For new assistant professors, however, another clock begins to tick immediately after they are hired: the tenure clock. Though policies vary slightly from university to university, Stanford assistant professors generally have seven years to show their colleagues that they deserve the security of tenure.

Nearly 50 percent of assistant professors who are hired at Stanford will go on to obtain tenure, according to Dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences Richard Saller, who noted that around 80 percent of those faculty members who reached the point of being considered for tenure are granted it. Those seven years in between being hired and being reviewed for tenure, however, prompts scholars to frenetically juggle the demands of teaching, research, networking and life.

Tenure’s significance

Saller framed obtaining tenure as a means of ensuring job security and acquiring greater latitude for academic investigation.

“[It’s about] having the sense of freedom to pursue research directions that are high-risk,” he said. “It surprises trustees from the corporate world that our faculty continue to work and to be as productive as they are given that they have jobs for life after receiving tenure…The incentives at a place of this caliber are much more peer recognition and just [the] sheer joy of research and teaching.”

“You are freed up to do research in whatever you want,” said Claire Jarvis, assistant professor of English. “You have a place in the department even if the people in charge change.”

For Chris Lowe, assistant professor of biology, tenure allows a researcher doing basic scientific work the chance to ride out periods of low funding.

“You have the security to build a risky research project that’s high-yield but risky,” Lowe said. “Not only don’t you have to worry about job security, you might take more risk with research than you would otherwise. Tenure gives people a little more space to take risks and create more ambitious research goals.”

For Aliya Saperstein, assistant professor of sociology, tenure “is there to protect innovative scholarship. Once you have tenure, you don’t have to worry about losing your job [if] you’re doing something cutting edge or a little risky…In theory, you can do better work because you’re not constantly seeking approval in advance.”

Working towards tenure

Assistant professors teach two to four classes each year, along with working on their own research in labs and trying to get their work published in order to show their impact and worth as professors. Expectations for good academic work differ from department to department.

“The main goal of tenure is to make certain that the people given tenure are the best in the world at what they do,” said Jim Plummer M.S. ’67 Ph.D. ’71, dean of the School of Engineering.

To that end, according to Lowe, the biology department focuses on the quality and broad impact of its assistant professors’ work.

“One way to evaluate if you have an impact is the kind of publications you produce,” Lowe said. “Some universities are really interested in how many publications you’ve produced, whereas other universities are more interested in if you’re published in high-profile journals, which have brought interest to not just your immediate field but a much broader range of scientists.”

In the English department, the assistant professors are told from the beginning what they are expected to do in order to gain tenure.

“You must have one book in print and be working towards publishing a second [after seven years],” Jarvis said. “It has to have an impact…Plus, you have to have good course evaluations in the classes you teach and show service to the University.”

“In your day to day, you focus on classes, on grading, on students,” Jarvis added “But you’re still trying to get a book published. It’s still in the back of your mind, always.”

“[At Stanford], what matters is the quality and the impact of your work and if you are seen as someone who is an expert in your subfield or specialty…within your age cohort,” Saperstein said. “Have you made yourself stand out in your age cohort?”

Typically, assistant professors are aware of their progress and whether they are on track for being granted tenure, having been given feedback when they are reappointed after four years.

“You get an initial contract and then are reviewed after three or four years,” Saperstein said of the department of sociology’s process. “At that point, your department lets you know if you’re on track or not, if you need to do more work. Then you’re given another temporary contract and after that you come up for tenure.”

“After the mid-career review, you typically take a sabbatical the next year to give you more time to get ready for tenure,” she added.

“The way the process works in biology is that there is a three-year period where you are evaluated in a formal way by the department,” Lowe said. “They evaluate whether or not you’re getting grant funding and whether you’re getting published…You’re given a heads-up about any obvious problems you need to focus on in terms of proceeding.”

Tenure review

According to Saller, the process for earning tenure at Stanford is similar to that of peer institutions.

“The only thing that varies much [between universities] is the use of external committees at various points in the process,” he said. “Harvard has this elaborate process with an ad-hoc review by the president of the university with a committee that’s made up of half internal faculty, but from outside the department, and half external faculty.”

At Stanford, department chairs appoint committees of departmental faculty, who solicit external letters and other assessments. If the department as a whole votes to support a positive committee recommendation, the candidacy is forwarded to an appointment and promotion committee in the school’s dean’s office.

That committee was recently changed to be made up of department chairs from the appropriate academic cluster—social sciences, natural sciences or humanities—for each candidate, according to Saller.

“What that means is that the committee is made up of people closer to the area of expertise of the person under consideration,” he said. “That provides a more sensible committee.”

The dean of the school then decides whether to forward the application on to the Provost’s office, where it is reviewed by an advisory board and the Provost.

Each committee considers every case for tenure in that academic cluster, evaluating the assistant professors primarily on two major areas: research and teaching.

“It’s a combination of things,” Plummer said. “Some are semi-quantifiable, such as the number of publications or awards, talks that may have been given at conferences in his or her field…On the teaching side, we look at student evaluations, the amount of teaching done…along with letters from external senior people in the field of the candidate.”

These letters are solicited from 12-15 external people in a leadership position within the assistant professor’s field, according to Plummer. The professors are also evaluated as compared to a peer group of four to six of their peers.

“Ideally, [the peer group is composed of] recently tenured people in peer institutions in similar fields,” Plummer said. “We can make a specific comparison of the impact and contributions the Stanford candidate has had with respect to their peers. Where does the Stanford candidate fit?”

“More people are working in interdisciplinary fields or multiple fields and it becomes more difficult to choose the right set of letter writers if someone works in multiple areas or in between areas,” Plummer added. “It can be hard to find peers in peer institutions or finding referees who can write about the whole spectrum…You have to just recognize that someone is working in multiple fields and find people who can write for those fields.”

Course evaluations are included in the tenure process, an input that Saller described as flawed.

“It’s something less than a nuanced response,” he said. “Students will pick out one number in the column and mark it off down the page.”

“We would like to assign as much weight to teaching as to research—and we do take it seriously—but if we don’t feel as if we’ve got good information about [the professor’s teaching], it’s hard to know what to make of it,” Saller said.

That lack of information has a broader impact on the way in which the committees weight research and teaching.

“You can’t be a bad teacher and get tenure,” Saller said. “You can’t be an average researcher and get tenure…With teaching, we can probably identify the 10 percent who are brilliant and the 10 percent who are duds, and the 80 percent in between [are] very hard to rank in order.”

If a professor is denied tenure, they are given a year to find another job, either elsewhere in academia or in the corporate world.

“[The year] gives them the time to do a careful job search, time to figure out how to deal with Ph.D. students who haven’t finished up their research, helping them find another advisor or getting them closer to finishing,” Plummer said.

The future of tenure

As public funding for research and for education diminishes, many institutions across the country have cut back on the number of tenured positions they maintain. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported in 2010 that the proportion of college instructors who either had tenure or were on the tenure track dropped from 57 percent in 1975 to just 31 percent in 2007.

Despite such national trends, Saller and Plummer said the University, which currently has 1,995 tenured or tenure-line faculty, remained committed to maintaining the system of tenure.

“There’s a periodic question about whether we keep the tenure system, but I think it’s here to stay for the foreseeable future,” Saller said. “It’s hard to imagine, [because] the competition for top faculty is intense, which of our peer universities would do away with the tenure system and continue to try to recruit faculty.”

In competing with its peer institutions for talented faculty, Saller said Stanford focuses its energies on attracting young academics with high potential, with around 75 percent of professorial appointments going to assistant professors rather than tenured faculty from other institutions.

“When we make decisions about authorizing searches [for new faculty], we presume it’s going to be an assistant professor search unless there’s some kind of programmatic need for someone more senior,” Saller said. “We see it as our responsibility and goal to recruit young people who are of the quality to make tenure and then to nurture them in a way that they will succeed.”

Marshall Watkins contributed to this report.

For most, the honors thesis journey accounts for one of the most challenging—and enriching—experiences of their academic careers.

From research to thesis

Cody Aros ’13, a biology major, wrote his thesis on long non-coding RNAs and their role in coetaneous squamous cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer. The goal of Aros’ project was to identify, from a clinical standpoint, the novel therapies of this skin cancer through a genomic characterization of the disease and by looking for RNA species that are important in regulating epidermal homeostasis.

“It’s quite a mouthful,” he said. “I joined the lab at the end of my freshman year and the [post-doctoral student] that I worked closely with had the foundations for the project,” he said. “After we performed the sequencing on patient samples we had, I studied one candidate RNA that was interesting to us.”

Aros spent about 9-10 hours per week in the lab during his freshmen year and continued into his sophomore year. During his summers he worked for 40-50 hours a week and then spent closer to 20 hours a week in the lab his junior and senior years. As a junior, he realized that what began as a research assistant position could turn into something more integral to his academic experience.

For Aros, the entire process—as opposed to simply the end product—was enjoyable.

“Having done the research beforehand…the process of writing all of what I had done throughout my undergraduate experience was rewarding,” he said. “It was both reflective and I felt that I was learning how to best convey my results…I felt like everything came full circle—everything came together and there was a finality to it.

Despite his gratification, Aros’ process, like that of many other students, was not without difficulties.

“I started working on this one project during my sophomore year, and I could kind of see it turning into a thesis project, but I’d say by the end of my sophomore year, beginning of junior year, the project kind of failed,” he said. “It was part of the process and I used the skills I learned in that project to guide my next project.”

For Aros, the most challenging part was coming to the realization that one of the projects he was working on was not going to make it into his thesis.

“The thesis experience is not just the project that succeeded and what you ultimately end up writing on,” he said. “For me, it’s from the start of my research to the end of it.”

Much in the same vein as Aros, Ruby Lee ’13 was inspired to embark on her honors thesis after joining her professor’s lab.

Lee’s honors thesis focuses on a data process platform she built that allows the user to extract data from any slice of a simulation, giving a visual representation drawn in real-time with the data that is being regenerated.

“I took a class [with] my advisor, [Assistant Professor of Bioengineering] Markus Covert, who taught BIOE 101…and was compelled by him, so I talked to him more and joined his lab,” she said. “I was given flexibility in what I wanted to do, so I spent the academic year talking to people, getting a handle on the work they were doing…With the data visualization project, I felt like I had a good handle on how I could approach it and I had an idea about the end product.”

According to Lee, a goal of the project was to develop a tool that would help the lab and make it possible to communicate the data to the public.

“Originally, I was just going to do research without honors,” Lee said. “[Bioengineering] is a new major and this was the first year they offered the option…I thought it aligned really well with what I was going to be doing.”

In Lee’s opinion, the most captivating part of her experience was the multidimensionality of her finished work.

“In my case, [the honors thesis process] was interesting because the main goal is the website and the thesis is more of a way to explain how it works and the process that went into it, why we chose to implement or deny things,” she said. “It’s nice to have the thesis and the written process, with the website as a second component.”

One of the challenges facing Lee was conveying the relevancy of such conceptual—as opposed to practical—research.

“From the perspective of people in the lab, it’s clear why we’d be motived to create this,” Lee said. “It was harder to get the general public to see it…putting into words to explain the rationale of something we’d thought about very intensely but never put into writing. There are not very many other data visualization platforms…so finding similar software programs to compare to…and drawing parallels was challenging.”

Pursuing passions

For Michael Hughes ’13, a history major, one challenge presented by his thesis was time management. Hughes, who wrote his thesis on the New Deal-era Supreme Court, conceded that he was prone to procrastination.

“It’s human nature to procrastinate,” he said. “It’s about making yourself, ahead of time, get something done, and then you can circle back. In the fall [in a class for students working on honors theses], I wrote about half to a third…It wasn’t really a thesis but more of a template, heavily based on secondary sources…It was immensely helpful to write that part of it and incorporate it into a longer document. I had something I could use as a guiding post.”

Hughes used his honors project as a means of combining two of his academic interests: the Supreme Court and economics.

“I was interested in the Supreme Court and the Court’s approach to government in general history, in respect to economics,” he said. “[The Great Depression] was a pivotal time. The court wasn’t completely against governmental regulation but would defer to the legislature when it came to economic issues…I wanted to complicate things by looking at early cases that didn’t fit that narrative.”

Hughes also cited the value of an honors thesis in providing a capstone project for his undergraduate career.

