Yasmin Samrai – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com Breaking news from the Farm since 1892 Mon, 04 Feb 2019 09:15:47 +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 Yasmin Samrai – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com 32 32 204779320 Stanford-based ePluribus app helps constituents get comments to representatives https://stanforddaily.com/2019/02/04/stanford-based-epluribus-app-helps-constituents-get-comments-to-representatives/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/02/04/stanford-based-epluribus-app-helps-constituents-get-comments-to-representatives/#respond Mon, 04 Feb 2019 08:33:07 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1149117 Aidan and Liam launched their startup ePluribus in July 2016, beginning the years long process of building the app and pitching their idea to investors.

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For entrepreneurs, the creativity and energy that drives innovation can lead to sleepless nights. That was the case for Liam McCarty ’18 and his younger brother Aidan McCarty ’19 during a family vacation almost three years ago, when a nagging problem was keeping them awake at night. It was the summer before the 2016 presidential election, and the McCarty brothers were frustrated by what they saw as a lack of engagement between representatives and their constituents.

The brothers began to brainstorm ways to amplify the voices of ordinary citizens in the legislative process. After bouncing around some ideas, they made a key observation: the existing process of contacting representatives — usually via letter or phone — was much too clumsy and complicated for the 21st century. As the best entrepreneurs do, they saw opportunity in this existing inefficiency, and as entrepreneurs in the 21st century often do, they turned to social media. 

“When you’re writing a message to your representative, most of the time you’ll just get a formulaic response from them,” Aidan said. “The offices are very backlogged in terms of the number of messages and they also have no idea who’s sending them.”

The McCarty brothers had witnessed the existing communication inefficiency firsthand when they toured Washington D.C. on an OZY Genius Award Grant in 2017, speaking to investors, residents and 250 government representatives on Capitol Hill to gauge the extent of the problem.

“We went into one of the [representative’s] offices and they showed us the system they use to process their messages,” Aidan recalled. “They literally pulled out this laptop from the early 2000s, opened an outdated version of Internet Explorer, and [went] to a website where they have five entries from this single guy who’s writing about the same issue every day but entering his information slightly differently, so they go in as different people.”

The current “constituent management” systems, as they are called in Washington, rely on citizens making an effort to look up their representatives, track down their contact information and navigate their often outdated messaging system.

Aidan argued that the technology currently used to receive and file messages from constituents is not only outdated and time-consuming, but also falls prey to fake pressure groups. He described the phenomenon of “astroturfing,” where companies are hired to create the illusion of “grassroots” enthusiasm for a policy or individual. A common technique that astroturfers use is creating multiple online identities to flood government offices with fake messages.

“It shouldn’t be the case that someone with a lot of money can have opinions, barrage a representative and drown out real people,” Aidan said. “It should be the case that an aggregate of all of our opinions make policy. That’s fundamental to the democratic process.”

Liam and Aidan set out to modernize this communication, turning their gaze to the platform where so much political discourse already occurs: social media. They decided to build a bridge between social media sites and legislative offices so that people could use their existing Twitter and Facebook profiles to send official messages to government representatives. With this idea, ePluribus was born.

Launching ePluribus

Aidan and Liam launched their startup ePluribus in July 2016, beginning the years-long process of building the app and pitching their idea to investors.

Since then, they have raised $930,000 from a pool of angel investors, crowdfunding and awards. Liam has also graduated Stanford with a bachelor’s in physics, while Aidan is on a leave of absence to support the venture.  

Like the platform itself, the name combines 21st century technology with age-old democratic values, putting an electronic spin on the “e”  in the national motto “e pluribus unum.” The brothers believe the motto, Latin for “out of many, one,” captures the spirit of their startup: a nonpartisan messaging system by the people, for the people.

The first version of ePluribus, which came out in January 2019 and can be downloaded from the Google Chrome web store, is a browser extension that allows users to turn their tweets and Facebook posts into official messages to their representatives.

By installing the free ePluribus browser extension, users create a unique “civic ID” — an account that includes their name, email, home address, and phone number — which links them to their local, state and federal representatives. Then, anytime they write about politics on social media, they can also send the text of the post as an official message to their elected officials.

The platform doesn’t require buy-in from representatives — as Aidan explained, legislative offices “literally don’t even need to know that ePluribus exists” to start receiving constituent feedback.

The McCartys hope that constituents will use ePluribus to give their representatives constructive feedback or share personal stories on how specific legislation affects them.  

“People should be able to write anything to their representatives and have their voices heard,” Aidan said. “When a whole lot of people, for example, write ‘I hate this bill,’ it could change the representative’s opinion.” 

Politics in 140 characters

Marrying politics and social media, ePluribus takes an approach to the challenge of civic engagement that reflects not only Stanford’s technology-driven startup culture, but also the mass migration of political discourse to online forums.

ePluribus’s strategy of codifying of social media posting as official legislative communication is nevertheless unprecedented, given the widespread criticism of social media’s growing role in politics in light of Russia’s weaponization of social media during the 2016 election. The rise of bots and fake online identities means that tweeting at politicians often carries little weight, as reported by The New Yorker; staffers in Congress tend to dismiss tweets and Facebook posts in their current form because of the difficulty of determining whether they came from real constituents.

“Initially we were very resistant to using Twitter and Facebook as political tools,” Aidan said. “But we’re trying to meet people where they are.”

“We realized that there’s already a political discourse that exists on social media but that rarely reaches the representatives … and it’s not reasonable to expect people to go to a completely new platform to voice their political opinion,” he continued.

Liam and Aidan have begun to build security features to verify that ePluribus users are real constituents instead of dangerous bots, but they said their app’s security features are far from perfect. They believe that it’s unlikely anyone will use the platform for nefarious purposes while the startup is growing, but they say security will continue to be a top priority as they build out the technology.

Director of Stanford’s Public Policy program Greg Rosston, who has been a key advisor of ePluribus, said identity verification is of high importance.

“Representatives care about what their citizens have to say, and trying to identify who they are is probably very useful,” he said, adding that identity verification is difficult even for traditional modes of communicating with representatives, who often cannot verify over phone or email that a comment is from a real constituent of their district.

Rosston believes that ePluribus could help to improve democracy by speeding up the process of contacting representatives, diversifying the number of voices that are heard and, in turn, increasing the accountability of government.

“Right now, our democratic system is more tilted towards campaign donors than the constituents,” Rosston said. “I think ePluribus will engage more civic discourse in a way that’s more reflective of democracy.”

 

Contact Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Californians vote on 11 statewide propositions https://stanforddaily.com/2018/11/07/californians-vote-on-11-statewide-propositions/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/11/07/californians-vote-on-11-statewide-propositions/#respond Wed, 07 Nov 2018 09:38:17 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1146436 On Election Day, California voters elected Democrat Gavin Newsom as their new governor over Republican challenger John Cox and decided the fate of 11 high-stakes statewide propositions affecting issues from children’s hospitals to rent control. Five propositions were passed, four were rejected and two had yet to be called early Wednesday morning. Political analysts kept […]

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On Election Day, California voters elected Democrat Gavin Newsom as their new governor over Republican challenger John Cox and decided the fate of 11 high-stakes statewide propositions affecting issues from children’s hospitals to rent control.

Five propositions were passed, four were rejected and two had yet to be called early Wednesday morning.

Political analysts kept close watch on the congressional races in Southern California, which played a pivotal role in Democrats’ successful efforts to regain control of the House of Representatives.

Nationwide, voters in 37 states weighed in on a total of 157 ballot measures on election day.

Propositions approved

Despite garnering fewer campaign contributions, Proposition 2 was passed, which will divert $2 billion from California’s Mental Health Services Act toward constructing approximately 20,000 units of supportive housing for people with severe mental illnesses who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

There are over 134,000 people living on the street in California, and as many as a third have an untreated mental illness.

“It finally releases the use of money that was previously already essentially gathered by the state in the aftermath of the passage of the millionaire’s tax a while ago,” said co-president of Stanford Democrats Gabe Rosen ’19.

“I think it’s great that that money can now go to people who actually need it and be put to a great purpose to assist some of the most vulnerable members of California’s homeless population,” he said.

Voters chose to approve Proposition 4 as well, which raises $1.5 billion in bonds to fund construction and expansion at California’s 13 children’s hospitals.

One of the beneficiaries of this proposition is Stanford Children’s Health, which runs the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, and looks to receive $135 million in funding from the measure.

Chief medical officer at Stanford Children’s Health, Dennis Lund, said he was “thrilled” with the positive outcome.

“The funds provided by Prop 4 will allow us to move forward with much needed redesign and improvement plans for our neonatal intensive care unit,” Lund said. “Along with bringing in new technology, we will be able to offer families more privacy and a better family-centered care experience overall.”

Though Californians changed their clocks back last Sunday to end Daylight Savings Time, they embraced year-round daylight saving time in a landslide approval of Proposition 7. This approval will give the California State Legislature the authority to vote to end the biannual time change.

The reform, which proponents say will promote energy efficiency and reduce workplace injuries, will still need a two-thirds vote from the California State Legislature.

“At first glance [Prop 7] may appear to be a pretty quixotic ballot measure, addressing Daylight Saving Time of all things,” Rosen said.

“But the rationale really is there,” he added. “If it can assist the state in even a marginal capacity to reduce electricity consumption, it makes sense in that way. It is a small step toward helping the state achieve its greenhouse gas emission goals.”

Proposition 11, which passed by over a 20 percent margin, limits the scope of a 2016 decision by the California Supreme Court that made it unlawful for security guards to be forced to remain on call during breaks.

This measure was supported by ambulance operators and opposed by United EMS Workers, a labor union that represents 4,000 EMTs in California. Paramedics and ambulance workers who oppose the proposition say that they fall under this category and deserve such protections.

Proposition 12, which requires all egg-laying hens to be cage-free by the end of 2021 and requires farmers to give a minimum amount of space to calves and pigs, passed by a comfortable margin.

Stanford People for Animal Welfare (PAW) and California Democrats supported the proposition while Stanford College Republicans (SCR) and the California G.O.P. oppose the measure.

Responding to the outcome, Stanford PAW President Yelena Mandelshtam ’19 said the group encourages the passage of legislation to protect farm animals in California.

“We are very happy with the outcome of this vote, as it shows that a majority of California voters believe that farm animals should not live their lives in cruel confinement,” said Mandelshtam.

Propositions rejected

Voters overwhelmingly rejected the hotly contested Proposition 10, a ballot measure to allow local municipalities to expand rent control, in a victory for its opponents who made over $74 million in cash contributions to the ballot measure.

Stanford Democrats, who had mirrored the California Democrats in their support of Prop. 10, expressed disappointment that the proposition was rejected.

“Coming from New York City, I have seen the impact that rent control has had on maintaining a level of equity within the city’s housing stock,” said Rosen.

“[The failure of the proposition] removes a tool from the policy toolkit that legislators would have had to address given the affordability crisis that California is facing, especially in the Bay Area,” he added.

Stanford Coalition for Planning an Equitable 2035 (SCoPE 2035) were also “disappointed” with Prop 10’s defeat, which many of its housing advocacy partners supported, according to SCoPE 2035 member Matt Nissen ’20.

Hoover Institution research fellow David Henderson, who appeared in a television advertisement for the No on Prop 10 campaign, responded that it was a “great victory” that makes economic sense.

Prop 10 would have made housing even more scarce and more expensive, especially for more-mobile people,” Henderson said. “It would have helped the few who already have apartments and plan to stay there at the expense of property owners and prospective renters.”

There was a high-stakes campaign around Proposition 5, which voters decided not to pass. It would have allowed elderly and disabled homeowners to move in California and keep their existing property tax rate, with a possible adjustment.

Schools and local governments would each lose over $100 million in annual property taxes early on and about $1 billion per year as a result.

In a win for liberals, Proposition 6 also was rejected late on Tuesday night, leaving a 12-cent per gallon gas tax in place and rejecting an increase in the vehicle license fee. The proposition was slated to reduce funding for public transportation, roads and highways.

Proposition 8, which would have capped profits of kidney dialysis providers to 15 percent above the industry-defined cost of service, was rejected by a significant margin.

It affects 80,000 Californians experiencing kidney failure who need dialysis three times a week to cleanse their blood. It became the most expensive ballot measure in the state’s history, with supporters and opponents contributing a total of $130 million.

Propositions not yet called

Proposition 1, which would direct $3 billion toward the building and preservation of affordable rental housing in California, was too close to call at press time, with the “yes” vote leading 52.5 percent to 47.5 percent, with 47 percent of precincts reporting.

The proposition would additionally approve $1 billion worth of loans to veterans for the purchase of homes and farms.

Stanford Democrats supported the proposition, claiming that “its explicit funding for transit-oriented and mixed density development, among other provisions, will go a long way toward establishing a larger affordable housing stock.”

On the other hand, SCR opposed Proposition 1 because they believe it will have a negligible impact on California’s housing shortage.

Proposition 3 was also not yet called early Wednesday morning. The $8.9 billion bond measure was slated to fund environmental projects, including dam repairs, restorations of watersheds such as San Francisco Bay and wildlife protection.

The proposition comes in the wake of California’s record-breaking drought. Although the drought officially ended in September, it shrunk water and crop supplies, harmed wildlife and cost farmers billions in revenue.

Contact Michael Espinosa at mesp2021 ‘at’ stanford.edu, Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu and Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu.

 

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Election 2018: The Stanford Daily’s Voter Guide to California’s Ballot Propositions https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/29/election-2018-the-stanford-dailys-voter-guide-to-californias-ballot-propositions/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/29/election-2018-the-stanford-dailys-voter-guide-to-californias-ballot-propositions/#respond Tue, 30 Oct 2018 06:06:46 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1145849 This article is the second in a two-part series of voter guides leading up to the Nov. 6 midterm elections. Hover over the plus signs in the graphic below for a summary of the propositions and then click on the embedded link for more information about the campus and public debate. On Nov. 6, California’s […]

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This article is the second in a two-part series of voter guides leading up to the Nov. 6 midterm elections.

Hover over the plus signs in the graphic below for a summary of the propositions and then click on the embedded link for more information about the campus and public debate.

Election 2018: The Stanford Daily’s Voter Guide to California’s Ballot PropositionsOn Nov. 6, California’s voters will weigh 11 ballot propositions in addition to electing officials and representatives to the House and Senate. Billions of dollars are at stake as voters decide whether to direct money towards affordable housing, road infrastructure, children’s hospital and other initiatives. If passed, the propositions effectively alter the law under California’s Constitution.

Though the propositions number one through 12, only 11 propositions remain on the ballot; the California Supreme Court removed the Calexit-inspired Proposition 9 from the ballot in July. The measure, which asked the government to divide California into three states, reportedly raised  “significant” questions about its legal validity.

“We conclude that the potential harm in permitting the measure to remain on the ballot outweighs the potential harm in delaying the proposition to a future election,” the Court wrote.

4 out of the 11 propositions on the ballot are bond measures, which ask voters to approve or deny additional funding.

As of early October, 1,214 Stanford community members have registered to vote, StanfordVotes co-director Antonia Hellman ’21 reported to The Daily. This marks a significant increase from last year’s midterm, where 800 people registered from Stanford.

Voter enthusiasm for the 2018 midterm elections is also unusually high across the nation, according to a new national survey by the Pew Research Center. Political analysts, citing the high primary turnout, suggest that the Trump presidency has spurred the surge of self-reported interest in the elections.

Following The Daily’s coverage of local and state races, this voter guide breaks down each of the 11 propositions and gauges the current political and campus debate surrounding them.

This table illustrates the positions of California’s Democratic and Republican Parties on the November 2018 ballot propositions.

Election 2018: The Stanford Daily’s Voter Guide to California’s Ballot Propositions

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu and Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Man found masturbating in Escondido Village elevator https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/11/man-found-masturbating-in-escondido-village-elevator/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/11/man-found-masturbating-in-escondido-village-elevator/#respond Thu, 11 Oct 2018 07:05:53 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1144714 A young male was sighted masturbating inside the elevator of the graduate apartment block Quillen Highrise in Escondido Village on Tuesday evening, according to an Alert SU report.

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A young male was sighted masturbating inside of a Quillen Highrise elevator in the Escondido Village graduate student housing complex on Tuesday evening, according to an Alert SU report.

At approximately 8:40 p.m., a woman entered the elevator and saw the man exposing himself. She described him as an Asian male with short, black hair, approximately 5’9’’ and between 25 and 30 years old. She said he was dressed in dark clothes.

The reporting party and the man spoke briefly before she left the elevator and exited the building via a stairway. There was no physical contact between the two. It is unknown whether the male subject has left Quillen.

If the subject is positively identified, the Stanford Public Department of Safety (SUDPS) will forward the case to the District Attorney’s Office for review and determination of a charge, according to spokesperson Bill Larson.

California’s indecent exposure statute prohibits intentional public genital exposure for sexual gratification or offense.

The police have no more information to share about this incident.

Contact Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu.

 

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Homeless man discovered squatting inside Meier Hall https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/04/homeless-man-discovered-squatting-inside-meier-hall/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/04/homeless-man-discovered-squatting-inside-meier-hall/#respond Thu, 04 Oct 2018 08:32:51 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1144335 A homeless man, who had been sighted loitering and sleeping in Meier Hall on multiple occasions, received a warning from Stanford police early Tuesday morning after a Resident Assistant (RA) discovered and reported the behavior.  

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A homeless man, who had been sighted loitering and sleeping in Meier Hall on multiple occasions, received a warning from Stanford police early Tuesday morning after a Resident Assistant (RA) discovered and reported the behavior.  

Residents initially wondered whether the man — whom RAs Isaiah Drummond ’20 and Nizhóní Begay ’20 described as Asian, 5′ 7″, 150 pounds and in his mid-20s — was a graduate student or some other Stanford affiliate. After RAs were unable to identify him from a photo database of student residents, they contacted police at 1:47 a.m. Tuesday morning. Stanford University Department of Public Safety (SUDPS) formally issued the warning at 3:19 a.m.

The police and a campus Residence Dean, who was on call when the intruder was discovered, instructed RAs on how to ensure residents’ safety.

“We warned the residents to just be mindful and keep their doors locked and to stay in their room unless absolutely necessary, just as precautionary measures,” Drummond said.

He added in an email to The Daily that no resident was injured by the intruder.

Police searched inside and outside of the dorm but were unable to locate the man, though they did find personal belongings he had left behind in the lounge. The items included a backpack, laptop and some documents, from which police deduced the man’s name.

Two hours later, a Deputy stopped a man who she recognized from previous incidents walking nearby. He matched the description given by Drummond and Begay.

“Before being released, he was admonished with a warning that he would be arrested for trespassing if he is ever inside any student residence in the future,” wrote SUDPS spokesperson Bill Larson in an statement to The Daily.

