Antonio Ramirez – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com Breaking news from the Farm since 1892 Thu, 14 Nov 2013 11:44:38 +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 Antonio Ramirez – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com 32 32 204779320 Michael Boskin discusses current standing of U.S. labor market https://stanforddaily.com/2013/11/14/michael-boskin-discusses-current-standing-of-u-s-labor-market/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/11/14/michael-boskin-discusses-current-standing-of-u-s-labor-market/#respond Thu, 14 Nov 2013 11:33:38 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1080473 A jobs report released last Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revealed data that may seem optimistic for the economy. To make light of the facts, The Stanford Daily met with Michael Boskin—a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and professor of economics.

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Courtesy of Michael Boskin
Courtesy of Michael Boskin

A jobs report released last Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revealed data that may seem optimistic for the economy.

In the month of October, 204,000 jobs were created despite the 16-day long government shutdown. This is a higher number than from the past three months, in which job growth has averaged at 202,000 per month, and over the past 12 months, in which job growth has averaged at around 190,000 per month.

To make light of these facts, The Stanford Daily sat down with Michael Boskin, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and professor of economics.

The Stanford Daily (TSD): First of all, what’s your take on the big figure in the BLS report?

Michael Boskin (MB): It was only a month and it was the month the government shut down and there was some confusion around it, so we should never make a lot out of one month’s data. But there’s something in it for both optimists and pessimists. So I’m remaining hopeful that the economy will continue to improve and hopefully that growth will accelerate. But I think we have a lot of head winds to that.

Right now unemployment rate is a little over 7.3 percent. But it’s been in the low sevens for a few months. So that’s generally bad. In the economy, we’ll be doing fairly well if we have unemployment in the fives. Today, a large part of the reason the unemployment rate has come down from the peak of 10 percent at the end of the recession, is that large numbers of people—many more than usual—have left the labor force, so they’re not included as employed or unemployed. They’ve retired early, gone back to school, have been discouraged from and stopped looking for work and of course there are others who are working part time, especially with the new healthcare law.

So glass half-full, glass half-empty is the good way to describe [it]. It’s better than it was but it’s improving very slowly. And the headline numbers don’t quite convey quite how weak the labor market is.

TSD: Job growth has been increasing when we look from the past 12 months to the past three months to this past month. Is that not an accurate sign of the economic recovery?

MB: You need something like 125,000 or 150,000 just to keep up with population growth. So with the pace that we’re going, it would take a long time to get the economy back to what is normal or what is [considered] high employment rates.

So if you’re creating 200,000 jobs, it’s maybe a net of 75,000. In the current recession and anemic recovery, so many people have been leaving [the labor force]. That’s been a big problem; that’s part of the reason why the unemployment rate is going down. So it’s better than a smaller number but to give you a comparison in the first years of recovery from the deeper recessions since World War II, employment growth was three times as rapid as it’s been this time in recovery.

TSD: Why do you think that is?

MB: I think part of it was the nature of the recession and that there was a lot of deleveraging. But also we’ve added a great amount of expected cost and great uncertainty at higher taxes and that tends to be a drag on the economy. You can argue that all that extra regulation has a purpose, you can argue the pros and cons on their own merits, but all this has created a great uncertainty and appall in the business investment climate. And I think that has been part of the problem as well as the continued deleveraging.

And generally the weakness in the rest of the world doesn’t help either. Europe went into a second recession and some of the developing countries that were growing are slowing. The fact that the whole world has been in a difficult state has been a contributor as well.

I’m not a big fan of many of these policies. But whatever their merits, they were bad macroeconomic policies because all the extra cost and uncertainty have created a situation where the businesses have delayed hiring and investing.

Catherine Zaw contributed to this report.

Contact Antonio Ramirez at ajram741 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Biology professor William Gilly pioneers research about Humboldt squid https://stanforddaily.com/2013/04/10/biology-professor-william-gilly-pioneers-research-about-humboldt-squid/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/04/10/biology-professor-william-gilly-pioneers-research-about-humboldt-squid/#respond Thu, 11 Apr 2013 05:00:29 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1076355 Though sometimes dangerous, Gilly’s dedication to his pioneering research about the Humboldt squid has been rewarded with extensive publication and research grants from prominent organizations like National Geographic and the National Science Foundation.