Matthaeus Weinhardt ’13 M.A. ’13 decided to forego taking fewer classes as a senior to focus on his thesis, instead choosing to coterm and take 45 units of graduate level courses.

“I decided on psychology fall of my freshmen year,” Weinhardt said. “It’s a pretty small major and left me with space, so I started thinking about what else I could do…It was a nice opportunity to do something more in-depth, either with honors or a coterm. I had heard that it was possible to do a coterm in four years, so I decided to try.”

Weinhardt’s research focuses on intuitive decision-making and integration of value. He led different psychological experiments that involved gambling games played on a computer, such as choosing between different colored shapes.

“We can infer the intuitive decisions people are making…and whether intuition picks up on shapes that pay more or less,” he said.

Weinhardt began thinking about doing his own original research project early on and applied for the Chappell-Lougee research grant.

“I ended up doing four or five experiments,” he said. “Some worked and some did not, but I was fortunate that the most recent did work.”

Like Aros, the most challenging part for Weinhardt was when the first study did not work out.

“It was supposed to be a replication of another study, with some changes made to it,” Weinhardt said. “Everyone agreed they were good changes and that it would work better, and then it didn’t. The results were confusing and didn’t make sense with the possible theories we were considering. We had to go back to the drawing board and figure out why the results looked this way.”

In order to avoid a similar situation, Weinhardt recommended careful deliberation and an early start.

“If your ideas are good and you have some persistence, then you will find what you’re looking for, even if it’s not the original way you thought of it,” he added. “You will contribute to the field.”

Forging a distinct path

As a junior, Ty Olson ’14 has only just begun the research into his thesis project but has a clear idea of what he wants to do: a short narrative film that takes place in North Dakota, where Olson is from, and focuses on a Norwegian-American family.

“Where I’m from is heavily populated with Norwegian immigrants,” Olson said. “It’s ethnocentric, but not in a bad way…It perpetuates old world traditions and cultures, values and ideals…[The film] is a portrait of an overlooked part of our society.”

Olson, whose cinematic project diverges significantly from most other honors theses, is interested in studying themes of foreignness in America.

“I had an idea for a short film and American Studies was the only place that allowed me to do it,” he said. “[An honors project] gives me academic support…I can get professional and technical support elsewhere, but it’s great discussing the themes I’m talking about and having the support of an advisor and a department at Stanford.”

In addition to a 22-minute film, Olson’s project will include a 10- to 15-page reflection paper that will tie in some of the academic questions he studies in his movie, exploring his questions more and bringing in some of the other materials he has been studying in preparation.

Olson has some experience making short films and filming professional music videos for Scandinavian artists, but he hopes to gain more experience with an endeavor for which he will travel to North Dakota to conduct filming.

“It’s a short film that will be comprised of a lot of family members and locals,” he said.

The biggest challenge Olson envisions will be fundraising for the project. Although he has some leads, he concedes that recruiting community members for financial support will not be easy.

Still, Olson is hopeful that his project will succeed, citing his stalwart devotion to the inspiration—his Norwegian heritage—that encouraged him to pursue an honors thesis in the first place.

“People start to lose track of why they are interested [in their topic],” he said. “You need to hone in on it and what it is that made you interested in the first place…you’ll inject more of a personal connection to your thesis, since you live with it for a year.”

Aros echoed this perspective.

“Pick something you are interested in,” Aros said. “It’s a long road and it can be challenging. If you’re not doing something you’re interested in, it will be harder.”

“We are in good health financially,” Etchemendy summarized. “The budget also shows a lot of caution and concern for a lot of things on the horizon.”

Linda A. Cicero/Stanford News Service

Reviewing Stanford’s consolidated budget, Etchemendy noted that– despite increases in the financial aid budget, employee salaries and benefits, graduate student stipends and selected research funding– the University is projected to generate a surplus of $173 million for the 2013-14 fiscal year.

Turning to the general funds budget, which consists of unrestricted funds, Etchemendy said that budget would be used to increase the University’s reserve funds, remove the need to use buffer funds to support financial aid and increase research support.

Etchemendy also remarked on the University’s capital plan, which includes every project undertaken or completed over the next three years, drawing attention to Stanford’s continued growth.

“When I was an assistant professor here, I remember seeing all the construction and wondering when they were going to be done,” he said. “I realized Stanford is like a city. It’s never going to be done.”

While the capital budget for the 2013-14 fiscal year totals $658 million, Etchemendy estimated that only around 80 percent of that sum would actually be spent. Notable construction projects include the Stanford Energy System Innovations (SESI) project, which is slated to receive $207.9 million next year.

“[SESI involves] tearing up every street on campus and replacing the stream pipes with hot water pipes,” Etchemendy said. “We are going to end up with the most advanced energy system in the world but it’s going to cost us about $438 million [in total].”

Other significant construction projects include adding a fourth building– for bioengineering and chemical engineering– to the Engineering Quad, adding to the Stanford Hospital and the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, remodeling Roble Gym into an “arts gym,” remodeling the Old Chemistry building and adding a contemplative center to campus.

The University will also add more housing options to campus. The Comstock Graduate Housing project will add 362 beds for students, while the expansion of Graduate School of Business housing will add a further 150. A fourth dorm will be built in the Manzanita quad and two new dorms will be added to Lagunita.

There are also plans to add 180 housing units to Mayfield California Avenue for faculty and staff.

“This is something we desperately need,” Etchemendy said.

In faculty discussion following Etchemendy’s report, Professor of Development Biology Margaret Fuller queried whether the proposed additions to undergraduate housing would accommodate a potential desire to expand the undergraduate population.

“We would need something beyond that,” Etchemendy said. “Some of these new housing options will be used for the existing undergraduate population, but in order to grow the [population] further, we would need more housing.”

Linda A. Cicero/Stanford News Service

Senate Chair Raymond Levitt M.S. ’73 Ph.D. ’75, professor of civil and environmental engineering, opened the meeting by congratulating six faculty members newly elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

The subsequent panel discussion featured Professor of Philosophy Debra Satz, Professor of Engineering Jim Plummer M.S. ’67 Ph.D. ’71, Professor of Biology Bob Simoni, Professor of Political Science Josiah Ober and Professor of Biochemistry Daniel Herschlag.

According to Russell Berman, professor of German and comparative literature and the discussion’s moderator, the panel was intended to launch a discussion about the future of the Ph.D. program that would serve as a starting point for further deliberation.

“We wanted to frame some of the issues that could be part of the discussion for next year’s session,” Berman said.
Berman opened the presentation by discussing critical aspects of current Ph.D. programs in the humanities, including an increasing recognition — in some quarters — of the breadth of careers options available beyond academia for Ph.D. students.

“For many grad students, there’s an assumption that faculty look at certain alternative careers with disdain,” he acknowledged. “Some students don’t want their advisors to know they are considering that path.”
Berman noted the importance of assessing the internal structure of the humanities’ Ph.D. programs.

“Are we preparing our students appropriately for the career options they’ll have?” he asked. “To what extent do we provide appropriately broadened professional development opportunities? … I think we do that well at Stanford, but are we doing enough and are we doing what’s appropriate?”

Berman also emphasized the importance of developing hard data over a long time period on students’ post-graduation entry into various careers.

Satz agreed with many of Berman’s points and reflected on a study conducted by the School of Humanities and Sciences on the doctoral Class of 2002’s employment 10 years after graduation.

“Roughly 50 to 60 percent [of the students] were in academic careers,” Satz said. “But we couldn’t find a lot of the others. We need to do more research because we need to know if we are serving those students well and how satisfied they are with their training.”

According to Satz, many humanities students are confused by the job market and are unsure about their ability to apply their degrees in fields beyond academia.

“We need to know what’s happening to our students,” she said. “We need to have a discussion about what the Ph.D.’s for.”

Plummer subsequently spoke about the happiness of School of Engineering faculty with the state of the Ph.D. program. According to Plummer, roughly 80 percent of the School’s doctoral graduates go into industry.

“[That] is not surprising given where we are, in the Silicon Valley,” Plummer reflected. “We have the opposite problem of many other departments on campus: that too few of our students don’t want to go on to academic careers.”

According to Ober, the Department of Political Science has seen both an increasing number of applicants and an increased yield among admits, creating an increasingly selective program whose graduates have largely obtained satisfactory employment.

“Virtually all of the students [are] getting placement, although sometimes it takes a couple of years,” he said. “About half go into research and the other half into teaching at universities or think tanks.”

“I’d like to get a better sense of why students seek admission to a Ph.D. program in the first place,” Ober added. “We need a sense of how their thinking evolves about their aspirations<\p>…<\p>and how they think about the value of the Ph.D. in later years. We need to get a better and more detailed accurate university-funded data set that would allow us to track evolving student career ambitions and be able to make adjustments to the Ph.D. program that can best serve the students and society.”

Simoni spoke about the strength of the Biology Department’s Ph.D. program, drawing attention to a high number of applications. He also noted recent changes to the biology curriculum, including the introduction of “micro” or “mini” courses lasting less than the duration of a quarter.

“The unit of course time is much smaller, which allows them to do more in a quarter,” he elaborated. “It becomes more focused and concentrated and gives a lot of flexibility.”

According to Herschlag, the School of Medicine aims “to tell students that they should be seeking a career of their choice … We should be training them for existing jobs and also training them to find and create new paths.”

Herschlag criticized undergraduate education in the life sciences, saying it discourages aspiring graduate students from taking risks.

“They would fail as graduate students,” Herschlag said. “We are trying to put in place radically different models that are more interactive and collaborative, with hands-on problem solving, to better train our students.”

The panel presentation was followed by a wider faculty discussion.

Andrea Goldsmith, professor of electrical engineering, expressed concern about focusing the Ph.D. program too much on career paths.

“This discussion should be about an education, about a broadening of horizons, that transcends engineering, science [and] the humanities,” she said.

However, Herschlag reiterated the broader issue of students being unaware of different careers made accessible by their education.

“It’s not necessarily that you’re getting a vocational training,” he said. “It is to help allay the fears of students.”

When the article—identifying specific teachers—was published in the school newspaper, Mojeed was forced to go underground for some time to avoid punishment from the angry teachers. Eventually, the principal held a staff meeting and ordered the teachers to stop victimizing Mojeed and to set a better example by no longer using that exit.

“I saw that journalism was a powerful point to push for change,” Mojeed said.

Having been born and raised in the small agrarian town of Iwo, Nigeria, Mojeed stressed his humble origins.

“We didn’t have a TV or radio,” Mojeed said. “I wondered how we survived, because we depended on one stream in the village…we ate good food because my father was a farmer.”

Mojeed began primary school in a government-funded school ten kilometers from his village. He said he was lucky to attend the school, even though it was far from his home.

“My mother dressed me up in the best clothes I had,” Mojeed recalled.

After primary school, Mojeed’s uncle returned from his posting in another part of the country and decided that Mojeed, whom he thought was unusually bright, needed to receive an education at a better school.

In high school, Mojeed was initially interested in engineering. After becoming president of the press club that published his article about the teachers’ offenses, however, he realized his passion for journalism and channeled that interest into cultivating a reputation for the club.

“We wrote about examination malpractices, bullying of juniors by seniors…stories about affairs between female students and male students…a story about students urinating anywhere on campus,” Mojeed said. “People were scared when a member of the press club was around…If you did something wrong, we wrote about it.”

“We were correcting a lot of things that were wrong,” he added. “I started realizing how powerful journalism could be.”

Mojeed subsequently attended the University of Uyo in Nigeria, where he completed his undergraduate degree in Communication Arts and remained very active as a campus journalist. After graduating, he worked at a number of Nigerian newspapers before settling at the Premium Times, where he now works as the managing editor.

During his journalistic career, Mojeed focused on uncovering corruption, trafficking and human rights violations, abuses that extended to the highest reaches of the Nigerian government. In one instance, Mojeed investigated the Halliburton bribery scam—in which Nigerian officials took bribes from companies in exchange for allowing them to build on Nigerian land—and uncovered the corruption involved in the transaction.

“I exposed the former president of Nigeria, and the present president, who was his deputy, for keeping 17 ambulances to themselves in the presidential village,” Mojeed added. “Some of the hospitals [in the country] have only one ambulance. I exposed the presence of those ambulances packed in the presidential village, whereas people were dying because there were no ambulances…Once we exposed that, the ambulances disappeared from the presidential village.”

