Michael May – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com Breaking news from the Farm since 1892 Wed, 13 Jan 2016 08:27:25 +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 Michael May – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com 32 32 204779320 Car break-ins prompt warning at Oak Creek Apartments https://stanforddaily.com/2016/01/13/car-break-ins-prompt-warning-at-oak-creek-apartments/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/01/13/car-break-ins-prompt-warning-at-oak-creek-apartments/#respond Wed, 13 Jan 2016 08:27:25 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1109252 A recent uptick in crime at the Sand Hill Road complex caught the attention of apartment management, who issued a warning letter to residents late December.

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At least three car break-ins occurred at Oak Creek over winter break. (UDIT GOYAL/The Stanford Daily)

Oak Creek Apartments, an upscale community where studio units demand a starting rent of over $2,600 per month, is home to Stanford students, faculty and families.

Records provided by the Palo Alto Police Department, which has jurisdiction over the complex, detail at least three car break-ins at Oak Creek over the winter break period.

One Oak Creek resident, who requested anonymity, confirmed in an e-mail to The Daily that he had left his car unlocked and about $50 worth of items were stolen overnight.

Karthik Sivaram, a graduate student and resident of Oak Creek during the fall quarter, was not surprised to hear of the car break-ins.

“Bike thefts are way too common there. [At] the rack at which I would park my bike [at Oak Creek], there were multiple robberies on that rack,” he said.

Fellow graduate student and Oak Creek resident Kevin Poulet was a victim of bicycle theft this fall.

“I got my bike stolen — it was in a bike rack at Oak Creek,” Poulet said. “I went to Oak Creek management and told them my bike was stolen. They told me to report it to the police, and they recorded the theft, but they didn’t take any action [after that].”

According to Sivaram, there are measures Oak Creek can take to prevent future incidents of theft.

“I think they can place CCTV cameras — that seems like an obvious and fairly low cost solution. I’m really surprised they haven’t done anything, but I feel like they don’t care about Stanford students,” he said.

Despite the recent increase in criminal activity at Oak Creek, both Sivaram and Poulet said that they generally felt safe at the complex.

“I didn’t feel threatened there,” Sivaram said. “I used to get packages delivered and they’d be placed outside my door, and they’d never get stolen. I felt pretty safe — it was only the bikes, a lot of people had their bikes stolen in the quarter.”

“Yeah, I felt pretty safe, except for all these bike thefts I heard about,” added Poulet.

To deter automobile break-ins, the Palo Alto Police Department advises drivers to lock any valuables in the trunk and avoid leaving cars unattended in parking lots for extended periods of time.

Gerson Bakar & Associates, the management company in charge of Oak Creek Apartments, did not respond to The Daily’s request for comment.

 

Contact at Michael May at mmay20 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Professor aims to track grave relocation in China https://stanforddaily.com/2016/01/12/professor-aims-to-track-grave-relocation-in-china/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/01/12/professor-aims-to-track-grave-relocation-in-china/#respond Tue, 12 Jan 2016 09:45:09 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1109200 Associate professor of Chinese history Tom Mullaney and the Grave Reform in Modern China project aim to use quantitative data alongside articles and personal narratives to illustrate the movement of 15 million people’s remains over the last 15 years.

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(Courtesy of Stanford News)
(Courtesy of the Stanford News Service)

Associate professor of Chinese history Tom Mullaney and the Grave Reform in Modern China project aim to use quantitative data alongside articles and personal narratives to illustrate the movement of the remains of 15 million people over the last 15 years.

The project, which is currently in development, seeks to provide an innovative method to display the impact of grave relocation in China and its relationship with development in the country.

“The project systematically maps out places where the government is moving grave sites to new locations to make space for different kinds of new development, infrastructure or agricultural land,” said project collaborator David McClure, a digital humanities research developer at Stanford University Libraries and Stanford’s Center for Interdisciplinary Digital Research (CIDR), in a Jan. 8 article by Stanford News Service.

An interactive website will provide a two-panel view of the project’s research, in which one screen will show narratives about grave relocation while the main screen will display a map of China overlaid with data that users can sort with various filters.

Implemented over the last 30 years, China’s grave relocations are a controversial but less well-known aspect of the country’s population crisis, according to Mullaney. As cities expand, buried remains are moved or cremated and destroyed to make way for urban development.  

