just want to give out fifty-dollar bills, matching 100 dollars from the junior class with a hundred dollars of my own,” he explained. “Giving 50 dollars to anyone here on campus, to someone in our community—someone who looks like they could need it.”

Stern said that the idea had come to him from a novel.

“I [got] inspiration from a book that I recently read called ‘Moon Palace’ where a character in it does a similar thing so I thought it would be really cool to try it out,” Stern said.

For Sasha Spivak ’15 and Alicia Seta ’15, who collaborated on a proposal, the money will not immediately produce real change but will instead help fund the start of a larger project.

“We want to build a geodesic jungle gym—full-scale, 25-square feet around—and we want to build it somewhere on campus because there isn’t a lot of interactive art on campus,” Seta explained. “There’s a lot of abstract sculptures, but nothing that is really built for users.”

In the pursuit of this end, Spivak and Seta hope to build a wood model of the dome, using the $100 for the wood and plastic parts. They emphasized that a model is necessary for the long-term goals of the project.

“There’s a lot of analysis that goes into the statics of the structure and you also want to test it on a physical model to scale,” Spivak said.

“There’s a lot of insight you can gain from having a physical model instead of just doing calculations,” Seta added.

The two anticipate finishing a model by the start of spring quarter at the latest. After the model is created, they hope to eventually build a version with actual metal instead of wood.

“Once we finish calculations and building our first model, by the end of that we’ll have a lot of information about building…and with all of that information, then we will feel comfortable going to department heads and actually proposing to build this,” Seta said.

On the other hand, Walter Torres ’15 said that he saw the grant proposals as a chance to fix a recurring issue for his band, Siberian Front.

“I’m playing in a rock band right now and we are just now starting to play shows and Stanford has a very nice space inside Stern Dining but some of the equipment isn’t up to par so our singer has a lot of trouble being heard in the practice room,” Torres said.

For Torres, the grant money will help subsidize the cost of anticipated purchases.

“The new system is going to cost about 250 bucks so I think this will cover just part of that cost,” he said. “We’ll just turn in a receipt for whatever we buy—we’ll make a thoughtful choice.”

Justin Brown ’15, who has studied circus arts for more than eight years, will use his grant money to support the start of a group that brings together other students with skills in contortion, aerial fabrics and unicycling. Brown said that while he knows close to 10 such students, he hopes to reach out to other potential members with the proposal money, which will fund advertising for and snacks at an interest meeting, before continuing to develop the group.

“[We’ll bring] together some kind of showcase event and, depending on level of interest, actually making it a student group to get funding from the University,” he said.

Alex Pittman ’15, the final winner, plans to build a “MobiliChair” that provides a source of electric power for wheelchair users who cannot afford completely electric power chairs. He will use the funds to upgrade a design he created last quarter.

Proposal winners will write a follow-up reflection describing the way the money was used and the results of the project, which will be featured alongside the winners on the Class of 2015 Facebook group.

 Contact Alex Zivkovic at aleksa ‘at’ stanford ‘dot’ edu. 

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Stanford alleged in violation of federal financial aid laws https://stanforddaily.com/2014/02/19/stanford-named-on-list-of-111-universities-allegedly-violating-federal-financial-aid-laws/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/02/19/stanford-named-on-list-of-111-universities-allegedly-violating-federal-financial-aid-laws/#respond Wed, 19 Feb 2014 09:18:54 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1082481 Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), ranking member on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, named Stanford on a list of 111 universities that have allegedly violated federal financial aid laws in an open letter to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan earlier this month.

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Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), ranking member on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, named Stanford on a list of 111 universities that have allegedly violated federal financial aid laws in an open letter to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan earlier this month.

The Higher Education Act stipulates that colleges explicitly state that only the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is a requirement for federal aid. However, many other schools, including Stanford, ask for other profiles, such as the College Board’s CSS/Financial Aid PROFILE (more commonly known as PROFILE), in order to be considered for other aid.

In an email to The Daily, University spokeswoman Lisa Lapin said that Stanford was “never in violation of the federal Higher Education Act” and that Stanford’s appearance on the list was an error. According to Lapin, the FAFSA is the only document used in determining federal aid at Stanford, and Stanford’s financial aid website clearly states the purpose of each required financial aid form.

Stanford’s other financial aid requirement, PROFILE, has been consistently used only for determining institutional aid. Congress banned the use of other profiles in 1992 in order to reduce the hurdles facing students seeking financial aid.

Lapin attributed Stanford’s inclusion on the list to the committee staff’s failure to directly verify with the named institutions. The University has since been in communication with the congressional staff and has subsequently been removed from the list of schools violating this law.

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Palo Alto School Superintendent Kevin Skelly to resign in June https://stanforddaily.com/2014/02/19/palo-alto-school-superintendent-kevin-skelly-to-resign-in-june/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/02/19/palo-alto-school-superintendent-kevin-skelly-to-resign-in-june/#respond Wed, 19 Feb 2014 09:18:11 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1082476 Palo Alto Unified School District Superintendent Kevin Skelly announced Tuesday that he will resign at the end of the school year.

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Palo Alto Unified School District Superintendent Kevin Skelly announced Tuesday that he will resign at the end of the school year.

Skelly, who previously worked as an associate superintendent in San Diego, has served as Superintendent in Palo Alto since 2007. His current contract runs until June 2016.