Panic circulated Meier Hall following an RA’s email announcement — sent to residents in the early hours of the morning  — alerting them of a “situation going on in the dorm.”

“I think a lot of people right now are feeling very nervous, scared because we did send out an email… [and] when we didn’t give any explanation about that, it created a lot of fear,” Begay said.

“Lock your doors and stay inside your rooms tonight,” Drummond wrote in an email sent to residents of Meier and Naranja at 1:52 a.m, minutes after the man was reported to police.

“If anyone needs to leave their room (ie – to use the bathroom), just bring your key with you and keep the door locked,” he advised an hour later in a subsequent email.

At a dorm meeting on Tuesday evening, Meier RAs encouraged residents to become more aware of who they let into the building.

“We are using this incident as a teaching for the dorm,” Drummond added. “We want it to be customary to ask unknown individuals who they are visiting [and] purpose of their visit before letting them into the building.”

 

Contact Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu.

 

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Man suspected of drugging and groping female student https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/01/man-suspected-of-drugging-and-groping-female-student/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/01/man-suspected-of-drugging-and-groping-female-student/#respond Tue, 02 Oct 2018 02:03:52 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1144188 A female student was allegedly drugged and groped at a social event on The Row late Saturday night, according to an AlertSU report. The report states that the woman was offered water by an unknown male, whose affiliation to Stanford remains unclear. After taking a sip of the potentially-spiked drink, the woman thought that the […]

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A female student was allegedly drugged and groped at a social event on The Row late Saturday night, according to an AlertSU report. The report states that the woman was offered water by an unknown male, whose affiliation to Stanford remains unclear.

After taking a sip of the potentially-spiked drink, the woman thought that the liquid tasted strange. She has little recollection of the remainder of the evening, but told her friends that while she and the male suspect were dancing, he “groped” her.

It is unknown whether an additional crime, such as a sexual assault, also took place that night. The victim’s friends safely escorted her home, according to the report.

The incident was reported to Stanford’s Department of Public Safety (SUDPS) on Sunday. SUDPS described the incident as a “possible aggravated assault.” Aggravated assault includes the act of intentionally giving someone a harmful substance without their consent or knowledge.

The Department encourages members of the community with knowledge of the crime to contact Public Safety officials at 650.329.2413.

In a statement issued to The Daily Monday night, Stanford Public Safety said it has no further information on the matter.

 

Contact Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu

 

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Caltrain weekend service to San Francisco set to close for construction https://stanforddaily.com/2018/09/30/caltrain-weekend-service-to-san-francisco-set-to-close-for-construction/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/09/30/caltrain-weekend-service-to-san-francisco-set-to-close-for-construction/#respond Mon, 01 Oct 2018 01:43:17 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1144122 Students hoping to escape the “Stanford bubble” with a weekend trip to the north may have to adjust their travel plans slightly, as the Caltrain will soon suspend its weekend service to and from San Francisco.

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Students hoping to escape the “Stanford bubble” with a weekend trip to the north may have to adjust their travel plans slightly, as the Caltrain will soon suspend its weekend service to and from San Francisco.

The suspension will start on Oct. 6 and run through late spring 2019, providing time for construction crews to renovate parts of the commuter rail line.

The trip won’t be impossible, though. Instead of riding all the way to the city, Stanford commuters can instead travel from Palo Alto to Bayshore, 14 stops away, where the weekend train will terminate. From there, a free bus service is set to run to 22nd Street station and San Francisco station.

These buses will run on a different schedule than the standard weekend one, so commuters may need to budget more time to reach the Golden Gate City.

Otherwise, commuters can simply stop at Millbrae station and take the BART, another regional rail, into San Francisco. Students flying home from San Francisco International Airport for Thanksgiving or winter break may also take this route.

This announcement comes as part of Caltrain’s multi-billion-dollar plan to replace 75 percent of its old diesel-powered trains with electric engines, the end goal being a faster, greener service between San Francisco and San Jose.

“This closure is [also] necessary to complete the San Francisco Tunnel Work, which will pave the way for Caltrain Electrification,” the Caltrain website states.

There are four train tunnels in San Francisco, which will be outfitted with systems necessary to power the new electric trains.

Regular weekend service will be temporarily restored to Caltrain on Jan. 5 and 6 to accommodate football fans traveling to the NCAA college playoff national championship at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara. The suspension will then resume until late spring 2019.

In addition to electrification, a planned Caltrain Modernization Program (CalMod) will upgrade the trains, with the aim of improving their performance, passenger capacity and general reliability for the Bay Area community.

 

Contact Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Calexit supporters relaunch campaign with proposals to create Native American nation https://stanforddaily.com/2018/09/27/final-hf-calexit-supporters-relaunch-campaign-with-proposals-to-create-a-north-american-nation/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/09/27/final-hf-calexit-supporters-relaunch-campaign-with-proposals-to-create-a-north-american-nation/#respond Thu, 27 Sep 2018 07:03:22 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1143965 CalExit, the most recent movement calling for California’s secession from the United States, gained momentum following the 2016 presidential election, which Donald Trump won despite the state of California voting 61.5% for Hillary Clinton.

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CalExit, the most recent movement calling for California’s secession from the United States, gained momentum following the 2016 presidential election, which Donald Trump won despite the state of California voting 61.5 percent for Hillary Clinton.

The movement, part of a broader campaign called Yes California, had been viewed by many as more of a fringe group in the past, but the troubled relationship between California and President Trump helped get CalExit trending on social media in the months following the election.

The Stanford Democrats have no official position on the Calexit proposition and have not discussed the movement before, according to its vice president, Matt Wigler ’19, who is also an ASSU senator.

“I think the idea of CalExit is ridiculous,” Wigler said, voicing his personal opinion. “Neither the state nor the country would be as whole — nor would either be as prosperous — without the other.”

Wigler also suggested there are ties between the Yes California campaign and Russian “anti-globalist” groups. Its founder, Louis Marinelli, spends at least some of his time in Russia and works with a group suspected to have links to the Kremlin.

“It’s also worth noting with suspicion the support the Kremlin appears to have put into propping up CalExit buzz as part of its broader campaign to sow division and discord across our nation,” Wigler said.

Offering their official statement on secession, the Stanford College Republicans (SCR) expressed their disappointment with the movement.

“The Democrats tried secession in 1860 because they didn’t like the outcome of a presidential election and the fact that it would force them to recognize life and liberty,” wrote SCR member Philip Eykamp 20 in an email to The Daily. “We’re disappointed that some Democrats in California want to repeat history in 2020.”

Despite two unsuccessful attempts in the past, those behind the CalExit movement have sought once again to place a referendum on California’s membership of the union on the statewide ballot. To be put up for a statewide vote next year, the proposal needs more than 365,000 signatures by Oct. 17.

As the deadline fast approaches, Yes California has revamped its tactics.

In July, for instance, the group introduced an additional objective to its campaign. Not only will Yes California push for independence, but it will also campaign to construct an “autonomous Native American nation” that encompasses half of the independent state from the border of Mexico to the state boundary shared with Oregon.

“Why not do something to right some of the wrongs of the past to the native American people, and give them back their land?” Marinelli said.

Earlier this month, Yes California made another change to its strategy, postponing its ballot referendum approach in favor of convincing Republican states to support their breakaway efforts.

The new approach is to persuade 25 of the 31 Republican-held legislatures to adopt “consent to secede” resolutions, and then place the independence question before Californian voters.

“We are going to rely on the deep hatred for California that exists in red America,” Marinelli told the Washington Times.

Yes California hopes gaining consent from red states will reassure Californians that the movement is constitutional. CalExit faced questions of legitimacy after the California Supreme Court pulled a related proposal, known as Cal 3, from the November 2018 state ballot. Launched by Silicon Valley venture capitalist and Stanford alumnus Tim Draper ’80, it would have split California into three while retaining the state’s place in the union.

Nevertheless, Yes California’s dreams of secession are unlikely to become a reality, as the majority of Americans oppose efforts to split the nation.

While CalExit has convinced some Californians, there is also little appetite for it statewide. According to Hoover Institution’s State Poll from January 2017, 25 percent of Californians support independence from the union, 58 percent oppose and 17 percent are unsure.

 

This article has been updated to incorporate additional comment from the Stanford College Republicans.

An initial headline for this article inaccurately referred to the new Yes California campaign as one to create a ‘North American’ nation, rather than a Native American nation. The Daily regrets this error.

Contact Katie Keller at ktkeller ‘at’ stanford.edu and Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu

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Santa Clara County votes to mitigate housing impact of Stanford’s expansion plans https://stanforddaily.com/2018/09/26/santa-clara-county-votes-to-mitigate-housing-impact-of-stanfords-expansion-plans/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/09/26/santa-clara-county-votes-to-mitigate-housing-impact-of-stanfords-expansion-plans/#respond Wed, 26 Sep 2018 07:05:25 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1143898 Despite significant opposition from Stanford, Santa Clara County approved new policies on Tuesday that will require the University to pay higher fees on affordable housing and construct more low-income homes as part of Stanford’s plans to develop 2.3 million square feet of new campus facilities by 2035. The decision came as a disappointment for Stanford, […]

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Despite significant opposition from Stanford, Santa Clara County approved new policies on Tuesday that will require the University to pay higher fees on affordable housing and construct more low-income homes as part of Stanford’s plans to develop 2.3 million square feet of new campus facilities by 2035.

The decision came as a disappointment for Stanford, which claims the new policy fails to address the Bay Area’s acute housing crisis. Instead of a fee dependent on the rate of Stanford’s academic growth, the University has pushed for the construction of low-income residences on campus as a solution to the issue.

However, at a Tuesday morning meeting, the County’s Board of Supervisors decided to double the amount the University pays for each square foot of new nonresidential development it constructs, raising the rate from $36.22 to $68.50. This new fee will go into effect on July 1, 2020, helping to fund affordable housing in the area.

The Board also adopted an “inclusionary housing” zoning ordinance that will require 16 percent of all market-rate students and staff housing to be low-income.

Assistant Vice President for Government and Community Relations Jean McCown said she was “disappointed” with the Board of Supervisors’ decision.

“Enacting this fee will delay by up to a decade the delivery of more affordable housing, and therefore will not address the acute housing shortage the region faces now,” McCown wrote in a statement to The Daily. “A true calculation of the fee needed to support affordable units is $17 per square foot, not $68.50.”

McCown also expressed concerns about the legality of ordinances that specifically target Stanford but don’t apply to non-profit universities in the area.

While the Silicon Valley tech sector has helped skyrocket local rent prices, making the region largely unaffordable for low-income earners, Stanford also bears a historical responsibility.

Its General Use Permit (GUP) application — which seeks to construct more academic space as well as 3,150 new apartments and student beds — looks to exacerbate the local housing crisis by attracting more students and service workers to the Bay Area, burdening the community with housing shortages and traffic congestion.

Stanford acknowledges that its expansion plans will increase demand for affordable housing units and includes an affordable housing proposal in its GUP application.

On Monday, Robert Reidy — Stanford’s Vice President for Land, Buildings and Real Estate — wrote to the Board raising strong objections to the proposed ordinances. Reidy’s letter claimed that the housing fees were too high and that the ordinances wouldn’t guarantee housing for low income university workers, deliver affordable housing fast enough or support middle-income earners.

In July, Stanford told Santa Clara County that it would create 672 affordable housing units.

A county study conducted in May estimated that 964 low-income units would be needed to offset the burden of thousands of additional staff and students brought on by the school’s planned growth.

At the public hearing on Tuesday morning, several local residents sided with the county’s proposed affordable housing fee and inclusionary zoning ordinances.

“Stanford University has gotten away with murder regarding not building its fair share of housing for its service workers, grad students and adjunct faculty,” wrote Roberta Ahlquist, a representative of the low-income housing community, in a statement submitted to the Board of Supervisors. “It’s time for Stanford to do its fair share of building housing on the campus before they expand their academic or industrial base.”

Menlo Park resident Jen Wolosin also urged the Board to approve the two ordinances for a different reason: transportation. As Chair of the local group Parents for Safe Routes, Wolosin worried that Stanford’s new service workers would face long commutes to work if the University failed to build enough affordable housing units.

“I am very concerned about the impact that long commutes are having on our local streets,” Wolosin wrote to the Board. “Forcing service workers to drive hours to get to Stanford, instead of creating housing that enables them to live locally, creates a terrible amount of stress on our roads.”

 

Contact Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu

 

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Brain injury support group responds to unmet need in local community https://stanforddaily.com/2018/06/07/synapse/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/06/07/synapse/#respond Thu, 07 Jun 2018 07:05:44 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1142027 “Why do you put a case on your iPhone, but not a helmet on your head?” Members of Stanford Synapse, a brain injury support group, like to ask this question to students biking on campus without head protection. “If you crash and hit your head, it’s going to cost you a lot more than [the […]

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“Why do you put a case on your iPhone, but not a helmet on your head?”

Members of Stanford Synapse, a brain injury support group, like to ask this question to students biking on campus without head protection.

“If you crash and hit your head, it’s going to cost you a lot more than [the cost of an iPhone] and a lot longer to get it fixed,” cautioned Brett Bullington, a member of Synapse and survivor of traumatic brain injury. “The brain is a fragile thing.”

In Oct. 2012, Bullington — a long-time Silicon Valley advisor and investor — embarked on an ambitious cross-country bike ride to raise money for charity. But while going downhill on an Oklahoma highway, he lost control of his bike and crashed into the ground face-first. He was rushed by helicopter to a hospital, where he was comatose for nine days.

Synapse provides peer support to individuals on campus and from the mid-Peninsula area who, like Bullington, have suffered a brain injury.

“Our goals are twofold,” said Michael Chen ’18, the president and founder of Stanford Synapse. “Providing support to the community and being advocates for them, as well as developing the next generation of leaders in healthcare and medicine.”

Brain injuries vary in scope from mild to severe. But however traumatic the injury is, the process of recovering from surgery, rebuilding relationships and returning to academic or professional life creates many challenges.

“It can change who you are,” said Alessandra Marcone ’20, the group’s vice president of outreach, about brain injury. “One of our members said, ‘I had to give old Jason away and realize who new Jason is and be happy with that.’”

To support individuals in this recovery process, Synapse runs peer support group meetings every other week, as well as a buddy program and social events. They also hold public lectures from medical professionals to raise awareness of brain injuries and medical advances in the field.

Providing support

Chen founded Stanford Synapse in his freshman year — alongside Stanford Medicine students Alissa Totman and Jaclyn Konopka —  after he noticed how few Stanford students wore helmets, risking damage to what he regarded as their most precious asset: their brains.

Witnessing a catastrophic bike accident that same year also inspired Chen’s to support individuals living with brain injuries.

“People with brain injuries tend to feel really isolated,” he said. “You can’t do a lot of the things you would normally do; for instance, playing sports … People suffer from headaches, migraines, trouble concentrating  — there’s a whole host of symptoms — so people need support.”

Since the group’s founding, its patient population has grown, and it now serves around 20 individuals at its fortnightly peer support group meetings. According to Marcone, most attendees are from the local community, and only a handful are Stanford students.

The peer support group, led by Isabel Goronzy ’18, aims to foster community amongst individuals with brain injury, their caregivers and student peer supporters. The confidential meetings, directed by trained student moderators, give members an opportunity to share their personal struggles and successes living with a brain injury or taking care of someone who does.

“Looking back, if I had a support group like the one we direct at Synapse, it would have been really helpful for me emotionally and helped me validate my symptoms,” said Marcone, who suffered a brain injury while playing soccer during her junior year of high school.

Chen agreed that suffering from a brain injury, unlike from a broken arm, can feel like having an “invisible illness.” He emphasized the value of individuals sharing experiences while they adjust to life post-brain injury.

“People who are relatively farther along in their recovery are very valuable resources for people not as far along,” Chen said, adding that members often trade strategies and recommend speech therapists and practitioners to one another.

Some of the meetings are run as workshops revolving around a theme related to the recovery process: for example, navigating the healthcare system. Students moderate a discussion and members share their experiences and offer advice to one another.

During their training, peer supporters learn about brain injuries and techniques to provide empathy, create a non-judgmental space and facilitate positive discussion. According to Chen, the group receives training advice and support from its faculty advisors, including Associate Dean of Students Alejandro Martinez and Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery Jamshid Ghajar.

Nevertheless, Marcone said that most of the learning about how to run the group comes from being sensitive and perceptive.

“It’s really just being there for people, which is more of a human skill than a classroom skill,” she said, adding that empathy can come quite easily. “Hearing people’s stories is really powerful.”

In addition to the peer support group meetings, Vice President of the Buddy Program Claire Woodrow ’18 has worked with her team in Synapse to pair Stanford students with individuals suffering from a brain injury.

According to Chen, this structured buddy program creates an additional layer of social support and fosters long-term friendships. He added that, as many members of the student group are interested in neuroscience or hope to pursue a career in medicine, the partnership can give them valuable insight on the patient perspective of coping with a serious injury.

Totman — who founded Stanford Synapse with Konopka and Chen — created Synapse National in 2016. This umbrella organization seeks to expand the social support available to individuals with brain injuries and empower students to positively impact their lives with training sessions and written guides.

Synapse has since multiplied to include chapters at seven universities across the U.S. including ones at MIT, the University of Pennsylvania and Oregon State University.

Raising awareness

As director of outreach, Marcone contacts physicians in the mid-Peninsula area to help publicize Synapse to patients with brain injuries. She said that partnerships with physicians have been worthwhile in supporting Synapse’s work.

“While we’re not providing a medical service, [we’re] a unique and helpful service in recovery,” Marcone said. “That’s often something that doctors are really interested in getting for their patients, which they personally cannot provide.”

Chen added that partnering with local physicians to spread information about Synapse has contributed to the growth in its patient population.

“[Without that partnership], how would [patients] know about us?” Chen asked. “Brain injury patients tend not to use social media or their phones because the blue light can trigger a headache, so plain old paper and word of mouth is the best way to reach out to our local community.”

In this way, Chen added, Synapse is helping to fill a vacuum and be the main brain injury support group in the area.

“There’s definitely an unmet need here,” he said. “Part of the reason we started is that there really is no peer support group in the mid-Peninsula between [San Francisco] and San Jose.”

When it comes to raising awareness about brain injuries on campus, Marcone begins by clarifying to students what the term means.

“The most important thing is talking about the spectrum of brain injury,” Marcone said. “We sometimes use the word concussion in medicine because it sounds less scary than a brain injury,” but she said avoiding the term can be dangerous because it leads people to dismiss the seriousness of a concussion.

“I think there are a lot of people on Stanford’s campus who have had a brain injury,” Marcone said, though she conceded that only a small portion are actively involved in Synapse or attend the peer support group meetings. Marcone said she would like the group to reach out to student athletes more in the future.

