Margaret Rawson – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com Breaking news from the Farm since 1892 Thu, 07 Nov 2013 23:33:20 +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 Margaret Rawson – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com 32 32 204779320 Editor’s farewell: On the place I called home https://stanforddaily.com/2012/06/17/editors-farewell-on-the-place-i-called-home/ https://stanforddaily.com/2012/06/17/editors-farewell-on-the-place-i-called-home/#respond Sun, 17 Jun 2012 07:05:20 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1068304 Over the past four months, the campus conversation has touched on issues of deep importance to each of us. We debated a heated student government election and changes to the Judicial Affairs process. We examined what law and order mean, home and abroad, with the arrests of a top student-athlete and an alumnus in the West Bank. We considered what makes a Stanford education as the Faculty Senate voted on landmark curriculum changes. We discussed what kind of living environment we cherish as the University moved to revoke Chi Theta Chi's lease despite student and alumni protest.

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First, please read what I have to say here only after you’re forced, having already examined the rest of this hefty Daily Commencement issue. The pages you are holding are a testament to the talent and dedication of my peers, coworkers and friends. The articles selected from this year’s work are just a glimpse of the values of The Daily as an institution and the characters of the students who make it happen: independent, always questioning, collaborative, inspired and sometimes fueled by a bit too much caffeine.

Now, you may be reading this as you sit in the stands waiting for the Commencement festivities to begin with Wacky Walk. Someone special to you is graduating from Stanford. Congratulations.

As the rare senior serving as spring editor in chief and with the prospect of writing this letter hanging over my head, I’ve been thinking about graduation speeches lately and how to say goodbye.

And so I’m happy to share with you some life lessons I’ve picked up at The Daily.

It’s very important to get things right, but know that you will make mistakes along the way. There’s never enough time. It’s the people who matter. Find a mentor. Just as important, be a mentor. Be kind and patient. Stay hungry. Friendship is the fabric of our lives.

Okay, I’m fairly certain that last one is cotton. And the one before that was said by Steve Jobs in his 2005 Commencement address.

The point is, for those of us lucky enough to have worked for The Daily, this is where we have grown during our college years and learned our first important life lessons. We’ve been tested by the rigors of putting a paper out each day, the code of ethics we choose to follow, a rapidly changing industry and the honor of shaping the campus dialogue.

Over the past four months, the campus conversation has touched on issues of deep importance to each of us. We debated a heated student government election and changes to the Judicial Affairs process. We examined what law and order mean, home and abroad, with the arrests of a top student-athlete and an alumnus in the West Bank. We considered what makes a Stanford education as the Faculty Senate voted on landmark curriculum changes. We discussed what kind of living environment we cherish as the University moved to revoke Chi Theta Chi’s lease despite student and alumni protest.

We experienced loss.

This led to an essential conversation about suicide and an examination of mental health resources on campus.

In these tough times, community members look to The Daily for dependable information and thoughtful reporting.

Being at the helm of such an organization has been a privilege beyond what I could have imagined. And I’m not blind to how lucky I have been. I’ve found something that I love even in its most painful moments. Sometimes especially in its most painful moments.

Journalism, I’ve learned – the thrill of reporting and the joy of passing it on to others – sticks with you.

I cannot thank the dedicated Daily family enough. Few realize the expansive team, with almost 200 contributors each year, that is required to make the paper happen. To our professional staff members, our business staff, the Board of Directors, alumni, writers, artists, photographers and the crazy bunch of editors who joined me this volume and suffered through my jokes: Thank you.

I have confidence that our new leadership will take us to even greater heights and the conversation will continue. I can’t wait.

So much for patience.

Sincerely,

Margaret Rawson

President and editor in chief, Vol. CCXLI

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Letter from the editor https://stanforddaily.com/2012/04/13/letter-from-the-editor-3/ https://stanforddaily.com/2012/04/13/letter-from-the-editor-3/#comments Fri, 13 Apr 2012 07:40:31 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1063391 What troubles me the most about the past 36 hours is the marked absence of kindness. I am shocked by the extremes reached on campus this week, and I know most Stanford students are, as well.

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Dear Readers,

Campus dialogue hit a low this week, disintegrating to a point unprecedented in my time at Stanford. For at least one student, this University stopped being home.

We must not stand by a culture that engenders attacks levied against students by anonymous peers. Those who think they are providing a public service by trafficking in the most mean-spirited of remarks are woefully mistaken. Such violations of the Fundamental Standard should be investigated and duly addressed.

What troubles me the most about the past 36 hours is the marked absence of kindness. I am shocked by the extremes reached on campus this week, and I know most Stanford students are, as well.

Our actions, our language, our daily choices matter greatly. This week’s events must be addressed and should never be repeated.

Sincerely,

Margaret Rawson

 

President and Editor in Chief, Vol. CCXLI

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Bill Gates speaks about poverty, innovation https://stanforddaily.com/2012/04/05/bill-gates-speaks-about-poverty-innovation/ https://stanforddaily.com/2012/04/05/bill-gates-speaks-about-poverty-innovation/#comments Thu, 05 Apr 2012 10:04:08 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1062347 Bill Gates brought a different message to campus than many visiting CEOs and speakers during a presentation to a packed Cubberley Auditorium Wednesday afternoon. The private sector can’t do it all, the Microsoft founder said, emphasizing the importance of foreign aid and philanthropy to tackle the most pressing global challenges.

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Brendan O’Byrne co-authored this report.

Bill Gates brought a different message to campus than many visiting CEOs and speakers during a presentation to a packed Cubberley Auditorium Wednesday afternoon. The private sector can’t do it all, the Microsoft founder said, emphasizing the importance of foreign aid and philanthropy to tackle the most pressing global challenges.

Gates encouraged students to travel to places of poverty and expose themselves to these development issues, noting that nothing can replace on-the-ground experience.

Bill Gates speaks about poverty, innovation
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, addressed Stanford faculty, administrators and students Wednesday afternoon about the challenges of innovating for developing nations. (ROGER CHEN/The Stanford Daily)

“As long as you have the awareness of these issues, you find yourself drawn in and deeply engaged,” Gates said after the event in an interview with The Daily. “My main advice would be, ideally before you become totally pulled into something, take a chance to go out to visit Africa, see what’s great and see what’s challenging.”

“As I look back on my university experience I wouldn’t change anything but one thing, which is that I definitely got through school without having a sense of how the poorest in the world lived,” he told the audience assembled in Cubberley.

Gates spoke primarily on health and agriculture, the two main areas of focus for The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which Gates founded and currently co-chairs.

Gates brings optimism to his philanthropic work and sought to impress this on his audience.

“I want to give you a sense of optimism, excitement about the progress we’re making,” he said, beginning his presentation with graphs showing dramatic progress in global child mortality, hunger and poverty. Such upward trends, however, do not always reflect the situation in the poorest parts of the world, he said.

“If you take Africa as a whole, because of population growth, they’ve made very limited progress against their poverty percentage,” Gates said, stressing the importance of continued aid and focus on the continent.

“I’m very optimistic that we can make progress on these things,” he said. “The thing that makes me impatient about this, though, is that the normal market signals of what should we work on, what’s a priority, don’t cause us to prioritize this work.”

Gates cited that more money has been spent developing drugs to combat baldness than to fight malaria.

“Baldness is a bad problem,” he joked, “but it takes awhile to get it. You can buy a hat. Hats aren’t that expensive.”

The challenge, Gates said, is to elevate the voices of the poor in the marketplace. Though noting that he does not advocate an alternative to capitalism, he said that the current system must be complemented by, “enlightened governments and philanthropy that can be quite catalytic.”

Innovation provides the key to this effort, Gates said.

“I define [innovation] very broadly, it doesn’t necessarily mean a new piece of software,” he said. “It can mean a bed net that doesn’t tear apart after a couple of years because they use some new fiber.”

Gates presented three products in particular to demonstrate his theme of innovation, noting that the developing world requires innovation where the developed world does not.

“It’s very different than what the rich world needs,” he said of techniques to overcome technological obstacles in the developing world. “The rich world doesn’t care that its vaccines have to be refrigerated.”

The Gates Foundation has been integral in manufacturing and distributing a vaccine for Meningitis A, which recurs every few years in the “meningitis belt” of sub-Saharan Africa. Partnering with Indian manufacturer Serum, the foundation hopes implementation of the vaccine will decrease disease levels by at least 90 percent.

The vaccine, the first developed specifically for Africa, only needs to be administered once and is manufactured cheaply. Fifty million people have received vaccinations so far, Gates said.

The next innovation Gates highlighted touched on what could be a culturally sensitive issue: circumcision. While an AIDS vaccine may be over a decade away from development, male circumcision has been shown to reduce the transmission of AIDS by over 60 percent, Gates said.

Gates highlighted a circular, plastic ring, “Shang Ring” or “PrePex,” that renders circumcision surgery much more efficient, sometimes taking only a few minutes.

“It reduces the pain involved, it reduces the cost involved,” Gates said about the ring, adding that it would cost about $1 billion to roll out circumcision initiatives of this kind across Africa.

“It’s just plastic,” he said of the simple solution to the complex health issue.

The agriculture advance Gates presented also emphasized a simple solution to a devastating problem. A more efficient, triple-layer storage bag now stops weevil infestations in cassava, a protein-rich crop in West Africa. With two layers of polyethylene and an outside layer of plastic mesh to trap and suffocate weevils, these bags make a huge impact on post-harvest loss: 1.7 million households were able to increase their income by $150 dollars, or 30 percent, due to the triple-layered bags.

After presenting these innovations, Gates asked about the future, “how hopeful should we be?” He answered his own question: “Well, I would say quite hopeful.”

Prior to his talk, Gates met with faculty and students conducting research on campus related to global health.

President John Hennessy, despite being on sabbatical since February, introduced Gates before his talk, recalling a conversation 15 years ago when Gates told him he was “too busy” for philanthropy.