In a letter to the school district community, Skelly cited personal reasons as the basis of the decision. He wrote that he made the announcement early in the year to allow the community to decide on what qualities and qualifications they will seek for his successor. Describing his next year as “the Gap Year [he] never had,” Skelly said he hopes to explore possibilities for the next phase of his life after he leaves his current position.

Under Skelly’s direction, the school district has undertaken a series of large construction projects and implemented more rigorous high school graduation requirements. In a survey taken last year, 90 percent of Palo Alto parents and 93 percent of students expressed satisfaction with the quality of education provided.

However, a string of civil suits against the district have cast a shadow on Skelly’s tenure. In 2013, Skelly’s handling of a bullying case prompted criticism from the community and the school board for the delayed disclosure of the results of a federal investigation into the disabled student’s civil rights.

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BOSP in Florence adjusts to changing language requirements https://stanforddaily.com/2014/01/23/bosp-in-florence-adjusts-to-changing-language-requirements/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/01/23/bosp-in-florence-adjusts-to-changing-language-requirements/#respond Fri, 24 Jan 2014 07:47:43 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1081750 “It has been a little intimidating living in a country where you don’t really know the language,” said Arielle Sison ‘15, who is currently participating in a Bing Overseas Studies Program (BOSP) in Florence. While in the past students were required to have completed a full year of Italian language coursework to attend the Florence […]

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“It has been a little intimidating living in a country where you don’t really know the language,” said Arielle Sison ‘15, who is currently participating in a Bing Overseas Studies Program (BOSP) in Florence.

Courtesy of Willa Brock
Courtesy of Willa Brock

While in the past students were required to have completed a full year of Italian language coursework to attend the Florence program, there was no language prerequisite for Winter 2014, allowing students like Sison to go abroad without any Italian language background.

“[The change] was a mutual decision, which involved lots of parties and which took into account also the recommendations coming from SUES [Study of Undergraduate Education at Stanford],” wrote Ermelinda Campani, the director of Overseas Studies in Florence, in an email to The Daily.

This decision, however, is temporary.

“The modification of the language requirement for Winter 2014 was a pilot program,” Campani explained. “BOSP will consider the results for the Winter 2014 and Winter 2015 terms before deciding whether to extend the modification.”

The change in requirements appears to have dramatically affected the popularity of the program. Campani said that there are currently 37 students in Florence after just seven studied abroad there last winter quarter. According to information provided by BOSP Senior Program Advisor Lee Dukes, the Autumn 2013 program in Florence did not have a waitlist, but the Winter 2014 program did following the second round of applications.

Additionally, more majors are represented in this group’s demographics and the gender distribution, typically two-thirds female, is almost 50-50 this quarter, Campani said.

Beyond attracting more diverse students, dropping the language requirement has caused few other changes to the program this quarter.

“The main and, really, only change is that academic classes are offered in English,” Campani explained. “We used to offer most of our classes in a mix of English and Italian.”

Campani added that the biggest logistical issue has been accommodating the various levels of language experience for the required on-site language course, with the program more than doubling its class offerings.

“We have students who came with no Italian, we have one Italian major, one student who lived in Italy in the past and all levels in between,” Campani wrote.

Students at Florence stay in homestays, but to accommodate those with no language background, students have been matched with families that speak English.

“We chose families where some English is spoken,” Campani wrote. “But students take Italian here so also their ability to speak in Italian with their host families increases dramatically as the quarter proceeds.”

Several students who spoke to The Daily from Florence via email echoed this sentiment.

“It’s hard to communicate with them due to my limited background in Italian, but as time goes by, my knowledge of the language increases and it becomes easier,” said Nchedo Ezeokoli ‘15 of her host family.

While Ezeokoli did not taken Italian before arriving in Florence, she quickly improved.

“It can be frustrating, but nevertheless it’s just as rewarding to see the look of understanding on my host family’s faces when they’ve understood my meager Italian,” she said.

Many young people in the area also speak English, allowing students to interact with others in the city.

“I am amazed at how many people speak English, and the amount of abroad students here is unbelievable,” said Santiago Seira ‘15, who had taken a quarter of Italian before arriving. “Also, speaking Spanish can get you by in any situation as long as you’re able to laugh off some made up words.”

Back at Stanford, there have been repercussions from this change in Florence with the Italian language department seeing a decline in enrollment in first-year Italian.

Italian language coordinator and lecturer Anna Cellinese said that the number of students enrolled in all first year Italian courses — ITALLANG 1, 1A, 2, 2A, 3 — dropped from 98 in Autumn 2013 to 72 in Winter 2014.

“In any case, the difference may be insignificant, but in a small program like ours, this is a number that makes the difference, and we feel it,” Cellinese said. “I believe it is due to the Florence program change since our numbers have always been stable throughout the academic year.”

Cellinese hopes that BOSP Florence will be a starting point for future studies for the new students of the Italian language.

“I consider the Italian program a little bit like a boutique,” Cellinese said. “Students who chose to study Italian are genuinely interested in its culture, history and especially arts.”

Contact Alex Zivkovic at aleksa ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Julie Snyder, from “This American Life,” shares her story https://stanforddaily.com/2014/01/23/julie-snyder-from-this-american-life-shares-her-story/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/01/23/julie-snyder-from-this-american-life-shares-her-story/#respond Thu, 23 Jan 2014 09:17:36 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1081704 On a stage in front of 300 people, Julie Snyder, the senior producer of “This American Life,” shared the story of her career path and journalistic mantras with her audience and mediator Jonah Willihnganz, the director of Stanford Storytelling Project (SSP), the organization that put together the event.