Looking forward to next year, Marcone said that Synapse hopes to create a student-centered peer support group that helps students balance academics and their social life while living with a brain injury.

Bike safety

While Stanford is registered as a bicycle friendly campus, there were 626 crashes between 1996 and 2016, some with catastrophic consequences, according to Stanford News.

According to Stanford bicycle program coordinator Ariadne Scott, Stanford trauma surgeons note that 98 percent of people who suffer head injuries from bike crashes were not wearing a helmet.

Since bike accidents are a leading cause of brain injuries, Synapse has — alongside Stanford Parking & Transportation Services — been a vocal champion of safer biking practices.

For instance, in February 2018, Synapse hosted its first ever brain injury awareness symposium, “I Love My Brain,” for students and members of the public. The event revolved around the dual themes of bike safety and neuroscience research, and was co-sponsored by Parking & Transportation Services.

University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne, one of the speakers at the symposium, used the opportunity to address groundbreaking discoveries in neuroscience that could minimize brain damage and even accelerate recovery after the fact.

Survivors of brain injury, including Bullington and Stanford student Kevin Supakkul (who had a bike accident during his freshman year in 2015), were also panelists at the conference.

Russell Siegelman MBA ’73, a lecturer at the Graduate School of Business, also spoke at the symposium. In 2016, Siegelman and his wife, Beth Siegelman, donated 1,800 helmets to the freshman class of 2020 in an attempt to normalize helmet usage.

At the conference, Siegelman expressed his disappointment that few students ultimately wore the helmets.

Marcone raised a concern that the initiative might have had the unintended consequence of disincentivizing helmet usage.

“Having a helmet became a freshman thing,” she said. “Students can feel invincible, so it’s hard to tell them that [brain injury] could happen to you.”

Bullington, who kept a blog during his recovery process and continues to keep people updated about his daily progress on Facebook, said he is a strong believer in keeping people informed. In his experience, support can turn up in unexpected places.

“Oftentimes people think it’s better not to share because they don’t want to burden others, but you never know when help is going to come,” Bullington said.

 

Contact Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu

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Physicist named Stanford vice provost and dean of research https://stanforddaily.com/2018/05/30/physicist-named-stanford-vice-provost-and-dean-of-research/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/05/30/physicist-named-stanford-vice-provost-and-dean-of-research/#respond Wed, 30 May 2018 07:48:17 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1141729 Kathryn Moler ’88 Ph.D. ’95, a material physicist and senior associate dean of natural sciences in the School of Humanities and Sciences, has been named vice provost and dean of research, Provost Persis Drell announced Tuesday.

Moler will succeed current Stanford Research Dean Ann Arvin on Sept. 1.

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Kathryn Moler ’88 Ph.D. ’95, a material physicist and senior associate dean of natural sciences in the School of Humanities and Sciences, has been named vice provost and dean of research, Provost Persis Drell announced Tuesday.

Moler will succeed current Stanford Research Dean Ann Arvin on Sept. 1.

Physicist named Stanford vice provost and dean of research
(LINDA CICERO/Stanford News)

Drell praised Moler as an “excellent scientist,” noting her vision for the future of research at Stanford and long-running advocacy for expanded faculty resources and shared research facilities.

“[Moler] brings strategic vision and comprehensive leadership experience supporting multiple school departments to the job,” Drell said in an interview with Stanford News. “I am very excited she will be joining the university leadership team.”

Moler co-chaired the Area Steering Group on research during the University’s long-range planning process. During that phase of long-range planning, ideas submitted by the Stanford community to increase the impact of University research included new platforms for shared research, internal grant programs and cross-university research resources.

Moler, who has been a long-time champion of sharing cutting-edge equipment, seeks to implement those ideas as dean.

“We have the ability to exert transformative impacts on knowledge and on society through our scholarship, which we can accelerate with new research platforms,” Moler said.

In her new role, Moler will oversee research facilities, laboratories, institutes and centers that engage faculty and students in scientific and humanistic research across the University. She will also oversee offices – such as the offices of Environment Health and Safety and Scientific Outreach – which provide institutional oversight of Stanford’s research enterprise.

As senior associate dean for the natural sciences, Moler oversaw six academic departments, including the departments of Applied Physics, Biology and Chemistry. Her University leadership experience also extends to the 48th Faculty Senate, which she chaired in 2015-16, as well as the University Budget Group and the 2016 Presidential Search Committee.

In an interview with Stanford News, President Marc Tessier-Lavigne commended Moler’s commitment to “curiosity-driven” research in service to the world.

“She is a passionate advocate both for foundational, curiosity-driven research and for applied research,” Tessier-Lavigne said.

Moler earned her bachelor’s degree and doctorate in Physics at Stanford. Subsequently, she became the first woman to be on faculty in Stanford’s applied physics department in 1998.

Currently, she conducts research in nanotechnology and focuses primarily on magnetic imagining and quantum materials and devices.

Speaking fondly of her predecessor, Arvin, Moler said that she is “excited to work with people throughout the research enterprise to build on [Arvin’s] contributions and to support and advance our research contributions.”

 

Contact Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Wed before Wacky Walk: Married, engaged undergrads reflect on tying the knot young https://stanforddaily.com/2018/05/14/married-and-engaged-undergraduates-reflect-on-cultural-and-religious-implications-of-marrying-young/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/05/14/married-and-engaged-undergraduates-reflect-on-cultural-and-religious-implications-of-marrying-young/#respond Mon, 14 May 2018 07:15:03 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1140844 Goldie Grinberg ’19 and Josh Grinberg ’15 M.S. ’17 discovered that their religious values perfectly aligned when they first met at Hillel in July 2017. One year into their relationship, after Josh finished his master’s and started working for Google, they were married.

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Goldie Grinberg ’19 and Josh Grinberg ’15 M.S. ’17 discovered that their religious values perfectly aligned when they first met at Hillel in July 2017. One year into their relationship, after Josh finished his master’s and started working for Google, they were married.

Goldie, who is currently in her junior year, had to ask the University for permission to move a midterm exam in order to prepare for her wedding the next day. The pair’s Jewish wedding ceremony took place in November 2017 in San Diego and was attended by their family and Stanford friends. The couple now lives in an off-campus accommodation.

Hunter Stroh ’21 will return for her sophomore year next fall with her husband-to-be, Bailey Mears. Hunter and Bailey met in their junior year of high school in Michigan. She was the new girl from out of town and caught Bailey’s attention immediately when she walked into their English class.

They dated during their final years of high school and doubted whether they would continue their relationship once Hunter started college. But when Bailey got into a serious car accident, Hunter was by his side — and the experience ultimately cemented their relationship.

The two maintained a long-distance relationship during Hunter’s freshman fall. Last winter break, Bailey proposed to her in front of his family. The couple will marry this July and live on campus together in the 2018-19 academic year while Hunter pursues the pre-medicine track and Bailey seeks work in the welding profession.

While the University does not track the marital status of students, there are currently 32 undergraduate couples living in graduate housing, according to University spokesperson E.J. Miranda.

“We only require that the couple attest to being in a long-term romantic relationship and have shared responsibilities,” Miranda wrote in an email to The Daily.

Undergraduates in a domestic partnership seeking accommodation enter the housing draw with other graduate students for a year-long lease of a one-bedroom apartment. Only one person in the partnership must be enrolled as a student to maintain eligibility for housing.

Wed before Wacky Walk: Married, engaged undergrads reflect on tying the knot young
(Courtesy of Hunter Stroh)

Religious motivations

While Goldie said she was not particularly religious when she began university, her Jewish faith grew at Stanford and played a pivotal role in her decision to marry Josh.

“I did not think I would get married as an undergrad,” she said, laughing. “The thought never crossed my mind.”

She said that her religious values have shaped her attitude on relationships, values which Josh — who served as president of the Jewish Student Association as an undergraduate — shares.

“When I met Josh, one of our initial conversations was that if we were going to date, it would be to see if we were compatible for marriage … and if our morals aligned,” Goldie said. “Rather than just dating for enjoyment, it was really dating with a purpose.”

Up until the day of their wedding, Goldie and Josh refrained from physical contact to respect the Orthodox Jewish practice of “shomer negiah,” which prohibits individuals from touching members of the opposite sex outside of their immediate family. Goldie said that abiding by this practice made it all the more special when she and Josh first held hands at the wedding ceremony.

“By guarding the touch … our relationship was purely built on our discussions and the emotional connection,” she said.

Both Hunter and Bailey said that their Christian faith guided them in their decision to marry young.

“We think it’s God’s plan that we met each other,” Hunter said. “Whenever I think about it, you know — ‘What if it is too soon, or what if we are too young?’ — I just remember back to that moment when I knew God was telling me he’s the one.”

Bailey shared a similar religious experience, recalling his sudden urge to buy an engagement ring.

“I went and bought a ring and then prayed over it for a week, week and a half, then got the confirmation that I felt I needed,” he said.

Facing stereotypes

Goldie said she faced “polar opposite reactions” from her Jewish and non-Jewish friends on campus when she revealed her engagement to Josh. While her friends in the Jewish community were not taken by surprise, when it came to telling the news to the friends in her dorm and classes, several jaws dropped.

“For religious Jews, this isn’t foreign, although it’s still a little on the younger side,” Goldie said. “Whereas with my other undergrad friends, they were shocked. It was really just utter disbelief.”

Explaining why she thinks most Stanford students have been surprised to discover that she is married, she pointed to a culture of casual relationships on campus.

“There really is a prevailing hook-up culture at Stanford, and so people see relationships as purely fun, pleasurable things,” Goldie said. “To take it seriously and commit to someone can seem foreign to them.”

Nevertheless, she said she hopes to challenge the stereotype that young religious couples conform to traditional gender roles.

“Just because it seems traditional for Josh and me, I really do believe the exact roles of each spouse is couple-specific,” Goldie said. “As long as both [husband and wife] are happy with the situation and would be willing to do what’s best for the family, then there shouldn’t be any pressure on them.”

Similarly, Hunter and Bailey also reported stereotyping and discouragement in response to their choice to get married in college.

“Everyone says you shouldn’t care what others think, but you kind of do,” she said, adding that she finds it frustrating having to defend her decision. “When you have people constantly coming at you or doubting you, you start to doubt yourself.”

According to Hunter, her peers at Stanford were shocked upon seeing her engagement ring because they have different life priorities.

“For me, my goal — and all I really want to do in life — is to be a wife and a mother,” she said. “I want to be a stay-at-home mom, but the rest of the world is telling me that I shouldn’t.”

Hunter added that she is critical of the feminist movement for occasionally undermining women who choose to fulfill traditional roles.

Hunter encouraged people to listen to their story before they judge her and Bailey as “some crazy religious freaks,” adding that the couple has been deliberated carefully about the question of marriage and has been saving up money since high school.

“It’s not like this is a spur-of-the-moment decision, but people treat us like it is before they get to know about our plan,” Hunter said.

Balancing commitments

Goldie said balancing her academics, relationship and home responsibilities have forced her to be more efficient with her time, which she tries to achieve by compartmentalizing.

“When I am on campus, I know I am in a work and study mode … and then I have more time at home, where it’s nice to be able to focus time and attention on [Josh],” Goldie said, adding that she also carves out time in her schedule to do “chores like cooking and doing the dishes and cleaning the house, which were never an issue in the dorms.”

Nevertheless, Goldie said she believes being married has only “enhanced” her academic endeavors and goal of getting into medical school.

“Having a best friend who knows me as well as I do … and a support system even on those hard days, I think has only made me stronger and made me excel in my studies,” she said.

On the other hand, Hunter says she has struggled to play the juggling act, reading off a list of her many competing commitments.

“We have a wedding to plan, we have a relationship to focus on itself, we have family problems back home, future plans, trying to maintain a social life as well,” she said. “I’m not going to pretend that I have it down.”

Bailey said he looks forward to starting the next chapter of his life with Hunter and to begin living on Stanford’s campus, which he believes will open up more opportunities to him.

“I wasn’t headed down the right path even before I met her, so I would probably just be out partying,” Bailey said, imagining his life without Hunter. “I told my [dad] I was moving to California with her. He said, ‘Do it as soon as you can because if you don’t, you’ll never go.’”

Bailey mentioned that he was particularly excited to use Stanford’s gyms. Spouses of students are eligible to receive courtesy cards, which gives them access to a variety of campus facilities, including those within the Department of Athletics, Physical Education and Recreation.

Campus resources and support

Goldie admitted that she has found it difficult to connect with her peers’ relationship experiences since there are few married undergraduates on campus.

“I found I couldn’t really relate to anyone because there are things exclusive to marriage,” she said.

Nevertheless, Goldie said she has been able to share her experiences with married women in her Jewish network, including Rachel Greenberg, the program director at Stanford’s Rohr Chabad House. She cited her mom as her greatest source of support.

According to Miranda, undergraduate couples housed in graduate residences are able to access support services through the Graduate Life Office.

“They can also access their local residence staff, the Community Associates who serve as a neighborly helpful resource to residents,” Miranda wrote.

For undergraduate couples with children, the Stanford WorkLife Office offers childcare resources and referral services to help couples plan for and find childcare. The office also provides one-on-one counseling to help couples manage their competing work, school, family and personal responsibilities.

Hunter concluded by expressing her desire that the community respect undergraduates who choose to marry while they are still in college.

“We’re like any other minority on campus — we need support,” she said. “We don’t need people believing all of these stereotypes about us.”

 

Contact Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Disability studies class renewed for next academic year https://stanforddaily.com/2018/05/11/disability-studies-class-renewed-for-next-academic-year/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/05/11/disability-studies-class-renewed-for-next-academic-year/#respond Fri, 11 May 2018 09:56:10 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1140937 The status of Stanford’s introductory course on disability studies has been resolved following a successful campaign led by the Stanford Disability Initiative.

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The status of Stanford’s introductory course on disability studies has been resolved following a successful campaign led by the Stanford Disability Initiative. After the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education (VPUE) pledged an additional year’s funding on Apr. 10, the Handa Center for Human Rights and International Justice agreed to incorporate the class into its 2018-2019 course offerings.

The future of the “Introduction to Disability Studies and Disability Rights” class had been in jeopardy, as academic departments were financially unable to accommodate it. Nevertheless, the class’ status in subsequent years remains indeterminate and likely depends on the availability of funding and qualified faculty to teach it.

Rohin Bryan Deb, chief of staff to Harry Elam, wrote in an email to The Daily that the VPUE is very pleased that the class will be taught again next year.

Next year, the course will be taught in winter quarter by Doron Dorfman J.S.M. ’14, a J.S.D. Candidate at the Law School who designed and led the inaugural class in fall 2017.

“I am thrilled to be teaching the class again,” Dorfman said. He also thanked the efforts of the Stanford Disability Initiative, which launched its campaign on March 2 with an Op-Ed in The Daily titled “Save Intro to Disability Studies.” 700 people — including students, faculty, staff and alumni — signed the petition, according to a statement released by the group.

“This achievement signals a clear message to Stanford’s academic community: that disability studies is important to community and that it is time to have it as an integral and permanent part of Stanford’s colloquium,” Dorfman said.

The class will be considered a Cardinal Course as well, joining over 150 other classes recognized by the Haas Center for Public Service for integrating community service with academic coursework, as it will include a field trip to the Ed Roberts Campus, home to several of the Bay Area’s disability rights organizations, to teach students more about disability rights activism and policy work.

“The students get a chance to explore the unique and world-renowned universally designed building, as well as to speak with activists and veterans in the American disability rights movement, some of [whom] are people whose work we read in class,” Dorfman said.

In addition to “Introduction to Disability Studies,” the English department will also be offering a class on disability and world literature in the 2018-2019 school year, Elam added.

Matt Wigler ’19, an ASSU Senator and member of its Academic Affairs Committee, said he was delighted by the news and believes that the continuation of the class will be a stepping stone for the growth of the disability studies at Stanford more broadly. During his recent election campaign, Wigler advocated a new Disability Studies minor as well as a community center for students with disabilities.

“I hope to work closely with the disability community to help ensure not only that the class will be sustained long into the future but that we set it up as a gateway to an eventual interdisciplinary minor in Disability Studies, making it a priority to identify a home department for the class … [and] advocate for the hiring of more faculty who study disability,” Wigler said.

In their statement’s concluding remarks, the Stanford Disability Initiative promised to campaign for an academic department to permanently integrate the class and grow disability studies scholarship at Stanford.

“Our mission will be complete when Stanford has established a full-fledged Disability Studies program to house classes, research, faculty and an undergraduate program,” the statement read.

Contact Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu.

 

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On this day in Stanford history: May 8 https://stanforddaily.com/2018/05/08/on-this-day-in-stanford-history-may-8/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/05/08/on-this-day-in-stanford-history-may-8/#respond Tue, 08 May 2018 07:01:06 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1140666 The feature “On this day in Stanford’s history” details events that occurred on the same date in past years at Stanford. According to The Stanford Daily’s archives, on May 8 in…

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The feature “On this day in Stanford’s history” details events that occurred on the same date in past years at Stanford.

According to The Stanford Daily’s archives, on May 8 in …

1894: Residents of Encina and Roble Hall were notified that they would be charged $2.00 a month next semester for the “privilege” of using the kitchen and dining room.    

1901: The Daily announced that U.S. President William McKinley — who was to be assassinated only months later — would address Stanford students and faculty in Assembly Hall next week.

1930: Stanford’s sports director Harry Maloney offered the American Olympic Committee the use of the Stanford Stadium for the 1932 Summer Olympics tryouts. The stadium ultimately ended up holding the U.S. Olympic Trials for men’s track and field on July 15 and 16 in 1932.

1939: The front page of The Daily featured a picture of Adolf Hitler under the headline “And the Knot Is Really Tied Now,” referring to the emerging military alliance between Nazi Germany and Benito Mussolini’s Italy, which would later become known as the “Pact of Steel.”

1950: The Daily profiled international students studying at Stanford under the University’s year-long Foreign Scholarship Program, which was established to introduce incoming students to American culture and foster mutual understanding between them and Stanford students. Program participants hailed from countries across Europe, including Russia, Norway and Germany.

1967: Delivering a lecture in Memorial Auditorium, the 17th president of Yale defended the academic freedom of faculty while attacking student interference in academic matters such as course designs and tenure decisions as “wholly destructive.” Philip Taubman ’70, the article’s author, former editor-in-chief of The Daily and current consulting professor at Stanford, reported a “sparse” audience.

1989: The Haas Center for Public Service, formerly known as the Public Service Center, adopted its new name in honor of the Haas family after it donated $6.2 million to Stanford’s endowment.   

1998: Trivia fan Mari Webel ’00 represented Stanford at the “Jeopardy!” College Championship. Webel stuffed her head full of facts about “American presidents and foods that begin with Q.” Little did she know, current sophomore Josie Bianchi ’20 would walk in her footsteps twenty years later and compete in the same game show.