“This government policy is transforming China’s graveyards into sites of acute personal, social, political and economic contestation,” Mullaney told the Stanford News Service.

The project’s combination of qualitative media reports, blogs, essays and stories with an interactive map showing quantitative information aims to provide an experience similar to a curated walking tour through data on the phenomenon.

The Grave Reform in Modern China project’s web platform is set to launch later in 2016.

 

Contact Michael May at mmay20 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Q&A with Amr Hamzawy, visiting scholar at CDDRL https://stanforddaily.com/2015/12/07/qa-with-amr-hamzawy-visiting-scholar-at-cddrl/ https://stanforddaily.com/2015/12/07/qa-with-amr-hamzawy-visiting-scholar-at-cddrl/#respond Mon, 07 Dec 2015 20:00:45 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1108202 Amr Hamzawy is a visiting scholar at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and an associate professor of political science at Cairo University. Before arriving at Stanford, Hamzawy played critical roles in the Egyptian political scene, both during and after the Arab Spring -- including a term in the first parliament elected after Egypt’s 2011 revolution.

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(Courtesy of Amr Hamzawy)
(Courtesy of Amr Hamzawy)

Amr Hamzawy is a visiting scholar at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and an associate professor of political science at Cairo University. Before arriving at Stanford, Hamzawy played critical roles in the Egyptian political scene, both during and after the Arab Spring — including a term in the first parliament elected after Egypt’s 2011 revolution.

The Daily sat down with Hamzawy to discuss his work at Stanford and the state of Egyptian politics today.

The Stanford Daily (TSD): Why did you choose to spend time here at Stanford, and what’s the focus of your research here?

Amr Hamzawy (AH): Well, I had to leave Egypt. The background is I took a clear position against the military coup. I was in fact banned from travel for a year in Egypt in 2014, which was basically one of the tools the repressive government uses to intimidate opponents. In 2015 my ban was lifted. I was, however, banned from teaching at my home university, Cairo University. The environment was becoming increasingly fascist, increasingly repressive for anyone who expresses a different point of view opposed to the one narrative coming from the ruling establishment. There were increased pressures as far as I [was] concerned, as far as my family [was] concerned. My wife is an actress so she [had] been banned from working as well, and she has been pressured in different ways. So we decided, in fact against our initial wish, to leave Egypt.

What happened was I basically wrote to several colleagues and friends, and my first choice was CDDRL, where [Stanford professor of political science and sociology] Larry Diamond is a very good friend of mine and [Stanford professor of political science and former U.S. Ambassador] Mike McFaul is a very good friend of mine.

Stanford was a choice based on the reputation of CDDRL, my friendship with Mike and Larry and the excellent reputation of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy, where [research associate] Hesham Sallam is at CDDRL. That’s basically what brought me to Stanford, and I wanted to be as far away as possible from Egypt. I keep saying it’s pretty far, and one of the greatest assets of the time difference is that you wake up and the day in Egypt has passed — so you take bad news in one shot, which is a big difference than following by the minute what is happening and unfolding all day.

In terms of my focus at Stanford, I am writing a book — it’s a research assignment so far — I’m working on a book where the working title is “Egypt’s Illiberal Liberals.” It’s an attempt to look at why the Egyptian middle class, which basically took out to the streets in 2011 to demand political freedom and democracy, decided to to give up on democratization and to once again move in the direction of calling on the military establishment to interfere and freeze pluralist politics.

One of the key issues which I am working on is how liberal, intellectual elites have been able to market the army interference and the military coup as a step to protect the nation state, to save society and to save the Egyptian identity.

TSD: You have studied and worked around the world. You completed a Ph.D. in Berlin, and you were also working with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Beirut. How does Stanford compare?

AH: It’s more of a vibrant intellectual environment. Of course I am not undermining the positive assets of my university in Berlin or of Carnegie in D.C. or in Beirut, where in different ways the environment has been inspiring as well.

But as of now, it relates to my role in the last four years because I went through two phases: the first phase where I was part of an attempt to make Egypt a democratic place — prior to 2011, [through] writing primarily, but post 2011… after I was elected to parliament — and a second phase where I [was] basically classified as a state enemy [in] July 2013. In a way, Stanford is an excellent place to reflect on the experience personally and to reflect in more of an objective manner — looking at what went wrong.