“He said that he was too busy leading Microsoft and didn’t have the time to be a thoughtful philanthropist,” Hennessy said, noting the dramatic shift in Gates’ career.

Gates acknowledged that he didn’t enter the world of philanthropy until later in his life, though he encourages Stanford students not to wait. Following the talk, Hennessy presented Gates with a solar lantern created by students in Design for Extreme Affordability, a course that shares Gates’ mission to harness innovation to solve problems in the developing world.

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Dean Julie to step down in June https://stanforddaily.com/2012/03/28/dean-julie/ https://stanforddaily.com/2012/03/28/dean-julie/#comments Wed, 28 Mar 2012 09:10:06 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1061793 Julie Lythcott-Haims ‘89, associate vice provost for undergraduate education and dean of freshmen and undergraduate advising, will step down from her role in June to pursue a master of fine arts in writing, with an emphasis in poetry, from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco.

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Quarterback Andrew Luck isn’t the only Cardinal powerhouse who won’t be returning to the Farm this fall. Julie Lythcott-Haims ‘89, associate vice provost for undergraduate education and dean of freshmen and undergraduate advising, will step down in June to pursue a master of fine arts in writing, with an emphasis in poetry, from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco.

Dean Julie to step down in June
Julie Lythcott-Haims ‘89, associate vice provost for undergraduate education and dean of freshmen and undergraduate advising, will step down from her role in June. (Courtesy of Julie and Dan Lythcott-Haims)

 

“This is something that for four years has been my hobby and I’ve decided to make it my focus,” Lythcott-Haims said of her choice to turn to writing full-time. “I got to a point where it felt that not to do it would be to suppress an important part of myself.”

 

Lythcott-Haims, known across campus as “Dean Julie,” has been a part of the Stanford community since her undergraduate years, when she served as a Resident Assistant in Branner and as a senior class president, in addition to participating in a host of other extracurricular activities. After Stanford, she graduated from Harvard Law School and practiced corporate law in Silicon Valley.

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She joined Stanford in 1998 as associate dean for student affairs at Stanford Law School and became a member of University President John Hennessy’s senior staff in 2000. In 2002, she took on the role of Stanford’s first dean of freshmen.

 

Lythcott-Haims became dean of Undergraduate Advising and Research (UAR) in 2009 and continued her work with freshmen and transfer students. In 2010, she was awarded the Lloyd W. Dinkelspiel Award for contributions to undergraduate education.

 

“She’s been an incredible and iconic figure at Stanford, both in terms of her work with students but also her work with faculty and parents,” Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Harry Elam said. “Everybody knows Dean Julie and I think that’s a tribute to her passion, her commitment to Stanford and her concern about people.”

 

According to Elam, the University will begin a national search for a replacement.

 

Discovering her voice as a writer

Lythcott-Haims’ development into a writer was not something she predicted.

 

“I got feedback when I was an undergraduate here that my writing needed a lot of work – and they were right,” she said. “I shrank in the face of that advice. I was ashamed.”

 

Now, after discovering poetry, she is coming full circle to embrace an identity as a writer.

 

“Until NSO [New Student Orientation] 2007, I was pretty sure I couldn’t stand poetry,” Lythcott-Haims said. She connected with the medium for the first time when she read Lucille Clifton’s collection of poems, “Good Woman,” for the annual NSO Three Books panel that fall — an event that Lythcott-Haims, herself, kick-started.

 

“It was the first time a set of poems really spoke directly and deeply to me as a human being,” she said, recalling how she was moved to hear a white, male freshman share how Clifton’s poems spoke to him, as well.

 

A few months later, Lythcott-Haims began writing.

 

“I was discovering myself, my voice, through poetry,” she said.

 

Though she has kept her work largely private, Lythcott-Haims has shared some of her creative endeavors with the public through the Stanford Storytelling Project, the Red Couch Project and Dance Marathon, where she performed her song, “Can’t Tell You His Name,” about a loved one’s lost battle with AIDS.

 

Her first formal project, however, will be a work of nonfiction about parenting in America.

 

“I intend to write about something I care deeply about, which is the way in which parenting has changed in the last couple of decades and the importance of young people turning into independent, self-actualized adults and the potential consequences to us as a society – not to mention to the individual – of not doing so,” she said.

 

Though she will draw from her role at Stanford and her experience as a parent, this is a national issue that is not special to Stanford, she noted.

 

Lythcott-Haims and her husband, Dan, have a son, Sawyer, who is 12, and a daughter Avery, who is 10.

 

Lythcott-Haims’ departure from Stanford will not be the first significant change of direction in her life.


“My first transition was to flee something that was making me terribly unhappy and to find something that would bring me joy,” she said of her decision to leave the world of corporate law to come to Stanford.

 

“Being a university administrator has indeed brought me joy. The difference now is I’m not fleeing,” Lythcott-Haims said. “I love what I do and yet I’ve decided that in order to feel fulfilled I need to turn to writing.”

 

She said she hopes her decision will inspire others.

 

“I hope that my decision to go off into the realm of creative and artistic expression may give some students who are reluctant to make that choice a little bit of confidence that it is a path that people pursue and an incredibly rewarding one.”

 

Advising at Stanford

Those who spoke with The Daily agreed that Lythcott-Haims’ legacy will be her work in transforming undergraduate advising at Stanford.

 

“She’s made a real difference,” said Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Harry Elam, noting a survey on which 71 percent of students said they were satisfied with advising.

 

This past fall, Lythcott-Haims presented a report on undergraduate advising to the Faculty Senate and cited similar positive statistics, such as an increase in faculty and staff serving as pre-major advisors. Much of Lythcott-Haims’ work has focused on lending credibility and relevance to the advising process for undergraduates, she said.

 

“I’m really proud of what my team has done in the name of advising,” she said, particularly noting the developing Stanford 101 program, a University-wide collaboration to create a curriculum for freshmen with themes of navigation and reflection on their time at Stanford.

 

“One of our ongoing challenges is to help our undergraduates value getting advice from people older than the upperclassman down the hall, but I’m sensing we’re making real inroads there,” she added.

 

Students and colleagues reflect

“She really made me confident to pursue what I’m passionate about and what really interests me, even though it wasn’t what my peers were doing,” said Brittany Rymer ’13, who had Lythcott-Haims as her pre-major advisor. “Having her as an advisor was really important to build that confidence.”

 

“Everyone at Stanford who’s been lucky enough to come into contact with Julie has met a deeply humane and compassionate person,” said English Professor Jennifer Summit. “Her message has always been to take risks to bring our best selves to our work and her decision shows that that’s a process that never stops.”

 

“I know it’s not an easy thing to do to follow a dream and that’s what she’s doing,” Elam said of Lythcott-Haims’ choice to pursue writing. “I think it’s an exciting time for her.”

 

Michael Tubbs ’12 described Lythcott-Haims as “a fixture of the freshman experience” and referenced what many students will remember most vividly: her leading students in shouting their class years at big campus events.

 

“I expect that Stanford students will be shouting their class numerals into the next century and beyond, I’ll just miss getting to be a part of it,” Lythcott-Haims said of the tradition, adding that she will be back in two years to shout hers at her 25th reunion.

 

A longtime fan, Lythcott-Haims noted that she has renewed her season tickets for Stanford football. For the first time in awhile, however, she won’t be cheering with students in the Red Zone.

 

“Stanford is not an institution in my life. Stanford is like a human being to me that I cherish like a mentor or like a good friend,” Lythcott-Haims reflected. “There is nothing I won’t miss.”

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Letter from the Editor https://stanforddaily.com/2012/02/27/letter-from-the-editor/ https://stanforddaily.com/2012/02/27/letter-from-the-editor/#comments Mon, 27 Feb 2012 10:00:01 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1059650 Dear Readers, I would like to clarify and comment on our recent and continuing coverage of the arrest of Fadi Quran '10 in Hebron, West Bank.

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Dear Readers,

 

I would like to clarify and comment on our recent and continuing coverage of the arrest of Fadi Quran ’10 in Hebron, West Bank. This story was a significant undertaking for The Daily and an important piece of breaking news for our community.

 

A few questions have surfaced about news desk editor Kristian Davis Bailey’s ability to fairly cover Quran’s arrest.

 

Kristian signed a divestment petition circulated by Students for Palestinian Equal Rights (SPER) this year. He is not a member of this group. The petition calls for Stanford to divest from “companies whose direct violations of international law have an injurious impact on Palestinians.”

 

Kristian did not report his signature to a Daily editor because he viewed the issues of divestment and Quran’s arrest separately.

 

I stand by Kristian’s coverage as fair and accurate. The Daily should have disclosed his signature on the SPER petition. An annotation disclosing Kristian’s signature on the SPER petition has been appended to his articles online.

 

Sincerely,

Margaret Rawson

President and Editor in Chief, Vol. CCXLI

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University admins terminate Chi Theta Chi lease https://stanforddaily.com/2012/02/09/university-admins-terminate-chi-theta-chi-lease/ https://stanforddaily.com/2012/02/09/university-admins-terminate-chi-theta-chi-lease/#comments Fri, 10 Feb 2012 07:15:32 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1057630 Stanford moved to revoke the lease of Chi Theta Chi, one of two non-University operated houses on campus, Wednesday citing lease violations, liability concerns and "pressing life safety issues."

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Stanford moved Wednesday to revoke the lease of Chi Theta Chi, one of two non-University operated houses on campus, citing lease violations, liability concerns and “pressing life safety issues.”

 

“Stanford hereby elects to terminate the lease pursuant to the termination right set forth in…the Lease,” read a letter delivered to the Alpha Epsilon Alumni Association of Theta Chi Fraternity, Inc.

 

The University will take control of the house on April 2, due to “the Lessee’s failure to adequately respond to multiple and chronic breaches of the Lease,” read the letter, signed by Vice Provost of Student Affairs Greg Boardman and Senior Associate Vice Provost of Residential and Dining Enterprises Shirley Everett.