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For Professor of Biology William Gilly, a scientist at the Hopkins Marine Station, having part of his finger bitten off by a Humboldt squid on a mid-ocean research trip was simply an occupational hazard.

Though sometimes dangerous, Gilly’s dedication to his pioneering research about the Humboldt squid has been rewarded with extensive publication and research grants from prominent organizations like National Geographic and the National Science Foundation. In recent years, Gilly and his research partners have attained national recognition for new discoveries about the species, which will likely become an inhabitant of oceanic waters off of Northern California and can reach the size of a human.

Gilly’s discoveries have widespread ecological and economic implications, as Humboldt squid have played an increasingly large role in the Pacific Ocean’s ecosystem as the territory that the species inhabits expands.

The squid are unique in that they can adapt to low-temperature, low-oxygen zones by slowing down their movements and metabolic rates, allowing them to survive in areas that are inhospitable to other species.

“As the oxygen levels in the ocean are dropping, this is actually helping the [Humboldt] squid, whereas in the case of most animals, it’s hurting them,” noted Hannah Rosen, a second-year Ph.D. student in Gilly’s lab.

Rosen believes that as the Humboldt squid’s population increases and interacts with a greater degree with other populations, further research on the species will become more necessary.

“We need to know more about them because of the impact on other animals that might be competing with the squid for food or that might feed on the squid,” she said.

Despite the species’ importance, Rosen said that the Humboldt squid has been “very under-researched” thus far. According to Rosen, several factors contribute to the difficulty of researching the species, including the fact that most squid can survive for only a few days in captivity and will often sustain injuries by propelling themselves into the sides of the tanks.

Because of the difficulty of studying the species in captivity, most research is conducted in the field. However, the Humboldt squid’s nocturnal lifestyle complicates efforts to track the species and strains researchers.

“You’re lost at sea and doing months worth of research within a few short weeks,” Rosen said of her experience tracking the squid.

In the future, Gilly hopes to raise funds for a study of the mechanisms behind the squid’s ability to change color from red to white, a function for which the underlying neural processes are “very little known.”

Gilly emphasized the broader context of his research by citing other remarkable experiences at sea, such as witnessing mesopelagic lantern fish — who have light organs below each eye — at night in the Gulf of California.

“I had never seen that before,” Gilly said. “No one on the ship had ever seen that before. I’ve talked to friends of mine in Baja who’ve gone fishing thousands of times, and they’ve said, ‘Oh yeah! I saw that once.’”

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Professors challenge conventional wisdom of climate change https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/27/professors-challenge-conventional-wisdom-of-climate-change/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/27/professors-challenge-conventional-wisdom-of-climate-change/#comments Thu, 28 Feb 2013 07:00:18 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1075402 Reducing carbon dioxide emissions may no longer be enough to halt global warming, according to a new report produced by researchers at the Global Climate and Energy Project

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Reducing carbon dioxide emissions may no longer be enough to halt global warming, according to a new report produced by researchers at the Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP) on the importance and capabilities of various carbon-negative technologies.

The report, which was co-authored by Professor of Biology and Environmental Earth Science Christopher Field Ph.D. ’81 and energy assessment analyst Jennifer Milne, summarized ideas presented at the GCEP’s June 2012 workshop. The workshop had focused on carbon-negative technologies– those that actually remove carbon from the atmosphere– rather than the more common carbon-neutral approach.

“We have a significant problem with climate change,” Field said. “These carbon-negative technologies are important to understand and we ought to know what we can do– all options and all limitations.”

At the workshop, scientists from universities around the country presented new technologies for extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and reinserting it into the earth and the sea, accentuating a natural process.

“The purpose of the workshop was just choose one particular set of approaches and discuss the limitations, [and ask] could this work, under which circumstances,” Milne said.

Scientists also discussed strategies for storing carbon for longer periods of time, such as through biochar, wetland carbon storage and ocean sequestration.

Dominic Wolf, a postdoctoral research associate at Cornell University, spoke about the potential of biochar, a carbon-rich substance created by heating biomass in the absence of oxygen. According to Wolf, biochar could be used to store excess carbon and enhance degraded soil by improving the soil’s fertility and tilth.