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SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily
SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily

On a stage in front of 300 people, Julie Snyder, the senior producer of “This American Life,” shared the story of her career path and journalistic mantras with her audience and mediator Jonah Willihnganz, the director of Stanford Storytelling Project (SSP), the organization that put together the event.

According to Event Coordinator Liz Quinlan, SSP had been expecting around 100 students, setting up just half of the room of Paul Brest Hall. By the start of the actual event, however, organizers had to open up the rest of the room to accommodate the nearly 300 people who attended.

Snyder began by introducing the success of her show “This American Life”—which she said attracts 1.7 million listeners and has the most downloaded podcasts week after week—before talking about her career path.

Snyder’s humble beginnings in media began on her college campus as a student at UC-Santa Cruz, where she took a class on radio journalism. Her specific interest and strength in radio stem from her ability to tell a story intuitively.

“I had the understanding of a plot and tension and an idea and a reflection at the end,” she said.

When she first applied for the job at “This American Life,” the show had only been on the air for a year.

“I was incredibly unqualified and it was so small and new at the time that the bar was really low,” she said of her prospects.

She has been with the show for the past 17 years, thereby witnessing a shift in coverage away from individual, emotional stories to narratives that capture national events that major news outlets cover. The start of this shift for the show, she believes, was September 11th.

“Now [it’s about] trying to get the characters in the story-telling the events,” Snyder said of her approach.

Following 9/11, Ira Glass, then host of the show, pushed for coverage, so Snyder and the team sought out individuals to sit with and tell extended stories, people that “sounded like people and didn’t sound like sound bites.”

In her coverage of Katrina, Snyder followed a similar approach.

“Radio really lends itself to empathy probably because it is such a small and intimate medium,” Snyder said.

Snyder told a story of one interviewee in New Orleans who had described a near-fatal mistake of running back to her house to get cigarettes when the hurricane struck and the levees broke. For Snyder, this story allowed the readers to get a sense of the event’s impact on individuals.

Though Snyder spoke spontaneously and critically of reports she found lacking, including her coverage of most political stories and especially climate change, she paused when asked which episodes she most liked.

“My favorite episodes are usually the same ones as everyone else—ones that they really liked,” Snyder said.

In the last half hour, the event opened to questions from the audience, one of which challenged Snyder’s choice of words when packaging a story with an implicit bias, to which Snyder replied that journalistic choice of choosing a topic was in itself sending a message.

Snyder said that these stories and narratives were meant to help her understand the world the best she could.

“Obviously everyone is going to have his or her own thoughts, but it’s simply a process of being able to distill and package a story-to-be,” Snyder said. “I’m choosing a story that I’m going to tell you.”

Contact Alex Zivkovic at aleksa ‘at’ stanford ‘dot’ edu.

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International students recruit for Stanford overseas https://stanforddaily.com/2014/01/16/ambassadors-reach-out-to-high-school-students-overseas/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/01/16/ambassadors-reach-out-to-high-school-students-overseas/#comments Thu, 16 Jan 2014 08:48:57 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1081513 An auditorium full of Korean high school juniors and seniors listened as one of their alumni, Joon Kee Park ‘17, offered a presentation about his first quarter at Stanford—about freshmen dormitory life, the difficulties of waking up any time before 10 in the morning and meeting many brilliant classmates.

Park, like most students, returned home for winter break. However, Park had work to do through Admissions Ambassadors, a program the Office of Undergraduate Admission piloted this school year.

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Courtesy of Asia Pacific International School
Courtesy of Asia Pacific International School

An auditorium full of Korean high school juniors and seniors listened as one of their alumni, Joon Kee Park ‘17, offered a presentation about his first quarter at Stanford—about freshmen dormitory life, the difficulties of waking up any time before 10 in the morning and meeting many brilliant classmates.

Park, like most students, returned home for winter break. However, Park had work to do through Admissions Ambassadors, a program the Office of Undergraduate Admission piloted this school year.

Before the break international students were trained to act as ambassadors of Stanford while they were back home. The Admissions Ambassadors program was formed in order to further Stanford’s reach to international students, connecting international high school students directly with student representatives.

The new program is similar to the existing domestic equivalent, the Going Home Program, through which volunteering students return to their former high schools in the United States.

According to Theresa Bruketta, associate director of admission and international outreach, 40 students representing 18 countries—including Macedonia, Vietnam, Jamaica and Saudi Arabia—participated in the program’s inaugural run.

Bruketta hopes that this program may convince more high school students to pursue a college degree outside of their native country.

“For many students applying to Stanford from overseas it is not possible to visit our campus or meet someone from our community before they apply,” Bruketta said. “For some, even after they are admitted, they will not even have the opportunity to set foot on our campus until orientation.”

Park echoed this sentiment, saying that he believed he made an impact on the high school students he spoke to.

“Maybe not the people applying right now but I know the wave after came and told me ‘Maybe I’ll apply now,’” he said, of potential applicants from his school.

Park also expressed that this program would have been helpful while he was applying.

“It would have been nice to get a better feel of the school from someone who works or has been there rather than the Internet,” Park said.

Any student who attends school outside of the United States—regardless of citizenship status—is able to become an ambassador, according to Andres Gutierrez ‘14, admission associate who was part of the recruiting effort for the Ambassadors program.