2009: According to the weekly police blotter, a student was cited and released at Theta Delta Chi for urinating in public, allegedly “attempting to put out Stanford fires.” California experienced a series of wildfires that year.  

 

Contact Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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“Speed Dating” book fair engaging Stanford writers, public audiences to be held Saturday https://stanforddaily.com/2018/04/20/humanities-center-speed-dating-event-engaging-stanford-writers-public-audiences-to-be-held-saturday/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/04/20/humanities-center-speed-dating-event-engaging-stanford-writers-public-audiences-to-be-held-saturday/#respond Fri, 20 Apr 2018 07:03:41 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1139710 On Saturday, the Stanford Humanities Center will hold its annual book fair, “A Company of Authors,” which invites members of the Stanford community and broader public to indulge an afternoon discussing Stanford scholars’ recently-published books with the authors themselves.

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"Speed Dating" book fair engaging Stanford writers, public audiences to be held Saturday

“A Company of Authors,” an annual book fair that invites Stanford scholars to discuss their recently-published work with members of the Stanford community and the broader public, will take place at the Stanford Humanities Center on Saturday afternoon. The event is principally sponsored by the Stanford Continuing Studies program.

 

Peter Stansky, professor of history emeritus,  who has hosted the event every year since its inception 15 years ago, invites students to take “a guided tour of Stanford books by the authors themselves, rather than just wander around the shelves of the bookstore.”

“The event gives everybody there a glimpse into the richness and variety of what Stanford-connected people are writing,” Stansky added.

The Stanford Bookstore, another event sponsor, will sell the authors’ texts at a discounted rate at the event.

This year’s book fair features 21 authors, all of whom are scheduled to make a brief presentation about their most recent publication and will subsequently answer audience questions and engage the crowd in further conversation.

To showcase thematic multiplicity within the broader field of humanities, the fair’s prevalent texts address issues ranging from violence to love, state control to Stanford history.

The fast-paced and interactive nature of the book fair has earned it the nickname “speed-dating for the humanities,” according to Stanford Humanities Center Director Caroline Winterer, who is also a history professor.   

The event seeks to bridge the divide between the scholarly world and the outside community by giving attendees the opportunity to interact with leading scholars and get their books signed.

“You get to hear from the author rather than just from reading the book,” Winterer said, adding that she enjoys discovering the challenges and struggles the authors overcome in writing their books. “That’s really our mission: to open up the humanities to the public … and attract people of every age group.”

The Daily interviewed five of the authors who will present their books at Saturday’s event to find out more about recent scholarship.

“Walking the Farm” by Tom DeMund

“Hiking the Dish” is a time-honored tradition at Stanford and a popular recreational activity, but in his text, Tom DeMund ’67 addresses 18 other themed trails through Stanford’s campus and the nearby hills for students to try out. His new book guides hiking-enthusiasts past nature reserves and breathtaking views while interweaving descriptions of notable campus landmarks — such as the Cantor Arts Center and the Red Barn — with accounts of the history that helped shape the locations.

The trail in DeMund’s first chapter illustrates the University architecture before and after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, while another chapter pinpoints the location on Stanford Avenue that was once home to a working nuclear reactor. The walks feature detailed maps, driving directions and nearby eateries.

“I wrote the book so that people could experience the campus either by reading or by going around and seeing it,” DeMund said, adding that his favorite parts of campus are those that have a lot of greenery and give him a chance to encounter Stanford students. “Seeing the students wide-eyed and getting an education, that’s part of the fun.”

“Contraceptive Diplomacy” by Aiko Takeuchi-Demirci

Aiko Takeuchi-Demirci, affiliate of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program, offers a transnational history of the birth control movement in her book. “Contraceptive Diplomacy” traces the development of birth control in the United States and Japan, following the lives and collaboration of the two birth control activists, the American Margaret Sanger and the Japanese Ishimoto Shizue.

While the development of birth control is often considered a giant stride forward in the feminist movement, Takeuchi-Demirci sought to uncover the story’s darker side.

“Reproductive control has been used for different political purposes,” she said, setting the issue in the context of the larger ideological debates around eugenics and overpopulation at the time.  

Discussions in the recent #MeToo movement resonated with Takeuchi-Demirci. “I think [my book] gives some historical background to women’s sexual autonomy and bodily autonomy for this particular moment,” she said.

“Barbed-Wire Imperialism” by Aidan Forth

Associate Professor of History at Loyola University Chicago and debut author Aidan Forth Ph.D. ’12 examines the origin of concentration camps and places their origin in the Second Boer War, where such camps were erected by British imperialists in the Victorian era. His book argues that the British camps laid the groundwork for the atrocities of future regimes.

“The institution of the concentration camps doesn’t come out of nowhere,” Forth said. “Camps are products of modernity at large.”

Forth explained that he became interested in the history of concentration camps in his second and third year as a doctoral student at Stanford when he embarked on his dissertation. Motivated to discover more about British colonial violence, Forth conducted a global research project, traveling to the British, South African and Indian national archives.

“We knew an awful lot about concentration camps but very little from a British perspective,” Forth said. “So, I was interested in what Britain’s contribution to this larger global story was.”

“An Elegy for Lovers” by Peter Carroll

History lecturer and self-proclaimed historian-poet Peter Carroll weaves together the “ill-fated love story of Maureen and Willy” in his new collection of lyrical poetry, “An Elegy for Lovers.”

He said that the poems follow a complicated love affair, while also addressing themes of innocence, loss and abuse.

Carroll argued that his history books and poetry occupy separate territories.

“Poetry is about the emotional underlife,” he said. “The point about non-fiction writing for academics is to be able to describe as clearly as possible what happened. But one of those writings tamps into human emotion.”

“Finding Fibonacci” by Keith Devlin

Stanford mathematician and the National Public Radio’s “Math Guy,” Keith Devlin, embarked on a quest to recreate the life of the medieval mathematician Leonardo of Pisa, also known as Fibonacci. The culmination of this journey was Devlin’s book “The Man of Numbers,” published in 2011 and centered on Fibonacci’s work on arithmetic “Liber Abbaci.”

Six years later, in 2017, Devlin published “Finding Fibonacci,” a book about a book about a book. He recounts his 10-year process researching and reconstructing the life of the elusive Italian mathematician, about whom little is known yet who left an enduring legacy.

“Working on the Leonardo [da Pisa] project made it very clear the impact of changing the notations of Roman numerals to Hindu-Arabic arithmetic,” Devlin said. “It [marked] the creation of the Western world.”

The book includes anecdotes about his own adventures researching in Italy, spotlighting Devlin himself rather than his subject, Fibonacci.

“It’s the difference between the guy making the movie and the guy in front of the camera,” he said. “Being in the story gave me a feeling of exposure I’d never had before.”

Winterer encouraged students to attend “A Company of Authors” on Saturday and emphasized that engaging the public in literary discourse is central to Stanford Humanities Center’s mission.

“The book event is one of the very public, community-oriented events that we do,” she said. “We are trying to embody the idea that the humanities are about human beings.”

 

Correction: A previous version of this article did not mention Stanford Continuing Studies, the event’s principal cosponsor. The article has been updated to accurately reflect the cosponsorship between the Stanford Humanities Center, Stanford Continuing Studies and the Stanford Bookstore. The Daily regrets the error. 

 

Contact Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu

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2018 ASSU election results announced: Shanta-Rosie slate elected as executives https://stanforddaily.com/2018/04/14/2018-assu-election-results-announced-shanta-rosie-slate-elected-as-executives/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/04/14/2018-assu-election-results-announced-shanta-rosie-slate-elected-as-executives/#respond Sun, 15 Apr 2018 01:11:07 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1139412 On Saturday, the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) elections commission announced the results of the 2018 elections. The Shanta-Rosie slate, including Shanta Katipamula ’19 and Ph.D. candidate Rosie Nelson, won against the Khaled-Ocon slate to become the 2018-2019 ASSU executives.

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On Saturday, the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) elections commission announced the results of the 2018 elections. The Shanta-Rosie slate, including Shanta Katipamula ’19 and Ph.D. candidate Rosie Nelson, won against the Khaled-Ocon slate to become the 2018-2019 ASSU executives.

The 15 members of the forthcoming 20th Undergraduate Senate were also selected from a total of 22 candidates.

The elections commission also announced new class presidents and next year’s Graduate Student Council members. 76 out of 80 annual grant and special fee groups were approved. A referendum advocating fossil fuel divestment passed in both the undergraduate and graduate bodies. 

“We are grateful for the trust and confidence the student body has placed in us by electing us to be the next ASSU Exec,” Katipamula and Nelson wrote in a joint statement to The Daily “Thank you to everyone who believed in our campaign and our message of uplifting student voices to the decision-making table. We can’t wait to get to work and deliver on our campaign promises.”

The total undergraduate voter turnout was 57.39 percent, and the total graduate voter turnout was 34.07 percent. Katipamula and Nelson noted that they were “incredibly excited” by an increase in turnout of around 400 voters. 

2018 ASSU election results announced: Shanta-Rosie slate elected as executives

Executive

The Shanta-Rosie slate — which was endorsed by the First Generation and/or Low Income Partnership, Stanford Daily, Stanford Bioscience Student Association and the Biomedical Association for the Interest of Minority Students — won with 61.92 percent of the vote, beating the Khaled-Ocon slate by 34.6 percent. They also beat the Associated Students of Stanford “joke slate,” which featured John McNelly ’19 and Cale Lester ’19.

Katipamula and Nelson ran a campaign based around bringing together undergraduate and graduate students, with the slate itself featuring one of each. They also emphasized their ability to work within the larger institution of Stanford, with a campaign statement that described “working relationships with the highest levels of Stanford’s administration” and a website that highlighted their past work in student government (Katipamula being a former senate chair and Nelson currently a GSC co-chair).

Their campaign included promises to advocate for greater community center funding, more long-term housing and transportation options for graduate students, increased Peer Health Educator pay, more diverse Counseling and Psychological Services counselors, for Stanford to use the American Association of Universities sexual assault survey, a block meal swipe option for undergraduates and increased minimum salaries for teaching assistants and resident assistants.

One particular policy area which they disagreed with the Aounallah and Ocon on was about the presence of undergraduate students on Title IX panels. During the executive debate a week earlier, it had emerged that Shanta-Rosie opposed adding an undergraduate panel member (due to worries about adequate training for them), while Khaled-Ocon were in favor of adding one (in the name of representation for all affected by the panel’s verdicts).

Undergraduate Senate

In the 2018 Senate race, 22 candidates competed for 15 seats. Their campaigns focused on issues ranging from University transparency to free speech, mental health to housing. Candidate statements, published on the ASSU website, proposed policies including introducing need-blind admissions for international students, expanding mental health resources and increasing community center budgets.   

Some candidates campaigned individually, while others joined forces and ran in coalitions. These included A2, Morfin/Diallo, FAM and S.I.D.E. (Students for Inclusion, Diversity and Equality).

The ASSU Elections Commission announced that the following candidates were elected to the 20th Undergraduate Senate. In descending order of votes, the winners are:

Gabe Rosen ’19, who promised to increase transparency about Senate meetings as well as support the rights of service workers and course fee reductions. Elected to his third term, Rosen was the only incumbent who sought another term. He received 1,192 votes.

Melissa Loupeda ’21, who campaigned for supporting a disability studies program, standardizing student groups funding guidelines and increasing dialogue around sexual assault. Loupeda received 1,190 votes.

Jianna So ’21, who championed diversity and service workers in her campaign, as well as proposed changes to the way Stanford addresses sexual assault. So received 1,092 votes.

Leya Elias ’21, who promised to create a new community center for first-generation/low-income students, distribute ASSU student group funding more equitably and promote after-dark transportation services. Elias received 1,002 votes.

Melody Yang ’21, who advocated for more housing and dining options over winter and spring break, a week-long reading period in lieu of Dead Week and increase community center budgets. Yang received 915 votes.

Tyra Nicolay ’21, who called for changes to community centers, fairer allocation of student group funding and more representation for minorities on campus. Nicolay received 896 votes.

Martin Altenburg ’21, who promised reforms to the admissions system and community centers, as well as championed programs for first-generation and low-income students. Altenburg received 883 votes.

Josh Nkoy ’21, who campaigned on a platform of common sense, promised to establish new outreach programs, make Stanford a sanctuary campus and pave the way for divestment from
fossil fuels. Nkoy received 846 votes.

Jamie Seney ’21, who advocated for supporting undocumented students, improving ASSU transparency and increasing community center budgets. Seney received 782 votes.

Zakaria Sharif ’21, who promised more community on campus, advocated for the creation of disability studies and championed workers’ rights on campus. Sharif received 737 votes.

Jon Johnson ’21, who emphasized empowering minorities on campus. Johnson received 717 votes.

Michal Skreta ’21, who supported expanding meal plan options and increasing transparency about University finances, as well as abolishing printing fees and subsidizing airport rides. Skreta received 715 votes.

Faa Diallo ’21, who proposed to subsidize student health care, introduce more meal plan options and encourage greater dialogue on campus. Diallo received 662 votes.

Matt Wigler ’19, who proposed to initiate a student-centered cardinal conversations program, advocate for a Disability Studies minor and alleviate financial hardships on students through subsidies. His platform also expressed support for Israel and opposed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Wigler received 457 votes.

Wigler received fewer votes than five rising sophomores who sought office, but was elected over them because of an ASSU bylaw that mandates that at least three undergraduate senators be upperclassmen.

Last year, this bylaw resulted in a tumultuous Constitutional Council case when Lizzie Ford ’20 was chosen over upperclassman candidate Jacob Randolph ’19 — who received fewer votes than Ford — to replace upperclassman Matthew Cohen ’18 when Cohen was appointed ASSU Chief of Staff by recently-elected executives Justice Tention ’18 and Vicki Niu ’18.

The Council determined that the bylaw only applied in elections, not in single-seat vacancies. Ford retained her seat.

The joke candidate Emperor Palpatine (also known as former Tree Sam Weyen ’18) received a sizeable 656 votes, which would be enough to win him a seat on the Undergraduate Senate. However, the Elections Commission noted that “verification of future undergraduate enrollment [is] required before [his] confirmation by GSC and Senate.”

Rodolfo Salazar ’21 is reported to have the next most amount of votes after Palpatine.

All of the senatorial candidates endorsed by the Students of Color Coalition (SOCC) were elected to the Undergraduate Senate. However, the Khaled-Ocon slate, which SOCC also endorsed, was not elected. This fact is unusual given that SOCC endorsements have historically poised candidates for successful outcomes.

The elected Senators serve at-large on behalf of the student body in one of the ASSU’s six committees: Advocacy, Academic Affairs, Administration and Rules, Appropriations, Communications and Student Life.

Class presidents

The MARC TESSENIOR LEV19NE slate — which includes Tashrima Hossain ’19, Aron Tesfai ’19, Nick Pena ’19 and Tony Moller ’19 — was elected senior class president. The slate ran unopposed and promised to help connect rising seniors through events such as senior formal and dorm reunions, as well as host diversity and service-oriented events.

The only slate running for junior class president — consisting of Izzy Angus ’20, Will Kenney ’20, Leila Mengesha ’20, Sofia Dudas ’20, Cameron Woods ’20 and Marco Lee ’20 — was also officially elected on Saturday. The slate emphasized accessibility as one of its primary aims, and also promised to offer a wide variety of event programming, volunteer activities and opportunities student-faculty interaction.

Election results for sophomore class president were not released, “pending investigation of potential campaigning violations.”

Student group funding

All 71 undergraduate student groups who applied for Annual Grants were granted funding. Three groups — L’Chayim Club, SUAVE and Stanford Video Game Association — were originally listed as having not been approved, but the results were updated afterwards to reflect that they had, in fact, received funding.  

In addition, 5 of the 9 graduate student groups were approved for Special Fees. The four groups which did not meet the threshold were Stanford Speakers Bureau, KZSU, Viennese Ball Committee and Stanford Martial Arts Program.

Graduate Student Council 

The graduate community also elected representatives to their legislative body, the Graduate Student Council (GSC). According to the ASSU, the GSC includes 15 voting members — 10 of whom represent Stanford’s seven schools and five of whom are at-large representatives.

Gabby Badica, a graduate student in Iberian and Latin American Cultures who is currently an incumbent on the Council, won the at-large GSC positions.

Rui Liu, a Ph.D. Candidate in Electrical Engineering, and Yiqing Ding, a masters student in Engineering, were also elected as at-large representatives.

Melanie Malinas, a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in biophysics, will represent the Natural Sciences graduate district. Having run unopposed for her second term on the Council, Malinas was endorsed by the Stanford Bioscience Student Association and the Stanford Biomedical Association for the Interests of Minority students. In her first term, Malinas has worked on issues ranging from financial literacy to mental healthcare.

Nicolas Garcia, a first-year law student, will be the the law school’s district representative. Amy Tarangelo, a biology Ph.D. candidate, will represent the medical school district. Shanna Chu, a Stanford Earth graduate student, will represent the Earth Science district. David Song, an education Ph.D. candidate, will represent the Graduate School of Education. Garcia, Tarangelo, Chu and Song ran unopposed. Ana Maria Tarano and Ricardo Peterson were elected to represent the School of Engineering, and Justin Di will represent the Graduate School of Business.

Caleb Smith ’17, currently a coterm in Public Policy, was elected as Social Sciences district representative with two write-in votes — despite the fact that he is graduating this year. Smith, a Daily staffer, said he was “honored and, most of all, surprised.” Smith did not run for the position.

“I look forward to spending my one and a half remaining months at Stanford on the GSC working to fix our student group funding system and pressure the administration to develop campus in a prudent and equitable manner,” he wrote to The Daily.

 

This article has been updated to reflect additions to the Graduate Student Council election results and the passage of the Fossil Free Stanford referendum. 

Graphic courtesy of Josh Wagner.

Contact Brian Contreras at brianc42 ‘at’ stanford.edu, Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu, Claire Wang at clwang32 ‘at’ stanford.edu and Courtney Douglas at ccd4 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Secretary of Energy Rick Perry praises SLAC researchers, talks energy obstacles https://stanforddaily.com/2018/03/28/secretary-of-energy-rick-perry-visits-slac-talks-energy-obstacles/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/03/28/secretary-of-energy-rick-perry-visits-slac-talks-energy-obstacles/#respond Thu, 29 Mar 2018 04:06:29 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1138504 U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry made his final stop on his tour of national laboratories in the Bay Area at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory on Mar. 28, when he delivered a motivational speech to its employees. Perry praised their cutting-edge scientific research and expressed support for finding economically feasible solutions to energy challenges.