Larry Baxter, a professor at Brigham Young University, presented another carbon capture strategy called cryogenic carbon capture. In this process, flue gas– the gas typically emitted by industrial power plants– is captured, dried, chilled and then expanded until it precipitates carbon dioxide.

The GCEP is currently in the process of reviewing the proposals solicited from the workshop, in hopes of granting $6 million to fund new carbon-negative technologies. According to Field, this review process will likely continue until fall 2013.

“The funding isn’t so much a prize, but a license to work a lot of late nights and weekends.” Field said.

While Milne and Field expressed optimism about some of the technologies presented at the workshop, they acknowledged an ongoing broader debate regarding carbon capture technologies’ economic and practical efficiency. Current carbon-negative technologies are too expensive to implement on a wide scale, and some research suggest that the process required to capture and store carbon may release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than it collects.

Given those challenges, Field warned against assuming that carbon-negative technologies will solve the issue of global warming.

“Negative emission technologies might work and if it they do they will be part of a wide portfolio of solutions,” Field said. “It is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. Not a silver bullet.”

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Landauer ’14, professional racecar driver, takes on Survivor https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/01/landauer-14-professional-nascar-driver-takes-on-survivor/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/01/landauer-14-professional-nascar-driver-takes-on-survivor/#comments Fri, 01 Feb 2013 09:41:05 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1074550 Landauer to compete in CBS' Survivor, Klein '13 aspires to follow her example

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Just a few days before CBS announced Julia Landauer ’14 as a cast member on the newest season of “Survivor,” another Stanford undergraduate, Adam Klein ’13, launched his own campaign in hopes of getting recruited to compete on the reality TV show.

These are just the latest Stanford connections to the island-set reality series. Back in 2006, Yul Kwon ’97 claimed the title of “Sole Survivor,” along with a $1 million cash prize, by winning the 13th season of the show. Entertainment Weekly named Kwon “one of the smartest players ever” when ranking past Survivor contestants.

Landauer, a professional racecar driver, will be competing on “Survivor: Caramoan,” the 26th edition of the show, which is set to air on Feb. 13 at 8:00 p.m. PST.

Last May, Landauer told The Daily that she was going to take some time off during spring quarter to “pursue a racing opportunity,” which she declined to disclose. Although Landauer is under contract with CBS not to speak with any media outlets, including The Daily, until closer to the show’s premiere, it is widely speculated that she took this time off to begin filming the show.

Landauer returned to the Farm fall quarter, and will participate in her next race on Feb. 9 at the Sonoma Raceway. From now until mid-June, her website states that she will be participating in eight races, all in California.

While Klein has not secured a spot on the show, he is hopeful that his zealous efforts to help get him recruited for the next season will grab the attention of Survivor’s recruiting staff.

Klein states that his inspiration for starting the campaign stems from a lifelong dream to be on the show. Since the age of nine, he has watched every episode of the series.

With the help of a Nick Salazar ’15 and Christina Walker ’13, Klein is in the process of creating a video for his application to the show, which is why some students may have seen him standing out in the Circle of Death while holding a sign that said, “Adam For Survivor.”

When considering the thousands of applications the show receives each year, Klein decided upon a non-traditional format for his campaign.

“I thought about how I can mobilize my friends, my family and the support systems I have around me in order to help Survivor find me,” he said. “That’s the goal, to show Survivor that I’m out there.”

On the day before his 22nd birthday, Klein created the “Help Get Adam On Survivor” Facebook webpage, posted it to his Timeline, and within the first 6 hours the link had over four hundred likes from strangers, friends and family.

“From there, everything really began to snowball,” he said.

Since its creation, the Facebook page has amassed widespread support from a variety of people, including Klein’s past teachers, his orthodontist and even President John Hennessy, who is featured in an endorsement video on the webpage.

When asked how he managed to gain the support of President Hennessy, Klein smiled and attributed it to dumb luck.

If Klein makes it on the show, he and Landauer will join the ranks of Yul Kwon ’97, a Stanford alumnus who won Survivor: Cook Islands in 2006.

After his victory, Kwon used his newfound media persona to conduct interviews on CNN and ABC in order to speak out against racial stereotypes and the absence of minorities on television. Today, Kwon is the host of the PBS program America Revealed.

Although Landauer was unable to comment, Klein has been vocal about his appreciation and is thankful for the support he’s received from people on the Farm.