Mojeed also exposed a respected Nigerian scientist who lied about helping to invent the Internet, as well as several state government officials—including one currently imprisoned in the UK—for corruption.

“Many [Nigerian] officials are excited that I’m out of Nigeria,” Mojeed said.

While Mojeed’s work has won him many awards, including the Editor’s Courage Award from the Forum for African Investigative Reporters (FAIR), the Wole Soyinka Investigative Reporting Award and the Celebrity Media Award, it has also prompted threats and harassment.

“I was severely harassed in 2011 by [the] police about a story involving officials in the administration getting bribes from people importing into the country,” Mojeed said. “I exposed it with video and audio evidence. The police harassed me and I had to go underground…Even though the stories are uncomfortable for some people, it is difficult for authorities to fight my reporting [because] I try to be as accurate as possible.”

Mojeed said distrust of his work extends beyond government and the police to society at large.

“I have very few friends because I don’t know who to trust,” he said. “I fear for my life but just feel that it’s a job that must be done, especially in a country that is very rich but where people are still very poor.”

Mojeed said he was flattered to receive a Knight Fellowship. The program brings about 20 journalists to Stanford every year.

“They come here to create things that could help journalism, interact with the campus, all of that,” Mojeed said. “I feel very lucky to be selected. I am the only fellow selected from Africa in my class of 2013.”

At Stanford, Mojeed has worked on the IMOLE project, a platform connecting investigative journalists in Nigeria with resources and documents that authorities would prefer to keep hidden and private. “Imole” means transparency or light in Mojeed’s native Yoruba language.

“I am trying to point journalists reporting on Nigeria in directions where they can get information about Nigeria,” Mojeed explained.

Mojeed stressed the importance of investigative journalism in maintaining a healthy, transparent society.

“I believe that every type of journalism should be investigative,” he said. “As long as you go under the surface, dig out the facts, all journalism, whatever you’re reporting on…make it investigative.”

ZETONG LI/The Stanford Daily

According to Savage, AATP was inspired to put on the production because the group thought that the themes explored in Miller’s play were also relevant to the Asian American experience.

“Part of AATP’s mission is to look at all plays through an Asian and Asian American lens and see how each of these plays speak to our culture, our family values, the ideas and themes that matter most to us,” Savage said. “What does the American dream mean to an immigrant family?”

For Asia Chiao ‘15, AATP’s artistic director, being involved in the play allowed her to better grasp some of the issues concerning Asian American actors.

“Since coming to the U.S. for college, I’ve realized how many problems of representation, both underrepresentation and misrepresentation, there are in theater, particularly with regards to Asian Americans,” Chiao said.

Chiao, Savage and other members of the AATP board of directors made the decision to put on “Death of a Salesman” this quarter with a primarily Asian cast as a means of exploring some of these issues.

“We wanted to see how AATP could put a fresh spin on it, looking at the play in the context of an Asian American community,” Chiao said.

Dina Hassan ‘15, director of the play, suggested that Miller’s piece was chosen because of the ability of the topics addressed to transcend ethnic boundaries.

“The themes [in the play] relate to humanity and to us as Americans,” Hassan said. “It’s a classic American play, not a classic white American play.”

Hassan argued that such universalism extends beyond plot lines to the makeup of the cast itself.

“People can relate because they can see themselves in those shoes,” she said. “In AATP, we want to encourage Asian American participation in the theater because there’s a stigma that minority actors face. Some say, ‘You couldn’t play this role because it doesn’t pertain to your world.’ We all can relate to this play. The experiences are universal.”

By pushing the horizons of what is traditionally expected of such a performance, Hassan hopes to challenge the audience to embrace the unconventional.

“One of my goals for the play is to open the minds of the audience and allow them to see that the Asian American experience is not limited to what you see on TV or anything like that,” Hassan added. “It’s very expansive and can be related to quite easily.”

Chiao framed her goals for the play as inducing the audience to consider their beliefs concerning theater.

“I want people to think, ‘This is really interesting,’” Chiao said. “‘Why does it have to be played by an all-white cast? Why do we come in with these assumptions about ethnicity?’ This is a chance to see a production of ‘Death of a Salesman’ unlike anything before.”

Chiao and her fellow directors also aimed to prompt the Asian American theater community to embrace diversity in the types of roles they choose to take on.

“Productions like this — where we’re giving opportunities to Asian American actors, directors, artists, to give them a chance to work on projects that encourage people to think, reinterpret, evaluate — this is why I joined AATP at the end of last year and why I will continue to be a part of it,” Chiao said.

According to Savage, this production was many of the actors’ first forays into theater.

“We want to make sure they have an opportunity that they have never had,” Savage said. “Our goal is to make sure that everyone is enjoying themselves and feels supported and safe. A secondary goal I have is to really [make] sure this play sparks dialogue between the production, actors and the audience about what the American dream means, especially among minority groups.”

Despite their casting of a predominately Asian American ensemble, Hassan said that the production team has not had to make many changes to the script in order to accommodate an Asian American family.

“At first it was hard, because I was thinking about, how I can change this to make it work for an Asian American family,” Hassan said. “But we just needed to look at it from a different perspective … You don’t think, ‘I have to make this Asian.’ You think, ‘How is this relatable to the minority experience?’”

Catherine Zaw ‘15, the set designer, emphasized that she did not have to make too many changes for an Asian American family.

“The only changes I had to make were because of space constraints and tiny changes, like using a tea pot [instead of a pitcher],” Zaw, who is a Daily staffer, said. “I wanted a very minimalistic stage because I didn’t want it to be so personalized that it was clearly Asian. I wanted it to be contemporary to its time, but it could go in either direction about whose how it is. We didn’t put distinct things or cultural things in the play.”

Savage noted that the production’s leaders hadn’t realized how well the concept of an all-Asian family would work.

“The synergy between casting and the text itself has been wonderful,” he said. “This is something new that Stanford hasn’t seen before.”

Although Hassan said that her crew has not received much criticism from the Stanford community about changing the play’s traditional casting, she conceded that some people did not think it was a good idea.

“Yale did an all-black version of ‘Death of a Salesman’ and got so much flak about it, that it doesn’t reflect black history and the black experience in America,” Hassan said.

Still, Hassan and Savage concluded that the play’s experiences and references work in an Asian American context.

“Arthur Miller thought it would work, too, because [apparently] he brought the play to Beijing,” Hassan said. “[‘Death of a Salesman’] is very relatable.”

This year’s total constitutes an increase of more than 10 percent over last year’s figure. Overall, 470 students were accepted to the 23 theme houses.

According to Sophie Meyer ’14, Synergy’s pre-assignment overseer, her house enjoyed a similar demand to last year.

“Most of the pre-assigners were freshmen and returners,” Meyer noted. “This is fairly equivalent to most other co-ops.”

Meyer added that Synergy’s staff felt like they were turning away too many current residents that they wished could have stayed.

“We could have staffed the whole house with qualified people,” Meyer said. “We had to decide which people we loved not to let in.”

Meyer complained, however, that the burden of selecting next year’s Synergy residents wasn’t evenly distributed.

“This year, it was primarily me meeting people who applied,” she said. “My staff was not as involved, so it ended up with me collecting impressions about the people and my other staff members not being as involved. In the past, we’ve tried to do it as a group.”

This year, Synergy chose people based on a lottery system in an effort to accelerate the process.

“We had a certain number of returner spots and freshmen spots and pooled those who didn’t get in into a general tier and drew from there,” Meyer said. “But it was really hard because we turned down people we loved. Some staff members had close friends that got turned down. I really wish we could have had more spots.”

Jan Barker-Alexander, one of Ujamaa’s two resident fellows, also said that her dorm was very popular this year.

“It was very competitive this year,” she commented. “We have a very robust intellectual community, and we’re not hurting for people to live in the dorm.”

In order to pre-assign to Ujamaa, students must write up a proposal for a presentation related to the African diaspora that they will present on during the year as part of the Ujamaa Scholars Program. Even with that obligation, Ujamaa continued to receive a high number of applicants comparable to past years.

Laura Cussen ’15 said that she pre-assigned to La Casa Italiana to take full advantage of the house’s community.

“I thought it was a good way, before the draw, to see if I could get somewhere that I really liked,” she said. “I wanted to try to reach first, and then if it didn’t work out, then I’d do the draw. I just wanted to increase my chances of getting somewhere cool.”

Cussen added that most pre-assignment options offered similarly strong communities.

“I’m definitely looking forward to the community next year,” Cussen said. “Having lived in relatively large dorms… my first two years, it’ll be nice to have that smaller group of people– you can start the year knowing that you’re going to know them relatively well by the end of the year. You don’t have to choose who you’re going to get to know.”

Cussen added that she is also interested in the cultural side of Casa Italiana as well.

“I kind of took a break from loving Italy for a few years, after I went abroad there in high school, and it will be really nice to indulge in another culture again,” she said.

Barker-Alexander emphasized that the pre-assignment process took place without any technical glitches.

“The process went smoothly,” she said. “ResEd was very supportive and helpful.”

However, some students reported problems with the website, citing confusion over whether interviews were required for all theme house applicants and where students could check the status of their application.

“Overall, I was happy with the experience, but I wish the website was clearer with instructions and about when we would be informed of the decision,” said Elena Leon ’14, who pre-assigned to Casa Italiana.

Graduate Student Council co-chair Michael Shaw Ph.D. ’13, ASSU Representative-at-Large Olivia Hu ’12 M.P.P. ’14, ASSU Undergraduate Senate representative Shahab Fadavi ’15 and ASSU President Robbie Zimbroff ’12 M.A. ’13 offered student perspectives to the Faculty Senate on Thursday afternoon. (Linda A. Cicero/Stanford News Service)

David Palumbo-Liu, professor of comparative literature, opened the meeting by congratulating Adam Johnson, associate professor of English, on his recently acquired Pulitzer Prize and by applauding seven faculty members elected to the Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Provost John Etchemendy Ph.D. ’82 elaborated on an earlier announcement concerning a moratorium placed on the ability of Medical Center Line (MCL) faculty to purchase houses on campus. Etchemendy justified the moratorium by noting the lack of interaction between MCL faculty and undergraduate and graduate students, as well as MCL faculty members’ higher salary levels.

Shahab Fadavi ’15, the ASSU Undergraduate Senate’s representative to the Faculty Senate, spoke briefly about the Alternative Review Process, noting that the Undergraduate Senate had sought to reevaluate the University’s approach to sexual assault by creating an ad hoc committee to look at the ARP.

Fadavi reiterated the importance of listening to student feedback by noting the disappointment students have expressed this year at a lack of willingness by faculty and administrators to incorporate that feedback.

“I’d rather focus on the successes rather than the failures,” Fadavi said. “Late last quarter, an article was published in The Daily on shifting class times to 8:30 a.m. and banning double booking on classes. There was a huge uproar in the student community.”

Fadavi added that he met with Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Harry Elam the next morning concerning this issue. Later that evening, Elam attended an open forum for students and faculty to express their opinions and pose questions concerning the issue.

“I think that should serve as a role model,” Fadavi said. “It helped to answer some questions. The following day, both The Daily and The Stanford Review wrote articles clearing up questions and misconceptions… I just wanted this to serve as a role model for other discussions faculty and students will have.”

Fadavi concluded by discussing the need for need-blind financial aid for international students, an issue he described as having widespread support amongst undergraduates at Stanford.

Outgoing ASSU President Robbie Zimbroff ’12 M.A ’13 discussed the importance of open communication between students and the administration, noting that both ASSU legislative bodies had approved students to serve on 50 committees across the University.

Zimbroff went on to reemphasis the significance of the process of soliciting student feedback to make revisions to the ARP.

Michael Shaw Ph.D. ’13, ASSU Graduate Student Council representative, discussed the importance of ensuring that other students and faculty are aware of the resources available to them on campus. He added that the rising cost of attending Stanford has divided the graduate community.

“It ought to be axiomatic that no student at Stanford feels undue financial stress,” Shaw said. “To that end, I ask the university to permanently return all graduate housing to graduate students, to guarantee all families campus housing, to subsidize the dependent health insurance the same as if they were postdocs or staff.”