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U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry made his final stop on his tour of national laboratories in the Bay Area at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory on Mar. 28, when he delivered a motivational speech to its employees. Perry praised their cutting-edge scientific research and expressed support for finding economically feasible solutions to energy challenges.

SLAC, which specializes in particle physics research, is located in Menlo Park and is operated by Stanford under the direction of the Department of Energy (DOE).

Employees and visiting scientists gathered to hear Perry’s remarks in Panofsky Auditorium. Among the attendees were Provost Persis Drell and former SLAC director, physical sciences professor emeritus and Nobel Prize winner Burton Richter.

Perry emphasized his excitement about overseeing laboratories at the forefront of science. He said that the scientists working at the laboratories inspire him to get up in the morning.

“You all are involved in day-to-day operations that literally have the potential to change the world,” Perry said. “Not everybody can say that.”

Perry admitted that while he likes his current job, he preferred serving as governor of Texas, a position he held for 14 years prior to becoming energy secretary. While energy secretary isn’t the “best job” he has ever had, he said it is “the coolest” because of the people he works with.

In particular, he said he is impressed by the young scientists who have chosen a career at SLAC over neighboring private sector technology firms.  

“Within a 30-mile radius of this particular place, there are some pretty cool companies to work for and you could be making a hell of a lot of more money,” Perry said.

As energy secretary, a role he has held since 2017, Perry manages 17 national laboratories, including SLAC. He has spent the week visiting the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

He added that that his tour of the national laboratories has clarified to him the importance of supercomputers, and said that they are one of several inventions the United States must be a leader in developing.

“We are competing with some countries that are really good at what they do,” Perry stated. “We better get it right and we need to be first.”

During his tour of SLAC prior to the talk, Perry visited its Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), a laser that produces the world’s brightest X-ray pulses, along with its LCLS-II construction site. The new site currently in development will be home to a more powerful X-ray laser that produces brighter and faster pulses, giving scientists unprecedented insight into the atomic world.

In his remarks, Perry said that he heard a lot of criticism about the LCLS facilities and government spending on them during his time as governor.

“There were a lot of people who said, ‘You are wasting your money … and more importantly, you’re wasting our tax money,’” he said.  

Consequently, Perry told the audience that he visited the national laboratories to educate himself on the work that they do, so that he can communicate their value to policymakers in Washington.

“As I talk to OMB [Office of Management and Budget] or as I talk to committees in Congress, I can explain to them in a layman’s way – there ain’t a lot of physics majors in Congress – here’s why this funding is important,” he said.

During the talk, Director of SLAC Chi-Chang Kao asked Perry two questions that were sourced from SLAC employees before the event.

Asked whether investing in renewable energy was essential to America’s long-term energy security, Perry suggested that the U.S. should invest in renewable energy resources alongside clean-burning fossil fuels.

“You can have economic growth and you can take care of your environment, but it’s got to be science that comes up with a cleaner way to burn these fuels,” he said.

According to Perry, obtaining energy from both renewable and non-renewable sources will help America stay economically competitive.

“Wish and hope all we might we could just go to completely renewables, but the world is going to burn fossil fuels,” he said.

The second question concerned what impact reducing environmental regulations might have on consumers and the environment. Perry admitted that it was “a really hard question to answer,” but favored balancing the interests of both parties.  

“A regulation might sound good but the unintended consequences of that may cost you money,” he concluded. “We’ve got to take care of our environment – whether it’s our economic environment [or] whether it’s the environment we breathe.”

In an interview with The Daily following Perry’s talk, Drell said that she thought Perry did an “outstanding job” communicating his admiration for the people working at the national laboratories.

“What Secretary Perry has done, so far, is deliver a 2018 budget for science that’s the best budget we’ve seen in a long, long time and that’s great,” Drell said.

Director of Environmental Safety and Health and Chief Safety Officer at SLAC Carole Fried said that she appreciated that Perry acknowledged the scientific perspective in his remarks, though understood that he had to weigh the scientific benefits against the economic costs.

“The Republican administration has a reputation for not necessarily supporting some of our mission, so it was nice to hear that Secretary Perry does support the further development of science.”

However, Matthew Solt, a research assistant at SLAC who also attended the talk, expressed his concern with Perry leading the energy department, as he believes Perry lacks knowledge of fundamental science.  

“He seemed very passionate about what we do, but lacking in scientific knowledge,” Solt said. “I think it’s possible he didn’t understand the questions [posed by Kao], he didn’t know the answer to the questions or he didn’t want to ask the questions directly.”

In July 2017, Perry awarded Stanford a five-year, $1.73 billon new contract to manage and operate SLAC on behalf of the DOE. This contract represents a 1 percent increase from the prior year. This number stands in stark comparison to the 2016-17 budget, which was up 22 percent from 2015-2016, and the 2015-16 budget, which was 13.5 percent higher than that of the year preceding it.

 

Contact Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Disability studies course seeks academic department placement, risks being discontinued https://stanforddaily.com/2018/03/19/disability-studies-course-seeks-academic-department-placement-risks-being-discontinued/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/03/19/disability-studies-course-seeks-academic-department-placement-risks-being-discontinued/#respond Mon, 19 Mar 2018 07:20:28 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1138301 The future of Stanford’s introductory course on disability studies--offered for the first time last fall-- remains uncertain, following the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education’s (VPUE) commitment to fund the course for another year on the condition that a single department support it.

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The future of Stanford’s introductory course on disability studies — offered for the first time last fall — remains uncertain, following the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education’s (VPUE) commitment to fund the course for another year on the condition that a single department support it.

Designed and taught by Doron Dorfman J.S.M. ’14, a J.S.D. Candidate at the Law School, the four-unit “Introduction to Disability Studies and Disability Rights” class is an interdisciplinary course examining disability as a social, cultural and political phenomenon. The course aims to address the intersectionality of disability. According to the Stanford Disabilities Initiative, over 25 students completed the inaugural class.

In the fall of 2017, the course was funded by VPUE, Harry Elam, who said that he remains committed to continuing the course.

“The reason we made it happen in the first place was because we believed in it,” Elam said. “We still feel that way.”

VPUE has offered to fully fund the course for the 2018-19 year on the condition that it joins a single academic department, according to Elam. When offered last fall, the course was cross-listed under interdisciplinary academic programs — ethics in society, human rights and feminist, gender and sexuality studies — as well as sociology, which is its own discrete department.

According to Elam, VPUE typically only sponsors pilot courses and, as such, cannot not financially support the course “indefinitely.” To ensure that Stanford continues to teach an introductory class in disability studies, Elam said, an academic department must fund the class and permanently incorporate it into its course offerings.

Dorfman informed VPUE of his difficulty finding an academic department that was willing to cover the cost of next academic year’s course offering.

“VPUE is not a program or a department, so we cannot house a class … [or] give it a course number,” Elam said. “[Dorfman’s] responsibility is to find an academic home.”

Dorfman said that he had reached out to the Handa Center for Human Rights and International Justice, but the center could not budget the course.

Dorfman expressed frustration at the expectation that he salvage the course. “I didn’t expect that this would fall under my responsibility,” he said. “It is hard to fit this task into my schedule as a full-time doctoral student and a lecturer.”

However, he acknowledged the complexity in housing the course. “We cannot expect the VPUE, which is not an academic department, to fund the class,” he said. “However, we should expect the academic community at Stanford to understand the importance of the field and its relevance to the lives of all students, staff and faculty. “

According to Elam, this prompted VPUE to increase the amount of funding he pledged to give the course from 50 to 100 percent for the 2018-19 year.

Dorfman said that he is unconvinced that academic departments will agree to accommodate the course and feels uncomfortable asking departments to support it. Consequently, there is no guarantee that the course will be offered in fall 2018 without the support of an academic department; as such, the course’s status in 2019 — and in years to come — remains unresolved.

Supporters have taken measures to advocate for the course within Stanford’s political sphere. The Stanford Disability Initiative released a petition earlier this quarter urging University administration to continue offering an introductory course in disability studies.

In an open letter to the Daily published last Friday, representatives of the Stanford Disability Initiative, Kids With Dreams, Power2Act, the ASSU and Sense Connect demanded that the University continue to offer an introductory course in disability studies.

“If we lose this class, Stanford is responsible for perpetuating an ableist trend, pushing disability issues and people with disabilities to the margins,” the open letter said.

On Feb. 28, the Undergraduate Senate voted unanimously in favor of a resolution written by Katie Hufker ’18, extending support to the Stanford Disability Initiative in its aim to guarantee that the course be offered every year.

Elam expressed skepticism about the sustainability of the course in its current form. He suggested that a “deeper problem” is also standing in the course’s way, namely that the University does not have a professor who teaches undergraduates and specializes in disabilities studies.

“Having a graduate student teach [the course] is not a long-term sustainable model,” Elam said. “Eventually a department would need to hire someone with expertise in [disability studies].”

Dorfman acknowledged VPUE’s efforts in offering a pilot version of the course.

“As much as you cannot expect a graduate student to save [an introductory class in] disability studies at Stanford, you really cannot expect the VPUE — which is not an academic department — to save disability studies,” he said.

However, Dorfman also pointed criticism at the University as an academic institution, which he believes has neglected the field of disability studies.

“The problem is with the academic system at Stanford which doesn’t value disability studies and hasn’t thought about it as a unit of analysis,” Dorfman said. “It is shameful.”

Some U.S. universities offer undergraduate minors in disability studies, including UC Berkeley and Ohio State University.

Setting out his goals for the discipline’s future at Stanford, Dorfman said that Stanford needs to guarantee that the class is taught next year and, from then on, make an “institutional effort” to establish a disability studies program.

He suggested creating a specialized research center or hiring a professor who is an expert in disability studies, which Dorfman defined as “a discipline of its own — with its own theories, its own scholars, its own way of viewing disability.”

Georgiana Burnside ’21, who sustained a spinal cord injury and now lives with paraplegia, said that she would expect a university as rigorous as Stanford to offer courses in disability studies.

“Discontinuing this class would suggest a social indifference that Stanford typically works hard to avoid,” Burnside said.

Burnside argued that the class also has important educational value, emphasizing that it could inform students about the lives of students with disabilities.

“Classes like this help educate people about how to be active empathizers, rather than just harboring unproductive pity,” she said.

 

Contact Anna-Luisa Brakman at abrakman ‘at’ stanford.edu and Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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In second Tanner Lecture, Power addresses U.S. diplomacy during Trump administration https://stanforddaily.com/2018/03/02/in-second-tanner-lecture-power-addresses-u-s-diplomacy-during-trump-administration/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/03/02/in-second-tanner-lecture-power-addresses-u-s-diplomacy-during-trump-administration/#respond Fri, 02 Mar 2018 08:14:13 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1137669 On Thursday evening, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power addressed international diplomacy during Donald Trump’s presidency in her second Tanner Lecture on Human Values. In the talk, Power said that America’s global standing has fallen dramatically under Trump. Power described a new model of diplomacy to tackle what she defined as unique 21st century challenges.

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On Thursday evening, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power addressed international diplomacy during Donald Trump’s presidency in her second Tanner Lecture on Human Values. Power said that America’s global standing has fallen dramatically under Trump, and described a new model of diplomacy to tackle what she defined as unique 21st century challenges.

Robert Keohane, a professor of political science at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson school, offered remarks on diplomacy, climate change and education following Power’s talk.

Power shared her fears about American diplomacy since Trump’s election: specifically, a possible military confrontation with North Korea or a war with Iran.  

“More than a year into the Trump administration, I am alarmed about the dismantling of American diplomacy and the massive drop in U.S. standing around the world,” she said.

Power specifically addressed the lecture’s title, “Diplomacy After Darkness.” She said that she was in “a state of shock” after the result of the 2016 presidential election but was consoled by the patriotism, professionalism and sense of service she saw in her colleagues at the State Department.

“The President-elect had pledged to undo much of what our team had achieved,” Power said.

Specifically, Power said that she is troubled by the current number of vacancies in the State Department. She noted that Trump’s administration has not put forward nominees for one-third of America’s open ambassadorships. This, she believes, has conveyed a lack of respect to countries without U.S. ambassadors, including Jordan, South Korea and Egypt.    

“The consequences of the hollowing out of the State Department run deep, and they are wide,” Power said.

Post-Trump Policy

Power said she believes that America is at a pivotal moment in history and one which future politicians will have to learn from. She also said that the next administration will have to engineer a renewal in American diplomatic policy in order to recover from what she referred to as “Trump’s wrecking ball.” However, she also added that it will be challenging for America to rebuild trust with its allies and reverse withdrawals from international agreements such as the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.   

“The next President will be digging [America] out of a large hole,” Power said.

She added that America’s “friends and foes” think that the country is divided, so the next administration must address domestic problems and the legitimate grievances of the American people which she believes led Trump to victory in the first place to restore confidence in American diplomacy.

“This includes finding a way to speak compellingly to Americans sympathetic to Trump’s resonant claim [a] surprisingly resonant claim that the U.S. is getting ripped off by the international order,” Power said.

“[Power] talked about the damage that the Trump administration is doing to the State Department… which was very bleak,” said Gabriela Levikow ’18. “But there is hope moving forward.”

Modernizing Diplomacy

Power said that America will need to adapt its “anachronistic” diplomatic policy to face 21st century challenges.  

She criticized Trump’s response to Russia’s use of technology to obstruct American democracy, which she argued has made the nation more vulnerable.

“On Russia, at no one point have our countries been more estranged,” Power stated. “Trump seems incapable of unequivocally acknowledging Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.”

Power also said that “Russian bots” had infiltrated social media platforms to spread division about the gun control debate following the recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

Regarding America’s diplomatic relationship with China a country that Power claimed will surpass America as the most powerful economy in the world within the next decade Power said that future diplomats must avoid two mistakes she believes America has been and continues to be guilty of making.

“[There is] the temptation on one hand to reflexively fight or negate China’s rise and the temptation on the other – because China is so powerful – to whitewash its deeply problematic domestic, regional, global policies,” she said.

Power said that she and the Obama administration gave into the first of these temptations when they unsuccessfully lobbied to prevent China’s establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a Beijing-based bank which supports infrastructure development in Asia and the Pacific.

Trump risks being guilty of the second mistake, Power continued, by showering praise on China’s president, Xi Jinping.

Students in the audience said they enjoyed hearing from Power because of her unique perspective on government and policy.

“Especially as someone who is really interested in U.S. foreign policy and potentially going into a career in diplomacy, I think [the talk] was really inspiring,” Levikow said. “[Power] started by talking about the negatives but then spoke about how we can move forward.”

“It was a phenomenal chance to get an insider’s perspective on something that some of us can only hear about in soundbites from the news,” said Samuel Feineh ’19.

Increasing diversity

Power advocated changing American diplomacy by means of employing more women and ethnic minorities.

However, she admitted her uncertainty about the feasibility of this goal.

“Choosing men and women in roughly equal numbers can still feel like fighting gravity,” Power said. “Our record in diplomacy of recruiting minorities is even worse. Minorities make up less than 15 percent of America’s senior diplomats, intelligence officials and military officers.”

Furthermore, Power drew on her personal experiences during the West African Ebola outbreak, where she found the most support from local leaders in affected regions, in emphasizing the importance of diversifying the stakeholders involved in diplomacy.

“The messengers who had the greatest impact were not heads of state but local priests and imams,” Power said. “It is essential to seek out the raw and unfiltered points of view that do not come through in briefing rooms… and air-conditioned government compounds.”

Power enumerated what she sees as the three qualities indispensable to the field of politics: objectivity regarding policy decisions, responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions and a sense of conviction.

“These are dark days,” Power concluded, referring again to Trump’s presidency and its diplomatic consequences. “Yet I am convinced as ever that despite all the cynicism out there – much of it earned – both our strength and compassion will rest where it always has with individuals who are willing to serve.”

Keohane on climate change, education 

Keohane expressed similar fears regarding the current administration. He detailed steps that America needs to take to renew its diplomacy, especially in the wake of climate change.

“We need unprecedented action on climate change,” Keohane said, further suggesting that America make major investments into zero-emissions energy and govern new advances in geo-engineering.

Keohane added that universities are also responsible for reinvigorating diplomacy. He said that universities should accept students who demonstrate an effort to advance a social good, and that changing admissions criteria would help to create a new generation of leaders committed to public service.

Keohane also argued that students should have a strong background in the humanities, especially history.

“It is distressing how much there has been a decline in the study of history at American universities, including Stanford,” Keohane said before quoting philosopher George Santayana. “Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.”

 

 

Contact Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Golden Globe winner Sterling K. Brown to speak at 2018 Commencement https://stanforddaily.com/2018/02/12/historic-golden-globe-winner-sterling-k-brown-will-be-stanfords-2018-commencement-speaker/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/02/12/historic-golden-globe-winner-sterling-k-brown-will-be-stanfords-2018-commencement-speaker/#respond Mon, 12 Feb 2018 08:47:06 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1136607 Sterling K. Brown '98, the critically-acclaimed actor and Stanford alumnus who became the first African-American actor to win a Golden Globe for best actor in a TV drama, will be Stanford’s 127th Commencement speaker.

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Sterling K. Brown ’98, the critically-acclaimed actor and Stanford alumnus who became the first African-American actor to win a Golden Globe for best actor in a TV drama, will be Stanford’s 127th Commencement speaker. 

Brown has received several awards for his television work, including Emmy awards for his performance in “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story” in 2016 and the NBC series ‘‘This Is Us” in 2017. He made history the following year when he received a Golden Globe for his role in the latter series.

Golden Globe winner Sterling K. Brown to speak at 2018 Commencement
Sterling K. Brown. (Courtesy of Nathan Johnson)

President Marc Tessier-Lavigne said he believes Brown will inspire the 2018 graduating class in his commencement speech on June 17.

“Brown is an eloquent role model for an entire generation, inspiring us with moving performances that not only bring life to each character, but also impart to the world a deeper understanding of our society,” Tessier-Lavigne said in an interview with Stanford News.  

Tessier-Lavigne announced the decision Friday evening during a standing-audience event at CEMEX Auditorium, where Brown and his wife Ryan Michelle Bathe ’98 spoke about art and culture in conversation with Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Harry Elam Jr., Sterling’s former professor.

Speaking to The Daily, Elam described Brown’s decision to choose the arts over economics as “a risk,” but he argued it sets an example for Stanford students to choose a major that reflects their passions.

“Students will choose majors not because they love a subject, but because that’s what they’re supposed to do or that’s what will get them a job,” Elam said. “He’s an example of choosing a major differently — [pursuing] something that you believe in, something that you want to work at and are committed to.”

Brown’s career

While Brown was an undergraduate, Elam encouraged Brown to pursue acting after casting him in his first campus production, “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” in November of 1994. A Daily review published at the time of the production praised Brown for a “perfect” performance that “[captured] the essence” of the character he portrayed.