“This may seem like an unlikely and silly pipe dream, but it’s my dream,” Klein said. “If it works, it’ll be thanks to them.”

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Law School seeks student views on new dean https://stanforddaily.com/2012/05/23/1067262/ https://stanforddaily.com/2012/05/23/1067262/#comments Wed, 23 May 2012 09:10:14 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1067262 At a Tuesday town hall meeting, law students were given an opportunity to engage and question the search committee that will recommend a list of candidates to the president and provost to replace Stanford Law School Dean Larry Kramer.

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At a Tuesday town hall meeting, law students were given an opportunity to engage and question the search committee that will recommend a list of candidates to the president and provost to replace Stanford Law School Dean Larry Kramer.

Kramer announced in March that he will step down from his post to serve as president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

“Of the great qualities I’ve seen in Dean Kramer in the past three years I’ve been here, I think one of those is his responsiveness to students,” said Teddy Kider J.D. ’12, co-president of the Stanford Law Association and member of the dean selection committee. “The fact that there is someone at the top of the administration who I do think cares about students is important in a big way.”

The current list of candidates for the position will be kept completely confidential until a new dean has been selected, as a way to ensure that certain candidates will consider running for the position.

The committee expects to present anywhere from three to five candidates to University President John Hennessy and Provost John Etchemendy Ph.D. ’82. To select this list of candidates, the committee began holding meetings with the public two weeks ago.

Around 50 students attended Tuesday’s town hall meeting, presenting a number of questions that led Law School Vice Dean Mark Kelman to describe students’ opinions as ranging from “valuable reinforcement of information” to assessments that he “didn’t see coming.”

One of the qualities that students consistently identified as an important trait in the future dean was continued responsiveness to students as previously demonstrated by Kramer.

As part of Kramer’s willingness to engage with students, he has held periodic town hall meetings open to all and has committed himself to teaching classes and participating in school musicals every year.

“I would agree that one of Dean Kramer’s biggest assets from a student’s perspective is that he is responsive to all students, especially students that he doesn’t necessarily agree with,” said Barbara Smith J.D. ’12. “He is still just as supportive with them as he is with anyone else.”

Kramer has led a number of initiatives, including switching the law school’s academic calendar from the semester system to the quarter system.

“Although we wish the law school rankings didn’t mean anything, they do,” Smith said. “It’s important to find someone who’s sensitive to that and who is going to continue the great trend that Dean Kramer has started.”

Students also voiced concerns about the impression that Stanford Law School may be “a little California-centric.”

“It is unfortunate because we’re the second best law school in the country and we don’t have more connections to places like Washington, D.C., and New York,” Smith said. “There’s certainly no discouraging of students who want to go to those types of places, but I’ve found that the search has been a little self-directed.”

“It would be wonderful to have more East Coast, and even Midwest, sensitivity to what Stanford has,” she added.

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Professional athlete hopefuls balance sport and school life https://stanforddaily.com/2012/05/15/going-pro/ https://stanforddaily.com/2012/05/15/going-pro/#comments Tue, 15 May 2012 09:04:42 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1066368 Many student-athletes make plans to graduate early or alter their schedules in order to pursue Olympic dreams or a professional sports career. Some athletes have to plan alternative class schedules -- within University requirements -- to accommodate their professional sports schedules. These strains are especially prominent this spring, with several Stanford students selected in the late-April NFL draft and participating in the upcoming summer Olympics, along with other professional sports.

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For many Stanford student-athletes, following their dreams into professional sports means making sacrifices. In particular, they must juggle a demanding academic schedule and an accelerating athletic career.

(Courtesy of Emily Dehn Knight)
Aspiring professional racecar driver Julia Landauer is one of many student-athletes who juggle a budding professional career with a school schedule. Landauer arranged her coursework to finish this spring quarter early. (Courtesy of Aidan Landauer)

Many student-athletes make plans to graduate early or alter their schedules in order to pursue Olympic dreams or a professional sports career. Some athletes have to plan alternative class schedules — within University requirements — to accommodate their professional sports schedules. These strains are especially prominent this spring, with several Stanford students selected in the late-April NFL draft and participating in the upcoming summer Olympics, along with other professional sports.