 

Chi Theta Chi, a house known for its independent spirit, began functioning as a co-operative in 1973 but did not officially split from Theta Chi Fraternity until the late ’80s.

Brendan O’Byrne co-authored this report. 

XOX is one of two houses, the other being Sigma Chi, that are not operated directly by Stanford University, but rather have lease-hold agreements. The University owns the land on which XOX sits, but rents the plot on a long-term contract with a land-use fee. In the past, this agreement has allowed students more autonomy regarding administrative decisions. A May 1990 report on “Co-operative Living at Stanford” describes the house as “a haven for groups seeking to avoid University red tape.”

 

“We are confused and saddened by the University’s attempt to remove ownership of the property from the house’s alumni board, which has controlled the property for decades,” said a press release from Chi Theta Chi. “This transfer of ownership would directly undermine the diversity of the living options available to to undergraduates – counter to the University’s stated goal.”

 

In what former XOX Resident Assistant (RA) Bear Douglas ’09 M.A. ’10 and former Resident  Computer Consultant Abel Allison ’08, both members of the XOX alumni board, described as an “ambush” in an email to a XOX alumni email list, a regularly-scheduled meeting between XOX representatives and Stanford Housing Wednesday was attended by Boardman, Dean of Residential Education Deborah Golder, Executive Director of Student Housing Rodger Whitney and other administrators.

 

The contingent informed XOX that after deliberation, the University decided not to renew the house’s lease for this coming fall and to take control of the house on the first day of spring quarter. Students will begin paying rent to the University at the start of spring quarter this year. The house, which normally remains open, will be closed this coming summer to allow for University renovations.

 

According to the email by Allison and Douglas, the University provided several reasons for its decision. University officials cited that XOX has been using the tax identification number of Theta Chi Fraternity, despite the receipt of a cease-and-desist letter from the organization. Both Allison and Douglas denied any knowledge of this violation or such a letter.

 

The email also said administrators allege that XOX has failed multiple fire safety inspections, is both financially and administratively incapable of avoiding ongoing defaults and has failed to maintain corporate status in California.

 

Administrators also cited concerns that the University is ultimately responsible in the event of any lawsuits against the house, according to the email. A portion of students living in XOX are assigned to the house through the University draw, a factor that creates additional concerns for administrators worried about the experience of students who did not actively choose to live in the house.

 

The University is “committed to working with the [XOX] alumni board and the residents of the house to continue a co-op in the Chi Theta Chi house,” Whitney said, emphasizing that the University is concerned foremost with ensuring the well-being of students and “the long and short-term stewardship of the house.”

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Faculty Senate hears, debates SUES report https://stanforddaily.com/2012/01/27/faculty-senate-hears-debates-sues-report/ https://stanforddaily.com/2012/01/27/faculty-senate-hears-debates-sues-report/#respond Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:04:21 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1055979 The Faculty Senate heard the culmination of two years of work by the Study on Undergraduate Education at Stanford (SUES) Thursday, a report of more than 100 pages that examines the methods and goals of a Stanford education.

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Kurt Chirbas co-authored this report.

The Faculty Senate heard the culmination of two years of work by the Study on Undergraduate Education at Stanford (SUES) Thursday, a report of more than 100 pages that examines the methods and goals of a Stanford education. The study concluded with 55 recommendations to improve undergraduate education, such as the replacement of the Introduction to Humanities (IHUM) program and a new, non-disciplinary system of breadth requirements.

Faculty Senate hears, debates SUES report
Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Harry Elam spoke at Thursday’s Faculty Senate meeting about the recommendations of the Study on Undergraduate Education at Stanford report. (Courtesy of Linda A. Cicero/Stanford News Service)

 

Co-chairs James Campbell, the Edgar E. Robinson Professor in U.S. history, and Susan McConnell, the Susan B. Ford Professor in biology, led the 17-member committee and presented the study’s findings to the Senate.

 

Ways of Thinking, Ways of Doing

 

SUES undertook an examination of the breadth requirements of a current undergraduate education. The report recommends a new system based primarily on seven skills deemed essential for students: esthetic and interpretive inquiry; social inquiry; scientific analysis; formal and quantitative reasoning; engaging difference; moral and ethical reasoning; and creative expression. Under the recommended plan, titled, “Ways of Thinking, Ways of Doing,” either one or two courses will be required for each skill.

 

“In conceiving breadth in a non-disciplinary way, we are not suggesting that disciplinary knowledge is unimportant,” the report reads. “We see knowledge and capacities as inextricable and reciprocal.”

 

The report discusses a need for both integrative and adaptive learning, with the former exemplified by the fact that general education requirements, freshman-year Thinking Matters courses and major requirements will be permitted to overlap.

 

The report noted that under the current system, students seem to view general education requirements as “tick boxes” and do not consider the meaning behind the selected requirements.

 

“It is characteristic of faculty, on hearing all this, to condemn students for their cynicism, but the fault is more ours than theirs,” the report reads. “If they choose general education courses with little thoughtfulness of purpose, it is because we have failed to communicate to them why we believe these courses are important, what we hope they will gain from them and how they relate to the broader aims of a Stanford education.”

 

Included in the report appendix is a comparison of Stanford’s breadth requirements with those of Yale, Princeton and Harvard.

Faculty Senate hears, debates SUES report
Professors Susan McConnell, Jennifer Summit, Sarah Billington, Chris Edwards, Jonathan Berger, Rob Reich and James Campbell field questions after the SUES report at the Faculty Senate meeting. (Courtesy of Linda A. Cicero/Stanford News Service)

 

IHUM: Replaced, or rebranded?

           

The report recommends replacing the Introduction to Humanities program, a yearlong requirement for freshmen since 1996, with a one-quarter “Thinking Matters” course.

 

“Few topics elicited as much discussion with the SUES committee, and fewer still provoked such ambivalent feelings,” the study said of its examination of the controversial IHUM series, which is currently mandatory for all freshmen not enrolled in the alternative program, Structured Liberal Education (SLE).

 

The report initially compliments the IHUM program and notes the resources that have gone into its development, but quickly changes tune due to student dissatisfaction.

 

“IHUM’s sustained attention to student learning and effective pedagogy makes it a model not only for future freshman programs, but also for other units in the University,” the report reads. “All these distinctions only make the response of students more disappointing.”

 

“We found a troubling pattern of student alienation from IHUM, manifested in (relatively) low course evaluations, poor attendance at lectures and a widespread failure to engage deeply with course materials.”

 

The report comments on low student approval of IHUM and described a phenomenon known as “IHUM kid”- students mocked by others for deep interest in the course material.

 

“Paradoxically, the very program we intend to fire students’ imaginations and awaken them to the possibilities of university-level learning has become the paradigmatic ‘tick box’ requirement,” the report reads.

 

As a result, the committee recommends replacing IHUM with a one-quarter Thinking Matters course, which would be developed and overseen by a governance board made up of faculty across the University. A pilot program of these courses would begin during the upcoming 2012 to 2013 academic year.

 

“Our idea is that by taking a Thinking Matters course, students can have some of the experiences that are exemplified by fall quarter IHUM,” McConnell said. “But that you can choose whether to do that in the humanities, the sciences, the social sciences. You can choose the idea that you want to explore.”

 

The report lists possible Thinking Matters courses such as “Evil” taught by philosophy professor Chris Bobonich; “The Nature of Law” with Dean of Stanford Law School Larry Kramer; and a course entitled “Social Animals, Social Revolutions, Social Networks,” which would be co-taught by French professor Dan Edelstein, biology professor Deborah Gordon and professor of computer science Eric Roberts. Faculty members have not yet committed to these courses, according to the report.

 

The new courses would be smaller in size than most IHUM classes and would not be restricted to humanities-related topics. While mandatory for freshman, Thinking Matters would be open to all four classes.

 

“All students are required to take one, but they have the incentive to take more if they want because it will count towards breadth requirements,” said Aysha Bagchi ’11, one of the two student members of the committee.

 

Bagchi, a recent recipient of the Rhodes scholarship and a former Daily columnist, said her own IHUM experience was mostly positive, but could understand some of the resentment directed at the program by students.

 

“It does take up a big part of your freshman year, and it does make it hard to explore,” she said.

 

Bagchi said that a minor recommendation of the committee is to alter the grading system that was previously used IHUM. The report referenced, “the severity and seeming arbitrariness of the grading system,” and the fact that “many students referred to the program as ‘B-HUM.’”

 

Some have questioned whether the new program will differ substantially from IHUM. Many of the proposed courses are current fall-quarter IHUM classes, such as “The Poet Remaking the World,” “Can the People Rule?” and “Sustainability and Collapse.” According to ASSU Senator Dan DeLong ’13, some students that he has talked to are worried that the new program is simply an “IHUM name-change.”

 

English professor and SUES committee member Jennifer Summit, who has previously taught in the IHUM program, said that Thinking Matters will focus less on specific content and more on the learning process. She added that instead of simply being an introduction to humanities, the curriculum would be “an introduction to college-level analysis.”

 

Introductory Seminars

           

One of the most contentious recommendations of the report is to require each freshman to take at least one introductory seminar, to provide a variety of learning environments to students in the first year of study.

           

“On one hand, we want every freshman to get to know a faculty member, in all of our quirkiness and our passion for what we do,” McConnell said. “We think the advantages of being in a seminar are really worth the requirement. That’s a subset of the committee, and a small majority. There is another set of people both in the committee and in the University who worry. They agree with the goals, but they worry that by requiring the seminar that the seminars will lose some of their attractiveness to students. And the last thing we want to do is to damage a great program.”

 

McConnell compared the proposed requirement to the Program in Writing and Rhetoric (PWR) which, while a requirement, receives mostly positive feedback from students, McConnell said, due to a wide variety of course options.

           

We had a huge debate in the committee about this issue,” Bagchi said. “I think most people were initially divided, so we had a really open debate.”

 

Bagchi noted that most committee members are very positive about IntroSems but fear the effect of making them a requirement.

