Editorial: Baby, Please Don’t Go

Opinion by Editorial Board
June 2, 2011, 12:29 a.m.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the 2010-11 Editorial Board’s final editorial. Over the last several months, we have delicately argued positions on a variety of issues (read: shoved our opinions in your faces), and urged University officials to do a great number of things differently. Why they would take the opinions of a band of presumptuous undergrads into account is beyond us, but we urged them nevertheless. We hope our opinions have been insightful, eye-opening, moving and maybe even a little life changing. Realistically, we hope at least a few of you have read our pieces and found them moderately less soporific than the rest of The Daily. But since our exhortation for lifetime access to stanford.edu email accounts racked up 60 times as many Facebook likes as our recommendations on gun safety (really, guys?), it’s been a hit and miss edition.

Today, however, we’d like to take a moment to reflect on an aspect of Stanford that has never let us down. One man at this university has consistently raised the bar and made us proud. Some of you know him as the founder of his own cognac label. Others recognize him as member of the board of directors of Google, Cisco, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs and the Illuminati. Still others don’t even know his name, but are warmed by his dashing good looks and beautiful smile. We’re talking about our president, John LeRoy “Boss” Hennessy.

This fall, Hennessy will hit his 11th year as Stanford’s president, which is right around the time when our last four presidents threw in the towel. Given how awesome Hennessy is, and how Stanford would be correspondingly less awesome were he to leave, this realization makes us sad. Since we don’t like feeling sad, we demand that Stanford use any means necessary to prevent our president from leaving. If need be, keep him here by force — the force exerted by a Hoover-sized pile of cash. Simply put: there is no term limit on excellence. If this ironclad logic does not a sufficiently sound argument make, then let us continue by citing some of Hennessy’s more mind-befuddling achievements. We know you will agree that Hennessy is, indubitably, the best thing since the Dixie cup met the ping-pong ball.

Listing all of our fearless leader’s achievements would be like numbering the stars, failing Stats 60 or running the dish after Café Night. Nevertheless, as stalwart Stanford men and women, we are wont to try. During his career, Hennessy has been honored by the Dalai Lama, helped author over 100 publications and added 35 bullets to the Honors and Awards section of his CV. He has founded MIPS Computer Systems, urged passage of the DREAM Act and looked really good wearing red. His less well-known achievements include denying Emma Watson admission to Stanford, diverting major earthquakes from the Bay Area and winning the Orange Bowl under the pseudonym “Owen Marecic.” Three years ago, President Hennessy modeled his 6-pack for Charity Fashion Show, causing tickets to sell out in record time. When recently asked to leave Stanford and take over as Berkeley’s president, President Hennessy reportedly gave a quiet chuckle, before replying with a simple, “Why?”

“Still not convinced? Check out the competition. While our president was busy saving the endowment, dining with Obama and building new business, law, medical and engineering schools with his bare hands, his East Coast counterparts lounged on their yachts, increased Wall Street pay caps and funneled their alumni into investment banks. When asked why he expended so much effort founding Silicon Valley startups, John “Suns Out, Guns Out” Hennessy stopped playing sloshball long enough to reply, “I gotta work overtime to grow the economy as fast as those guys are tanking it.” Bay Area venture capitalists are already buzzing with excitement about his next startup, which manufactures wildly successful “Party with Henny” tanks.”

In his time, Hennessy has been recruited for a variety of positions, such as CEO of BP, Ike’s Manager, POTUS and SEAL Team 6 commander, and he will continue to be head-hunted for the foreseeable future. But his answer has always been, “Why would I ever leave Stanford, brah?” Why indeed, President Hennessy? Why indeed.

 

Note: This article was written in jest, and all the “facts” it contains are of dubious origin. (Read: we made most of this up, please don’t get mad at us). However, the sentiment that we are truly grateful to have President Hennessy is genuine and is echoed across the Farm. We hope this tireless and uniquely talented man continues to lead our university well into the future.

The Editorial Board includes a chair, who is appointed by the editor in chief, and six other members. The editor in chief and executive editors are ex-officio members, who may debate on and veto articles, but cannot vote or otherwise contribute to the writing process. Current voting members include Editorial Board Chair Nadia Jo ’24 and members Seamus Allen ’25, Joyce Chen ’25, YuQing Jiang ’25, Jackson Kinsella ’27, Alondra Martinez ’26 and Anoushka Rao ’24.

Login or create an account

Apply to The Daily’s High School Summer Program

Priority deadline is april 14

Days
Hours
Minutes
Seconds