Shaw concluded by asking faculty members to reach out to their students to ensure that they are aware of the resources and help available on campus.

Representatives of the Board of Judicial Affairs (BJA) subsequently spoke about the revisions to the ARP. Michele Dauber, professor of law and BJA co-chair, described the ARP as the process under which all allegations of sexual assault, sexual misconduct, sexual harassment, stalking, relationship abuse and dating violence are addressed.

“In 10 of the 13 years prior to the adoption of the ARP, Stanford didn’t have a single adjudication for any sexual assault or sexual violence,” Dauber said. “During that entire 13 year period, Stanford reported 175 cases of sexual offenses to the federal government under the Cleary Act, but only four cases went to a hearing and only two students were found responsible.”

Dauber added that it is impossible to know precisely how many assaults took place during those years and how many were committed by Stanford students, rather than people from off campus.

According to Dauber, through three years of the ARP pilot program, Stanford has had 53 reports of cases of sexual offenses, with 11 cases going to a hearing and seven guilty findings.

“We needed to create a new process because the Student Judicial Charter of 1997 was not designed to handle sexual assault cases,” Dauber said. “Some of the specific issues that we found to be inhibiting the use of the process by alleged victims were that our process was trial-like, it involved a cross-examination of the alleged victim by the alleged attacker, there was no right to appeal for the alleged victim and there was a high burden of proof needed for allegations… We wanted to make the process more open for students.”

In the pilot program, there are a series of private interviews, with each party listening to the other’s interview and responding with questions via email in real time. The process increased the number of reviewers from four to five, with three students and two faculty or staff members determining responsibility. The reviewers make their findings by using the preponderance of evidence standard, as suggested by federal guidelines. According to Dauber, the new process also allows for more opportunities to respond and appeal and provides more protection and confidentiality.

Jonathan York ’13, BJA co-chair, spoke about student involvement in the changes made to the ARP.

“[The new process] provides support and resources to students going through the process,” York said. “It also remains non-confrontational. Students have the opportunity to propose questions via email, which strengthens the rights of both parties.”

According to York, students cited a high level of engagement in the entire process of reviewing and changing the ARP, allowing victims to feel more comfortable.

During faculty questioning, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences David Spiegel asked about the sanctions proposed in the amendment and how the results are communicated to the community.

“The typical sanction for a sexual assault finding of responsibility is that the person found responsible has to be off campus for an average of three quarters and can’t be on campus until the victim graduates,” Dauber said. “We don’t reflect this on a transcript and don’t communicate the finding of responsibility to anyone, ever… The community does not know and should not know.”

Lauren Schoenthaler, a staff member on the BJA, added that there are certain professions for which applicants are asked whether they have a past disciplinary record, resulting in the information being released with a special written request.

The Faculty Senate unanimously approved the ARP, which will go before President John Hennessy for final approval.

The Senate will hear a panel discussion on the future of the Ph.D. program at the body’s next meeting on May 16. A discussion and vote of proposed class scheduling changes has been delayed until fall quarter.

Hometown: Fort Bragg, Calif.

Undergrad: Illinois State University

Grad school: none

Why did you choose to teach at Stanford?: Incredible writers, amazing students

Family: Wife Gloria, son Gabriel

Best friend: Michelle

Hobbies: Teaching tricks to my dogs

Number-one song on my music playlist: Rosanne Cash, “Sleeping in Paris”

Favorite book: Changes, but right now, “Dirt Music” by Tim Winton

Favorite short story: Changes, but right now Jo Ann Beard’s “The Fourth State of Matter”

Favorite Movie: Culloden

If you could only eat one food group for the rest of your life, would it be grains, meat, vegetables or fruit?:  Brown rice

If I hadn’t gone into academia, I’d be: An archaeologist

Department: Creative Writing Program

Classes taught: Development of the Short Story, Contemporary Women Writers

Primary research interest/project: Novel-in-progress

Favorite work that you’ve done: Essay, “Little X”

Fun and unusual fact about yourself: Met my wife while buying a wedding dress from her store, Mendocino Vintage

Favorite place in the world: Chaco Canyon, N.M.

Most Recently Searched on Google (and why): Grizzly bear attacks (for story)

Favorite season: Spring!

Favorite article of clothing: Cowboy boots

Mac or PC: Mac

Coke or Pepsi: Neither

Hot or iced tea: Earl Grey

Favorite mode of transportation: Walking with dogs

Most interesting place you’ve traveled to: Unexcavated cliff dwellings, New Mexico

Favorite place on campus: Andy Goldsworthy’s Stone River

According to Robert Simoni, chair of the biology department, any such issue may be of students’ own making, through a failure to take advantage of opportunities to establish relationships with otherwise accessible faculty.

“It’s not very hard for professors to be accessible [in large majors]…They each have multiple office hours,” he said. “[However] few students take advantage of [professors’ office hours], which can be disheartening.”

William Abrams, professor of human biology, framed his department’s approach as a more proactive one, citing efforts to actively reach out to students.

“[Human biology] is a large major but we’re very well organized,” Abrams said. “We have a lot of programs to make faculty accessible…and the faculty want to be accessible. We look for ways to make ourselves available to students.”

Alex Mullin ’15, a human biology major, emphasized the benefits of that approach.

“The professors are willing to get to know the students and all have office hours,” she said. “Even the professors who are just guest lecturing seem interested in students asking questions and coming to office hours.”

Mullin also cited the value of student advisors in making a larger major more open and manageable.

“Having student advisors helps,” she said. “They make it really easy to get more information about our work or the department.”

Schuyler Smith ’15, a computer science major, acknowledged both the benefits and disadvantages of studying in a larger department.

“In a smaller department, it would be easier to get to know other students because you would get to see them in other classes, and I guess that’s a good thing,” he said. “But I think part of the reason the CS program is so large is because the professors are so fantastic, so students want to take the classes. I certainly wouldn’t trade that for a smaller student body.”

Bruce Owen Ph.D. ’70, director of the public policy program, said that his department—a notably small major—is able to reach out to its students unusually well.

“The students who come and hang around the offices or show up for various events, we get to know very well,” he said. “You get to know everyone by name pretty well.”

Owen said that the faculty and staff in his department are surprised when they receive an application to graduate from a student they didn’t know.

“They knew they were a major, but we didn’t know who they were,” he said. “Other than that, it’s a fairly close-knit group.”

Abrams emphasized the human biology program’s constant efforts to improve as allowing continued accessibility.

“[Human biology] is known for being accessible, and students have told me they appreciate that,” he said. “We work hard as a faculty, spending a lot of time with colleagues talking about our students, how we can be more available or better at meeting the needs of students.”

Owen, however, singled out the public policy program’s small size as a source of student satisfaction.

“We just finished our five-year review process and students were very positive,” he said. “The average responder said they value the small size of the program and hope that it doesn’t get any bigger. They really like getting to know the faculty and staff and other students.”

Reflecting on his own experiences, Smith credited professors themselves—rather than departmental size or programming—as fostering student satisfaction.

“They seem genuinely interested in helping me learn,” he said.

This year marks the 67th anniversary of Stanford’s Creative Writing Program and the Wallace Stegner Fellowship, the second-oldest fellowship of its kind in the country. The Stegner Fellowship, founded by renowned novelist and former Stanford professor Wallace Stegner in 1946, provides financial and artistic support for up-and-coming writers.

(LORENA RINCON-CRUZ/The Stanford Daily)

According to Scott Hutchins, a lecturer in the program, the fellowship was created by Stegner as a way of providing a creative outlet to soldiers returning from World War II.

“Stegner saw the GIs coming back after World War II and felt like there needed to be a writing fellowship for them to be a part of,” Hutchins said. “They were a little bit older than most college students and had stories to tell.”

Tom Kealey, another lecturer in the department, said that the fellowship offers a unique opportunity for young writers to develop their craft in an encouraging but rigorous setting.

“[Stegner] designed the program for people in their 20s and 30s to come to Stanford for a year or two to work on their own writings,” Kealey said.

The 10 Stegner fellows — five fiction writers and five poets — are chosen from about 2,000 applicants and come to Stanford to work on their writing for two years.

“They’re really just beginning their careers,” Kealey added. “They get to be here and take workshops with amazing writers and with each other. They really get to concentrate on their own writing.”

Some fellowship graduates stay close to the Farm. Kealey, Hutchins and Tobias Wolff M.A. ’78, another professor in the program, were all once Stegner fellows.

Hutchins said that his time as a Stegner fellow compelled him to stay at the University as an instructor despite his busy schedule as a professional writer.

“I came as a Stegner fellow, which was a great blessing and a wonderful surprise, and I stayed for a lot of reasons,” Hutchins said. “This is a really supportive environment. You get to work with writers you admire, the teaching is taken incredibly seriously and the program is supportive of us as teachers and artists.”

Rather than being a graduate program in creative writing, Wolff characterized the fellowship as an association for creative minds and a program that — despite various leadership changes over the years — has retained much of its original form.

“It began not as a degree-granting graduate program but as a fellowship of writers, writers like Ken Kesey ['59], Tillie Olsen, Larry McMurtry, Evan Connell ['48]…fellows who have gone on to distinguish themselves in different ways,” he said.

John L’Heureux took the reins of the Stegner Fellowship in 1973 as the first director of the Creative Writing Program, a move widely considered among faculty as marking the program’s retrenchment as a highly selective society of stipend-funded fellows

“We have five Stegner fellows each year in fiction and five in poetry, chosen from about 2,000 applicants,” Wolff noted. “It’s probably the most selective program in the country.”

In addition to the Stegner Fellowship, Wolff cited the Creative Writing Program at large for distinguishing Stanford as one of creative writing’s academic powerhouses.

“Our undergraduate program is the best in country — there’s nothing to compare it to,” Wolff said.

A broad appeal

Wolff cited the program’s flexibility in terms of scheduling as another defining feature. Individuals can either pursue an emphasis in creative writing through the English major or a stand-alone creative writing minor, allowing a greater pool of students to take classes in the subject.

“It’s woven into the English major as an emphasis — there’s no creative writing major,” he said. “A bio major, for example, could do a minor in creative writing as well.”

Wolff cited the popularity of creative writing class as a result.

“The classes are full — there always seems to be demand for more,” Wolff said. “We have an astonishing array of classes offered under creative writing.”

According to Kealey, the undergraduate program expanded to its current size about 10 years ago when Eavan Boland, its director since 2002, took the helm.

“[Before Boland], there were only eight classes a quarter,” Kealey said. “Now we have as many as 30 classes a quarter. It’s one of the most popular minors on campus.”

Boland said that, in addition to expanding the program to accommodate the diverse interests of students, she strongly believes in putting young working writers into classrooms as teachers. Facilitating programs include the Jones Lectureship, which draws heavily on the ranks of Stegner fellows.

“A young writer reminds our students that writing is a living tradition,” she said. “The Stegner fellows stay and become creative writing teachers. They’re developing their first or second book, talking about their work and others’ work all day, and they bring that energy into the classroom. It’s what makes the vibe of the program.”

Students can choose to focus on fiction, creative non-fiction or poetry within the emphasis or minor. According to Kealey, fiction is the most popular track.

The program offers a wide array of classes, including The Graphic Novel, Fiction into Film and Imaginary Realms, which will be co-taught by Kealey.

Kealey cited the program’s ability to offer a variety of new classes each year, depending on student and teacher interest in specific subjects, as a strength. One such class was modeled on the National Novel Writing Month, a nation-wide event that challenges individuals to write an entire novel in the course of the month of November.

“In the fall, I taught the Novel Writing Intensive [with Hutchins], which is based on NaNoWriMo [National Novel Writing Month],” Kealey said. “We were reading novels as literature and as a craft. For the month of November, students are writing a 50,000-word novel. We had 16 students, and they all completed it.”

For students, the program’s popularity can be attributed not only to its innovative take on structuring courses, but also to the workshop model of writing that provides a unique and supportive environment for sharing and critiquing one’s work.

Susan Haynes ’14, an English major with a creative writing emphasis in prose, emphasized the benefits of workshopping from her own experience.

“The workshopping format is fantastic,” Haynes said. “When a class begins, you have time to work on a short story or script or whatever, then halfway through the course, you turn it in, and the next half of the course, through the end of the quarter, you are workshopping, which entails all of your peers reading your work, offering suggestions. So you get 15 to 17 different perspectives, which helps to highlight what’s working and what’s not.”