           

A student representative of the Committee on Undergraduate Standards and Policies (C-USP), Stephen Trusheim ’13, voiced his concerns on Thursday in an email sent to the undergraduate ASSU Senate list.

 

“I worry that, no matter what, a requirement will lead to people getting stuck in classes that they don’t want to take, which will ruin the class for everyone else,” Trusheim wrote, arguing that the best aspect of IntroSems is found in the enthusiasm of students to be present and learn about a topic of interest in a close setting.

 

Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Harry Elam addressed an issue of supply and demand concerning Introductory Seminars but said that he believes that shifting to a requirement would be possible, both because faculty members enjoy teaching the seminars and being able to choose their students through applications. Elam said there are currently 120 IntroSems offered per year.

 

Residential learning

 

McConnell noted in the Faculty Senate meeting that there is a perceived “disconnect between the academic and residential lives” of Stanford students. The report heralded SLE as “a model of integrated residential learning,” a program through which freshmen students attend classes and discussions in their East Florence Moore dormitory.

 

“The kind of moniker of ‘IHUM kid’ for somebody that tries to bring up something that he’s learned in IHUM -when we went to SLE, we didn’t find that,” Campbell said. “We found that students are living together. They’re learning together. They’re arguing about stuff over dinner.”

 

While the report does not recommend mandating SLE – stating that the program “flourishes precisely because it is a small, alternative program that students choose to join”- it does call for the creation of similar programs where students can choose to learn in their residential environments. The report advises organizing these new residential programs around a variety of themes, so they would attract a diverse body of students.

 

According to the report, one possibility is to organize these programs around the five themes of the Stanford Challenge Initiative: human health, the environment, international studies, education and the arts. The report adds, however, that it is important that these themes grow “organically” out of student and faculty interest.

 

The report also notes the difficulty of recruiting faculty members to serve as Residential Fellows (RFs), tasked with living in undergraduate dormitories and engaging with student residents. According to the report, only 14 of the 62 RFs on campus are members of the Academic Council. While the report did not conclude that this was significant problem, it did recommend finding new ways to encourage faculty members to take on the post.

 

The committee recommended that the University also explore how faculty members could engage in residential life in other, less time-intensive ways. One suggestion was for professors to give talks, participate in discussions and teach seminars in undergraduate residences.

 

Focusing on residential living after freshman year, the report expressed some concerns about the trend of seniors choosing to live in Row houses, a collection of student-run houses, noting that these students “largely pass out of the orbit of the Office of Residential Education.”

 

In his email to the public ASSU Senate list-serve, Trusheim took offense to the report’s conclusion that “for many seniors, the appeal of the Row clearly has less to do with self-government than with the opportunity to host parties with less stringent supervision than in non-Row houses.”

 

“This is particularly insulting because I think it expresses a desire to do away with self-ops/co-ops in favor of a much more centralized program under tight control of ResEd,” Trusheim wrote.

 

Bagchi, who lived in the self-op Xanadu last year, said the report was not recommending any significant changes to the Row program, but recognizing a possible cultural issue to address.

 

“The recommendations don’t involve suddenly inserting faculty members in Row houses – that’s not going to happen,” she said.

 

Instead, one solution that the committee proposed was giving seniors more housing options such as a “residential research college,” which would provide mentoring for students completing a honors theses or capstone project. Summit said this idea was inspired by the September Honors College.

 

What’s next?

 

“The SUES report is a radical document, less because it proposes to redesign undergraduate education than because it tries to get at the root of teaching and learning,” wrote James J. Sheehan, chair of the Commission on Undergraduate Education (CUE) from 1993 to 1994, in the document’s preface. “The report is also a conservative document because it is tightly connected to Stanford’s distinctive character and traditions.”

 

The Committee on Undergraduate Standards and Policies (C-USP) will make recommendations in response to the report at a Feb. 23 Faculty Senate meeting. The Senate will then vote on the final recommendations at its next meeting on March 8.

 

Matt Bettonville, Edward Ngai, Alice Phillips and Jordan Shapiro contributed to this report.

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Trustees approve arts building sites, $438 million energy plan https://stanforddaily.com/2012/01/09/trustees-approve-arts-building-sites-438-million-energy-plan/ https://stanforddaily.com/2012/01/09/trustees-approve-arts-building-sites-438-million-energy-plan/#respond Mon, 09 Jan 2012 10:28:42 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1053674 The University Board of Trustees approved sites for two significant arts buildings, took action on seven other construction projects, approved a $438 million plan to shrink the school’s carbon footprint and discussed Occupy Stanford at its second meeting of the academic year.

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The University Board of Trustees approved sites for two significant arts buildings, took action on seven other construction projects, approved a $438 million plan to shrink the school’s carbon footprint and discussed Occupy Stanford at its second meeting of the academic year.

 

“Arts district” expands

 

The trustees gave site and concept approval for the Anderson Collection to be located on the corner of Lomita Drive and Campus Drive West, north of the Cantor Arts Center. The collection, donated by Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson and Mary Patricia Anderson Pence includes 121 works of 20th-century American art by 86 artists and represents movements including Abstract Expressionism, Color Field Painting, Post-Minimalism, California Funk Art, Bay Area Figurative Art, Light and Space and contemporary painting and sculpture. Before their two-day meeting, the trustees visited the Anderson family and toured the collection, which includes some of the foremost examples of post-World War II American art and is one of the most valuable collections to be donated to a university.

 

The Board also approved a site for the $85 million, 96,000 square-foot Burton and Deedee McMurtry building, which will house the University’s art and art history departments, contributing to an expanding “arts district” near Cantor Arts Center in addition to the nearby Bing Concert Hall which is expected to be completed in 2013. The $30.5 million building for the Anderson Collection is expected to open in 2014, with the McMurtry building opening in the following year.

 

The expansion of the “arts district,” as University administrators have taken to calling it, is a significant milestone in the Stanford arts initiative.

 

New campus energy plan

 

The trustees granted design approval to the Campus Energy Systems Improvement project, which will ultimately replace the Cardinal Cogeneration plant and the existing electrical substation, decrease campus water consumption by 18 percent and cut greenhouse gas emissions in half–with a price tag of $438 million.

 

The new system will grant the University “more flexibility as the energy markets change in the future,” said Leslie Hume, chair of the Board of Trustees.

 

The system is expected to be completed midway through 2015 and would meet the University’s energy needs through 2050.

 

Under the design, the largest component of the University’s Energy and Climate Plan, Stanford will buy electricity via direct access to the energy market, build a new central energy facility to recover waste heat from the campus chilled-water system to meet the bulk of campus heating needs, convert the existing central-steam system to a more efficient hot-water system and build a new and expanded electrical substation.

 

Occupy Stanford

 

The Board also heard a report from Stanford University Department of Public Safety (SUDPS) Chief Laura Wilson concerning University response to Occupy protests.

 

Hume said that Wilson spoke to the trustees about how she works with students “to try and make sure that they can protest and make their voices heard.”

 

“She takes free speech and [students’] power to protest very seriously and works with them to make sure they can do this in a safe way,” Hume said, noting that Wilson was present when Stanford students peacefully marched in solidarity with students from the University of California, Berkeley before the Big Game.

 

Reassurance in light of Penn State

 

The Board also spoke about Penn State, embroiled in controversy this fall following accusations of sexual abuse by former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. Hume said the trustees reflected on lessons from the scandal and were eager to hear from administrators how Stanford cultivates a different environment.

 

“The trustees were interested in talking to the president and general counsel about what we at Stanford did to create and encourage a culture of responsibility and good citizenship–how we communicated our expectations and gave employees and faculty and staff a message that this is a place that takes ethics and responsibility seriously,” Hume said.

 

She added, “It was not a long discussion, but it was an important discussion.”

 

Law School update, lab renovations for School of Medicine

 

The Board also heard an update from Law School Dean Larry Kramer and Larry Marshall, director of the Mills Legal Clinic of Stanford Law School, and toured the new William H. Neukom Building at Stanford Law School.

 

“It makes the law school a real law-school campus,” Hume said of the new building.

 

The trustees also gave concept approval for renovations of two buildings–3155 and 3165 Porter Drive–currently leased to the School of Medicine for research. The renovation costs for the two buildings are expected to be $19.5 million and $23.8 million, respectively.

 

Following renovations to modernize existing laboratories and convert office space, the buildings are expected to house the School of Medicine Sleep Center, the Department of Radiology, the Department of Genetics, the Stanford Genome Center and the Center for Personalized Medicine.

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Faculty, students “occupy the future” https://stanforddaily.com/2011/12/24/faculty-students-occupy-the-future/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/12/24/faculty-students-occupy-the-future/#respond Sat, 24 Dec 2011 10:00:33 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1053497 More than 250 students, faculty and community members gathered at teach-ins across campus and a rally in White Plaza for “Breakthrough: Occupy the Future,” part of a series of events organized by faculty and students to foster discussion of the Occupy movement and inequality in America.

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Billy Gallagher co-authored this report.

More than 250 students, faculty and community members gathered at teach-ins across campus and a rally in White Plaza on Friday, Dec. 9, for “Breakthrough: Occupy the Future,” part of a series of events organized by faculty and students to foster discussion of the Occupy movement and inequality in America. Preceding the event, The Boston Review published a collection of faculty opinions and The Daily published a collection of student opinions.

 

Six faculty members signed the “Occupy the Future” statement: Paul Ehrlich, biology; David Grusky, sociology; David Laitin, political science; Rob Reich, political science; Debra Satz, philosophy; and Doug McAdam, sociology.

 

“This isn’t a protest rally…this is a rally so you can learn what you think about inequality,” Reich said in a speech about politics and inequality at a teach-in at Arrillaga Family Dining Commons.

 

Teach-ins across campus included discussions about healthcare, education, race, the arts and the environment and included faculty representatives from across campus.

 

The rally in White Plaza featured music, poetry and speeches and was followed by an open forum in the Oak Room at Tresidder.