Julia Landauer ‘14, a hopeful professional racecar driver, finished up her sophomore year early this past week in order to “pursue a racing opportunity” that she declined to disclose to The Daily.

Landauer arranged to finish the 10-week spring quarter in less than six weeks by her own initiative.

“Since about winter break, I started contacting professors and looking into the curriculum to see if there were any classes I could take where the teachers would also work with me,” Landauer said. “I could only take classes with final papers and presentations so I wouldn’t break the Honor Code by taking finals early.”

Kristina Vaculik ‘14, who will try out for the Canadian women’s gymnastics team in June, had to miss time to compete almost immediately after arriving at the Farm.

Vaculik missed three weeks of the fall quarter of her freshman year to compete in the World Championships. When she arrived back at Stanford, it was just in time for the first round of midterms.

The Canadian women’s gymnastics team qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, and Vaculik chose to defer her sophomore year at Stanford and return home to train full-time.

“I’ve always wanted to go to the Olympics,” Vaculik said. “That’s why I planned out my academics and my sport the way I did.”

Like Vaculik, many Olympic hopefuls arrange to take time away from Stanford to train or compete in addition to altering their schedules.

Among them is Maria Koroleva ‘12, who will be a member of the U.S. women’s Olympic synchronized swim team.

Since joining the U.S. national team in 2007, Koroleva has spent her summers living and practicing with the team. This past year, she chose to postpone her graduation date, which would have been this June, to take the year away from classes to train full-time.

“For synchro, you have to train with the team,” Koroleva said. “This year, the training location was in Indianapolis, so if you want to be on the team, you have to move.”

After the Olympics, Koroleva plans to return to Stanford and graduate with a communication major.

As difficult as it may be to handle a vigorous academic schedule and life as an athlete, the quarter system helps some athletes.

Senior No. 1 tennis player Bradley Klahn used it to his advantage at the onset of his junior year when he began working with his advisers at the Athletic Academic Resource Center (AARC).

For his final five quarters, Klahn shouldered a heavy academic schedule and stored up enough units to graduate with an economics major this past winter quarter and focus on tennis this spring.

“There’s no shortcut for athletes,” Klahn said. “It’s difficult for us, no question. Every student-athlete is intelligent and capable of handling the rigors of balancing both [school and sports]. “

Klahn is looking to become a professional tennis player after he completes his final season with the Stanford tennis team.

Many athletes said they find it difficult to work with professors to find courses that both count toward a degree and fit into a professional athlete’s schedule, which can vary widely depending on the sport.

Landauer said she had to start planning early to find a plausible schedule with her professors.

“They appreciated the responsibility I was taking with my activities, and I found three [classes] that worked for me and counted towards my major,” she said. “So I got pretty lucky with that one.”

Landauer said she has found her sport and academic pursuits complementary. Majoring in Science, Technology and Society (STS), Landauer plans to apply her degree toward racing.

Professional athlete hopefuls balance sport and school life
Bradley Klahn, who holds the No. 1 spot on the tennis team, arranged his schedule to graduate a quarter early. Klahn is using his completely free spring schedule to focus on the tennis season and his professional career afterward. (ALISA ROYER/The Stanford Daily)

“I’ll be able to tell by the time I’m 25 or 26 if it looks like I’ll make it or not,” Landauer continued. “If so, fantastic! If not, I’ll utilize the skills I’ve learned at Stanford and from my Julia Landauer Racing brand development to go into the racing industry.”

Many athletes agreed that the scheduling conflicts made their passion for their athletics even more apparent.

Molly Kinsella ‘12, who is training for the U.S. women’s rugby team following the Stanford team’s national championship loss this weekend, is well aware of this reality. After her sophomore year, she made the switch from being a varsity track and field thrower to play lock on the Stanford women’s rugby team.

“I think the culture is nice,” Kinsella said in reference to rugby. “The people who want to be there are there, and I think that makes those few hours a lot more valuable.”

Kinsella said that USA Rugby expects its players to take responsibility and commence the training for the program on their own.

“They [USA Rugby] are trying to do something new,” Kinsella said. “It’s called Eagle 365, and the idea is that you live every day of your life with this goal of going to the World Cup in 2014. They give you strength and conditioning workouts, nutritionist access, mental imagery and a whole binder of information. The idea is really trying to make it workable for athletes.”