“I’m thrilled that he stayed with [acting] and that the world has been able to see what I saw in that initial audition,” Elam said, adding that he was “ecstatic” when he discovered on Friday evening that Brown will give the commencement address.

Brown jettisoned his plans to major in economics and graduated from Stanford with a degree in drama. He earned an MFA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2001. From then on, his acting career burgeoned with roles in films including “Righteous Kill,” “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” and, more recently, “Marshall,” for which he received an NAACP Image Award nomination in 2018.

After Brown and Bathe spoke at CEMEX Auditorium, they took to a more intimate stage at Pigott Theater to meet cast members of Stanford BLACKstage’s winter quarter production, “The Wiz.”

Director of “The Wiz” and student program coordinator at the Institute for Diversity in the Arts Janei Maynard said she was delighted Brown was chosen as this year’s commencement speaker. She invited him and Bathe to speak to her cast members about the possibility of pursuing and thriving in an arts career.

“[Brown] defines success as the ability to do what he loves, regardless of the paycheck, and that is something Stanford students rarely hear but need to hear more,” Maynard said.

Selection process

Senior class presidents Ibrahim Bharmal ’18, Rachel Morrow ’18, Madilyn Ontiveros ’18 and Jack Seaton ’18 coordinated with Tessier-Lavigne’s office from the beginning of the 2017-18 academic year to create a shortlist of possible commencement speakers and decide on their preferred candidate.

Ultimately, the presidents reached a unanimous decision with the Office of the President to invite Brown to deliver the commencement address, because they believe he has distinguished himself as a groundbreaking actor.

“We were looking for someone who is a pioneer in his or her field,” Ontiveros said. For the class presidents, Brown — the first African-American recipient of some of America’s major entertainment awards — embodied that criterion.

To decide on the commencement speaker, the presidents considered candidates whom they thought would be inclusive and resonate well with their peers.

“The senior class presidents’ role is to try to help gauge the class climate and to help figure out what our classmates would want,” Ontiveros said.

“He proudly sees himself in the world as an African-American man,” Elam said, adding that this makes Brown a timely pick for the 2018 speech and an inspiration for audience members. “I think he can deliver a speech with a hopeful message.”

Ontiveros also said that activism on campus, as well as national and international events, factored into the presidents’ support for Brown.

“Throughout the process, we recognized the political climate that we are in, not only on campus with some of the events that have happened internally and that are specific to Stanford, but also the events that are happening as a whole in the U.S. and abroad,” Ontiveros said.

On Friday, Brown met with the senior class presidents to ask them about their class in preparation for writing his speech, according to Ontiveros.

In response, Ontiveros said, the presidents told Brown that the Class of 2018 has had a diverse set of experiences and that some class members had concerns about navigating the “real world” post-graduation, which they suggested he should address in his speech.  

The senior class presidents were particularly impressed by Brown, Ontiveros noted, because he has maintained a meaningful relationship with the University while pursuing great success beyond Stanford.

“He has not forgotten about Stanford,” she said. “He had made references to Stanford a couple of times in some of [his] talks and speeches … and shown that Stanford is very close to his heart.”

In his acceptance speech for his 2016 Emmy Award, Brown thanked his “extended family at Stanford University,” and exclaimed “stand up, chocolate Cardinal in the house.”  

Likewise, Elam believes Brown will deliver a memorable speech because he cares deeply about the University.

“He will bring a real and genuine love of Stanford … that will touch people,” Elam said. “Stanford has impacted his life, career and sense of who he is in the world.”

 

Contact Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Earlier foster care improves health, resilience in children, researchers find https://stanforddaily.com/2018/02/06/earlier-foster-care-improve-health-resilience-in-children-researchers-find/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/02/06/earlier-foster-care-improve-health-resilience-in-children-researchers-find/#respond Tue, 06 Feb 2018 10:27:07 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1136227 Stanford researchers pioneering a new model of foster care have discovered that placing vulnerable children with foster families at an earlier age enhances resilience, physical competence and emotional and academic intelligence.

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Stanford researchers pioneering a new model of foster care have discovered that placing vulnerable children with foster families at an earlier age enhances resilience, physical competence and emotional and academic intelligence.

Toddlers and infants abandoned at or around their time of their birth were more likely to reach an equal stage of development to their peers by the time they reached adolescence if placed with trained foster care families by the time they were two and a half years old, according to the new study. In contrast, only 23 percent of children who remained in institutional care matched the competence levels of their peers by the age of 12, researchers noted.

Conducted in Romania as part of the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP), the randomized study has followed the effects of foster care on 208 Romanian children with a history of institutionalization since 2000 and compared them to children who have never been in institutional care. The BEIP sought to establish a model for child-centered foster care as an alternative to institutional care; its model emphasized parent-child bonding, trained families to treat the children as if they were their own and psychologically prepared parents for the challenges of caring for a neglected child.

The findings, published in a Feb. 1 paper, reveal that the developmental progress of neglected children was highest among those aged 20 months or younger at the time of their placement. In this group, 79 percent were deemed competent, demonstrating a similar competency rate to their peers who were never institutionalized. In other areas of development, however, the timing of the placement did not seem to affect outcomes.

According to Kathryn Humphreys, the lead author of the study and a postdoctoral scholar in psychology, this discovery proved that placing children into foster care while they are still very young promotes resilience.

“These kids are not doomed, and many of them end up with normal outcomes,” Humphreys said in an interview with Stanford News. “So it’s important for us to work on removing them from those neglecting environments as soon as possible.”

Researchers measured the children’s level of resilience using seven criteria of well-being: family relations, peer relations, academic performance, physical health, mental health, substance use and risk-taking behavior.

“This was our way of using the existing available data to measure how well children are doing relative to their peers,” Humphreys said.

To Humphreys’ surprise, 40 percent of children who had been in institutional care met the study’s threshold of resilience by achieving a positive score in six of the seven categories.

“When we think about kids in institutional care, we often think about how they end up not faring well,” Humphreys added. “This research gives us a different, hopeful lens…[and] a window into how to promote resilience in children who experience neglects – namely, placing them in family care as early as possible.”

BEIP’s past research reported that neglect has significant and startling effects on children’s physical and mental growth, including stunted growth, delayed cognitive development and psychological disorders.

Institutional care was the primary source of care for Romania’s abandoned and neglected children from 1945 until 1989. After the collapse of the Communist regime, reports that around 100,000 Romanian children were living in institutional care in poor conditions came to light.   

There are approximately 8 million children growing up in institutional care in the world and, in America, three-quarters of child abuse cases are classified as neglect by child protection services.

 

Contact Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu.

 

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City, community collaborate to tackle housing crises in Mountain View https://stanforddaily.com/2018/02/02/civic-and-community-collaborate-to-tackle-housing-crises-in-mountain-view/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/02/02/civic-and-community-collaborate-to-tackle-housing-crises-in-mountain-view/#respond Fri, 02 Feb 2018 08:05:47 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1136027 Located just six miles outside of campus, Mountain View is an affluent city home to large corporations such as Google and LinkedIn, but the jobs-housing imbalance and swelling homelessness crisis there have prompted action from locals and city councilors alike — including open discussions of Stanford’s expansion plans and its implications for the housing crisis. […]

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Located just six miles outside of campus, Mountain View is an affluent city home to large corporations such as Google and LinkedIn, but the jobs-housing imbalance and swelling homelessness crisis there have prompted action from locals and city councilors alike — including open discussions of Stanford’s expansion plans and its implications for the housing crisis.

The shortage of available and affordable housing is a critical problem in Santa Clara County, where the effects of the technology boom have resulted in steep rents, stagnant wages and homelessness among local residents.

City, community collaborate to tackle housing crises in Mountain View
Hope’s Corner serves homeless individuals in Mountain View. (YASMIN SAMRAI/The Stanford Daily)

Housing shortage

Newly-elected mayor of Mountain View Lenny Siegel, a former Stanford student, attributed the source of the regional housing and jobs crisis to Stanford.

“Well, it started with Stanford,” he said. “Stanford is at the center of the jobs-housing imbalance. There’s very little housing on Stanford’s lands [for people] other than students and faculty.”

Siegel expressed his disapproval of Stanford’s petition for land expansion in its proposed 2018 General Use Permit (GUP) — which would see the University expand by 2.3 million square feet — suggesting that the proposal would worsen the jobs-to-housing ratio in the area.

“Stanford is a corporation … and it’s going to take a lot more community organizing or student organizing to get them to fully respond to the crisis that they helped create,” he said. “They’re basically externalizing the costs and burdening surrounding communities by doing that.”

In an email to The Daily, University spokesperson EJ Miranda wrote that addressing the region’s housing challenge is a priority that has been incorporated into the proposed GUP. For example, Stanford has pledged to contribute $11 million to Santa Clara Country’s affordable housing fund in the next two to three years in addition to the $26.1 million it donated between 2000 and 2015.

“We have also been working to expand nearby housing for employees — a short distance away, if not immediately on campus,” Miranda wrote, pointing to the Stanford West complex off Sand Hill Road and the Welch Road Apartments, which are open to the public but give priority to Stanford affiliates.

The Colonnade apartment complex in Los Altos and Mayfield Place in Palo Alto have also recently become available to Stanford faculty and staff.

“In each of these [apartment complexes] there is a percentage of units with rents set at Below Market Rates (BMR) for low-income local residents, including those who are affiliated with Stanford,” Miranda explained in his message.

Siegel, who has been a local activist since his days as a Stanford undergraduate in the late 1960s, believes the low jobs-to-housing ratio has contributed to sky-high rents, long commutes to work and increased homelessness.

It was during his student years that Siegel first became conscious of the excess of jobs compared to available housing, after witnessing that many people were employed by Stanford, but few staff had housing on Stanford’s land.  

“I actually started working on the jobs-housing imbalance when I was at Stanford,” Siegel said. “A group of us formed an organization called Grass Roots, published a pamphlet called “The Promise Land,” and started organizing around Stanford’s land use issues.”

Siegel’s goals have remained largely consistent since his time at Stanford. He was elected on Jan. 9 after running a pro-housing campaign, and stated in his platform that he is committed to increasing Mountain View’s housing supply for local employees by 50 percent as mayor.

“The biggest [housing issue] which we are addressing is the need for more supply,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of employment growth and so we, like Stanford and Palo Alto, are suffering from the jobs-housing imbalance.”

Unaffordable housing

The few housing options available despite the shortage remain largely unaffordable for Mountain View’s low-income and homeless residents. The cost of renting an average-sized apartment in Mountain View has soared to $2,924 monthly, as has the median home value, which stands at $1,794,700.

For Siegel, the housing crisis was personal. He shared that some young adults, including his own adult children, have been forced to live with their parents because they can’t afford to rent or buy a house in the area and do not want to spend hours a day commuting to work.

According to Siegel, other young professionals starting out on a low wage — including teachers, service workers and waiters — may decide to leave the city when their attempts to get a foot on the housing ladder fail. Siegel believes their departure has led to other social problems in the area.  

“The housing shortage or the high cost of housing is forcing people to move out [of Mountain View],” Siegel said. “Teachers can’t afford to live here… that’s not just a problem for [them], it’s a problem for the people who live here who want their kids to have good schools.”

Concerned that the shortage of housing had reached a crisis level, Siegel spent three years working with City Council on a plan to build 10,000 homes, office spaces and retail uses. Known as the North Bayshore Precise Plan, the proposal was approved unanimously by the council on Dec. 12. The housing development seeks to transform the northern end of Mountain View into a residential neighborhood by supporting the local housing demand as well as Google’s growing employee population.

To support working professionals struggling to meet the city’s high housing costs, city councilors hope to build apartments at below market value by subsidizing 20 percent of the housing units planned for the North Bayshore project. However, the timeline for implementing such plans remains unspecified.

“That would be 2,000 housing units, which is more than all of the affordable housing that Mountain View has built historically,” Siegel said.

Homelessness

According to the 2017 Santa Clara County Homeless Census, homelessness in Mountain View has increased by 51 percent since 2015. The census counted a total of 416 homeless individuals in the city, 411 of whom are unsheltered.  

Bob Lee, co-founder and treasurer of Hope’s Corner, a non-profit that runs a meal program for hungry and homeless residents, doubted that the new housing project would be able to alleviate the city’s homelessness crisis.

“I honestly don’t think it’s going to help homelessness because none of the homeless can afford those kinds of rents,” Lee said. “Low-income housing has a way higher threshold than these folks [can afford].”

Co-founder of Hope’s Corner Leslie Carmichael added that the high cost of rent has intensified food insecurity in the area, forcing some minimum-wage earners and elderly people living in multigenerational households to turn to free meal services.

“A third of the people who serve here are homeless, and two-thirds are housed,” Carmichael said. “If you’re a senior and your rent goes up, your income is probably staying the same, so they are getting squeezed as well.”

Rev. Michael Love of Trinity United Methodist Church, where Hope’s Corner’s meal and shower program operates, argued that reserving housing units for homeless residents might minimize the number of people on the street, but said that housing projects alone may not be enough to fully address the crisis.

“There has to be a place for folks that fall through the cracks,” Love said. “If we were to end homelessness today at 12 noon, tomorrow someone would get in dire straits and it’s our job as a community to help them out.”

Stephen Fernandez, a homeless resident who alternates between living in a shelter and his car and has been visiting Hope’s Corner for over a year, described his personal struggle navigating the city’s competitive job market.  

“I got laid off — I would have to say — by three different jobs in a row,” Fernandez said adding that it was challenging to compete with younger job candidates. “It’s like you’re the broken cog in the machine… I was working at a place and I trained the person who took over my job.”  

Community-civic partnership

Since Thanksgiving, Hope’s Corner has also offered overnight sanctuary at Trinity Church to up to 50 people, mostly women and children, and the program will continue to the end of March. The program provides homeless residents in the region with a hot meal, access to showers and laundry services as well as case management services. 

City officials agreed to approve and finance this shelter after a country staff report informed the council that the cold weather shelter in neighboring Sunnyvale was forced to refuse 25 families due to a lack of available bed space. The case managers at Hope’s Corner, part of the Community Services Agency, are also funded by the council.

Despite these efforts, homelessness in Mountain View exists in plain sight. The city’s homeless dwell in tents along Stevens Creek, live in RVs and cars or sleep on the streets. The visibility of the growing crisis has stirred many locals to action.

Jovanka Ciric Vujkovic and her son, a member of the Cub Scouts group in Mountain View, served food and handed out pack lunches at Hope Corner’s Saturday meal program.

“[Homelessness] is a big issue especially in an area that is so wealthy in all other aspects,” Vujkovic said. “It’s really important that we take care of people who are less fortunate than us.”

Mountain View’s City Council and local community have also joined forces to champion a new initiative.  Spearheaded by Hope’s Corner, the initiative envisions the construction of a larger kitchen on Trinity’s site to cope with increasing food insecurity in the area and expand the meal program to three days a week.

The renovated kitchen would also host a culinary training program for the local homeless, which the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors has agreed to help finance. Lee believes this program would equip homeless residents with employable skills to help them rejoin the job market.

“[We will] try to get these folks trained enough so that they can worked in a restaurant,” Lee said. “In some cases, it will be a minimum-wage job, but it will be something. It will be a starting place.”

Love said he believes the city must take a collaborative response to create a better balance between jobs and housing in Mountain View and alleviate food insecurity amongst the homeless and low-income residents.

“It’s got to be a community-civic partnership,” he said. “There are things that we could do better…There are things that clearly the County and Mountain View can do better.”

Nevertheless, Love said he has already started to see this partnership emerging.

“We really started to see the light shine when mayors started to turn up on Saturday.” Love said. “Our vision is aligned. We can and we are doing it.”

 

Contact Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu.

 

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Student-athletes weigh commitments, additional resources https://stanforddaily.com/2018/01/30/student-athletes-weigh-commitments-additional-resources/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/01/30/student-athletes-weigh-commitments-additional-resources/#respond Tue, 30 Jan 2018 08:56:47 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1135733 Stanford student-athletes must balance dual responsibilities: their academic coursework and their sporting commitments. While some believe student-athletes are held to lower academic standards than their non-athlete peers, both coaches and academic advisors alike say they work to promote a culture of academic rigor and integrity amongst student-athletes.

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Stanford student-athletes must balance dual responsibilities: their academic coursework and their sporting commitments. While some believe student-athletes are held to lower academic standards than their non-athlete peers, both coaches and academic advisors alike say they work to promote a culture of academic rigor and integrity amongst student-athletes.

A balancing act

Elizabeth Price ’18, a member of the women’s gymnastics team and a biomechanical engineering major, estimated that she spent about 20 hours a week on her sport on top of 30 to 40 hours of school work during fall quarter, when gymnastics was not in season and she could take a heavier course load.

According to Price, performing at a high level academically and athletically can be challenging during her sport’s season, as her classes and gymnastics commitments tend to conflict. She said that she sometimes has to miss classes to travel and occasionally misses practice to attend office hours, adding that her time to focus on homework is severely limited during winter quarter due to weekend competitions.

Expressing frustration, Price said that non-athletes are often unaware of the “balancing act” that student-athletes have to maintain to keep up with the academic pace at Stanford while devoting time to their sport.

“We might have our own advisors,” she said, referring to the academic advisors for student-athletes housed in the Athletic Advising Research Center (AARC). “We might also have our own tutors, which is great, but it’s not without a reason … it is very hard being a student-athlete because you have to [devote] 30-plus hours out of your week [to your sport].”

Melissa Schellberg, director of academic advising services for student-athletes and resident fellow in Suites, explained that academic planning can be uniquely difficult for student-athletes given that their schedules for practices and games are often decided by multiple stakeholders, including the NCAA conference, their coaches and their captains.

Similarly, Greg Meehan, head director of women’s swimming, agreed that there are “absolutely pressures associated with being a student-athlete,” emphasizing that he prefers the hyphenated term to just “athlete” because it captures the dual role that student-athletes play.

“The University isn’t asking any less of our student-athletes academically than they are of the general student body,” he said. “They have this huge other commitment of training and competition, travel and well-being. It is a very delicate balance.”

Some students contend that they must balance comparable extracurricular commitments without the added academic benefits that Stanford’s varsity athletes enjoy. Alex Sowell ’18, a national powerlifting competitor, also has to balance his athletic commitment with his academic ambitions, though Stanford does not recognize him officially as a “student-athlete.” Also an electrical engineer major, Sowell spends an estimated 15-20 hours a week on his sport and another 30 to 40 hours on his schoolwork.

“I have to give time and commitment to one in order to do well in the other one. They can’t really coexist optimally, but it’s still worth doing both of them,” Sowell said.

Powerlifting is not a Division I collegiate sport, so Sowell believes he misses out on the extra academic resources and accommodations afforded to varsity athletes, such as additional tutoring, deadline extensions and travel funding for competitions.