 

“It’s great to see so many members of our community come together to get better educated about these issues facing our nation,” said Dean of Freshmen and Undergraduate Advising and Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Julie Lythcott-Haims ’89 in an interview with The Daily. “I’m really impressed by the collaborative effort of students and faculty to put this event on and I think the turnout is great.”

 

“Today is Stanford’s stance on figuring out what our role is in all of this,” said Kelsei Wharton ’12, former ASSU vice president and co-chair of political action for the Stanford NAACP.

 

Stanford University President Emeritus Don Kennedy spoke at the beginning of the rally, commenting on the need for alternative fuels and encouraging Stanford to lend a helping hand to the University of California, Berkeley.

 

“The University of California is being starved by the state of California’s budget,” Kennedy said. “You all have it so good compared to those guys [at UC schools] that they ought to get some serious help from you…Stanford isn’t Stanford without Cal and Cal isn’t Cal without Stanford so go give them some damn help!”

 

Allison Anoll, political science PhD. ’15, drew a lesson from campus architecture and history.

 

“I want to tell you the first thing I noticed about Stanford when I arrived here two years ago,” Anoll said. “We have an actual ivory tower in the middle of this campus. That tower is named after a president who 80 years ago also oversaw a period of tent encampments in this country.”

 

Meagan Moroney ’10 spoke about her experience protesting in the Occupy San Francisco encampment.

 

“We got raided three days ago by Ed Lee and his police state,” Moroney said. “They did wipe out our entire tent city. But what I told the police and what I want to tell all of you is they can take away our tents. They can take away our food, our medical supplies. They can take all of that. But all we need for this movement is our brains. Our intelligence, our souls and our hearts. And until we die, they cannot take those away.”

 

“There’s been disparate groups all trying to fight at this problem for decades but they’ve never coalesced into a big enough group that the government had to say, ‘I can’t ignore it any longer’ and it’s finally happening,” Moroney added later in an interview with The Daily.

 

Erica Castello ’12 delivered a poem at the rally and spoke with The Daily about Stanford’s role among the different Occupy protest locations.

 

“There’s this common misconception about Occupy that we need to tie [the locations] together thematically and the brilliance of this movement is the acknowledgement that each of these locations has something different to offer,” Castello said in an interview with The Daily. “At Stanford what we have to offer is, basically, critical thinking and diversity, just by nature of our admissions process. I’m extremely proud to be part of this because it’s organic and it does reflect our strengths as opposed to our weaknesses.”

 

“It was a really powerful event that I think was done by Stanford for Stanford and it gave me personally a lot to think about,” said Associate Dean and Director of Student Activities and Leadership (SAL) Nanci Howe about the rally. “And I hope it inspired a lot of students to think more deeply about the direction of the country.”

 

SAL assisted with the operational planning for event, according to Howe.

 

Students had mixed, but mostly positive, responses to the teach-ins and rally.

 

“I though the teach-ins were really good,” said Annie Graham ‘14.“I think we respond well to intellectual discussions, but we’re not very good at rallying.”

 

“I think our country has a big social, economic and political problem right now,” said Liam McSweeney ‘15. “The only way to change that is to have citizens become aware of what’s happening right now. It was a good mix of having people fired up, but also having speakers offer good ideas and opinions on inequality.”

 

“I just wanted to show support for the movement and be a part of a group of students who care about what’s going on in the country, and want to change it,” said Natalie Hernandez ’14.

 

Brendan O’Byrne, Mary Harrison and Catherine Zaw contributed to this report.

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Schmitt talks U.S. terrorism policy, Iran https://stanforddaily.com/2011/12/07/schmitt-talks-u-s-terrorism-policy-iran/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/12/07/schmitt-talks-u-s-terrorism-policy-iran/#respond Wed, 07 Dec 2011 10:02:43 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1053345 Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist Eric Schmitt spoke Monday evening about the U.S. campaign against terrorism, as part of a lecture series sponsored by the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies. Schmitt discussed his recent book, “Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America’s Secret Campaign Against Al Qaeda,” co-authored with his New York Times colleague Thom Shanker.

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Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist Eric Schmitt spoke Monday evening about the U.S. campaign against terrorism, as part of a lecture series sponsored by the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies. Schmitt discussed his recent book, “Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America’s Secret Campaign Against Al Qaeda,” co-authored with his New York Times colleague Thom Shanker.

 

“We will be hit again,” Schmitt said of the likelihood of future terrorist attacks on American soil. “An al Qaeda affiliated organization will carry out another strike against the U.S.”

 

Schmitt spoke of a need for the United States to develop the type of resilience to attacks that already exists in Europe.

 

This problem, Schmitt said, for politicians seeking to foster this resilience, is that you “leave yourself open in this extremely partisan environment to seeming soft on defense.” He continued to argue that the current budget debates may allow politicians to gracefully scale back on the topic of defense.

 

Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies, described Schmitt as “easily the most authoritative voice on terrorism” as he introduced the talk entitled, “Iran, Al Qaeda and the U.S. Campaign Against Terrorism.”

 

Milani said he hoped Schmitt would outline “how Iran figures in all these shenanigans.”

 

Schmitt began his talk by pointing to a calculation left behind on the lecture hall blackboard and joked that it came out of Osama Bin Laden’s safe house in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

 

“Iran from time to time surfaces in this debate,” Schmitt said. While usually peripheral to the U.S. campaign against terrorism, Iran “crops up in important ways.”

 

“You have to understand where we were on 9/11 itself,” Schmitt said of the quest to understand the “War on Terror.”

 

Schmitt said the key to understanding is both comprehending “how little the U.S. government knew about al Qaeda and terrorism” at the time of 9/11 and studying the “understandable and justified” reaction the U.S. took, though he called the domestic response an overreaction.

 

Schmitt described the “sense at the time that the U.S. could kill and capture its way to victory” and discussed how the campaign against terrorism has evolved.

 

Schmitt mentioned a 2003 memo by then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld outlining a theory that American involvement in Iraq may have created more militants than it destroyed.

 

“For this point, I have to always remind my New York Times editors that just because Don Rumsfeld said it didn’t make it automatically wrong,” he joked.

 

Schmitt said that today, the American government has a “much better understanding” of terrorism and a “much more holistic approach to fighting terrorism.” Schmitt said that other government departments are now more involved in the fight against terrorism, including the State Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Treasury.

 

“They don’t know or respect any boundaries,” Schmitt said of terrorists, as he described how analysts under the Bush administration ultimately investigated the possibility of using Cold War deterrence to combat terrorists.

 

“Terrorists actually do have a certain set of values,” Schmitt said. “They’re different though–honor, prestige and the place in the ummah.”

 

Schmitt stressed the importance of reaching those in terrorist networks who are driven by the promise of financial gain instead of ideology.

 

“There is a whole group of people in the middle,” he said. “People who are not ideologically motivated the way Bin Laden was.”

 

Schmitt told the story of the leader of a terrorist cell in Iraq whose power was greatly diminished by the U.S. lowering the bounty for him–a direct blow to his honor.

 

“He’d lost a little on his fast ball, if you know what I mean,” Schmitt said as he described the rumors the American military spread.

 

The terrorist cell leader, who normally practiced “exceptionally good operational security,” became frustrated with the rumors about his diminishing power and made calls on his cell phone that conveyed his hiding place and associates.

 

Schmitt described cyberspace as the “main safe haven” for terrorist recruiting, fundraising and planning.

 

“A lot of it’s very highly classified now,” Schmitt said. He described how Arabic speaking analysts have been able to “infiltrate chat rooms” to pose “provocative questions” about terrorist ideals. He also mentioned that American intelligence has the ability to hack into cell phones and replicate the al Qaeda watermark to distribute false information on behalf of the organization across the Internet.

 

Schmitt assessed the current progress of the U.S. campaign against terrorism.

 

“That particular part of the al Qaeda leadership has been sent way back,” Schmitt said of the organization’s top leaders. However, he added, “Affiliates have been growing up for years.”

 

Schmitt discussed both Yemeni affiliates of al Qaeda and the threat of homegrown terrorists in the mold of Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed by an American drone strike in Yemen this past September.

 

In a question and answer session, Schmitt noted the significance of the secular nature of the Arab Spring, but qualified that al Qaeda has regrouped recently to try to “exploit disillusionment.”

 

He also commented on recent events in Iran and the tension between military action and nuclear war.

 

“Would deterrence work against Iran?” Schmitt asked. He noted that there was a strict hierarchy in the Soviet Union, but the power dynamic in Iran’s leadership remains mysterious.

 

“Who’s in control of the apparatus in Iran?” Schmitt asked.

 

He also outlined the recent return of American efforts to traditional training of indigenous forces.

 

“I see it as a less fertile ground,” Schmitt said in response to an audience question about the amount of terrorists currently fostered by the region. “Al Qaeda revealed itself for what it is–a small, marginalized group that is still very dangerous, but does not reflect the larger goals of Islam.”

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Stanford, Cal students march https://stanforddaily.com/2011/11/28/stanford-cal-students-march/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/11/28/stanford-cal-students-march/#respond Mon, 28 Nov 2011 11:04:36 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1052240 Approximately 200 Stanford and University of California-Berkeley students gathered on Sat., Nov. 19 at the Arrillaga Alumni Center to march in opposition to police action against Occupy Cal student protesters.

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Approximately 200 Stanford and University of California-Berkeley students gathered on Sat., Nov. 19 at the Arrillaga Alumni Center to march in opposition to police action against Occupy Cal student protesters.

 

Occupy Cal students protesting in support of the national Occupy Wall Street movement and against tuition hikes clashed with Berkeley on campus police on Nov. 9 when they refused to remove their encampment in Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza.

 

Stanford, Cal students march
Stanford and Cal students marched together to protest policy brutality against Occupy Cal protesters. (ROGER CHEN/The Stanford Daily)

Police used batons against protesters, who linked arms and formed a wall around the tents. The day’s events resulted in 39 arrests, with an additional arrest the next morning, and injuries to protesters’ arms, heads and stomachs.