The big question in the literature is: Was it doomed to fail — was Egypt going to fail no matter what, or did key actors…commit key mistakes, tactical and strategic mistakes, which led Egypt to where it is today? That is sort of the big debate in the last two years, and Stanford is an excellent place to engage that debate and to try to contribute to it.

TSD: You founded a political party in 2011. However, you withdrew from Egypt’s current, 2015 parliamentary elections. Why?

AH: We founded the Egypt Freedom Party in 2011, and our platform has always been a liberal democratic platform — where you can compare our platform to the ideas of liberal parties in Europe or the U.S. — with a clear and pronounced commitment to a market economy and social justice, based on a socially responsible market economy as it’s framed in the European experience.

We fashioned a platform that enabled us to be elected to the “true parliament” — the only true parliament Egypt had in 2011 and 2012…. The level of competition was true, between people representing different shades, old and new. No one should imagine that 2011 eradicated the Mubarak regime. No, the Mubarak elite were very much out there, and it was their right. That’s very much what I believe in: As long as they are not implicated in human rights violations, they should be part of politics. We made the mistake… of trying to ban them from participating in politics. It was a shortsighted decision, which parliament took in 2012, and it backfired. It’s one of the big mistakes which I count as one of my own mistakes within the past four years.

At any rate, the elections of 2011… had the greatest voter turnout in modern Egyptian history of around 60 percent overall.

We had transparent management of the elections. Yes, religion was used, mosques were used, churches were used; but overall, it was a real breakthrough, so we participated, and I was elected to parliament. I tried to advance a democracy-based agenda — tried to push for security sector reform, transitional justice.

Parliament was dissolved six months after it started its work. The Assembly was sent home, and a year of increased tensions between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military establishment ended in a military coup in July 2013, basically freezing pluralist politics. Since then, what we have in Egypt is by no means a democratic environment or even a semi-democratic environment which would encourage someone like me to participate.

The one challenge you face is by participating you justify and legitimate that framework, that autocratic framework. When you participate in parliamentary elections in an autocratic or semi-autocratic setting or in a fascist setting, you have to have clarity with regard to how to weigh legitimating an unjust framework and becoming effective. My calculation is that I’m not going to be effective in the fascist environment, and I will only be used as a legitimating name.

TSD: You are known for criticizing the knee-jerk support that a majority of Egyptian liberals have shown Egypt’s current military regime since the 2013 coup. As a secular, liberal Egyptian yourself, has your criticism cost you any friends?

AH: Yes, many. On a personal note, that was the most shocking development in the last four years… to wake up to see most of [your friend and colleagues] giving up on democratic ideals and siding with the military establishment interfering in governance issues and freezing pluralist politics.

You see some of your friends not only buying into fascism — not only buying into the military dictatorship, but even playing the role of legitimating the dictatorship, of… justifying the bloodshed, justifying the military dictatorship, justifying the one-man show, which is backfiring.

TSD: What do you think is the biggest misunderstanding that Americans have about Egyptian politics today?

AH: I guess the biggest misunderstanding is a conventional one, which is to place your bet on the ruling establishment no matter what the ruling establishment is doing. The Americans did place their bet on Mubarak’s ruling establishment up until the very last day of the 18 days [of the 2011 Egyptian revolution], and then they shifted course.

In regards to [former Egyptian President] Mubarak and [current Egyptian President] Sisi you are placing your bet for regional issues, for international security concerns, for terror, on dictators who are basically creating more of an environment for terrorism domestically.

TSD: On a lighter note, you are a well-known personality in Egypt and the Arab world. In fact, you are married to an Egyptian movie star. Do people recognize you around the Bay Area?

AH: Yes, they do — Egyptians and Arabs. We were recently in San Francisco, [my wife] Basma and I, and she was stopped, and I was stopped by Egyptians and Arabs recognizing me. On campus, I get recognized by Arab students frequently, and so happily most of them are on our side — they are democracy fans, and so it’s pleasant recognition.

But we are enjoying being not recognized, because the last two years being recognized in a fascist environment as someone who is classified as a state enemy has been very unpleasant. There were incidents where people were shouting at us in the street. There was no physical violence, but you ask yourself, “Why am I doing this?” There are some moments personally which get to be very difficult for you to digest.