The USA Rugby team and the Eagle 365 program are more independent than many programs, but most professional sports programs present huge time management difficulties to students.

“It’s challenging, but definitely well worth it,” Klahn said of balancing school and tennis.

Likewise, Landauer said she is willing to make accommodations in the future to continue with racing.

“The goal is to be able to make a living from driving a race car, whether it be in stock cars, formula cars, sports cars, production cars [or] sprint cars,” Landauer said.

“Even school buses,” she added, jokingly.

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Law School Dean to leave for Hewlett https://stanforddaily.com/2012/04/10/kramer/ https://stanforddaily.com/2012/04/10/kramer/#respond Tue, 10 Apr 2012 09:48:17 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1062876 Stanford Law School Dean Larry Kramer announced Wednesday of spring break that he will be leaving the University to serve as president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, a philanthropy organization that issues grants to solve social and environmental problems. Kramer will succeed current Hewlett Foundation President Paul Brest, who also took the role upon leaving the Stanford Law School Dean position in 1999.

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Stanford Law School Dean Larry Kramer announced Wednesday of spring break that he will be leaving the University to serve as president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, a philanthropy organization that issues grants to solve social and environmental problems. Kramer will succeed current Hewlett Foundation President Paul Brest, who also took the role upon leaving the Stanford Law School Dean position in 1999.

 

Kramer leaves behind a legacy of reforms to the law school curriculum, including developing clinics that allow law students to represent clients, moving the law school to the quarter system and overseeing expansion of the law campus.

 

“When Dean Kramer arrived, he made the buildup of the legal clinic one of his priorities,” said Lawrence C. Marshall, director of the Mills Legal Clinic, which operates as a single law firm and encapsulates the Law School’s assortment of litigation clinics, including ones devoted to international human rights, environmental law, community law and Supreme Court litigation.

 

“Since Dean Kramer has arrived in 2004, the law school has developed the capacity for every student to take a legal clinic,” Marshall said. “We’ve transformed the program from a part-time to a full-time program, expanded the range of opportunities across subject areas for students to study and engage in clinical work, and went from two to 10 clinics.”

 

Later this year, another new clinic will be open at the Law School — the Stanford Juelsgaard Intellectual Property and Innovation Clinic.

 

“It is a further testament to the diversification of kinds of experiences that are available through the program,” Marshall said in reference to the new clinic. “At a time, clinics were almost exclusively engaged in litigation. Now, we have clinics that work on transactions for nonprofit organizations, clinics that do fact-finding in the international human rights arena and, now, the Juelsgaard clinic, which will be engaged in policy-oriented work on behalf of clients.”

 

With the intention of facilitating interdisciplinary education with the rest of the University, the law school switched its academic calendar from a semester to a quarter system in the 2009-10 school year, under Kramer’s leadership.

 

“Professors are used to thinking about criminal law or contracts as a semester course,” said Paul Brest. “Changing the course to the more intensive period of a quarter requires retooling and working with faculty to overcome resistance. To help them change requires political and personal skills — and persuasion.”

 

Stanford is now among only a handful of law schools to use the quarter system.

 

Joint degree programs also saw a rise under Kramer’s leadership. Currently, the number of formal joint degree programs stands at 28.

 

In addition to reforms to the curriculum, Kramer oversaw the construction of the William H. Neukom Building and the Munger Residences.

 

“Mr. Neukom was a graduate of the law school, and I had begun getting to know him when I was dean,” said Brest in reference to the process of constructing the Neukom Building. “He seemed well-disposed to the law school, but it took Larry Kramer to build the trust, the confidence, and to develop the common interest to make the deal for Mr. Neukom to put as much money as he did into this beautiful new building.

 

“Underlying everything is a vision of the importance of the law school not just as a center for research but as a way of better preparing students for the legal profession and for work in public policy,” Brest added.

 

Over the years, Kramer has also held periodic, open town hall meetings. At each meeting, Kramer made a small presentation about the school’s current policies and opened the floor to questions.

 

“He would be very straightforward with the students,” said Adam Sieff, a first-year Stanford law student, referring to his impression of Kramer at one of the town hall meetings. “He would go step-by-step and be very transparent and very honest. I know as a student I appreciated that.”