 

Stanford organizers publicized Saturday’s march, which took place a few hours before this year’s Big Game, with the message “civil liberties have no rivalries.”

 

“This is a rally that will speak to the character of students at both schools,” read a publicity email circulated by Stanford students before the march. “It will send a message that even the strongest rivals have the capacity to come together.”

 

Protesters marched the streets surrounding the alumni center with signs, including one that read, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” referencing Martin Luther King, Jr.’s letter from Birmingham Jail. Group chants included, “It’s our reality. Stop police brutality!”

 

The march ended at Cobb Track and Angell Field, where the crowd heard a few prepared speeches before an open-mic session.

 

“I see a bunch of smart, young people who want to fight for a better world,” said Zachary Aslanian-Williams, a Berkeley transfer student, in his speech.

 

Robert Slaughter, a senior at St. Mary’s College, described the events of the Nov. 9 protest. He recalled witnessing police using a baton against a woman to “stab her in the stomach five, six times.”

 

“The police department is doing this to defenseless young people who are the future,” Slaughter said.

 

“At this I’m wondering, what the hell is going to happen to me?” he said. Slaughter was arrested Nov. 9 and has been charged with three misdemeanors. He said he was held the longest of those who were arrested and described the nights he spent in the Oakland County Jail and Santa Rita Jail, where he was subjected to a strip search. He is awaiting a Dec. 12 arraignment.

 

Shawn Dye ’14, ASSU senator and political action co-chair of the Stanford NAACP, said in an interview with The Daily that he, “was wondering if people would attack me like that.”

 

This, along with a personal interest in the Occupy movement, prompted him to take a lead role in organizing Saturday’s march.

 

“The police brutality I felt was uncalled for,” Dye said. “Looking at the video evidence alone, we didn’t see any of the students provoking the police. As students, we have so much power that police see that as a threat.”

 

“The goal here is change and seeking justice,” said Milton Achelpohl ’13, vice president of the Stanford NAACP.

 

The Stanford University Department of Public Safety (SUDPS) saw the march as an opportunity for outreach. SUDPS Chief Laura Wilson was present and stood on the side, listening to the student speeches.

 

“I appreciate the way in which all of the participants have handled themselves today,” Wilson said, calling the protest “peaceful and productive.”

 

“Some of the videos I have seen certainly were disturbing,” she said of the events in Sproul Plaza, though she added that she was not there in person.

 

“It looks like us versus them,” Wilson said of what she sees as an unfortunate situation in which people “feel the police are not part of their community.”

 

“My message would be that we do need to come together,” she said, noting opportunities such as police ride-alongs for Stanford community members to become more connected to SUDPS.

 

Associate Vice Provost for Student Affairs Sally Dickson also commented positively on the march, which she helped students including Dye organize.

 

“I’m very proud of our students,” Dickson said. “What happened at Cal from what I saw from the videos was tragic.”

 

Some protesters were clear to draw a line between the Occupy movement as a whole and Saturday’s march against police brutality.

 

“It’s not a matter of the Occupy situation but more about caring when people get hurt and motivating Stanford students to stand up for what is right,” said Rafael Vazquez ’12, chair of the ASSU Senate. “I’m really happy to see so many people who do care.”

 

Student groups that helped organize Saturday’s march included the ASSU Executive and ASSU senators, MEChA de Stanford, the Stanford Asian American Students Association, the Stanford Asian American Activism Committee, the Stanford Black Student Union, the Stanford Muslim Student Awareness Network, the Stanford National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Stanford Pilipino American Students Association, the Stanford Vietnamese Student Association and the Stanford Students of Color Coalition.

 

Kelsei Wharton ’12, political action co-chair of Stanford NAACP and former ASSU vice president, described the march as an effort in “raising our collective consciousness.”

 

“When people hear Occupy on this campus now, they’re not feeling it,” he said of Stanford’s perception. He described the issue as one of “trying to connect the dots together.”

 

“You have to meet people where they are and be inclusive,” Wharton said of attracting students with a wide set of beliefs to the march. “You can’t have Stanford students tuned out.”

 

“The way in which Occupy Cal has specific aims adds credence to the movement,” said ASSU Senate Deputy Chair Dan Ashton ’14, who also participated in the protest. “Hopefully, moving forward, the conversation at Stanford can be rooted in actionable change.”

 

Maria Rohani, a senior at Berkeley, commented on the issue at the heart of Occupy Cal–concern that tuition may increase up to 81 percent over the next four years.

 

“Occupy is about working against the system that takes advantage of those under it,” Rohani said, who was present at the Nov. 9 protest. “The UC system has been taking advantage of students for years now.”

 

Rohani compared the concerns of protesters at Stanford and Berkeley.

 

“You cannot have an Occupy movement at Cal without [tuition increases] being a focus,” she said. “When you go somewhere like Stanford, it may not be as tangible, but it’s still part of your world.”

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Stanford vs. Cal Quiz Bowl features IBM’s Watson https://stanforddaily.com/2011/11/18/stanford-vs-cal-quiz-bowl-features-ibm%e2%80%99s-watson/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/11/18/stanford-vs-cal-quiz-bowl-features-ibm%e2%80%99s-watson/#comments Fri, 18 Nov 2011 11:04:28 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1051910 The Stanford and University of California, Berkeley Quiz Bowl teams matched wits Thursday evening against each other and a formidable opponent--the IBM Watson “supercomputer,” capable of answering questions posed in natural language.

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The Stanford and University of California, Berkeley Quiz Bowl teams matched wits Thursday evening against each other and a formidable opponent–the IBM Watson “supercomputer,” capable of answering questions posed in natural language.

 

The Jeopardy-style competition demonstrated the technology behind the powerful supercomputer “Watson,” named after IBM founder Thomas J. Watson.

 

Stanford vs. Cal Quiz Bowl features IBM’s Watson
Members of Stanford Quiz Bowl competed against Cal on Thursday in the CEMEX auditorium. The event also featured IBM's Jeopardy champion Watson. (RAVEN JIAN/The Stanford Daily)

Stanford’s team was represented by Nico Martinez ’07, J.D. ’13, Benji Nguyen ’15 and Bill Rowan, a computer science graduate student.

 

“My assumption is that Watson will beat us,” Rowan said before the competition. According to Rowan, the student teams had an advantage “parsing and understanding the questions,” while Watson held the advantage in buzzer speed, “which turns out to be crucial.”

 

“It’s David and Goliath,” said Jack Dubie ‘11, a computer science graduate student who helped organize the event.

 

“The stakes could not be higher,” Rowan joked. “It’s the future of the human race.”

 

The game, moderated by Todd Crain–who has moderated over one hundred matches between Watson and humans–was preceded by a presentation by Eric Brown, an IBM research scientist.

 

“It’s not about the game,” Brown said of the long-term goals following Watson’s early success. “It’s about the technology and what we’re going to do with it.”

 

“We’re all familiar with the expert as a librarian,” Brown said, adding that librarians are not always accessible and do not have the same deep understanding of a wide range of content that Watson achieves.

 

According to Brown, Watson offers precise answers, a fast response time and “accurate confidences” and “consumable justifications” for those answers.

 

Brown described future applications of Watson’s automatic open domain question answering, from business and commercial applications to healthcare innovations in differential diagnosis. Overall, he described the goal of the developing technology as striving “to help people make better decisions.”

 

For now, Watson is just very good at winning at Jeopardy. After testing against past Tournament of Champions contestants during a demonstration stage, Watson played and won on national television this past February against Ken Jennings, the longest championship streak record holder, and Brad Rutter, the show’s biggest money winner.

 

Brown described the complexity of natural language and the methods Watson, which uses 90 IBM power servers, employs to parse questions, such as determining key words and the desired answer form.

 

“I’m completely unbiased here,” Brown said before the competition. “I don’t care who comes in second.”

 

“I smell fear,” Crain said, as he welcomed the teams to the stage.

 

After a series of questions dominated completely by Watson, Crain added, “You’re off to a bad start.”

 

After two categories of single Jeopardy and with both human teams expressing slight frustration, the Berkeley team finally managed to beat Watson to the buzzer.

 

IBM scientists have been able to cut down Watson’s response rate to the average Jeopardy contestant time frame of fewer than three seconds, combined with high precision and number of questions answered. If the computer does not find an answer that crosses its confidence threshold, it will not buzz in. During the game, audience members were able to see Watson’s top three answer choices and corresponding confidence percentages.

 

While both teams managed to enter the game during the first round, Watson took a strong lead and benefited from the “Daily Double.” Stanford, after a detour in the red, trailed Berkeley.

 

During the second round, one clear shortcoming of the computer became clear. After the Berkeley team answered a question incorrectly, Watson repeated the same response.

 

At another point, Watson had a delay in choosing the next category after answering a question correctly.

 

“Remember, its Watson supercomputer but Microsoft software,” said Bernie Meyerson, vice president of innovation and global university relations for IBM.

 

Going into final Jeopardy, despite successes for both student teams, the score stood at $8,800 for Stanford, $16,400 for Berkeley and $33,300 for Watson.

 

All three teams answered the final question on 20th century thinkers correctly (Jean-Paul Sartre was the answer) and the final order remained the same.

 

Following the competition, Brown responded to questions and described some of Watson’s tools, such as a pun filter and a vulgarity filter. Audience members posed questions about the fairness of the game, particularly about buzzer speed and whether the competition was biased.

 

“I would say that understanding natural language is rigged in the humans’ favor,” Brown said.

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Hennessy talks ROTC, GSB gift at Faculty Senate https://stanforddaily.com/2011/11/11/hennessy-talks-rotc-gsb-gift-at-faculty-senate/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/11/11/hennessy-talks-rotc-gsb-gift-at-faculty-senate/#respond Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:30:15 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1051741 The Faculty Senate heard reports on graduate education and undergraduate advising Thursday, as well as some surprising news from University President John Hennessy

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The Faculty Senate heard reports on graduate education and undergraduate advising Thursday, as well as some news from University President John Hennessy.