Park himself first became interested after his admissions officer encouraged him to apply to help reach out in his native South Korea.

“I first found out about it when I introduced myself to the admissions officer because I couldn’t come to Admit Weekend because I was international,” Park said.

After fall quarter, Park returned to his high school in Seoul and contacted his school’s principal to ask if he could present his 30-minute PowerPoint on campus life. The well-attended talk was followed by a free question-and-answer period.

“They asked if it was more difficult than high school, they asked about things like time management, parties, fun opportunities and how I think it’s different from other schools I didn’t choose,” Park said.

Park had organized his visit and structured his presentation following training from the Admission Office. In addition to guidelines for his presentation, he received a stack of pamphlets for his return home and was encouraged to answer questions about his experience at college as opposed to admissions information.

“The Ambassador Program does not aim to provide specific details about Stanford’s selection process or to provide advice about how to gain admission but rather focuses on the Stanford experience,” Bruketta said.

Currently, the Admission Office is compiling reflections from the ambassadors about their experiences to guide the program better next year.

“I am working with Theresa on gathering feedback from the ambassadors on their visits so that we can ensure that it was helpful and learn how to develop the program for future iterations,” Gutierrez said.

Contact Alex Zivkovic at aleksa ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Law professor weighs in on undocumented immigrant’s admission to CA state bar https://stanforddaily.com/2014/01/09/law-professor-weighs-in-on-undocumented-immigrants-admission-to-ca-state-bar/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/01/09/law-professor-weighs-in-on-undocumented-immigrants-admission-to-ca-state-bar/#comments Thu, 09 Jan 2014 08:42:19 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1081316 Last week the California Supreme Court made a landmark ruling that Sergio Garcia and other undocumented immigrants who have passed the bar exam must be afforded a license by the state.

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NEW.010914.immigration
Courtesy of Daniel Siciliano

Last week the California Supreme Court made a landmark ruling that Sergio Garcia and other undocumented immigrants who have passed the bar exam must be afforded a license by the state. Garcia—who was brought to the United States as a baby but has permanently lived in California since the age of 17 waiting for his visa—passed the bar exam in 2009. It’s only after the recent ruling that he will be granted his license to practice law.

Daniel Siciliano J.D. ’04, a Stanford Law School professor of the practice of law, spoke to The Daily concerning the court’s decision and its implications on furthering immigration reform and the future of the economy.

 

The Stanford Daily (TSD): What was the legal basis for the court’s rationale?

Daniel Siciliano (DS): I didn’t read the final case outcome, but I know that part of the basis was that the federal determination of his status–meaning that he is here in contravention of an existing statute–was insufficient to disallow him to be admitted to the bar.

It would have been a very different thing if he entered unlawfully when he was, let’s say, 25. And it’s also important to note that his relationships with the United States were very profound and deep. If he had only entered the first time when he was 17 I think at the narrative level that would have made a big difference.

 

TSD: What do you think will be the limitations Garcia will face after this?

DS: Now he has employability challenges. So on the one hand he has been admitted to the bar so he is licensed to practice law in California and licensed to practice in the United States as well under broader circumstances, but he isn’t readily able to be employed since he is not eligible for employment in the traditional sense because of his undocumented status.

This is outside of any formal legal structure, but there is an observed phenomena among those who have been in the United States for a long time and are not documented in the way that allows them to work, and that is that a lot of people become self-employed. And so it’ll be interesting to see if he goes that route. I mean a lawyer can hang out a shingle and practice, so we’ll have to wait and see.

But at the moment his biggest challenge is he’s a member of the bar, he’s a real lawyer and he can’t work for a law firm, and they haven’t sorted that out to my knowledge.

 

TSD: Are there any economic implications behind this decision?

DS: This is really relevant for economic and policy development. One of the things we know about immigration–documented, undocumented, skilled and highly skilled–is that when you analyze [immigrants’] net contributions to the economy they tend to grow the economy.

One of the interesting pieces…is that the more education an immigrant has, the little bit more of a multiplier that contribution has on average–not always, but to a certain extent, like doctors, engineers with master’s degrees and so on and so forth.

It isn’t all that often that you have an undocumented cohort of immigrants, I think, overlapping with lots of advanced degrees, but it turns out that there is someone who happens to have been undocumented, has an advanced degree, a J.D., and if you don’t let him practice law then you’ve actually managed to strip out the advantage of his contribution to the economy. One question you’re asking is, “Is this good for other people in the economy who were born in the United States of America and are not immigrants?” The answer is, if you let him practice law, probably. If you don’t let him practice law, maybe not.

 

TSD: Similar cases are going to be reviewed in New York and Florida. How do you think those cases will go?

DS: Both of those I suspect would act more like California than not. We’ll see where it goes and it’ll be interesting to see what happens if it crops up in a state like Arizona or in other states that tend to be viewed as more conservative towards their reactions towards undocumented immigrants. I don’t know how that will turn out but we’ll be debating it for at least a month or two. Which is good.

Contact Alex Zivkovic at aleksa ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Wilbur RFs launch concert receptions https://stanforddaily.com/2013/11/12/wilbur-rfs-launch-concert-receptions/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/11/12/wilbur-rfs-launch-concert-receptions/#respond Tue, 12 Nov 2013 10:31:47 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1080399 In response to a suggestion from the Residential Arts Program to offer more arts programming in the dorms, Wilbur Hall residences have begun a new series of concert receptions to introduce freshmen to the performing arts scene on campus.