Haynes knew she wanted to be an English major before coming to Stanford, choosing the University because of its Creative Writing Program.

However, other students come to campus with little idea that they’ll try their hand at the discipline, despite the program’s acclaim.

Jenny Thai ’13 said that she did not think she would be an English major when she came to Stanford four years ago. After taking her first creative writing class, however, she realized how much she enjoyed the discipline.

“I’ve never had a creative writing class I didn’t like,” Thai said. “The great thing about the classes is that each lecturer has a different style of running the class, so each class is a little different, which is what makes it so interesting.”

Thai cited the individualized nature of the program as a major draw.

“The classes are rewarding because you work on things that matter to you personally,” she said. “It’s nice to write for an audience, but one of the luxuries of the writing program at Stanford is getting to work on what matters to you. It’s a self-indulgent activity, but rewarding.”

Delving deeper

For students who want to take their writing to the next level, the program offers Levinthal Tutorials, during which undergraduates work with a fellow on a short story, collection of poetry or other piece of writing over the course of the quarter instead of taking a workshop-style class.

“It’s truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Kealey said. “For the fellows, they get the enthusiasm and energy from working with the students. It’s not something you would see at any other program.”

Wolff echoed Kealey’s sentiment regarding the tutorials.

“Writing is a very solitary business,” Wolff said. “[This program] provides a complementary dimension in which solitary people can find a common group to work with.”

Even as the Creative Writing Program continues to garner broad acclaim, Boland framed the program’s distinguishing aspect as the interaction between participants and the writing that ensues.

“It’s the level of conversation,” she said. “What we’re most proud of is the level of excitement from the undergraduates about the writing they love, the stories they read and the poems they remember.”

Correction: A previous version of this article stated that the Creative Writing Program celebrated its 50th anniversary this year. In fact, the program was founded in 1946. The Daily regrets the error.

“[The catwalks] are a place for all of us to hang out in the afternoons and talk,” said Reade Levinson ’16. “People do yoga, have conversations, stargaze…It’s one of those rare gems, like the Lane Reading Room…one of those awesome parts of campus that you’re lucky to find.”

MADELINE SIDES/ The Stanford Daily

Rodger Whitney, executive director of Residential and Dining Enterprises (R&DE) Student Housing, wrote in a statement to The Daily that the walkways “are in a deteriorated condition, do not meet current ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] accessibility standards, and must be removed in order to replace the flat roof.”

According to Whitney, strict building and fire codes restrict such constructions and no other residence or new building contains the kind of walkways currently in place in FloMo.

“R&DE met with us [the Resident Fellows (RFs)] and our understanding was that it wasn’t feasible [to retain the catwalks] from a cost perspective and a county perspective, since the renovations had to be approved by the county,” said Greg Watkins ’85 Ph.D. ’03, an East FloMo RF.

Watkins lived in FloMo as a freshman and reflected that—while the catwalks weren’t used extensively—they did add to the charm of the building.
“They are an important space, a free space, an outdoor space,” Watkins said. “They have an important role to play in giving the residents multiple stations to spend their time in…They do hold the value of retreat space that’s hard to come by here at Stanford.”

Watkins noted that student reaction to the catwalks’ removal has been limited to date, attributing that trend to FloMo’s largely freshman population—and a corresponding lack of investment in dorm traditions—and the surge in the catwalks’ popularity during spring quarter.

Still, he conceded, some freshmen are passionate about the issue.

“The movement towards complaining was started by freshmen,” Watkins said. “They wouldn’t go away without investigating.”

Levinson, who originated the movement protesting the removal of the catwalks, characterized the protest as one of a number of student struggles devoted to preserving unique features of the University.

“It would be so sad if other generations wouldn’t be able to keep them,” Levinson said. “The school is on the move to become more uniform, with Suites Dining and tearing down Meyer, and keeping things like the catwalks is important to keep the school unique.”

“Right now, I’m just gauging interest,” Levinson added. “If it’s just me protesting, then it’s not worth it…I want to see how many people [are interested in protesting] before approaching Housing.”

According to Whitney, the decision to remove the catwalks balanced resident preferences with safety concerns. He added that dorms within FloMo will remain connected by existing interior walkways.

“With the roof access walkways in place, some students have climbed out windows to access them, and there have been some unfortunate falls and other injury accidents over the past few years,” Whitney wrote. “Life safety for our students is very important to us, so any project work we do always takes this into account.”

According to Whitney, R&DE administrators will meet with FloMo residents and staff in “early spring quarter” to discuss the details of the renovation.

Levinson said when she first contacted Watkins for advice on contesting the changes, she was advised to bring the issue to the attention of the larger University community.

“We could find out what Housing thinks, since they tend to respond once there’s an article, and, given their response, try fundraising or just put up a last stand,” Levinson said. “I’m pretty sure it’s a done deal but I don’t think they should go out without a fight.”

Undergraduate tuition will increase to $42,690 next year, compared to $41,250 this year, and room-and-board charges will increase from $12,721 to $13,166, according to a University press release. The Campus Health Service Fee will increase to from $179 to $185 per quarter next year. Undergraduate charges will total $56,411 next year, compared to $54,506 this year.

“[T]here are lots of reasons why tuition goes up,” Cooper said. “Tuition is the university’s source of unrestricted dollars, which is money that can be spent in any way. Most of our salaries come from unrestricted money. Tuition makes up about half of that general funds amount… The general funds do a lot basic work around campus that are not covered by endowment funds.”

Cooper downplayed the significance of the projected rise in tuition, noting that tuition costs have risen by similar amounts for each of the past five years.

“It’s been a while since it’s been higher than that,” Cooper said. “Increases have been in that range for quite some time.”

Even with rising tuition costs, however, Cooper emphasized Stanford’s commitment to meeting students’ full needs in terms of financial assistance.

“That is how I get involved in this discussion,” she said. “By how much do we need to increase the financial aid budget [in order to continue to meet that commitment]?”

As part of that commitment, households with incomes of $100,000 or less are not expected to pay any tuition. Households with incomes below $60,000 do not pay for tuition, nor room-and-board. In all, 50 percent of undergraduates receive financial aid from Stanford, totaling more than 3,400 students this year.

“People are comforted by the fact that this policy is going to make Stanford affordable regardless of what the price is,” Cooper said. “In a way, everybody gets some benefit from the endowment because the full cost of a Stanford education is higher than the amount of tuition.”

Even with the University’s financial aid program, however, students remain responsible for an estimated $5,000 each year in books, travel and personal expenses, according to Cooper. That sum is typically covered by summer earnings and part-time jobs during the school year.

“We do our best to estimate student need, and tuition is part of that estimate,” Cooper noted. “We look at the federal and state aid that is available, and whatever is not covered by those resources, we look to our funds. As tuition increases, financial aid goes up as well.”

“It’s hard to tell where we’re headed [with tuition increases],” she added. “Increases have been going on since the late 70s, when tuition started increasing rapidly… $60,000 a year, adding in everything else that we look at, is a really significant number. It’s a lot of money for anybody these days.”

Correction: In a previous version of this article, The Daily quoted Director of Financial Aid Karen Cooper as saying that there was “no official reason for why tuition has increased.” In fact, Cooper said: “[T]here are lots of reasons why tuition goes up. I don’t have for you the official reason.” The Daily regrets the error. 

AVI BAGLA/The Stanford Daily

Drug and alcohol abuse. Anxiety. Depression. Suicide.

For the members of Stanford Peace of Mind (SPoM), these are important societal issues, yet not much is said about them on Stanford’s campus.

SPoM co-president Nikita Desai ‘15 said she wants to get the information out about mental illness on campus in order to combat the stigma attached to mental health issues.

“We see stuff on campus about wellness and happiness, but we don’t see stuff about not being well,” Desai said.

“SPoM is advocating for a greater dialogue and discussion about mental health,” she added. “We want to combat the notion that everyone has to be perfect at Stanford. We are trying to open people up to being more vulnerable.”

Desai and Tara Hasan ‘13 are co-presidents of SPoM, which meets every week at the Bridge Peer Counseling Center. Hasan joined during her freshmen year after seeing a SPoM panel in her freshmen dorm, Cedro.

“I grew up in the Middle East, where everything stays in the family and you don’t share your feelings with people outside the family,” Hasan said. “I had trouble adjusting to Stanford. I felt like everyone around me was doing so well, and I wasn’t enjoying myself. I know now that it was the duck syndrome, but at the time I couldn’t put my finger on it.”

Desai’s involvement with mental health began when she was in middle school. She got involved with awareness for obsessive-compulsive disorder, especially for kids. Being a part of SPoM, in her opinion, was just continuing that work in her college years.

Getting people involved at Stanford, however, hasn’t been easy.

“Recruitment is most difficult,” Hasan said. “People are interested in being involved, but they don’t stick it out.”

This year, SPoM has increased the number of student panels they put on and held faculty lunches in which professors talk to students about mental health.

“The panels are the core of what we’re trying to do,” Desai added. “Mental well-being is not universal, and hearing stories of other students, in an open, safe space, sometimes sharing with their own dorm, can help de-stigmatize the issues.”

At a SPoM panel on Wednesday night, three students spoke about their experience dealing with mental illness.

Danny McKay ‘14 shared his story of dealing with alcohol and drug abuse.

“When I was 13 or 14, I started using drugs heavily,” he said. “I didn’t participate in high school…I don’t really remember much of that time.”

After graduating from high school, Danny joined the Air Force, where his addiction continued.

“I slowed down because they would do random drug testing, but I could still go to Rite-Aid or wherever and steal stuff to make into drugs or use as a drug,” he said.

Danny tried committing suicide once and served time in jail for a DUI. He received some treatment while in the Air Force, but after leaving, he stopped.

“I grew up in a trashy part of town…like a big playground for thugs,” he said. “I thought I was destined for that kind of life…I never saw myself where I am now. I honestly thought I was going to end up dead in a ditch, and I accepted it. That’s what scared me. That’s what made me want to get sober.”

Grace ‘14, who requested that only her first name be printed, grew up in Tennessee, where she was the perfect child, doing well academically and as a violinist.

“I was used to berating myself and being hard on myself, and it was reinforced because I had success,” Grace said. “It worked in high school, and then I came to Stanford. At the end of my [freshman year] winter quarter, I started questioning myself…I got to my dream school, but what do I actually want to do?”

She describes the physical reactions she experienced due to her stress.

“I started getting worried about things,” she said. “I couldn’t shut it off. I couldn’t stop worrying. I was always tense, always scared…Adrenaline coursing through my body.”

Grace tried to reach out to her parents, but her mom didn’t know what to say and her dad began questioning her abilities.

“He would say, ‘I thought you were strong. What’s wrong with you? You’re bringing this dark cloud to our family. You just need to suck it up.’ But denying it just made the feelings worse,” she said.

Grace pledged Alpha Kappa Psi, Stanford’s business-interest fraternity, in the spring of her freshmen year and broke down under what she thought was psychological hazing.

“I de-pledged and got a lot of flak from my dad,” Grace said. “I felt really terrible, like I failed, like I wasn’t good enough…I was so good in high school, so proud and successful, and all of a sudden it wasn’t working anymore.”

She took the rest of the year off and returned for her sophomore year, but the problems hadn’t gone away.

“Spring break, I start crying again. It freaked me out, like, ‘why is this happening again?’” Grace said. “I just pushed it down, tried to ignore it…I ended up in the Stanford ER and was admitted to the psychiatric ward. I was transferred to an outpatient program back home, where I started making changes.”

With professional guidance, she stopped tying her self-worth to things that were out of her control. When she returned this year as a junior, she felt a lot stronger.

“I believe that self-worth is inherent,” Grace said. “I say nice things to myself now.”

Partially for herself, but also so that others struggling with mental illness do not have to suffer the same silence she did, Grace has told her story at two panels.

“The first was terrifying,” she said. “The second was terrifying too, because it was my own dorm. Each time I say my story, it feels rewarding because I can share this part of my life with other people, multiple people at once…I’m grateful to have that space to do it.”

Analyssa Lopez ‘16 also enjoyed extensive personal success as a child, but first struggled when she realized how academically challenging the International Baccalaureate (IB) program was at her high school.