“There’s no … academic help [given],” Sowell said. “It’s all been on my own. It’s all been driven by passion for the sport.”

Student-athletes weigh commitments, additional resources
Through the Athletic Advising Research Center (AARC), student-athletes are able to access additional resources to help them balance their dual commitment to academics and sports.
(YASMIN SAMRAI/The Stanford Daily)

Navigating academic eligibility

Student-athletes meet often with their designated academic advisors to plan their class schedules around their athletic commitments and to ensure they fulfill the academic requirements necessary for graduation.  

Axel Geller ’21, a member of the men’s tennis team, recalls adapting his academic schedule several times to attend a competition in China which would require him to miss a week and a half of classes.

“I changed my schedule five times for that to work,” he said.

Price also remarked that her advisor is well-versed in the NCAA academic eligibility requirements and can help student-athletes navigate the challenges of fulfilling their academic obligations. For instance, student-athletes must always enroll in at least 12 units per quarter. For juniors and seniors, six of those units must count towards their degree. Depending on the quarter, athletes can receive up to two units for participating in their sport.

“[Academic eligibility is] a huge issue that surrounds being a student-athlete,” Price admitted. “Otherwise I can’t practice, can’t travel, can’t compete, can’t really do anything with the team.”

Both Geller and Price stated that their coaches also influence their academic decisions.

“I was going to take 19 units [winter] quarter, but my coach told me to drop a class,” Geller said. “He said [Computer Science 106A] is too hard to combine with taking 19 units, so I dropped a three-unit class.”

Likewise, Price remembers receiving advice as a freshman on how to adjust to a new academic environment while playing on a college team.

“Our coaches would definitely recommend taking a lighter course load in the winter,” she said. “I don’t think I would have known that [in my freshman year] otherwise.”

To help his swimmers cope with the stresses of their academic and athletic demands, Meehan also encourages them to compartmentalize.

“When they are in their classroom or in a lab or working on a group project, they have to be completely invested in what they’re doing in that moment,” he said, explaining the technique. “Similarly, when they’re in training … I don’t want them to be thinking about a [problem set] or a group project.”

 

An intentional advising structure

In contrast to athlete advisors at other colleges, such as Cornell and the University of California at San Diego, the AARC advisors do not work under Stanford Athletics or report to the Director of Athletics. Instead, they are housed under the Office of Undergraduate Advising and Research. Meehan argued that this structure helps create a culture of academic integrity within athletics.

“We are actually a dotted line to athletics,” Schellberg said, explaining the AARC’s position within the University. “I report to Harry Elam, who is the vice provost of undergraduate education. That was designed on purpose. If, for whatever reason, we feel like athletics isn’t maintaining the values that the University calls for, we have a way to talk about it and bring that up.”

In this way, the advisors at the AARC help athletes mediate between the conflicting demands of their professors and coaches. They don’t pledge allegiance to either academics or athletics, but strive to be a positive advocate for whatever is in the best interest of the student-athlete. 

“A coach might not give unbiased opinions, professors might not give unbiased opinions,” Schellberg admitted. “But we are at this middle point and try to help them make the best individual.”

She added that in the past, this role has involved supporting athletes who decide they want to discontinue their sport.

 

Academic culture

Schellberg reported that since 2011, when Stanford Athletics decided to stop publishing a quarterly “courses of interest” list (the list was widely believed to enumerate easy classes for athletes to take), the AARC has changed its advising strategy.

Schellberg acknowledged the AARC’s regret for publishing the list and believes that their new strategy of “targeted advising,” which she defined as tailoring advice to the values and goals of each individual athlete, has brought about positive change for athletes.  

“I can tell you we would never make something like this [again],” Schellberg said, referring to the list. “Maybe it was a mistake and we’ve learned from that.”

The absence of a list doesn’t mean that student-athletes aren’t still looking for easier courses, though, Schellberg said.

“Carta is really replacing this,” she said, pointing to a copy of an old “courses of interest” list. “Students aren’t really asking me how hard a class is because they just look it up and see what other students said and the [distribution of] grades.”

Carta is a website that allows Stanford students to review information about any given course, including the average number of hours students spend on it per week, grade distributions and written feedback.

Meehan expressed frustration with the misconception that student-athletes at Stanford pursue an easier academic path.

“Let’s be honest,” he said. “There are much easier paths [for promising athletes] than coming here.”

Data collected in 2017 suggest that the most popular major choices amongst student-athletes differ slightly from those of the whole student population. Science, technology and society, human biology, management science and engineering, computer science and political science, in that order, are the programs student-athletes most commonly pursue. The most common majors across the entire Stanford community are computer science, human biology, electrical engineering, symbolic systems, and mechanical engineering.

Meehan said that he fosters an emphasis on coursework by “culturally prioritizing academics” and impressing upon his swimmers the value of performing well in school. Meehan added that the team achieved its highest average G.P.A. over the past two academic quarters following their March 2017 national championship, attributing his swimmers’ academic successes to a “laser focus” developed in training that carried over to their school work.

According to Schellberg, Head Coach of Women’s Lacrosse Amy Bokker also rewards academic achievement by hosting a special dinner every quarter for team members who achieve a G.P.A. of 3.5 or higher.

Schellberg acknowledged that the high demands student-athletes face both academically and athletically sometimes require a tradeoff regarding where they choose to focus their energies.

“Depending on a student-athlete’s sport and skill level, they might prioritize one over the other at one point,” she said. “But the fact that they chose Stanford means that they place a high value in both entities.”

 

Going professional

The NCAA reports that the probability of a student-athlete competing in their sport professionally is extremely low. In major professional sports, fewer than 10 percent of NCAA athletes embark on a professional career. For example, just 1.5 percent of college football players are drafted into the National Football League. Meehan believes that these statistics debunk myths that some non-athletes believe about the career prospects of their sporting peers.

“[The misconception surrounding] student-athletes is that they are going to have all of these opportunities, make all this money,” he said. “They are going to make way more money off their Stanford degree than they are athletically, with very rare exceptions.”

Geller, who won the Boys’ Doubles title at the 2017 Wimbledon Championships, hopes to return to Wimbledon in the future to claim the men’s title. While he strives to achieve his athletic goals, he has also made an academic plan to prepare himself for a career in economics or finance after he retires from tennis.  

“When you’re 30 or 35, you’re done with your sport and you have a whole life to live after that,” Geller said. “If you didn’t do anything apart from your sport, what would you do?”

Price has had her sights set on a career in engineering since she entered Stanford and retired from international elite gymnastics.

“I’ve kind of already accomplished what I want to do with gymnastics,” she said. “So, my goals for the future are strictly based off my academics.”

Schellberg expressed her hope to eventually demystify college sports and bridge the gap between Stanford’s students and student-athletes.

“Sometimes athletics can be this enigma,” Schellberg remarked. “One of my next initiatives, especially as [a resident fellow], is to break down those barriers.”

 

Contact Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Former ‘Nightline’ anchor talks journalism, national service and free speech https://stanforddaily.com/2018/01/19/a-conversation-with-ted-koppel-on-journalism-national-service-and-free-speech/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/01/19/a-conversation-with-ted-koppel-on-journalism-national-service-and-free-speech/#respond Fri, 19 Jan 2018 08:16:41 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1135312 Ted Koppel MA ’62, the multi award-winning news anchor of ABC’s “Nightline” and one of America’s longest-serving journalists, shared in an interview with The Daily his disappointment with the rise of opinion-based reporting, support for reinstating compulsory national service and passionate defense of civil discourse.

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Ted Koppel M.A. ’62, the multi award-winning news anchor and managing editor of ABC’s “Nightline” and one of America’s longest-serving journalists, shared in an interview with The Daily his disappointment with the rise of opinion-based reporting, support for reinstating compulsory national service and passionate defense of civil discourse.

Former 'Nightline' anchor talks journalism, national service and free speech
NIGHTLINE – 2/4/87
Ted Koppel and Kermit the Frog on “Nightline” set. (ABC/LESLIE WONG)

Koppel returns to Stanford this year as the Mimi and Peter E. Haas Distinguished Visitor, a program awarded by the Haas Center to an individual whose career has served the public in a significant way.

State of journalism

Koppel lamented what he described as the decline of journalistic standards, which he said has arisen from the media’s financial incentive to profit from the public’s desire for sensation and scandal.

“So much of journalism today is, in fact, energized by a need to entertain rather than inform,” Koppel said. “The reason for this is that the people who own these very entities discovered that something that ultimately entertains an audience is going to make more money for the newspaper, the radio station [and] the television network.”

Although he acknowledged that news organizations are reaping financial rewards from Donald Trump’s presidency in terms of a surge in newspaper subscriptions and soaring circulation rates, Koppel maintains that the coverage is excessive and journalism is “suffering because of it.”

“I understand that Donald Trump and what he represents constitute an important story,” Koppel said. “But he’s not the only story out there right now, and there are other stories of importance that deserve coverage.”

Moreover, Koppel expressed disappointment in news reporters whose personal and political opposition to Trump, he believes, has compromised the objectivity of their reporting.

“You cannot read [The New York Times] without coming to the conclusion that almost everybody who works for the organization would like to see Donald Trump replaced,” Koppel said. “Other than on their op-ed pages, I don’t really want to know what the opinion or political outlook of the reporter.”

He traced the widespread decline in objective reporting back to the birth of the Internet. While the Internet has democratized journalism, Koppel said, it is also undermining fact-based journalism because online bloggers might disregard the rigorous fact-checking requirements of an established newspaper and indulge in clickbait.

“I believe the Internet has been very dangerous in that sense,” Koppel said. “It’s a marvelous tool, but like any tool, it can be used for good or evil.”

Ultimately, Koppel believes that good journalism is a skilled trade — “it’s not brain surgery” — and requires an educated mind and the ability to write well and clearly.

“[Journalists should] take a complex issue and reduce it to a fairly simple level, so that it can be understood by a great many people without in anyway distorting the reality of the story,” Koppel said. “That’s good journalism.”

Compulsory national service

During his 10-week residency at the Haas Center, Koppel said he wants to promote mandatory military and civilian service.

“I’m talking about reinstituting the draft — the military draft,” Koppel explained, “but [also] giving 18-year-olds the option of not going into the military and going into the social or humanitarian side.”

America has had an all-volunteer military force since 1973, when military conscription ended. The U.S. has also offered the option of doing social work through alternative programs, such as the Civilian Public Service during the Second World War. Koppel has called on the support of former senators Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and Allen Simpson of Wyoming. Now he seeks to collaborate with others, including faculty at Stanford, on the idea.

Koppel believes national service would unite a politically and socially fragmented America, which he said is more divided than it has been in the last 50 years.

“The only thing that can ultimately bring the country back together again, that will get us out of our individual opinion silos, out of this sort of tribalism,” Koppel argued, “is if we require our young people to work with other young people from other parts of the country from different backgrounds.”

Koppel first became interested in the idea of national mandatory service while he was researching his book “Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath.” Published in 2015, the book warns of a cyberattack on the U.S. power grid that could have nightmarish consequences and leave America in a blackout for months. While Koppel’s current interest in national service transcends his earlier work on cybersecurity, his research made him realize how woefully unprepared he and millions of Americans would also be if such a catastrophe occurred.

“I couldn’t fix a roof; I couldn’t fix a leaking toilet; I couldn’t shoot and skin and cure a deer, so that my family has meat for the winter,” Koppel said.

Consequently, he thinks that reintroducing the national service would help young people overcome social differences and equip them with a number of skills, including the ability to survive a national catastrophe.

 

Civil discourse

Koppel urged college students to listen to and even entertain ideas that clash with their own. He warned against college campuses limiting free speech as a means of combating hate speech, supporting Stanford’s decision not to ban Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch, from speaking on campus in November last year.

“Most college students are too young to justify having a rigid, unchangeable, implacable mind-set,” Koppel said. “Leave your mind open to a point of view that opposes your own. That’s why I’m hardly in favor of hate speech, but I am in favor of free speech,” adding that the two terms are often conflated with dangerous consequences.

Koppel said he employed this open-mindedness as a news anchor and managing editor of “Nightline” for 26 years. In fact, the guests he remembers enjoying the most were the ones who held opposing points of view to him.

“It became a self-imposed discipline that I would not reach a conclusion about my guests,” Koppel said. “Even if I hated what they were saying, I would love listening to anyone who can make a strong argument.”

Koppel will engage in this form of debate in a Cardinal Conversation with Anne Applebaum on “Real and Fake News” on April 9. The format of this new series hosted by the Hoover Institution reminded Koppel of his previous work.

“I did 6000 programs like that, and we called it ‘Nightline’,” he quipped.

Speaking to the Stanford graduating class of 1986 in his first commencement address, Koppel delivered a similar warning that America was becoming a “nation of electronic voyeurs, whose capacity for dialogue is a fading memory.” He gave his second commencement speech in 1998 where he called for graduates to “aspire to decency” and “practice civility to one another.”

Koppel said he has enjoyed being back on The Farm so far and engaged with “a lot of nice, interesting people” but admitted that “the most significant thing that happened to me here was not my education but meeting my wife,” Grace Anne Dorney, M.A. ’67.

Koppel will be in residence at the Haas Center for a 10-week period during winter and spring quarter and will be available to engage in dialogue with students on issues of free speech, the media and cybersecurity. He will deliver a lecture entitled “Public Service and the University” on April 18.

 

Contact Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Students debate being ‘guinea pigs’ for PSYCH 1 requirement https://stanforddaily.com/2017/12/02/students-question-psych-1s-experimental-participation-requirement/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/12/02/students-question-psych-1s-experimental-participation-requirement/#respond Sat, 02 Dec 2017 18:48:48 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1134338 Stanford’s popular psychology class, PSYCH 1: “Introduction to Psychology,” has long included an experiment participation component, but recently students have expressed concerns and confusion about the requirement and its value.

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Stanford’s popular psychology class, PSYCH 1: “Introduction to Psychology,” has long included an experiment participation component, but recently students have expressed concerns and confusion about the requirement and its value.

Students debate being 'guinea pigs' for PSYCH 1 requirement
Jordan Hall, home to the psychology department (SARAH WISHINGRAD/The Stanford Daily).

The course’s research requirement asks students to complete seven hours of online and in-person studies that contribute to research conducted by advanced – mostly graduate – students in the department. Students who fail to participate in seven hours of psychology experiments receive an incomplete in the class, unless they request an opt-out.

James Gross, psychology professor and director of the introduction to psychology program, believes the research requirement is an essential part of the class as it introduces students to psychology as an empirical and experimental subject.

“We, as a department, feel very strongly that a proper understanding of the field of psychology requires deep engagement with the scientific method,” said Gross, who teaches the class during fall quarter. “So this is one of the tools we have to help students experience science as it’s being built.”

Undergraduate psychology programs around the country include experimental research as a core component of their introductory classes. Gross pointed out that psychology courses at Duke University, the University of California, Berkeley, Ohio State University and the University of Michigan are in consensus about the pedagogical value of undergraduate research participation. Duke and Berkeley both require five hours of research, while Ohio State and Michigan require seven each.

Rated 3.9 out of five by students who have taken the class, the experimental component has generally been well received. However, some students have raised concerns about the running of the studies and their purpose.

Hannah Kukurugya ’21, a current student in the class, spoke highly of the teaching, but said that she experienced problems at an in-person study. Uninformed about what tasks she would have to perform in the study, she felt she gained little from the experience.

“I was definitely taken a little bit off-guard, because I believe I was not fully debriefed before participating in the study,” she said. “I felt like I couldn’t contribute … I most likely would not have signed up for it.”

While Kukurugya has had a better experience with the online studies, she worries that some students don’t approach them in a scientific manner. She disclosed that she has occasionally hurried through a study.

“Those studies can get long and sometimes, personally, I feel like [I’m] rushing through it to get it done, to get my credit hours,” Kukurugya said.

Likewise, Jojo Harber ’21, another student in the class, admits that she answered most of surveys carefully, but “for one of the studies, I went through it a little faster than I probably should have.”

Another student in the class, who wishes to remain anonymous, said that she sped through a three-hour online survey in 15 minutes, which could skew the data and undermine the reliability of the experiment’s results. Kukurugya also noted a discrepancy between credit hours and how long students are spending on the studies.

“There are so many people in the class who … [say], ‘Do this study, you get three credit hours and it only takes a half hour.’”

In response, Gross expressed regret that some students are not approaching the experimental research in a good-spirited, scientific manner.

“I’m very disappointed to hear that,” Gross said. “It’s not something that we can perfectly control … it’s possible to come into Stanford and really waste your time here, and it’s very sad to see that.”

But Gross added that only “a very small percentage” of people try to undermine the system and, in those cases, there are mechanisms in place to prevent them from distorting the results. For example, there are ways of checking how long participants spent on the online surveys. Completing a survey significantly faster than the estimated time would raise a red flag, and the participants’ data would likely be discarded.

“So, this person not only wasted their own time,” Gross said, “but they also didn’t contribute to the science.”

While Kukurugya finds value in contributing to studies that might find their way into college textbooks, she objected to the additional demands on students’ time.

“The students are forced to do these research hours, so that the people above – the graduate and masters students – can complete their thesis,” Kukurugya said. “Undergrads are great workhorses … [and] guinea pigs as well.”

The psychology department requires students who don’t wish to participate in the experimental research to write a five-page paper on the ethics of human experimentation instead. The date for declaring this option passed on Oct. 13 and the deadline for submitting the substitute paper, Nov. 3, is more than a month before the deadline for completing the seven hours of research. Although the research participation component is voluntary, Kukurugya isn’t convinced that writing a five-page research paper is a viable option for the busy college student.

“I do not think a five-page research paper is equivalent to seven hours of participating in studies,” Kukurugya said “I would think the paper’s worse. Things that are worth an hour in credit will only take a half hour to complete.”

But according to Gross, the five-page paper isn’t graded, nor does it require copious amounts of extra reading. Students wishing to opt out of the experimental component meet with the course coordinator, Jennifer Crosby, who advises students to spend no more time on the paper than they would on the experiments.

“[Crosby] makes it very clear what the spirit of this is – to take something they’re already interested in and they’ve already thought about and try to craft an argument,” Gross said.

While Gross informs students about the purpose and value of contributing to graduate research, both Kukurugya and Harber expressed a desire to know more about how their participation helps research.  

“We hope, and I’m not sure if we do this perfectly every time, but we try very hard … to have a good debriefing process,” Gross said.

“They explain what you need to do and what the task will be,” Harber said. “But they don’t give you any insight in what big study it has to do with.”

The larger purpose of the experiments, according to the psychology department, is to engage undergraduates in the advancement of the subject, so that they can help to write the next chapter in psychology’s history.

“[Former] students in PSYCH 1 participated in studies that were written up, published and broadcast around the world and put into textbooks,” Gross said.