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In response to a suggestion from the Residential Arts Program to offer more arts programming in the dorms, Wilbur Hall residences have begun a new series of concert receptions to introduce freshmen to the performing arts scene on campus.

The resident fellows (RF) at Wilbur are planning informal receptions in the residences before Friday night concerts at Bing Concert Hall and Memorial Church as part of an effort to facilitate access to these events for new students, according to David Davidson, the RF in Trancos.

Since most of these concerts are free, the receptions provide early access to tickets and allow students to socialize before the events.

The first reception was held on Nov. 8 in the Cedro lounge before the Stanford Wind Ensemble performance in Bing Concert Hall.

“I like that everyone who is interested in the music can get together and talk before, instead of going and not really getting to talk about it and just watching,” said Alyssa Rudelis ’17, a Cedro resident. “It’s nice to have the community.”

The choice to make these events open to all Wilbur residents was partially made to provide an outlet for students from different dorms to meet each other and also for logistical purposes, said Cedro RF Marcelo Clerici-Arias.

“This is one of the events that perhaps if each dorm independently in Wilbur organizes it, only a handful of people would go,” Clerici-Arias said.

For the pilot event last week, half of the 40 students who signed up for the reception and concert came from Cedro, but four other dorms sent handfuls of people as well, Clerici-Arias added.

About an hour before the concert, students-most arriving in suits and cocktail dresses-were provided with deserts and drinks in the Cedro lounge.

Although many of the freshmen at the event said that they had a previous interest in music, few had ever attended a musical event on campus.

“I’ve always been really interested in going to see cultural, musical events,” Rudelis said. “And the reception was just a plus.”

Organizers said the bulk of the planning work was figuring out a system for ordering and distributing tickets. Purchasing the food and beverages was a small, crucial task they did right before the event.

“College students will never turn down food, so it never hurts to have a little motivation,” said Rosie La Puma ’17.

Students participating in the reception must physically claim tickets at the Wilbur Housing Front Desk the afternoon before the concert in addition to submitting an RSVP. Remaining tickets will be returned to will call.

“I would definitely go to receptions around Wilbur if they keep having them for concerts that I’ll be going to,” said Christopher Kimes ’17.

The RFs intended this program to bring freshmen to the arts on campus, but the program also provides an easy way for upperclassman staff or students from the four-class residence Okada to continue or begin to attend these events with their dorms.

“Actually this is my first event going to Bing,” said Ben Rosellini ’15, a Cedro resident assistant.

While Wilbur residents have already had the chance to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium in the past and may attend a Cirque de Soleil performance this year, the new on-campus reception program will allow freshmen to take advantage of Stanford events, Davidson said.

He added that Wilbur RFs hope to host receptions every two to three weeks on Friday nights and the organizers are open to expanding the receptions for other types of events.

“The goal of other RFs is to have us going to theater, to improv sessions, to dance, to comedy,” Davidson said. “All of those things will probably happen, we just need to have a simple way to actually start it.”

Contact Alex Zivkovic at aleksa ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Stanford Quidditch conjures up more interest, hopes to qualify in World Cup https://stanforddaily.com/2013/11/11/stanford-quidditch-conjures-up-more-interest-hopes-to-qualify-in-world-cup/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/11/11/stanford-quidditch-conjures-up-more-interest-hopes-to-qualify-in-world-cup/#respond Mon, 11 Nov 2013 09:16:17 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1080359 Though the sport’s origins lie in a fantasy world, Stanford’s Quidditch team draws its success from athletic commitment, not magic.

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SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily
SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily

Though the sport’s origins lie in a fantasy world, Stanford’s Quidditch team draws its success from athletic commitment, not magic.

Hailey Clonts ‘16, team captain, said that the team has grown in size and intensity over the last two years.

“Not last year, but the year before, the team was pretty small and didn’t have people coming regularly,” she said. “Last year we had a bigger team, but mostly freshmen. Now we have returning players plus new freshmen.”

One freshman, Zebediah Martin ‘17, joined the team at his cousin’s urging.

“I read all of the books, watched all of the movies, and I really like Harry Potter, but I originally wasn’t going to join,” he said. But he soon fell in love with the game.

As a contact sport, Quidditch is more physical than most people expect, said Martin, who plays the position of chaser.

It’s also more competitive than some might expect.

This year, the team hopes to qualify for the Quidditch World Cup again after a successful run last year at tournaments in Los Angeles, Sacramento, Berkeley and Florida.

To accomplish this goal, the team practices every Saturday, Sunday and Thursday on Wilbur Field, performing drills and running through plays.

“We start off throwing while everyone gets here and then, when most people are here, we run around the field,” Clonts said. “Then we’ll do dynamics where we do high knees, butt kicks, those kind of things.”

Every first practice gives new players a chance to test their skills on the field.

“We throw them into a game situation for the very first practice,” Clonts added. “It’s chaotic, but they get the hang of it.”

Many team members played multiple sports in the past. Martin played soccer, track and tennis in high school, while Clonts played netball and gymnastics.

“A variety of sports lend themselves to different positions and different skill sets,” said Coach Natalie Stottler ‘14 of players’ athletic backgrounds.