“It was a huge shock, like jumping into ice-cold water,” Lopez said. “I never had to work to get good grades or to understand the material…I was completely out of my element.”

She started being bullied and withdrew into lonely depression.

“I started not going to school, not wanting to see anyone,” she said. “I couldn’t tell my mom that I cannot stand the idea of going to school or getting out of bed.”

She attempted suicide and ended up in an adolescent behavioral health center. While she still sometimes struggles with the pressure that comes with being a Stanford student, she credits SPoM with helping her adjust.

“Here, I can tell strangers what happened to me, and I think it’s most helpful because it makes me feel like there’s some sort of outlet,” Lopez added. “It makes it easier to admit to myself that [mental health] is something I’m struggling with.”

SPoM aims to eliminate the “duck syndrome” and allow discussion of vulnerability so often swept under the rug by schedules and responsibilities. But according to Desai, it’s the responsibility of students, not the University, to make the change they want to see on mental health stigma.

“Students create the culture on campus,” Desai said. “We can fight the duck syndrome by talking about it…It’s tempting to point the blame at the University, but students silence themselves.”

According to BOSP Director Ramon Saldivar, 344 students applied to the eight programs in Vienna, Rio de Janeiro, India, Israel, Madagascar, Palau and Cardiff, Wales. Around 15 students were accepted to each of the eight programs, for a total of approximately 120 students.

Last year, by contrast, there were five overseas seminars, with a total of 460 applicants.

Saldivar downplayed the significance of the decline, emphasizing the limited value of only two years of data.

“Fluctuations always happen,” Saldivar said. “If that trend continues for the next four or five years, then we’ll start thinking about what it means. But the most important thing about the seminars is that we are only offering a very small number and we continue to be hugely oversubscribed. The total number of applications greatly exceeds the number of spots we have available.”

Saldivar refused to give a breakdown of application numbers for each specific seminar.

The waitlist for each seminar also includes 15 students, so that BOSP can make sure that they fill each of the programs to capacity.
“We have no specific goal about the number of students we want to apply,” Saldivar said. “We want to make sure that we meet student interest. It also provides information for me to give to my superiors when making budget requests and whatnot that the demand of these programs exceeds what we can offer. It can strengthen my case for wanting to offer more of these seminars.”

Saldivar expressed optimism about the support the seminars have received from students and faculty.

“Every indication — from student evaluations, faculty responses, any review body like the SUES (Study of Undergraduate Education at Stanford) [report] — continues to point to the overseas seminars as being really successful,” Saldivar said. “That is a given. The next question is, how many more can we do? At this point, it is based on funding, in a broad sense. It is also based on how many we can afford to do given the size of this office, given faculty interest.”

Biology professor Susan McConnell, who will teach a summer seminar in Costa Rica on conservation photography, said she was happy about the increase in the number of seminars offered this year and was pleased with the number of applicants she received.

Even while the summer seminars continue to enjoy generally strong interest, other BOSP programs have struggled to attract applicants. Five BOSP spring quarter programs — Beijing, Florence, Kyoto, Madrid and Santiago — are still accepting applications, with interested students being asked to contact the program as soon as possible.

Saldivar said that the low interest level of interest in those programs is not that unusual and that BOSP regularly accepts students after the application deadline.

On Monday, BOSP also announced the return of the Community Health in Oaxaca Program for Spring/Summer 2013. According to the BOSP website, this service-learning program will provide students with the opportunity of working in southern Mexico, shadowing health care providers in clinics and hospitals and working with other agencies to meet community-identified needs.

“It gives us an opportunity to try out a different pedagogical method and a different duration, linking it with a course on campus and following up with an overseas experience,” Saldivar said. “We are targeting groups of students on campus who wouldn’t be thinking that they would be able to go abroad and spend time in an overseas experience.”

Saldivar added that, although the topic is community health in southern Mexico, the subject is being interpreted broadly.

“It’s not just medical issues, but broad social and community issues that constitute well-being. We are looking for students interested in health care and medical science, but also in all aspects of social sciences and humanities,” Saldivar said. “There is room for thinking about culture, language and the arts as part of the construction of a community in good health. We hope to look at it that way over the next two years.”

Students can apply to the program on the BOSP website by Feb. 17.

“As long as we continue having students interested in the programs, we will work hard to make the space for students to be a part of them,” Saldivar said. “The summer seminars are a signpost of the way we should be moving in the future.”

“World’s Best Minds Gather at Exotic Erotic”

“Student’s Poor Midterm Grade Actually Causes Apocalypse”

“Report: Stanford Student Too Busy To Breathe”

“Center for Coming Up With Fancy Names for Silly Things Announces New Global Peace Summit for Prosperity and Change”

These headlines come from none other than the Stanford Flipside, a weekly satirical news publication that combines pop culture, social and political commentary and campus-centered humor to entertain students. Known for being one of the more unique and quirky campus publications, the Flipside also contains popular puzzles students typically solve upon picking up the pamphlet in the dining hall.

It all started more than four years ago, when Jeremy Keeshin ’12 and his high school friends created a publication similar to the Flipside at their high school. The Flipside is still published at Deerfield High School and Northwestern University.

“A few of my friends were really into The Onion and satirical writing,” Keeshin said. “I brought it here to Stanford, doing it with some of the guys in my freshman dorm.”

At Stanford, the Flipside started as a club with a short, weekly format paper which increased readability, offered more visibility and allowed for wider distribution.

“We’d say ‘Let’s go to dinner at Wilbur!’ and we’d eat dinner there and distribute it there and the next night we’d be at Stern and we’d distribute it there. It started out with just us distributing it and we got some friends to do it but it was pretty tough initially,” said Zach Galant ’12, Flipside co-founder, describing the initial distribution process.

Even in the early years of the Flipside, the growing readership met the distribution with a mixture of excitement and anticipation.

“It’d be like ‘It’s the Flipside guy!’” Galant said. “People come to expect it on Mondays and if there was a holiday and we distributed on Tuesday, people would be like ‘Where were you yesterday?”

Distribution was difficult at first because only a small group of students were handing out copies, with hopes to cover the entire campus. Galant recalled bringing copies to IHUM lecture and putting them next to the lecture handouts.

“People would just come by and take the Flipside along with the handouts and I always thought it was really cool seeing people read it in lecture,” Galant said.

As the Flipside grew, so did its structure. The staff began having weekly brainstorm and editorial board meetings and added a “D-Day” — the group’s name for Distribution Day, on which the Flipside staff walks around campus, distributing copies of the Flipside to various dining halls. They also experimented with different collaborative websites in hopes of finding new ways to plan, structure and organize the newspaper.

Jeremy Keeshin, Adam Adler, Laney Kuenzel, Eric Karpas and Zach Galant (from left to right), all seniors on the Flipside editorial board, have put together the popular satirical campus publication since its foundation in 2008. (Courtesy of Dan Shaffer)

“We still have the same problem that a lot of groups have of keeping people involved, but it’s gotten easier,” Keeshin said.

“We’ve started doing group writes,” Galant said. “We’d have a Google Doc and a bunch of people would be working on an article at the same time, building off of each other. It made the process so much better, getting a chance to work with other people.”

Along with articles and headlines, the Flipside features weekly cryptograms and Rebus puzzles.

“People get really excited about the puzzles,” Keeshin added. “My main goal is to have people read the articles but if they’re reading it for the puzzles, then I think they’ll also read the articles.”

“My favorite part is definitely the cryptograms,” said Katherine Scavo ’15. “One of my friends in the dorm and I really like figuring out the quotes and decoding them.”

The Flipside staff has added more outside activities to the Flipside over the years, including a fake activities fair in White Plaza during winter quarter to increase campus awareness of the Flipside and give the staff a chance to actively satirize pop culture and campus culture, instead of just writing about it.

“I was the President of the Resume Building Club,” Galant said. “I wore a suit and had resume-looking flyers and handed them out, asking students if they wanted to join the Resume Building Club. Jeremy was running the Stanford 7th Man Club, which was fans of Stanford basketball fans, and Dean Julie walked by and she signed up for the Breakfast Club.”

Another booth featured “the TSA frat” — Tau Sigma Alpha, a play on the Transportation Security Administration and airport security measures.

“They were wearing tanks that said ‘Frat Me Down’ and had little water bottles that you’d have to chug because you can’t bring them on and they’d pat you down,” Keeshin said.

The Flipside’s activity fairs have also included booths devoted to the Gospel of Tim Tebow and the Mile High Club.

“We blasted the mailing list right before the fair with claims that people knew were fake,” Keeshin said. “But it got people out to White Plaza [to come look at our booths].”

While the articles in the Flipside are written for the sake of poking fun at relevant campus or contemporary issues, some have been offended by its content.

“We wrote an article once titled ‘Stanford Cutting Mechanical Engineering — It’s Just Not Working,’” Keeshin said. “Some people thought it was a real article and got upset.”

“We also had a White Male Community Center booth at the activities fair and this girl just starting railing on us,” Galant said, laughing. “The guys stayed in character though, saying they were going to go to a Third Eye Blind concert and shop at Trader Joe’s.”

According to Galant, the Flipside has also had a lot of positive responses from students, such as people “screaming with joy” whenever they walk into dining halls carrying the stacks of copies or getting excited about the “Flipside guy!”

“We’ve have also had a lot of success online,” Galant added. “The first article we had that really went viral online was one called “The Party Starts Before Ke$ha walks in.” It was right when ‘Tik Tok’ was really popular and it got more Facebook shares than any other articles we’d had. It got posted to someone’s Tumblr and got 600 reblogs.”

“I think [the Flipside] is a really good voice that a lot of people can relate to but don’t necessarily have the venue to express it,” said Carlo Pasco ’13.

As both founders will graduate this spring, they bid their Flipside creation a doleful farewell. Galant and Keeshin plan to work together on a start-up called CodeHS, which will involve teaching computer science to high school students.

According to Keeshin, the future of the Flipside next year looks promising.

“We have a really high bar for quality for the Flipside and I hope that the quality remains high,” he said. “I have one goal for the Flipside and that is to be entertaining for five or 10 minutes every Monday.”

The Stanford Flipside was founded by Jeremy Keeshin ’12. Zach Galant ’12 and Adam Adler ’12 have contributed to the campus publication since 2008. Eric Karpas ’12 and Laney Kuenzel ’12 joined in 2009 and 2010 respectively. 

The original version of this article incorrectly described The Flipside’s original format and distribution process. The Daily regrets the errors.

It’s 11:48 p.m. on a Saturday night. I’m standing in the backyard of 680 Lomita, wearing a tank top and shorts, regretting my decision to follow the mythical Exotic Erotic dress code. I sway to the live band’s music, trying to ignore the goose bumps on my arms. The live band finishes up one of their original songs, “Waldo,” and transitions into a song we all know and love: “Shout” by the Isley Brothers.

I jump around with the rest of the crowd, waving my arms in the air and forgetting I was ever cold as the saxophone player wails away on his instrument and one of the lead singers tells us we make him want to “Shout!”

Stanford isn’t exactly known for its music scene, but the campus hosts a myriad of talented musicians, all vying for a chance to play their music for people who appreciate it. The music scene isn’t always visible when you first look at our campus, but with some digging, trips to house parties and Facebook stalking, it starts to reveal itself.

“When I first started at Stanford, I was primarily making music by myself,” said Ryan Edwards ’13. “This year I got involved with IDA [the Institute for Diversity in the Arts] and found other people to work with.”

A junior sporting an afro and a longboard, Edwards has been involved in music his entire life, playing the harmonica in elementary school and taking the stage for the first time during a talent show in the fourth grade. He began dropping beats and rapping when he came to Stanford, mixing hip-hop with other genres such as jazz and electronica.

Edwards formed a collective with people he met through IDA, and they began performing at different functions on campus, such as Wine and Cheese at Kairos and rush events. For Edwards, getting involved in the music scene was tough because it was not very visible to him as a freshman.

“Finding people to work with was difficult during my freshman year because a lot of people would be like, ‘Oh, I’ll rap on a track with you because it sounds like fun and it sounds cool,’ but actually taking action and writing a verse and getting onstage and performing it in front of people, they don’t follow through,” he said. “It’s just a matter of finding the right people who are taking it seriously.”

Edwards added that working with people is both more fun and important for learning collaboration.