Harber said she recognizes that some students might see the experimentation requirement as “a waste of time” but that she has personally benefited from the opportunity.

“It’s been rewarding and fun to see psychology in the real world and what experiments they’re doing now that relate to the class,” Harber said.

 

Contact Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu.

 

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Taking time off Stanford to work, volunteer: three students’ stories https://stanforddaily.com/2017/11/05/taking-time-off-stanford-to-work-volunteer-three-student-stories/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/11/05/taking-time-off-stanford-to-work-volunteer-three-student-stories/#respond Mon, 06 Nov 2017 07:51:26 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1132612 The Daily profiles three students who took time off from Stanford to pursue their professional and humanitarian goals.

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Studying abroad isn’t the only way for students to get outside the Stanford bubble. Some students take leaves of absences in order to step beyond their comfort zones and put their skills to work in a practical context.

Here, The Daily profiles three students who took time off from Stanford to pursue their professional and humanitarian goals. They took their education across the state, country and world to work and volunteer in fields as varied as engineering and education, local politics and refugee work. The students’ time away from campus taught them skills they couldn’t find in the classroom and proved to be rewarding and career-determining.

“We don’t learn empathy, we don’t learn how to listen to people’s stories in the classroom,” said Emma Mathers ’19, who took a year off. “There are so many important skills that there [is] no way to teach in the classroom.”

Product designing and teaching

James Wang ’20 is now one quarter into his leave of absence at Autodesk, a multinational software corporation in San Francisco, where he started working as an intern the summer after his freshman year.

“I got this job making 3D-printed prosthetic arms … and it was mind-blowingly fun for me,” Wang said. “I asked to keep working for Autodesk and they agreed.”

His desire to take a leave of absence started even before he arrived on campus. Having grown up in Palo Alto, he was keen to spend time outside of his home town and widen his horizons. Above all, he wanted to be able to define his own educational career rather than follow a predetermined path to make money. Initially, Wang didn’t plan to work in the tech industry at all.

“The original plan was to work on a fishing boat in Alaska,” Wang said.

While fishing in dangerous weather conditions might seem miles apart from building cutting-edge software, Wang sees his current work building rockets with Autodesk as feeding his appetite for hands-on work and risk-taking. The practical nature of his job allows him to put his learning into immediate practice, something he thinks the current education system neglects.

“One thing about project-based learning is that if you’re working on a project that is using what you learn, it becomes suddenly gratifying,” Wang said.

James also teaches on the side and will be teaching a biweekly product design class to high school students in East Palo Alto this winter and spring quarter. His classes teach technical skills like coding and aim to inspire creativity in students through independent design projects. His interest in combining engineering with education was sparked by his involvement in MakeX, a public “makerspace” for designing, building and tinkering in Palo Alto that equips teenagers with cutting-edge technology and peer mentors.

Wang admits that while working at Autodesk is fun and rewarding, teaching has not been an easy ride. Rather, he has found it mentally exhausting and, at times, “anxiety-inducing.” One worry he has is that philanthropic organizations like StreetCode Academy, where he teaches, might actually be counter-productive and hamper students’ self-esteem.

“I’ve read several [research] papers that have found social projects in education can hurt your students by people trying to force their value systems on students,” Wang said. “It’s hard to say whether you’re making a difference, and God forbid you’re hurting a student.”

Nevertheless, a desire to be part of education reform and “a sense of duty” keeps Wang coming back to the classroom. After having a negative experience in the high school education system, he feels it his responsibility to be a part of changing the system rather than perpetuating it.

“I did not like high school at all … and thought the education system had side-lined me,” Wang said, “which is why I got into [teaching] five or six years ago.”

Wang collaborates with the Stanford Design School and taught a workshop class with the Director of Community at the d.school, Charlotte Burgess-Auburn, at East Palo Alto Academy’s DreamLab on Oct. 14. Wang and Burgess-Auburn brought college students and local high school students together for an interactive introduction to peer-led education.

In the future, Wang will be working in the Stanford Project Realization Lab and spending his Saturdays blacksmithing. He also hopes to work with the K-12 Lab at the d.school, an educational group that seeks to implement design thinking in high schools. His plans for post-graduation are equally ambitious.

“My dream plan is to graduate from college, do some weird engineering stuff, become an astronaut and come back [to Palo Alto] and take a break by teaching at a high school,” Wang said, adding that he believes teaching will be an important part of his life.

“Teaching will certainly be in my future, as it will be in everyone’s future, in my opinion,” Wang said. “You teach people when you’re interacting with them.”

Taking time off Stanford to work, volunteer: three students' stories
Hattie Gawande took time off school to volunteer in local politics (Courtesy of Hattie Gawande).

Campaigning for affordable housing

Hattie Gawande ’18 took a leave of absence for her sophomore fall quarter in 2015 to work in local politics in her hometown of Newton, Massachusetts. She made a “spur-of-the-moment” decision to volunteer at her mother’s organization, Engine 6, when she realized that the group’s campaign for greater housing diversity and affordability in Newton was suffering due to a lack of funding and support.

“It wasn’t exactly planned,” Gawande said. “I didn’t know I would be taking a quarter off until after I had booked my plane tickets to go back to school.”

Most of Gawande’s experience with politics has been at the federal level. She campaigned for Senator Elizabeth Warren as a high-schooler and interned at Capitol Hill her freshman summer, but was relatively new to local politics. When she discovered that Engine 6 would lose momentum without an extra volunteer, she felt compelled to get involved.

“I realized that unless there was a pretty serious intervention … it was going to be really tough for things to be sustained,” Gawande said. “It looked like the city council was going to get stacked with folks who were opposed to affordable housing.”

Her daily schedule was comprised of building canvassing strategy, creating phone lists and designing campaign materials in the morning, and then knocking on doors in the afternoon to rally support for Newton’s pro-affordable housing candidates.

“My goal was to get four candidates – that I was coordinating the campaigns of – to win re-election,” Gawande said, including that three out of the four won their races.

That one loss was initially demoralising because it was her first campaign, but in December 2015 the council finally sanctioned the project to build several units of affordable and multi-family housing. After reflecting on Engine 6’s broader success, Gawande was pleased with the outcome.

Gawande, an Economics major, believes her time working at the heart of local politics — dealing with an issue like housing that has an immediate effect on people’s lives — enriched her education.

“In my Econ classes, we study a lot of policy that is primarily enacted at the state or federal level,” Gawande said. “There is this whole gap in my education on the things that actually impact people everyday.”

Ultimately, Gawande believes that her leave of absence shaped the way that she sees politics and her career plans. Upon returning to Stanford, she began working with an Economics professor on a housing policy research project.

However, Gawande says she didn’t fully appreciate the lessons from her time off until after the 2016 general election.

“Not long after this Trump won the presidency … and that felt super demoralising. A lot of people were responding by saying that they felt powerless in politics and that they didn’t know what to do,” Gawande said.“ “I knew that wasn’t true and that the place you could ultimately have the most impact was local politics.”

Taking time off Stanford to work, volunteer: three students' stories
Emma Mathers took a year away from Stanford to volunteer in refugee camps (Courtesy of Emma Mathers).

Volunteering in refugee camps

Emma Mathers ’19 took a year-long leave of absence in 2016 during winter and spring quarter of her sophomore year and fall quarter of her junior year to volunteer in refugee camps in Greece and Lebanon. Horrified by news of the Syrian refugee crisis and struck, in particular, by the now-well-known photo of young Alan Kurdi washed ashore on a beach in Turkey, she booked a one-way flight to the Greek island of Lesvos.

“I was really, really horrified at what was happening,” Mathers said. “I was following the news very closely and I felt powerless and disconnected.”

Mathers’s decision was a spontaneous one, so she relied on Facebook groups to direct her to volunteer organizations in Lesvos. She recalls being surprised that the humanitarian effort was largely volunteer-based.

“The crazy thing was that most of the efforts were coordinated by completely independent volunteers,” Mathers said.

During her first three months, she worked for a Greek NGO called The Starfish Project that aids the plight of refugees by addressing their most basic needs. When the refugee boats arrived from the Mediterranean Sea, Mathers and other volunteers supplied the refugees with food and clothing and provided them with transportation to the main refugee camp on the island, Moria.

Mather was overwhelmed by the numbers of refugees arriving in Greece, and she said she is still traumatized by the desperation and deaths she witnessed. She remembers one harrowing case of a mother and her baby.

“The mother ran up to me with her baby boy [who] must have been maybe a year old,” Mathers said. “And he was completely unresponsive … and ultimately died.”

After hearing that there was a growing crisis in the Greek village of Idomeni, Mathers left Lesvos and travelled north to the Macedonian border. Her time there would prove to be the hardest part of her year.

“One of the medical teams from Lesvos said we need to go there and help because there were 20,000 people sitting at the border with no medical services, no food, no anything,” she recalled.

At the camp in Idomeni, Mathers was frightened and shocked by the level of poor sanitation, high cases of hypothermia and prevalence of sexual assault. She set out to use her skills wherever necessary, working closely with Doctors Without Borders to prepare and distribute food for the camp.

“I just went to the camp and asked where they needed me,” Mathers said. “A lot of it was self-driven.”

In addition, she volunteered with a group to provide mothers with a sheltered space to nurse and care for their babies. As she became more and more invested in the lives of the refugees, she found the work rewarding as well as emotionally taxing.

“I got very close to a lot of the refugees and I am still in touch with the people I met in the camps,” Mathers said.

While Mathers had planned to just spend a quarter volunteering in the camps, she kept extending her leave of absence. By the summer, she and two other young volunteers she met in Greece travelled to Lebanon, where she helped set up Embedded Community Centers with an NGO called Salam; the Lebanese government does not allow organizations to build official camps.

Mathers taught English five days a week in the community centers. Because the Syrian children had been out of school for several years, Mathers and other volunteers had to help them catch up to their age groups so they could pass proficiency tests.

Her year of volunteering ended back in Greece, in the city of Thessaloniki, where she helped set up a kitchen in a refugee camp in Kalochori with a fellow volunteer.

Eventually, she passed on the kitchen to the refugees, who used the space and materials she provided to cook their meals. It was important to her that the refugees had more independence in directing relief efforts.

Feeling burned out and emotionally and physically exhausted, having volunteered all of her efforts, Mathers ended 2016 in Germany, where she was delighted to reconnect with the refugees she had met earlier in the year.

“It was amazing to see them in their new lives,” Mathers said. “They were learning German and doing really, really well.”

Reflecting on her leave of absence, Mathers confessed that it was hard to return to campus after witnessing first-hand a humanitarian crisis. She remembers meeting one woman who told her that during the war her husband’s head was blown off in front of her children.

“I was having to grapple with a lot of guilt coming back,” Mathers said. “I felt so guilty eating the nice food we have here and knowing that my friends were still in the camps.”

Nevertheless, Mathers doesn’t regret her decision to volunteer in the refugee camps, because the experience was life-changing and gave her academic career drive and purpose. She hopes to go to medical school and work for Doctors Without Borders.

“I will never ever forget any of it,” Mathers said.”I gained so much valuable knowledge and direction and motivation to do what I want to do inside of the classroom, so I can ultimately do what I want to do outside of it.”

 

Contact Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu.

 

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Campaign to make Memorial Church a ‘sanctuary church’ meets obstacles https://stanforddaily.com/2017/10/26/campaign-to-make-memorial-church-a-sanctuary-church-meets-obstacles/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/10/26/campaign-to-make-memorial-church-a-sanctuary-church-meets-obstacles/#respond Thu, 26 Oct 2017 07:15:59 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1131907 Campus group Stanford Sanctuary Now (SSN) has been working to establish Memorial Church a “sanctuary church” for the undocumented community at Stanford, following the lead of churches around the United States that have promised to shelter undocumented immigrants fearing deportation in response to the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration. Since President Donald Trump’s inauguration in […]

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Campus group Stanford Sanctuary Now (SSN) has been working to establish Memorial Church a “sanctuary church” for the undocumented community at Stanford, following the lead of churches around the United States that have promised to shelter undocumented immigrants fearing deportation in response to the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

Campaign to make Memorial Church a 'sanctuary church' meets obstacles
Memorial Church (MELISSA WEYANT/The Stanford Daily).

Since President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January and the move to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, there has been a growing effort to establish “sanctuary” cities, churches and college campuses across the country. However, the movement at Stanford is complicated by the fact that Memorial Church is part of Stanford University, potentially implicating the university as a whole if it declares sanctuary status. The sanctuary church campaign at Stanford comes after University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne declined to name the university a sanctuary campus in February this year, stating that the term is not well-defined.

While “sanctuary” does not have a legally precise meaning, cities that adopt the label limit their cooperation with federal immigration enforcement and generally do not use municipal funds to enforce federal immigration law, granting residents access to city services regardless of their immigration status.

For college campuses and churches, the sanctuary label has largely amounted to a public commitment to implement policies that protect undocumented members of the community. At least nine colleges in America have declared themselves sanctuary campuses to date, including the University of Pennsylvania. SSN has been lobbying the Stanford administration for the past year to officially join their ranks – including protesting at a high-profile event during Admit Weekend – but the University has refused to adopt the name, announcing other measures to support undocumented community members instead.

 

Sanctuary church movement

The sanctuary church campaign in the United States today has roots in a similar movement in the 1980s. The influx of refugees fleeing civil war in Central America during the decade saw over 500 congregations declare themselves sanctuaries at the peak of the movement. Since Trump’s inauguration and his subsequent efforts to tighten immigration enforcement and revoke DACA, an increasing number of churches have pledged to serve as sanctuary spaces again.

At the Oct. 3 ASSU Senate meeting, Senator and SSN member Doris Rodriguez ’20 raised the possibility of passing a Senate bill that would declare Stanford’s Memorial Church a sanctuary church.

For Rodriguez, creating a sanctuary church on Stanford’s campus is an important step in advancing the sanctuary campus movement.

“This can be a gateway for [campus-wide] sanctuary,” Rodriguez said. “So that we can stop focusing on the politics of it and start looking at the humans of it.”

Although she is conscious of the ambiguities of the term “sanctuary,” Lead Resident Dean Lisa De La Cruz-Caldera, who has met with Rodriguez to discuss the issue, agreed that having a support system on campus for undocumented students is crucial.

“For me, it’s just enough to know that we have students here who are undocumented,” De La Cruz-Caldera said. “And if they’re not documented, they still might come from mixed-status homes, where they’re concerned about [family members] who might not be able to stay in this country.”

Nevertheless, efforts to make Memorial Church and Stanford University “sanctuaries”  have seen slow progress. The sanctuary church effort is currently in its initial stages — Rodriguez is currently discussing the possibilities with administrators such as De La Cruz-Caldera and Stephanie Kalfayan, vice provost for academic affairs.

Reverend Jane Shaw, dean for religious life, said that no students have met her to discuss the possibility of making Memorial Church a sanctuary church, which she maintains is “only one option of many.” She added that the Office of Religious Life (ORL) will continue to protect undocumented students at Stanford regardless of whether it declares sanctuary status.

“We will always do what is best for the most vulnerable students,” Shaw said.

 

Stanford’s policy

While Stanford has not officially adopted the sanctuary label, it has taken other measures to protect undocumented students, many of which are listed in President Marc Tessier and Provost Persis Drell’s open letter in June. For instance, the Stanford Department of Public Safety does not participate in immigration enforcement and does not allow enforcement officials on campus without a warrant.

 Since January, a new University working group has also been exploring potential responses to the issue, while Vice Provost for Student Affairs Susie Brubaker-Cole – a member of the University working group –will be holding weekly office hours to hear student concerns about immigration. Other recent measures include a website that provides information on legal and counselling services for undocumented students and free legal consultation for affected students, staff and local residents offered by the Stanford Law School.

However, De La Cruz-Caldera believes that both administrators and students can still do more for the undocumented community, since part of Stanford’s responsibility is to respond to students “looking for signs of belonging, a sense of belonging, affirmation and protection.”

She pointed to other universities in California, such as California State University, Fullerton and University of California, Davis, which she says have been very successful at supporting the undocumented members of their communities. During a visit to University of California, Berkeley, De La Cruz-Caldera recalled feeling inspired by stickers around campus that read “I am an unafraid undocumented ally,” and wishing that Stanford students could make similar gestures.

 

Obstacles

A potential barrier to the sanctuary church movement at Stanford is Memorial Church’s status. The church cannot act as an independent congregation since it is is subject to Stanford’s policies and regulations, potentially dampening Rodriguez’s hopes of establishing sanctuary status for the church as a means of encouraging the university as a whole to do the same.   

“It’s part of the University,” said Shaw. “It’s not a stand-alone church belonging to a particular denomination.”

Moreover, Shaw was uncertain about whether such an initiative would be effective in the first place.

“This is a real question – whether it’s the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do in terms of protecting the people, who are vulnerable people,” said Shaw.

According to Rodriguez, the turbulent political climate at present is also a major obstacle to the sanctuary church movement as well as general efforts to support undocumented members of the Stanford community. She finds that it puts activists like her in “limbo”, as they “don’t know the legal feasibility” of specific proposals to protect the community.

Like Rodriguez, De La Cruz-Caldera worries that “the Trump effect” is creating a culture of fear and uncertainty within institutions like Stanford that obscures fact and complicates concrete action. She added that declaring Stanford a sanctuary campus in spite of legal issues which may limit the extent of the University’s ability to protect members of the community could harm rather than help those in need.  

“The biggest harm that we can do to students is to promise them something that we cannot fully deliver on,” said De La Cruz-Caldera.

 

Moving forward

While the prospects of making Memorial Church a sanctuary church seem unpromising now, De La Cruz-Caldera remained confident that strides can be made in protecting students with DACA status.

“We’re in a time where our university has a lot of new leadership …[that is] listening and open to insight and feedback,” said De La Cruz-Caldera.

However, De La Cruz-Caldera believes that Stanford could do a better job at providing students with “signs of belonging, a sense of belonging, affirmation and protection.”

Rodriguez herself plans to work with SSN to cement their demands and entertained the idea of inviting different religious student groups to discuss the definition of the term “sanctuary.”

Like Rodriguez, De La Cruz-Caldera believes that the challenges that come with defining the term “sanctuary” complicate SSN’s efforts in the immediate period.

“We need some more well-defined language… before we can commit to offering 100% sanctuary,” she said.

While she believes that SSN must clarify the meaning of “sanctuary” before it can progress, De La Cruz-Caldera added that the setbacks that the sanctuary movement has faced does not mean that the University is less committed to creating an inclusive campus.

“We need to create these communities where people can show up as their whole selves,” said De La Cruz-Caldera, “[and] not feeling like they need to leave a part of themselves outside the confines of our Stanford community.”

 

Contact Yasmin Samrai at ysamrai ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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