During gameplay there are three chasers, two beaters, one keeper and one seeker. Players with experience in sports like soccer and basketball are well-suited for the position of chaser, as it entails running up and down the field and scoring with the quaffle—sdf a volleyball.

On defense, beaters throw dodgeballs at players to prevent them from scoring. Given that one hand must be on the broom at any one point, one-handed throwing skills from water polo are also useful.

Keepers, though involved in defense like goalies, are similar to quarterbacks in that they dictate offensive quaffle play as well, said David Saltzman M.S. ‘14, who played keeper last year.

Given how unique the sport is, Stottler said that the team is mostly looking for students with a willingness to learn.

“We’ve taken people who don’t really have an athletic background, and our goal is to help people become confident athletically,” Stottler said.

The sport isn’t all work though, with tournaments providing an escape from the academic rigor of Stanford.

“It’s a lot of fun going somewhere, and it takes you out of the regular academic environment,” Saltzman said. “Even if it’s just a weekend tournament, still when you come back it feels like you were just on a vacation.”

Stottler said her favorite moment as a player happened last year when the Stanford team beat USC in Los Angeles, ending the Trojans’ 10-month winning streak. The snitch, a tennis ball in a sock trailing from a gold-painted cross-country runner or wrestler, was caught outside of the Quidditch pitch boundaries, a rare occurrence that ended the game in Stanford’s favor.

“We were beyond the underdog, and somehow won that game and ended [USC’s] undefeated streak,” Stottler said.

She still has the match scoreboard on her wall.

 

Contact Alex Zivkovic at aleksa ‘at’ stanford.edu. 

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Solar Decathlon offers student designers’ dream job https://stanforddaily.com/2013/11/04/solar-decathlon-offers-student-designers-dream-job/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/11/04/solar-decathlon-offers-student-designers-dream-job/#comments Mon, 04 Nov 2013 08:48:53 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1080142 osted by the U.S. Department of Energy, Solar Decathlon is a competition that brings together 19 teams from around the world, each tasked with creating a sustainable home and presenting the work in Orange County, which took place this past October. Stanford participated in the competition for the first time this year.

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Courtesy of Stanford Solar Decathlon Team
Courtesy of Stanford Solar Decathlon Team

Students often come to Stanford hoping to learn skills for their future dream job, but for the students participating in Solar Decathlon, the dream job came to them.

Hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy, Solar Decathlon is a competition that brings together 19 teams from around the world, each tasked with creating a sustainable home and presenting the work in Orange County, which took place this past October. Stanford participated in the competition for the first time this year.

“It’s a fantasy project for a product designer,” said Max Cougar Oswald ’12 M.S. ’14, a master’s student who worked on the Stanford design team in this year’s competition. “They basically told us there was an infinite budget, we had full creative freedom – we could basically make whatever we want.”

Oswald and the other Stanford designers named their project Start.Home, aiming to design a flexible working and living space by integrating modern technology with green initiatives.

Although the competition has already ended – the Stanford team won first place in Affordability and third place in Market Appeal – the home is still in one piece and is soon to be inhabited.

“It is actually going to Jasper Ridge, a biological preserve,” said Lilly Shi ’14, communications lead for the Stanford team. “The resident ranger there lives on the preserve with his wife and daughter, and we’re giving them the house.”

While the competition was only a week long, preparations and independent study classes for this year’s project began immediately after the Stanford team was selected by the Department of Energy in January 2012, said Derek Ouyang ’13, M.S. ’14, the project manager for the team.

To compete, schools must submit proposals to the Department of Energy. Since this was Stanford’s first entry in the competition, Ouyang and five other students worked on finding faculty advisors and University support at the end of 2011.

The project timeline roughly split into two halves, with the planning and vision being laid out in the first year and implementation taking place in the months immediately preceding the competition.

“The first part is all of the design and the networking and getting sponsorship and raising money,” Shi said of the timeline. “The second part of it is actually using the funds and using the ideas we had.”

The main design vision that the group agreed on features a device called the core, a 12-by-15-foot box that serves as the engine for the home. Shi sees this core as a mass-producible, fundamental unit around which any construction could be created.

In June of 2013, the product design team was assembled to create tangible iterations of its outlined vision. Most of the product design team came from mechanical engineering background or the joint program in design.

“The classes worked on concepts, but none of the ideas made it past a whiteboard,” Oswald said.

The job of the small design team was to select the ultimate design of the house from several possible routes.

In the midst of this summer’s construction, Stanford Solar Decathlon sent Oswald to speak at TedX Orange Coast about theories of design as part of the project’s marketing campaign.

Oswald believes that a good tool is an extension of self, something he thinks he created in his new sink design for the Start.Home, which is turned on and off using one’s legs, not hands.

“You use exactly as much as you need every time by default,” Oswald said in his talk. The results spoke for themselves. Water usage in his apartment went down by two percent after he installed the prototype in his bathroom.

Over 200 people worked on some part of the project throughout the past two years, with multiple people joining and staying for only a quarter. At any one time, between 20 and 50 people were working on the project.

Many team members hope to continue in design or architecture after graduation. Part of the success of the team, Oswald believes, lies in this enthusiasm.

“The team was so into it that we never had problems with people shirking their duties and just not following through,” Oswald said of the team dynamic.

Looking into the future, Shi said that the team will check in periodically to interview the residents and obtain data from the sensors for future projects.

Oswald felt lucky to have participated in this project and encouraged students to get involved.