Others slid more seamlessly into the music scene at Stanford.

“I took Music 171 [Chamber Music] last year and they offer jazz combos,” Jared Naimark ’14 said. “I wanted to do something easy to start, so I auditioned and was placed in a group.”

The group fell apart at the end of last year but Naimark and two other members continued to play into this year and incorporated three new members.

“It’s more of a band this year,” Naimark said.

He started learning music at a young age and has been playing the saxophone since the fourth grade. He got involved in the music scene at Stanford by jamming with people in his freshman dorm, Larkin.

“It can be tough getting everyone in the same room and hard to find committed people,” Naimark said. “There’s also been some arguments about the vibe of the group.”

Harry Doshay ’14, another member of the group, began playing the bass when his dad left one in his room when he was younger.

“He stuck the bass in the corner of my room, and after a while it started talking to me and so I started playing it,” Doshay said.

“It can be difficult to get people to play on a regular basis at Stanford,” he continued. “I just try to play as much music as possible, at every opportunity.”

Their combo, named Too Big to Mail–its third name so far–has played at on-campus events such as Monday Night Jazz at the CoHo, Wine and Cheese at Kairos and Art After Dark. However, Naimark and Doshay are not interested in publicizing themselves too much.

“I’d like to continue playing jazz and sax because it’s how I express myself, but we don’t necessarily want to put our name out,” Naimark said. “It’s just a fun thing to do, playing with friends.”

The Stanford-grown band Den of Thieves performs at Art After Dark last Friday night. (NICK SALAZAR/The Stanford Daily)

“We’re not really playing for money or publicity,” Doshay added. “I just want to keep playing with these guys and having fun. I’ll probably end up just like my dad and end up playing with a bunch of buddies, thinking I can rock, playing at my own birthday party.”

Stephen Henderson ’11 M.A. ’12 has also been playing music most of his life.

“I grew up on the east side of Maui that really harbored music,” he said. “I started playing the guitar and ukulele when I was 10.”

When Henderson came to Stanford in 2005 as a freshman, he started a reggae band called Paradise Groove. He more recently started a music collective called the Dot Dot Dots.             Henderson has been a professional musician since the age of 15 and has been producing professionally since he was 21.

“Finding people to play with has to be something that happens organically,” Henderson said. “You have to share the same principles, be experienced enough and finish each other’s melodies…My own music is very sacred to me so I want to make sure it’s of quality.”

When Henderson first came to Stanford, he didn’t find a class or a track to develop his music. He learned about the music industry by himself through independent research, as he felt there was no strong sense of artistic community.

“People go to see other people perform because they know someone in the band, not because the music is good,” Henderson said. “It’s not necessarily indicative of a healthy community. You want your art to speak for itself.”

In 2010, Henderson co-founded the Red Couch Project, which showcases independent artists in an accessible setting, giving up-and-coming musicians resources to develop their careers. In July, he plans on starting an independent production company with his older sister and has plans to build a studio.

“It will be a safe, beautiful, sacred place for artists to play,” he said.

With six albums’ worth of material already, Henderson just wants to keep making music.

“Hawaii’s music scene suffers a bit, so I’d like to help out there as well,” he added.

Henderson’s influence is well known within the music scene on campus.

“[At the Knoll] he’s created an open group of musicians who can come through and play,” said Ben Broer ’12, drummer of a Stanford-grown band called Den of Thieves. “I think what he’s doing is fantastic, and I really admire him.”

Den of Thieves features Broer on the drums, John Hollywood ’12 on the guitar, Alex Klein ’12 on the saxophone, Jason Loftus ’12 on the bass and Michael Davies ’12 on the keyboard. All five of its members have been in the group since its start. Their involvement in music grew from an interest in the craft and admiration of those older than them who were playing instruments.

The band members dallied in music their freshman year and came together during spring quarter of their sophomore year. Klein described them as a Grateful Dead cover during their initial time together, though Hollywood and Broer disagreed.

“We started out as a classic rock cover band, but we’ve developed our own style,” Broer said.

All three agreed that it is tough to get involved in the music scene at Stanford.

“There’s no place for musicians to congregate,” Klein said, adding that the Knoll could work as that place, if it focused less on computer music. He also expressed an interest in Frost Amphitheater being opened to student bands.

“There isn’t a huge incentive for bands to play around [campus] either,” Broer added.

However, Klein offered hope for the integration of music into campus life.

“The music scene is changing for the better,” he said. “There are a lot of really talented musicians, but few bands.”

Den of Thieves has played at a lot of events on campus, mostly weekly and biweekly “staples,” like Happy Hour at Enchanted Broccoli Forest, Wine and Cheese at Kairos and parties at Narnia.

“We’re just starting to move off campus,” Broer said, citing a show in San Francisco this week in which the group will play original music.

With graduation approaching, the members all have plans that will take them away from Stanford and away from the band, from going on to work in sound production to attending medical school. Though they may not continue performing, they stressed the value of their band experience.

“It’s really important to take the time to do your art,” Henderson said. “If you could be playing music and you would be playing music, then you should be playing music. It has to be just important to you as your academics.”

Faculty representatives also rejected an amendment that would redefine the scope of the Breadth Requirements Governance Board, the body in charge of determining whether or not a course meets a specified breadth requirement.

“This experience has made me so proud of this institution,” said Acting President and Provost John Etchemendy Ph.D. ‘82. “A heated disagreement is good because it shows that we care that much about undergraduate education.”

Etchemendy opened the meeting by announcing a committee to search for a new athletic director, prompted by current Athletic Director Bob Bowlsby’s planned departure at the end of the academic year.

“We hope to have an athletic director in place by September,” Etchemendy said. “Patrick Dunkley will be the acting athletic director beginning June 16 after Bob steps down.”

The meeting then moved on to a continued discussion of University undergraduate breadth requirements. Following the publication of the SUES report, the Faculty Senate received recommendations from the Committee on Undergraduate Standards and Policies (C-USP) in response to the document. C-USP has recommended that undergraduates take eight breadth requirement courses, despite the fact that that the SUES report suggested students take 11.

The Senate discussed an amendment, which would return to the original SUES recommendation for 11 breadth courses. The amendment would require students to take courses that fit into the seven “Ways of Thinking, Ways of Doing” categories first created by the SUES report. Students would be required to take two courses in “Aesthetic and Interpretive Inquiry,” two in “Social Inquiry,” two in “Scientific Analysis,” two in “Formal and Quantitative Reasoning” (with one in each branch), one course in “Engaging Difference,” one in “Moral and Ethical Reasoning” and one in “Creative Expression.”

C-USP, however, has recommended double course requirements in only one of those categories.

“Requiring one course in each category would be an invitation to superficiality,” said Susan McConnell, SUES co-chair, as to why her committee originally suggested requiring two courses in some categories, but not all. “For instance, it can be difficult for students to engage with science in just one course because there’s a language barrier. By requiring two courses, we create opportunities for students to gain familiarity with the subject and then get in depth.”

“The proposal does not increase the general education blueprint or narrow the space for exploration,” McConnell added.

Debra Satz, senior associate dean for the Humanities and Arts, expressed approval toward the amendment, but said she feels that students should have more flexibility to take different courses.

“I support a bigger footstep because I believe that students should have a wider breadth,” she said.

Satz added a friendly amendment to the proposal to split the “Formal and Quantitative Reasoning” requirement into two different categories, stating that this division would add transparency.

Faculty senators who spoke appeared split on which proposal to move forward. Many cited the need for students to have academic freedom as a reason to keep C-USP’s recommendation of fewer requirements. Others supported the amendment because it would result in increased exposure to breadth and department, which Biology Professor Patricia Jones said is similar to the requirements at Stanford’s peer institutions.

The Senate ended up voting in favor of the amendment, and the higher number of breadth requirements.

The senators then moved on to a discussion of the “governance” section of the amendment. Some faculty members said they felt that the Governing Board was being given less freedom–and more constraints–in an amendment.

Most of the senators were in favor of the current wording in the C-USP proposal, which they said would allow for more flexibility and freedom for the board in making decisions.

Senior Associate Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education and Biology Professor Martha Cyert drew the Senate’s attention to a section of the amendment, which she said tasked the board with the job of figuring out how to determine whether the courses it has designated as satisfying a category “are in fact attaining the majority of the learning goals associated with that category.”

“Those assessment processes are a really, really important, huge task,” Cyert said. “Assigning that to the board is not realistic. None of us would agree to being on the board. It is not practical to give the board that task as well.”

In response, Economics Professor Caroline Hoxby said she did not think the task would be too difficult for the board.

“If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s a duck,” Hoxby said. “We wouldn’t have to study every chemistry class before deciding which requirement it fulfills. The board would focus on a small set of courses that were much less clear [about their breadth distribution].”

The Senate voted to oppose the amendment to Board Governance, preferring the original C-USP wording.

The Senate will discuss recommendations about the Program in Writing and Rhetoric (PWR) and the annual budget report at its next meeting on May 31.

The timing of the announcement, shortly after Vice President Joe Biden endorsed gay marriage and North Carolina voters passed a constitutional amendment rejecting same-sex marriage, was more unexpected.

“North Carolina sort of forced his hand,” said Tammy Frisby, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. “Advocates for gay rights were unhappy [by the amendment] and turned to their president.”

Bill Whalen, also a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, downplayed the groundbreaking nature of the announcement, noting that Obama had dropped numerous hints of his shifting perspective on the issue.

“When he ran for president, he said he was opposed,” Whalen said. “He’s been ‘evolving.’”

Frisby noted that the announcement would likely resonate disproportionately among college-age students, who have historically been more socially liberal.

“College students are excited,” Frisby said, “because this is an issue on which the majority of youth fall on the pro-gay rights side.”

Lindsay Lamont ‘13, president of the Stanford Democrats, said that Democrats on campus were delighted by the announcement.

“I’m surprised that he came out and was forthright about it, but I’m also really proud,” Lamont said.

Lamont acknowledged that the move might harm Obama’s electoral standing in states like North Carolina — which voted Democratic in 2008 — but expressed support for the announcement’s motivation.

“I think he wanted to be clear about his intentions and this shows how far the country has come, but it’s still risky,” Lamont said.

Frisby added that the announcement might also diminish Obama’s backing among Hispanic and African American voters, who tend to be more socially conservative but who turned out overwhelmingly in favor of Obama in 2008.

Kyle Huwa ‘13, president of the Stanford Conservative Society, said that the conservative community on campus intends to focus on economic and domestic policy issues rather than social matters, and framed the announcement as politically calculated.

“They sent out Biden first to test the waters and once he was received highly, Obama was able to come out,” Huwa said.

Frisby framed the announcement as a means of providing an alternate focus on social issues in an election frequently touted — especially by Republicans — as one offering competing economic philosophies.

“The election will be constrained by the economy,” Frisby said. “In the past, if the economy is doing well, voters vote for the incumbent. If it’s not doing well, they kick him out.”

With the presidential election still six months away, the announcement could have uncertain ramifications in size and direction.

“We just don’t know which way it will sway,” Frisby said.

“It’s advantageous for Obama to put some of these social issues on the table to redirect the national conversation away from the economy to other issues he can speak about,” Huwa said.

“Talking about the issue [of same-sex marriage] isn’t going to get him the election,” Whalen noted. “It’s going to be the economy.”

Both Whalen and Huwa highlighted the fundraising and activist interest generated by Obama’s announcement, in what Whalen suggested might be an attempt to recreate the “transformational” sentiment linked with Obama in the 2008 election.

Whalen also noted that, while Obama expressed his support for the concept of same-sex marriage, he made no legislative promises for his second term and has continued to depict the debate as a state-level issue.

“This is no indication that he’s willing to take up the fight and push for a constitutional amendment,” Whalen said. “You can parallel this with Branch Rickey [a Major League Baseball executive] saying he favors integration in baseball but not putting Jackie Robinson on second base.”

Prospective freshmen attended a concert in Frost Amphitheater during Admit Weekend. Stanford Concert Network is hosting a Frost Revival on May 19 and hopes to use the facility more in the future. Event ticket sales broke even in less than 24 hours, and tickets are still available. (ALISA ROYER/The Stanford Daily)

The May 19 Frost Revival show may demonstrate that events at Frost Amphitheater are more financially and logistically viable. The amphitheater, which used to host such acts as the Grateful Dead, has seen less frequent use over the last decade, largely because of the high cost to operate the venue.