“Given the difficulties of setting up a campus in New York City, we’ve decided to become a football powerhouse,” Hennessy deadpanned.

Hennessy went on to praise the football program and encouraged faculty to attend Saturday’s game against Oregon, as well as the ESPN College GameDay filming early Saturday morning at the Oval.

Hennessy also discussed the recent announcement of a $150 million gift to the Graduate School of Business (GSB) from Robert “Bob” King ’60 and his wife, Dorothy “Dottie” King. He also updated the Senate on the future of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) at Stanford. Last spring, the Senate voted to invite the return of ROTC to Stanford.

Hennessy said that because of “budgetary difficulties the Department of Defense faces,” the University “will probably end up exploring alternative opportunities.” These may include alternative options for students who currently commute, forming a consortium with area schools and the United States Naval Academy or asking the Committee on Undergraduate Standards and Policies (C-USP) to consider granting some academic credit to students who take ROTC courses off-campus.

Provost John Etchemendy Ph.D. ’82 also updated the Senate, discussing the formation of a search committee in light of Persis Drell’s resignation from her post as director of SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, as well as the University’s current financial outlook.

“The financial situation of the University right now is very good,” Etchemendy said. He added that the budgetary committee plans to be cautious, as “we have no idea what the future holds.”

“We probably won’t be doing cuts … but we won’t be spending a lot of money either,” Etchemendy added.

Graduate Education

The Senate then heard the annual report on graduate education, postponed from last spring, by Vice Provost for Graduate Education Patricia Gumport.

“I think we have tremendous vitality in graduate education at Stanford and it’s only going to get better,” Gumport said.

She cited what she sees as systemic challenges, “at the national level as well as at the foreground for Stanford,” including graduate student diversity and tuition shortfalls.

Gumport cited that graduate enrollment has increased 32 percent since 1985, while undergraduate enrollment has grown four percent.

Gumport highlighted her concern that in 1995 domestic Under-Represented Minorities (URM) represented 10.7 percent of the graduate student population, while today they represent only 9.3 percent.

“It makes us concerned,” she said.  Gumport included many statistics concerning diversity and particularly stressed a large increase in international students.

“I think the big story is the difference in applications over this time,” she said. Gumport cited that graduate programs have seen an overall increase in applications by 38 percent. International student applications increased by 136 percent, while

URM applications only increased by 10 percent.

Gumport also discussed tuition shortfalls concerning federal funding and degree completion rate across the different graduate schools.

She noted that attrition is down overall, with degree completion at 75 percent, but students who do choose to leave are doing so later.

“We will save $7 million a year if students who are going to leave anyway leave one year earlier,” she said.

Gumport highlighted the Diversifying Academia, Recruiting Excellence (DARE) doctoral fellowship program and cited the need to survey current and former graduate students.

“We don’t track placement and outcomes for our graduate students,” she said. “This is really a problem.”

On the topic of diversity, Etchemendy said he hopes the recently announced collaboration with the City College of New York (CCNY) will help.

“CCNY is an incredibly diverse institution,” he said. “We are hoping that this will provide us a pipeline.”

Undergraduate advising

Dean of Freshmen and Undergraduate Advising and Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Julie Lythcott-Haims ’89 presented a report to the Senate on undergraduate pre-major advising.

“This is a very exciting time in pre-major advising at Stanford University,” Lythcott-Haims said. “It has been several years since the Senate has heard about undergraduate advising.”

She added that the topic “has been a challenge for quite some time.”

Lythcott-Haims framed her presentation around “what we think” and “what students think.” She explained that problems in advising may stem from some students thinking they do not need advising, or others who are too timid to seek it out.

“Our undergraduates are the least formed version of the self they are becoming,” she said, explaining that it may be unreasonable to expect freshmen to understand the importance of advising at the offset.

Lythcott-Haims described the latest iteration of undergraduate pre-major advising.

Students now have two advisors, their regional Academic Director and Pre-Major Advisor. The Academic Director (AD) program was piloted in 2004 and instituted across the board in 2008.

Lythcott-Haims cited that successful recruitment has resulted in 80 more volunteer pre-major advisors, bringing the total to 310, with 33 percent members of the Academic Council, 26 percent academic or teaching staff and 41 percent non-teaching staff or affiliates. Students are expected to meet with their pre-major advisors once each quarter until they declare a major.

Last year 100 percent of the class of 2014 met with their advisors four times, during orientation and each quarter, according to Lythcott-Haims, in accordance with a new rule that placed an enrollment hold until students had met with their advisors.

Lythcott-Haims also listed goals for the future, such as creating more AD positions, creating advising objectives, bringing more faculty members on board and increasing student and advisor satisfaction. She also asked the Senate, in particular, for feedback from those who used to serve as pre-major advisors but no longer participate.

“The tools that I used disappeared,” said mechanical engineering professor Chris Edwards, who used to serve as a pre-major advisor. Edwards referenced cuts in sophomore peer mentors and faculty lunches that helped facilitate the advising process.

“We get that,” Lythcott-Haims said, referencing the need for some form of peer advising. “We’re going to bring that back.”

“I became quite cynical about it,” said linguistics professor Tom Wasow, citing difficulties he experienced as a pre-major advisor in creating a positive experiences for students who lacked interest. “I see what you’re doing as turning that around. I’m almost ready to sign up.”

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Fac Senate talks grad study, ResEd https://stanforddaily.com/2011/10/28/fac-senate-talks-grad-study-resed/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/10/28/fac-senate-talks-grad-study-resed/#respond Fri, 28 Oct 2011 09:20:27 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1051238 e Faculty Senate passed several changes to dissertation requirements proposed by the Committee on Graduate Studies and discussed residential education at its second meeting of the year Thursday.

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The Faculty Senate passed several changes to dissertation requirements proposed by the Committee on Graduate Studies and discussed residential education at its second meeting of the year Thursday.

Committee on Graduate Studies

The Committee on Graduate Studies (C-GS) recommended new language concerning the composition of Ph.D. oral and dissertation committees. Following the changes, dissertation reading committees will consist of at least three but no more than five members, all of whom will be required to sign off on the dissertation.

Emeritus faculty will now be considered in the same standing as current Academic Council faculty. If the principal dissertation adviser is an emeritus member of the Academic Council, a co-advisor will not be required until two years have passed since the emeritus member’s retirement.

Candidates in all departments, as well as in interdisciplinary programs, will have the option of including Ph.D.-holding, non-Academic Council members on their reading committees if Academic Council faculty hold the majority.

Richard Roberts, history professor and chair of the C-GS, described this change as an opportunity to include individuals with expertise in the dissertation field, such as industry representatives, as students continue to show increased interest in applied sciences and other applications of their dissertation work.

Stephen Stedman, political science professor, raised a concern that requiring non-Academic Council members to hold a Ph.D. would contradict the goal of seeking out expertise from industry leaders.

“So rank is more important than expertise?” Stedman asked.

“Would you keep Bill Gates off?” asked biology professor Lucille Shapiro.

Roberts responded that yes, while students could petition for exceptions, Gates, a college dropout, would be excluded from serving on a dissertation committee.

“I think it’s part of our process to have people of the higher rank evaluating you for that rank,” he said.

Caroline Hoxby, professor of economics, raised a cautionary point that some students may seek outside advisors who would lower the overall standards for their work.

Following the changes, emeritus members serving on oral exam committees will not be considered non-Academic Council members and one or two non-Academic Council members will be permitted.

The Senate passed the Committee’s recommendations with one abstention and no opposition.

Residential Education

The Senate also heard a report by Deborah Golder, associate vice provost and dean of the Office of Residential Education.

There is “no better way outside the classroom to capture the entirety of the student body,” Golder said of Stanford’s residential education program, noting that almost all Stanford students live on campus for all four years of their undergraduate careers.

Golder reiterated ResEd’s goal “to make a major research university feel like a small liberal arts college,” and updated the Senate on a three-year campaign to revamp the program.

Golder included statistics about Stanford’s unique program. The University has 78 houses on campus, compared to the usual 10 or 12 at sister universities, she said.

As part of the restructuring process, Golder noted that 50 percent of Residential Education professional staff members are new to their roles.

Golder outlined the Residential Fellow program for the Senate, but also stressed that all faculty, even those who cannot live in an undergraduate dorm as a Resident Fellow, should consider how they can participate in the effort to bridge the academic and residential experiences of undergraduates.

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FacSen discusses NYC campus, renovations https://stanforddaily.com/2011/10/14/facsen-discusses-nyc-campus-renovations/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/10/14/facsen-discusses-nyc-campus-renovations/#comments Fri, 14 Oct 2011 09:17:03 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1050750 University President John Hennessy and electrical engineering professor Bernd Girod updated the Faculty Senate on the proposal for a New York City campus at Thursday’s Faculty Senate meeting.

“I never thought the city of New York would move faster than an academic institution,” Hennessy said as he began his talk, commenting on the fast pace of the proposal process, which he said may be in part due to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s limited term.

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University President John Hennessy and electrical engineering professor Bernd Girod updated the Faculty Senate on the proposal for a New York City campus at Thursday’s Faculty Senate meeting.

“I never thought the city of New York would move faster than an academic institution,” Hennessy said as he began his talk, commenting on the fast pace of the proposal process, which he said may be in part due to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s limited term.

The Bloomberg administration requested proposals in July to create an applied-sciences center for teaching and research and pledged $100 million to support infrastructure upgrades at the site. The University plans to submit its formal proposal by the Oct. 28 deadline.

Hennessy said the NYC campus itself is a long-term project and would occur in phases, with the first students arriving in 2013.

“This is something that will play out over many years,” he said. The current proposal includes several phases of building, with campus completion estimated to occur between 2038 and 2045.

The project would have a 10-year horizon for fundraising, Hennessy said.