“There should be more projects like this,” Oswald said. “You have to solve real world problems and on Stanford’s budget.”

 

Contact Alex Zivkovic at aleksa ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Thanksgiving Back program receives more applicants, funding https://stanforddaily.com/2013/10/29/thanksgiving-back-program-receives-more-applicants-funding/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/10/29/thanksgiving-back-program-receives-more-applicants-funding/#respond Tue, 29 Oct 2013 08:52:43 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1079893 In its second year, the Thanksgiving Back (TGB) program, sponsored by Alternative Spring Break (ASB), received nearly twice as many applicants as last year, filling all trip slots and waitlists, according to TGB Associate Director Thanh Nguyen ‘14, M.A. ‘14.

This year more than 50 students will participate in five service-learning trips—addressing topics that range from mental health to entrepreneurship across the Bay Area—over Thanksgiving break.

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Courtesy of Pearle Lun
Courtesy of Pearle Lun

In its second year, the Thanksgiving Back (TGB) program, sponsored by Alternative Spring Break (ASB), received nearly twice as many applicants as last year, filling all trip slots and waitlists, according to TGB Associate Director Thanh Nguyen ‘14, M.A. ‘14.

This year more than 50 students will participate in five service-learning trips—addressing topics that range from mental health to entrepreneurship across the Bay Area—over Thanksgiving break.

In its pilot year, several TGB trips were left unfilled. However, one of the more popular trips this year accepted two more students than it had originally allotted for. Nguyen attributes the increase in interest to revamped advertising.

“Advertising was a lot more aggressive this year, targeting international students and all frosh dorms on campus,” Nguyen said.

Nguyen also said the program received more funding this year, allowing one additional trip and more daily activities.

Both the ASB and TGB programs focus on personal interactions with the communities they serve. While TGB is shorter than ASB, it still provides students with an opportunity to travel exclusively throughout the Bay Area and work closely with various service and enterprise organizations.

Applicants are not required to have prior experience in a trip topic and the program accepts students from a variety of backgrounds and interests. Nguyen noted, however, that the only significant trend apparent in the applications was a higher proportion of female applicants compared with last year.

In addition, all the trips this year are new.

Nguyen hopes that continued improvements to the program will continue to attract students of various backgrounds who want to meaningfully spend their Thanksgiving breaks.

“There are so many students on campus who don’t have much to do and often waste their Thanksgivings,” said Christina Zhou ‘14, who led an environmental justice trip last Thanksgiving focusing mostly on the East Bay.

The Haas Center receives and reviews proposals and itineraries on a variety of topics from passionate students. Zhou said she had never participated in a community service trip before last year, but appreciated the opportunity to explore a new topic by forming her own trip.

“Environmental justice was new to me. I did some research on it for PWR,” Zhou said of her motivation to apply as a trip leader. “I only knew about it from a New York perspective and wanted to learn more about California.”

Sustainability was something that Zhou also thought was lacking from ASB’s focus, so she wanted to bring that element to a TGB trip.

“There are a solid set of trips that catered to lots of students interested in health, in LGBT issues and cultural issues, and not so much sustainability,” Zhou said.

The trip component of the program is a culmination of academic study and reflection, according to Nguyen. TGB programs have a course work component of short workshops that place service in the context of regional or personal issues and establish goals for the trip.

“The Haas Center is not just public service but we really push service learning, so being very intentional and reflective about how you do service,” Nguyen said. “We want to give something to the community. It should be a partnership between the community and the service people.”

Annie Phan ‘16, who went on a social justice trip last Thanksgiving, added that the timing of the trips is particularly apt.

“Thanksgiving is about giving thanks, so why wouldn’t you want to give back and give service,” Phan said. “It seems like a very sincere and genuine way to reflect on the things you have and to foster great relationships.”

 

Contact Alex Zivkovic at aleksa ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Stanford Aero/Astro department thrives https://stanforddaily.com/2013/10/15/stanford-aeroastro-department-thrives/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/10/15/stanford-aeroastro-department-thrives/#respond Tue, 15 Oct 2013 09:02:33 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1079411 Despite the government shutdown and its effects on National Aeronautics and Space Administration, students such as Sean Copeland M.S. '10, Ph.D. '15 in Stanford’s Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics remain hopeful for a career in the field.

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Despite the government shutdown and its effects on NASA, students such as Sean Copeland M.S. ’10, Ph.D. ’15 in Stanford’s Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics remain hopeful for a career in the field.

“I’m not worried about finding a job,” Copeland said. “But I am worried about finding the solutions to the challenges facing our generation.”

Copeland said NASA’s funding doesn’t necessarily worry him either.

SEAN CHRISTOFFERSON/The Stanford Daily
SEAN CHRISTOFFERSON/The Stanford Daily

“NASA’s budget is only about 0.5 percent of the overall federal budget,” he added, “and despite cuts in recent years, fundamental aeronautics research within the agency has remained fairly steady.”

Copeland is one of the 200 graduate students and dozens of undergraduate students in the Aeronautics & Astronautics Department. The Stanford program is one of the largest in the nation and is run by 12 full-time faculty members who guide eager students in pursuing their passion.

“That’s their dream; they’d look out the window and see the moon and say I’m going to get somewhere there,” said Charbel Farhat, chairman of the department. “That’s the kind of students we’re going to get.”