 

Contact Michael May at mmay20 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Free printing to end as University completes transition to pay system https://stanforddaily.com/2015/11/02/free-printing-to-end-as-university-completes-transition-to-pay-system/ https://stanforddaily.com/2015/11/02/free-printing-to-end-as-university-completes-transition-to-pay-system/#respond Tue, 03 Nov 2015 07:15:59 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1106179 Free printing privileges at Stanford’s libraries will end this week as the University finishes its implementation of a new pay-to-print system. The new Stanford Print Service will allow printing and copying via a Stanford ID card or through a separate payment card available for visitors. New printers have been installed across campus to complete the transition.

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The University is in the process of unveiling a new printing system (RAHIM ULLAH/The Stanford Daily).
The University is in the process of unveiling a new printing system (RAHIM ULLAH/The Stanford Daily).

Free printing privileges at Stanford’s libraries will end this week as the University finishes its implementation of a new pay-to-print system. The new Stanford Print Service will allow printing and copying via a Stanford ID card or through a separate payment card available for visitors. New printers have been installed across campus to complete the transition.

While a phased implementation began over one year ago, technical difficulties delayed the full transition to the new payment system this fall. The Office of the Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning (VPTL) has been overseeing the printing transition.

During implementation, it took a little more time than initially planned to integrate the new visitor print card plan component of the new system into Stanford’s complex and robust IT environment,” said Judith Romero, director of communications and marketing for VPTL, in an email to The Daily.

Students returning for fall quarter in September were initially prompted to use the new pay system when attempting to print at University libraries. By Week 2, library officials had posted a message explaining that printing would be free during the transition.

The free printing was a courtesy intended for visiting researchers and alumni, according to VPTL.

While implementing this capability, we wanted to make printing available to researchers using the libraries who do not have a Stanford ID, so we made printing free in the libraries for a limited period of time,” Romero said.

Under the new Stanford Print Service, standard printing costs $0.10 per page, and copies are $0.13 per page. Students no longer need to visit printing.stanford.edu to release their printed documents. Instead, customers can approve jobs and pay with their Stanford ID via the Stanford Card Plan or the new “Stanford Printing Card” — a cashless, pay-to-print system for visitors. Available at Green Library, library users can add money to their card by using a secure online payment system.

According to Romero, the new system improves management of supplies and servicing by monitoring usage rates across facilities and upgrading older machines.

“The hardware — the printers themselves — needed upgrading. The printing network software was outdated and needed to be replaced,” Romero said. “The cash payment system, used by those who can’t use the Stanford Card Plan (such as alumni or researchers visiting the libraries), was cumbersome and needed to be replaced, too.”

With the new system, users can also submit documents to be printed from personal laptops to any Stanford Print Service location across campus — without needing to add each printer to their computers’ settings. VPTL plans to extend this capability to smartphones and tablets in the future.

While free library printing was an unexpected perk for most students, some noticed an accompanying decrease in the amount of functioning printers at Green Library.

“Before my PWR class, I went to go print out my paper that was supposed to be peer-reviewed, said Zach Taylor ’18. “I went to three different printers and logged into each, and none of them worked. I ended up just going to class without my printed copy, 15 minutes late.”

Romero confirmed that the free printing period saw an increase in printing use but declined to cite specific figures. As for the out-of-order printers, she added, “As we switched over from the old system to the new, various printers were taken offline during the updates.”

The Stanford Print Service includes stations at the following locations: student residences, computer clusters, Lathrop Tech Desk, Lathrop 24-hour space, Green Library, the branch libraries and the second floor of Old Union. Further information on the system can be found at https://vptl.stanford.edu/printing-resources.

 

Contact Michael May at mmay20 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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New campus tour highlights Stanford humanities and arts https://stanforddaily.com/2015/10/15/new-campus-tour-highlights-stanford-humanities-and-arts/ https://stanforddaily.com/2015/10/15/new-campus-tour-highlights-stanford-humanities-and-arts/#respond Thu, 15 Oct 2015 07:07:38 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1104946 A new student-led tour aims to focus on a particular area of Stanford’s academic life: humanities and the arts. The hour-long Humanities and Arts Tour brings participants to arts-focused sites on campus, including the Cantor Arts Center, Rodin Sculpture Garden, and the new, 100,000 square foot McMurtry building, home of the Department of Art & Art History.

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Tour guide Kyle Efken '17 introduces visitors to the Cantor Arts Center. (NINA ZUBRILINA/The Stanford Daily)
Tour guide Kyle Efken ’17 introduces visitors to the Cantor Arts Center. (NINA ZUBRILINA/The Stanford Daily)

A new student-led tour aims to focus on a particular area of Stanford’s academic life: humanities and the arts. The hour-long Humanities and Arts Tour brings participants to arts-focused sites on campus, including the Cantor Arts Center, Rodin Sculpture Garden and the new 100,000 square foot McMurtry building, home of the Department of Art & Art History.