“Quite frankly, this is a project that will need a significant amount of fundraising,” Hennessy said. He later added, “This project is highly dependent on philanthropy.”

Girod described the project as a “high-risk, high-reward type of endeavor.”

The University is currently focusing on a 10-acre site on Roosevelt Island, between Manhattan and Queens in the East River.

“It has a small village feel because of the layout of the island and what’s there,” Hennessy said. He described it as “urban, but not overwhelming.”

On Tuesday the University announced the creation of a test site called “Stanford@CCNY” in partnership with the City University of New York (CUNY) and the City College of New York (CCNY).

Hennessy said this venture would serve as a stepping-stone to the creation of the Roosevelt Island campus, housing a growing Stanford program in an academic setting for its first three years, from 2013 to 2016.

“We hope to have a longer-term relationship with CCNY,” he said at the meeting.

The Roosevelt Island campus would ultimately boast a variety of programs, including several engineering departments and potentially a new program on sustainable urban systems.

All of these developments are contingent upon the acceptance of Stanford’s bid for the NYC campus.

“Cornell is probably the most active competitor with a strong engineering school,” Hennessy said.

The Bloomberg administration is likely to make a final announcement before the end of the year.

Earlier in his presentation, Hennessy joked about Stanford’s advantage due to the University’s close connection with Silicon Valley. He noted that the bidding universities were asked to answer the questions, “How many companies have been founded within 25 miles of your campus?” and “How many graduates choose to settle within 25 miles of your campus?”

A few faculty members had questions after Hennessy’s presentation, raising concerns about the proposal.

History professor Carolyn Lougee Chappell asked if the new graduate campus might limit interaction between undergraduate and graduate students. She also noted that the applied sciences focus should not cause the humanities to be overlooked.

Hennessy said the new location could increase the University’s East Coast presence by casting Stanford not just as an elite engineering university, but also as an elite center for the study of humanities. He suggested the possibility of five or six rotating humanities professors on the New York campus, as well as an “overseas” program in New York for undergraduates.

“Risk assessment should be a very important part of this,” said economics professor Caroline Hoxby. She also expressed concern over the “political risk” the University might face in New York City and the uncertain economic future.

Other members of the Faculty Senate focused on the opportunity cost and internal governance concerns associated with the proposal.

“This will take an enormous amount of management attention,” Hennessy said. “I think the opportunity cost is real in respect to management attention.”

He added that it is “harder to diagnose philanthropic costs,” as a New York campus might inspire a new set of donors.

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Yosemite deaths point to nature’s risks https://stanforddaily.com/2011/09/27/yosemite-deaths-point-to-natures-risks/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/09/27/yosemite-deaths-point-to-natures-risks/#respond Tue, 27 Sep 2011 09:05:43 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1050128 Yosemite National Park has seen an increase in visitor deaths this year, prompting rangers and park visitors to reconsider the risks and safety precautions inherent in a park visit. As of late September, the annual count stood at 18 deaths inside park grounds.

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Yosemite National Park has seen an increase in visitor deaths this year, prompting rangers and park visitors to reconsider the risks and safety precautions inherent in a park visit. As of late September, the annual count stood at 18 deaths inside park grounds.

Welcoming four million visitors last year, Yosemite is a popular draw for Stanford students, whether on dorm camping trips or hikes led by the Stanford Redwood Club.

Many deaths in national parks occur due to common causes, such as heart attack, though several this year in Yosemite have been accidental; two falls occurred on Half Dome, and three people were swept over a waterfall. Despite the increase of deaths in Yosemite, national park deaths have not increased overall this year. As of Sept. 5, 113 deaths had occurred in national parks this year, fewer than at that point last year, according to Park Service spokesman Jeffrey Olson in an interview with The New York Times.

The Stanford community knows what it is like to experience loss due to the dangers of Yosemite.

In July 2010, Christina “Chris” Chan M.S. ‘08, a former doctoral student in political science at Stanford, died in a climbing accident at Yosemite at the age of 31. In March 1997, Henry Tien, a 21-year-old senior majoring in biological sciences, died from head injuries sustained when he fell while hiking in the park.

“It’s unfortunate when accidents happen, but if there’s one thing we can predict, it’s that they will happen,” said Andy Fields, director of Stanford Outdoor Education. Fields noted that Yosemite has high levels of usage and many members of the public are unaware of the risks involved in a visit to the awe-inspiring site.

“It’s almost an amusement park kind of feel, but it’s still a very dangerous place – beautiful, too, and that’s what makes it the wilderness,” he said.

Fields highlighted how Stanford uses decision-making, as opposed to a protocol-based system, to train student outdoor leaders.

“We like to empower the students, our leaders, as much as possible because conditions always change in the backcountry,” he said.

“Our main approach in outdoor education is to give adequate training, that’s been our primary philosophy,” Fields said. “The wilderness is a place to be enjoyed and respected constantly – no matter what skill level.”

Rebecca Castro ’12, an environmental anthropology major who grew up in and nearby Yosemite, said she sees many accidents as evidence of a “lack of respect for the powers of nature and the warning signs nature provides.”

Castro spent the past summer in the park as a cultural anthropologist and American Indian liaison intern. This fall, she led a Stanford Pre-Orientation Trip to North Lake Tahoe and emphasized that communication, respect and responsibility were key to the safety of the trip.

“There are still risks you can take and you have to know your limits,” said Jeremy Caves, a graduate student in environmental earth system science. Caves was a teaching assistant for the recent Sophomore College course “Environmental and Geological Field Studies in the Rocky Mountains,” taught by geological and environmental sciences professor Page Chamberlain. The course took students on a trip to both Yellowstone and Teton National Parks, where they saw firsthand the “spectacular beauty” and dangers associated with geological field research.

Cave described safety steps the students learned, such as carrying and knowing how to use bear spray and hiking in at least pairs, but ideally groups of four or more.

“That’s the important part, training people,” Caves said.

“If we provide people with the right tools they can have great experiences,” Fields said, discussing how calculated risks make the substantial benefits of outdoor education possible.

“I want to encourage people to go into the wilderness, but I want them to go in adequately aware and prepared.”

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Three Books authors discuss moral dilemma of war https://stanforddaily.com/2011/09/26/3-books/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/09/26/3-books/#respond Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:04:18 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1050072 After a week of orientation activities, Stanford freshmen took on this year’s topic, “ethics of war,” Sunday afternoon at the annual Three Books panel discussion. This year’s books focused on issues of national security. Scott Sagan, political science professor and co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), who also moderated the discussion […]

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After a week of orientation activities, Stanford freshmen took on this year’s topic, “ethics of war,” Sunday afternoon at the annual Three Books panel discussion.

This year’s books focused on issues of national security. Scott Sagan, political science professor and co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), who also moderated the discussion in Memorial Auditorium, made the selections.

Three Books authors discuss moral dilemma of war
Professor of political science Scott Sagan and this year's Three Books authors at Sunday's discussion. (WENDING LU/The Stanford Daily)

The class of 2015 was mailed copies of the three books over the summer. Sunday’s Q&A with the authors marked the end of New Student Orientation.

The theme of this year’s talk was “war ethics,” a particularly timely topic as the Faculty Senate voted last April to end the 40-year ban of ROTC on campus.

“The Violence of Peace: America’s Wars in the Age of Obama” by Yale Law School professor Stephen L. Carter ’76 examines President Barack Obama’s views on the morality of war; “One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer” by former United States Marine Corps Captain Nathaniel Fick chronicles Fick’s officer training, as well as his service and adjustment to civilian life; and “March” by Geraldine Brooks, the only piece of fiction among the three, captures the untold story from “Little Women” by imagining the Civil-War experience of Mr. March and his wife, Marmee.

Sagan introduced the three authors while noting Stanford’s goal of creating “cultured and useful graduates” and his hope that the class of 2015 will learn that “reasonable people can disagree.”

Fick reflected on why he chose to become a marine and the moral dilemmas he faced as a leader. He, too, discussed the need for open dialogue.

“It’s not sufficient to say ‘Oh, that’s for someone else, that’s not for our kind of people,” he said.

“We can’t simply watch things happen and comment in the living room,” Carter said, expressing the importance for citizens to question their leaders.

Carter also discussed the deep significance that the Sept. 11 attacks have had for current college students.

Brooks warned against placing too much glory on war and stressed, along with the other speakers, that there are “multiple forms of service.”

The authors “gave an honest perspective on what the military is lacking–a discussion that some of my country-mates are unwilling to have,” said Jack Cook ’15, a member of the incoming ROTC class.

Before the talk, Stanford Says No to War set up a table outside Memorial Auditorium and distributed free copies of other books, including several titles by Noam Chomsky and “War Is a Lie” by David Swanson.

Josh Schott ’14, president of the student group, said he felt the Three Books discussion presented “an overly narrow point of view,” and the group hoped to offer students a “broader perspective.”

“We feel this has to coincide with the bringing back of ROTC,” Schott said. “[The idea of] ‘bridging the civilian-military divide’ actually means trying to militarize our campus.”

U.S. Marine Corps Lance Corporal Sebastain Gould ’13 attended the talk and reflected on Fick’s book, saying he wished he could read more about Fick’s adjustment to civilian life.

“It’s not as action oriented but as integral a part of being a Marine officer,” Gould said. Gould enlisted in the Marine Corps after his freshman year at Stanford and served in Iraq. He described the discussion as a valued “supplement to the lack of ROTC on campus.”

“I feared, I must admit, that having a challenging set of books…would cause some students to slack,” Sagan said, remarking that he and the panel were impressed by the “quality and depth” of the student questions and touched by the standing ovation.

Sagan said that Stanford previously held a bias toward certain types of service, but if ROTC accepts Stanford’s invitation to return to campus, “all forms of national service would be on equal footing.”

However, not all freshmen are convinced.

“I’m conflicted about ROTC because they still do not let everyone join, and they still have discriminatory policies,” said Adrienne von Schulthess ’15.

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