 

Kramer’s new occupation as the president of the Hewlett Foundation has significant worldly implications, according to Susan Bell, vice president of the Hewlett Foundation and the deputy chair of the search committee for the foundation’s new president

 

“To conduct the process to search for the next president of the Hewlett Foundation, we decided to take the time to talk to people from all over the country and outside the country about the world in which this president would be operating the foundation over the next decade,” Bell said. “[We discussed] what are some of the issues that will be arising that will impact the work we do in education, global development and in the environment.”

 

“Larry has all the things we were looking for in terms of a bright and lively mind, a hunger and curiosity to make a difference in the world about the big issues that vex our society,” she added. “He has a wonderful way of going about his work, as has been demonstrated at the law school.”

 

Kramer also expressed his excitement for the new role.

 

“The role of the foundation is to deploy resources — not just financial, but human and intellectual — to make the world a better place,” Kramer said. “The opportunity to head such an organization was exciting to me, and Hewlett in particular focuses on issues that I care about and does so in ways that make sense to me.”

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Barghouti calls for non-violence https://stanforddaily.com/2012/03/06/barghouti/ https://stanforddaily.com/2012/03/06/barghouti/#comments Tue, 06 Mar 2012 11:04:11 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1060613 Mustafa Barghouti, doctor and former Palestinian presidential candidate, endorsed a peaceful means to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when he spoke Wednesday evening at a Students for Palestinian Equal Rights (SPER) presentation titled, “The Voice of Palestinian Civil Society: A Call for Non-Violent Resistance.”

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Barghouti calls for non-violence
Former Palestinian presidential candidate Mustafa Barghouti advocated for non-violent protests and boycotts to oppose violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a speech Monday night. (MEHMET INONU/The Stanford Daily)

Mustafa Barghouti, doctor and former Palestinian presidential candidate, endorsed a peaceful means to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when he spoke Monday evening at a Students for Palestinian Equal Rights (SPER) presentation titled, “The Voice of Palestinian Civil Society: A Call for Non-Violent Resistance.”

 

Barghouti, an alumnus of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, founded the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, a healthcare organization serving the Gaza Strip and West Bank. He was a candidate to succeed Yasser Arafat as the Palestinian Authority president until his arrest by Israeli soldiers. Barghouti still received 19.8 percent of the vote in 2005.

 

Barghouti advocated through his talk for a peaceful means to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, giving accounts from a Palestinian perspective. He recounted stories of trying to break through the Israeli naval blockade in the Gaza Strip to provide medical services.

 

SPER is a student group best known for its calls for divestment from Israeli companies committing human rights violations in Israel settlements. Barghouti spent much of his speech discussing his view on these violations, which many on the Israeli side of the conflict refute.

 

“I am sure, there is much discomfort when Israelis hear the word apartheid,” Barghouti said, referring to an accusation SPER and others level at Israeli treatment of Palestinians.

 

“If I was an Israeli, I would feel discomfort, too,” he said.

 

Barghouti addressed the plight of the Palestinians, describing to the audience how Palestinians are frequently humiliated at Israeli border crossings on their way to work. One of the slides he presented showed men jammed into a metal turnstile gate as they made their way to work.

 

Barghouti reminded the audience that students, not just adult workers, also face a daily border crossing into Israel for school. To make it through the gates on time, Palestinians are forced to arrive at 4 a.m. on an average day.

 

The separation itself, according to Barghouti, is oppressive for many Palestinians.

 

“I am forbidden from entering the city I was born in,” he said, referring to Jerusalem.

 

Barghouti showed the audience several videos depicting graphic scenes. One showed Israeli soldiers using bullets to clear out a building in order to send in a military police dog that attacked an unarmed woman, while another showed soldiers beating a young man at an Israeli-Palestinian checkpoint.

 

“We are not respected by Israel,” Barghouti said, while continuing to advocate for a non-violent approach to solving the conflict.

 

Barghouti also referenced Hana al-Shalabi, a Palestinian woman placed in an Israeli prison, who is currently approaching day 19 of her hunger strike.

 

In addition, Barghouti called for boycotts to stimulate change in global opinion toward Israel. He referred to the Arab Spring revolutions as a model for inciting change in the oppression of Palestinians through nonviolent protest.

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