DJ Dull-MacKenzie, director of visitor relations, said that the tour is an element of the University’s efforts “to raise the prominence and visibility of our programs in the humanities and arts.”

The tours, which began in May, are offered on Wednesdays at noon during the fall quarter.

They tend to attract fewer participants than general campus tours that occur daily. Smaller groups, often around ten people, provide a more intimate experience and allow more time for questions and conversation than a typical tour.

“It’s cool because usually you will get families of a couple of people, but then you will also get individuals who are very interested in things going on [at Stanford],” said Kyle Efken ’17, a tour guide since the program’s inception last spring.

While the new tours, like the regular campus tours, evoke conversation about the time capsules buried in the Main Quad or the childhood of Leland Stanford Jr.’s childhood, the focus remains unique to Stanford’s humanities and arts community.

In his tours, Efken discusses grant opportunities available for humanities students, overviews academic requirements for related majors and explains residence-based programs like Structured Liberal Education that integrates humanities studies into a specific dorm experience.

The tours have attracted prospective students with a particular interest in the arts and humanities. Meghan Marshall, a prospective undergraduate from Arizona, was drawn to the tour because of her musical background and interest in performing as a career. She enjoyed learning about the arts while getting a sense of the school.

“I just like seeing the campus, the character of the buildings and the people,” Marshall said.

Tour guide Liz Knarr ’16 enjoys sharing her enthusiasm for the humanities and arts on campus.

Sharing that experience with them is the best part of my job – I get to let them know why it so wonderful to be an artist and humanist at Stanford,” Knarr said in an email to The Daily.

According to Knarr, studying arts and humanities helps develop the conscientious and critical thinking necessary to become a globally engaged citizen.

Dull-MacKenzie echoed that sentiment and highlighted the effect of humanities and arts programs to promote “learning to think creatively and critically, to reason and to ask questions.”

“These are key intellectual abilities and attributes that are directly applicable to virtually all aspects of society,” Dull-MacKenzie said.

“Studying the arts has taught me teamwork, accountability, leadership, and initiative – skills that, for me, would not have been developed if I were sitting in front of a computer all day,” Knarr added.

 

Contact Michael Craig May at mmay20 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Stanford offers free flu vaccines starting this week https://stanforddaily.com/2015/10/07/stanford-offers-free-flu-vaccines-starting-this-week/ https://stanforddaily.com/2015/10/07/stanford-offers-free-flu-vaccines-starting-this-week/#respond Wed, 07 Oct 2015 08:08:45 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1104455 Starting this week, Stanford Environmental Health & Safety will begin offer free flu vaccinations. The shots are offered annually throughout the autumn quarter in preparation for flu season.

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Starting this week, Stanford Environmental Health & Safety will begin offer free flu vaccinations. The shots are offered annually throughout the autumn quarter in preparation for flu season.

The vaccinations are available for free to registered students, faculty, staff, postdoctoral fellows and scholars, retirees and the spouses or domestic partners of graduate and undergraduate students. Students hoping to get a vaccination for their spouses or domestic partners must accompany them to their appointment.

For a $32 fee, Stanford also offers shots to the spouses or domestic partners of faculty and staff, SLAC employees, postdoctoral scholars and fellows and retirees.

Vaccinations will be available at Vaden Health Center on every Monday through Dec. 7 (excluding Nov. 23) from 3-6 p.m.

In addition to the drop-in clinic hours, Stanford will host nine on-campus vaccination clinics throughout October and November at various campus locations. Clinics during morning hours will take place at White Plaza, Burnham Pavilion, Clark Center Courtyard, SLAC, the GSB’s MBA Student Lounge and the Porter Drive Campus.

There will also be an evening clinic next Tuesday, Oct. 13 at Arrillaga Dining, followed by one on Tuesday Oct. 20 at FloMo Dining and one the week after at Wilbur Dining on Oct. 27.

An original Stanford ID and signed copy of a Stanford Flu Consent Form are required to receive a flu shot. For further information on clinic dates, times, and locations, visit flu.stanford.edu.

 

Please contact Michael Craig May at mmay20 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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