Professor emeritus and former department chair George Springer has been with the program since 1983 and believes that the quality, not quantity of the faculty, has supported the program since its inception.

He added that the innovative work conducted within the department attracts highly ambitious students and faculty.

“The program only changed in the sense that new topics became more interesting, and that’s why the department is one of the top departments in the country,” Springer said “We don’t get stuck on one topic because something that was interesting 20 years ago is not on the front burner now.”

Farhat cited Stanford’s department as the one that put global positioning system (GPS) technology on the map. He added that the program has come a long way since then.

“We are heading in two different and complementary directions,” Farhat said.

Farhat explained that he sees micro air vehicles and deep space machines as the next realm of aeronautics and astronautics, both of which are topics currently being investigated by Stanford students and professors.

While the department enters new territory, so too do the program’s graduate students who are headed towards a variety of fields. Copeland said he plans to finish the program this year and is considering continuing as a research scientist or going into government research.

“I think working as part of a government lab is a good mix of doing fundamental research and doing new things but also having an opportunity to work on a project that is real in the sense that what you’re working on has an application,” Copeland said.

But first, Copeland must complete a variety of classes in the department. As part of the preparation for their careers, students are required to take courses in the five basic areas of aeronautics and astronautics: fluids, structures, guidance and control, propulsion and experimentation and design.

Farhat said the program also encourages students to work in the industry through summer internships during their time at Stanford.

“We have NASA Ames [Research Center] across the street, the Lockheed Martin research offices, Loral Space—I mean the area is full of opportunities for internships,” Farhat said.

This hands-on approach also appears in students’ course work. Copeland said that his favorite class at Stanford was a three-course series on aircraft design, of which the last quarter focused on creating and testing an autonomous aircraft.

“As a part of that class, we had an opportunity to go to the Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California which is sort of an important location for aerospace research,” Copeland said. “We had an opportunity to pursue a world record for highest altitude of an unmanned aerial vehicle in that class.”

Contact Alex Zivkovic at aleksa ‘at’ stanford.edu

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Your Art Here program reorganizes to galvanize participation https://stanforddaily.com/2013/10/08/your-art-here-reorganizes-to-galvanize-participation/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/10/08/your-art-here-reorganizes-to-galvanize-participation/#respond Tue, 08 Oct 2013 08:59:09 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1079182 Coordinators for the Your Art Here program—an initiative to showcase student art and allow students to curate art spaces around campus—are addressing personnel concerns this year in an effort to revitalize the project.

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SEAN CHRISTOFFERSON/The Stanford Daily
SEAN CHRISTOFFERSON/The Stanford Daily

Coordinators for the Your Art Here program—an initiative to showcase student art and allow students to curate art spaces around campus—are addressing personnel concerns this year in an effort to revitalize the project.

Through the program, originally launched in Fall 2010, student artists have the chance to share their work with the Stanford community in six student art spaces, ranging from the walls of eateries like Cool Café at the Cantor Arts Center, the CoHo and Lakeside Dining to traditional galleries at Wallenberg Hall, Old Union and the newly added gallery at the Hume Center for Writing and Speaking.

Paula Salazar ‘13, the Arts in Student Life Coordinator for the Stanford Arts Institute who is overseeing the program’s rejuvenation, said there was a drop off in participation towards the end of last year due to excessive hours demanded of students as the program grew in popularity.

“The time commitment became very intensive for students,” Salazar said, “but we recognized that and that’s why we are re-launching it to see what would work best with students’ lifestyle and schedule and needs.”

This year, the program is dividing gallery management from a single curator position to a close-knit team consisting of two curators, an exhibitions manager and a publicity agent for each location.

Your Art Here’s six gallery locations accept submissions from any Stanford student, regardless of whether they are involved in an arts class on campus. Student curators, who are trained in museum management tasks through the program, then select pieces to develop and publicize exhibitions.

Shanae Davis ‘14 was attracted to the program last year after she had studied abroad in Oxford during her sophomore year, where she worked at the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford.

“I found that just because you have art and you put it somewhere, that doesn’t make it an exhibition space,” Davis said.

She added that the Your Art Here program gave her a chance to work directly with artists and express their vision through her displays, while also giving her practical experience in coordinating with dozens of people and drafting schedules for the various phases of exhibitions.

Davis hopes to either pursue further education in museum studies or work in public relations for a museum.

“My dream job after 10 or 20 years of experience would be to be one of the first black, female museum directors,” Davis said.

Though the hands-on experience with the galleries is given to those involved with curatorial roles, the program expands access to the arts for all students, in line with the campus-wide effort to increase and improve the University’s art programs and facilities, Salazar said.

“Just going to class and seeing something on your way is really important to demystifying the art world and integrating it holistically into your daily Stanford life,” Salazar said.

Tess Dufrechou ‘16, who exhibited her art in the program last year, said hearing fellow students, most of whom were not artists, acknowledge her art was exciting.

In the coming years, Dufrechou hopes that these galleries will expand to play a larger role in uniting the arts community. She said she sees displaying art publicly as a chance for artists and non-artists to see what other students are doing, offering an campus unity vital to Stanford’s collaborative culture.

“I think we can really work on getting artists to talk to each other more,” Dufrechou said. “It would be nice to talk to people who have design skills or something different than my skills and see how they’re doing their art.”

Salazar said the program applications for serving on the Your Art Here committee are still being accepted.

Contact Alex Zivkovic at aleksa ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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