Stanford Concert Network (SCN) leaders, however, hope that the revival show can make this year a kickstarter for future events, according to Alberto Aroeste ‘13, co-director of SCN.

The concert will feature Modest Mouse, with opening acts Eyes Lips Eyes and Benjamin Francis Leftwich. SCN Co-director Stephen Trusheim ‘13 said the Frost Revival broke even in under 24 hours.

“We fundraised diligently and have been coordinating the revival for months now because our vision is to bring Frost Amphitheater to the forefront of people’s minds when they think of our school, both at Stanford and beyond,” Aroeste wrote in an email to The Daily.

He added that the vision of the SCN is to expand its presence increasingly each year so that it can create a sustainable model of using Frost from year to year.

Elaine Enos, executive director of the Office of Special Events and Protocol, which works with Frost, said that breaking even can be complicated for the venue.

“With Frost at its current ‘picnic’ capacity for this event (a mix of standing and sitting on blankets) of 5,400, it helps to have upwards of one-third to one-half or more in attendance with tickets reflecting general public pricing,” Enos wrote in an email to The Daily.

She added that it is not a one-size-fits-all process to hit a break-even point at Frost. “The idea is to get a band that people will pay to see, especially at general public prices, to help offset these expenses as much as possible,” she wrote.

Enos said that the process often becomes complicated because drawing artists of interest to students often costs more. Organizers have to weigh increased cost against increased student interest when determining ticket prices and projected sales.

“It deals sometimes with having to ‘predict the future’ in some cases,” Enos wrote.

Operating costs for Frost are not inexpensive, according to Enos. The cost of a high-profile concert with a very basic design that includes no video or lights, and the most minimal structural and staffing levels, runs from about $95,000 to $150,000, not including any artist fees.

“Headliner bands of interest and high popularity run into the six figures pretty easily now, plus travel expenses in many cases [can add to the cost],” Enos wrote.

Trusheim said that a headlining artist like Modest Mouse can cost between $80,000 and $120,000 depending on how much they ask for travel, food and other expenses.

She added that these bands tend to need or want more structural surroundings like lights or stage structures, which can potentially raise expenses.

According to Enos, many students have expressed interested in seeing more events in Frost. Such interest has been expressed on many levels throughout the undergraduate and graduate student population.

“The members of the Stanford Concert Network and other interested students have spent a lot of their personal time contributing and developing the look and feel that you’ll see at this year’s Frost Revival,” she wrote.

“We have not seen a concert of this size in nearly 10 years,” she added. “The last time there was a concert of any size in Frost during the academic year with students as the main audience was in 2006, and the attendance was extremely low.”

Mos Def was the headliner for the 2006 show.

Enos added that she expects to see well over 4,000 in total attendance for this year’s show, with the majority being students.

Enos wrote that Frost is not just used during Admit Weekend and New Student Orientation. The venue is also used for the Annual University Diversity Spring Faire, the GSB Students Annual C4C event and several other dinners and reception-style gatherings for very large events that departments or schools may sponsor.

“This year, Blackfest will be held for the first time in the amphitheater,” Enos wrote. “The event has been growing every year and is expecting even more students and general public this year, which creates a great opportunity to utilize space.”

She added that future events and other potential concerts are being reviewed and researched, but that it is important to be pragmatic about budgets.

“It’s about making sure that a proposed event is right for Frost as well,” she wrote, adding that some events are better served within smaller venues.

SCN is hopeful that it will be able to manage these costs to greatly expand Frost’s use in the future.

“Frost Revival will be the one event that started it all, the one festival that made it possible and paved the way for future large-scale concerts at Stanford University,” Aroeste wrote.

Speculation has recently revolved around Romney picking Condoleezza Rice, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and former University provost, as his running mate. Rice, who served as Secretary of State during the George W. Bush administration, received the most support among likely Republican voters in a CNN/ORC International survey released last week.

The survey asked registered Republicans and right-leaning independent voters to choose eight names they would like to see as Romney’s vice president. Rice was the frontrunner with 26 percent of the vote. Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, who recently bowed out of the presidential race, came in second with 21 percent. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) tied for third at 14 percent.

According to Bill Whalen, a Hoover research fellow, the number one pick in the polls “doesn’t always pan out.”

Rice has repeatedly denied interest in running as vice president. In a March segment of Fox News’ “Fox and Friends,” Rice responded to questions about whether she would serve as Romney’s running mate by saying, “How many ways can I say it? Not me.”

A poll released by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute last Thursday put Christie, Rubio and Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) as the leads for possible Romney running mates.

Whalen agreed that it would be a departure for Rice to seek the vice presidency.

“She leads the good life at Stanford,” Whalen said.

While Whalen said that history indicates running mates “[don’t] mean much in the course of the election,” Jon Krosnick, professor of communication and political science, had a different view about the potential influence of a vice presidential pick.

“It can be terrifically important,” Krosnick said. “Research has shown that the more voters who like the vice president pick, the more likely people are to vote for that candidate.”

According to Krosnick, all other factors being equal, the vice president pick can be the one factor that can push a candidate forward.

“It won’t make a big difference, but it’s very likely to make a difference,” he added.

Whalen and Krosnick agreed that the vice president candidate is frequently chosen to compensate for any weak points in the presidential candidate.

“Romney’s vulnerability lies with women and Hispanics,” Whalen said. “Rice covers those two categories and she also appeals to African American voters.”

According to Krosnick, one factor that was on the minds of voters in the 2008 presidential election was Republican nominee John McCain’s age. As a result, Krosnick said McCain chose Sarah Palin<\p>–<\p>someone who was young enough to compensate for his weak point.

“The second problem McCain had was that he was a Washington insider,” Krosnick added. “Obama was young and an outsider and could claim that he knew how the government worked from the inside, but had not been in too long. McCain needed to get someone who’d been in Washington even less.”

However, Krosnick said the same isn’t true this time around.

“In this case, it’s no problem for Romney to make the claim that he’s a Washington outsider and youthful enough [as compared to Obama],” Krosnick said.

He added that in 2008 the energy was around the historic nature of the election because an African-American was running.

“Now, it’s an interesting question for Republicans to see the value in trying to make history as well,” he said, adding that it might create positive attention if Romney chose a female to be his running mate.

According to Whalen, there are a handful of states that can change the election.

“Romney cannot win without Ohio and Florida, so he might look for a politician who could be a difference between those states,” Whalen said.

Media have pointed to Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Rubio as two candidates who may help Romney carry those states.

When asked about other possibilities, Whalen said there is a process to predicting.

“Keep an eye out for who he campaigns with,” he said. “Paul Ryan, Chris Christie. See who shows up with him the next few month, whose finances they look at and who all is asked to hand in papers.”

“If Rice and others make statements about not wanting it, see who keeps the door open,” Whalen added. “You never say you want it but you can say you don’t want it. Everyone’s been a little coy so see who keeps the door open.”

Whalen said that what the public sees and what the campaign sees are two very different things.

“In 1992, Bill Clinton surprised everyone with Al Gore, which reinforced their message,” Whalen said. “In 2000, Bush picked Cheney, which made foreign policy sense for them and played out pretty well.”

According to Krosnick, something that may help Romney make a statement would be to select a running mate who would become a signal for voters to pay attention, similar to McCain’s choice of Palin.

But “at the end of the day, it’s between Romney and Obama,” Whalen said.

Sophomore College is a three-week residential summer program during which incoming second-year undergraduates participate in seminars of 12 to 14 students and “engage in intense academic exploration, forming a community of scholars with peers, upperclass assistants and professors,” according to the Sophomore College website.

This year, eight seminars will be held partially or fully off-campus.

“All on-campus seminars include field trips as a part of their curriculum,” West added in an email to The Daily.

“We don’t place any pre-determined limit on the number of off-campus seminars,” he said. “What’s most important is providing students with a range of compelling seminars spanning the disciplines.”

While seminars involving travel – especially abroad, but also to destinations in the United States – tended to receive a higher number of applications, “many on-campus seminars received the same number of applications as off-campus seminars,” West said.

He added that the Sophomore College staff members are always looking to improve the program, from developing new seminars to improving the overall experience for students.

“This year, we are working with the two Sophomore College Assistants selected by faculty for each course to create more opportunities for students to share with each other what they are doing in their seminars, something students have told us in program evaluations that they would like to see increased,” West said.

Stanford Arts Intensive also takes place during the three weeks in September before the start of fall quarter. Data on Arts Intensive applications, which were also due April 9, is not yet available.

“Arts Intensive offers students the opportunity to study intensively with Stanford arts faculty and small groups of other Stanford students passionate about art,” according to the website.

Marie-Louise Catsalis, a conductor, vocal coach and keyboard accompanist at Stanford, will be leading an Arts Intensive seminar, An Operatic Play: ‘Mozart’s 7 Deadly Sins,” along with vocal coach Nova Jimenez.

“Mozart is one of the most loved composers of all time,” Catsalis wrote in an email to The Daily. “There is no better way into the world of opera than through his repertoire.”

“We will take that as a starting point in creating our own musical play,” she added. “Stanford Opera Workshop created ‘Mozart’s 7 Deadly Sins’ in winter 2011. Following that success, we used that show as a blueprint, but it will generate a new show: totally different cast, musical numbers and script.”

Catsalis added that in choosing seminar participants from the applicants, she and Jimenez are looking for students who are willing to try something new and jump into creating a theatrical product.

“We want to find students who might like to design costumes or sets from scratch, singers and actors who would like to bring a character to life, instrumentalists who would like to get to know the music of Mozart from the inside out, by arranging for our ensemble,” Catsalis said.

“In short,” she continued,” we want students who will not be shy to unleash their creativity: one of the most interesting applications I have read so far comes from a student who plays flute and sings, but preferably would like to do both in this production. That is the sort of enthusiasm we are looking for.”

Decisions about Sophomore College and Arts Intensive will be released April 30 after 5 p.m. on the Stanford September Studies websites for the respective programs.

“The number of registered RoHos we have isn’t too far off our spring break total goal of 1,000,” said Matt Lopez ‘14, an Admit Weekend coordinator. “We expect that in the coming weeks, this number will grow to the 1,400 to 1,500 that we’re looking for.”

Lopez said that initially lagging registration has been a consistent trend in recent years, with lower numbers of RoHos signing up in advance of spring break before a registration surge closer to Admit Weekend.

“All Stanford students are so busy with their own work. We open the application in February and early March and, since Admit Weekend is not until April, students think, ‘I can put that off,’” Lopez said. “After spring break, when Admit Weekend is in three or four weeks, students start thinking, ‘It’s about time I signed up.’”

Lopez emphasized the Admit Weekend Team’s recent efforts to advertise the weekend and increase the number of registered RoHos by putting flyers in White Plaza and providing information to house hosts (HoHos) to distribute to their dorms.

“Not meeting our goal isn’t something we’ve talked about,” Lopez said, regarding whether the team is creating a contingency plan in case RoHo registration is inadequate.

Lopez noted that, at a similar time last year, the 2011 Admit Weekend team had only about 900 RoHos registered but was still able to meet its final goal.

“Last year, towards the end, they thought they were going to come up short, and they figured something out to get more RoHos,” Lopez said. “One coordinator on our team this year was also a coordinator last year, so he is pretty knowledgeable about what to do if we get to that point.”

In sharp contrast to any prospective shortage of RoHos, Lopez noted that HoHo applications exceeded the number of available positions as early as February this year.

“I wanted to be a HoHo because my Admit Weekend experience was good but not great, and I want to make it really awesome for this year’s ProFros,” said Will Setrakian ’15, a Larkin HoHo.

“I didn’t get to come to my Admit Weekend, so I want to live vicariously through my ProFro,” said Kelsey Lange ‘15, a RoHo.

In past years, Admit Weekend has had roughly equal numbers of  ProFros and RoHos register.

“It’s not worth it to give that number [of registered ProFros] because it can jump by 100 a day,” Lopez said. “We’ve just started to connect with ProFros more, asking them to come to Admit Weekend.”

“I don’t think the number of ProFros is going to vary that much from previous years,” Lopez added. “We expect about the same numbers to come into Stanford, and we don’t think there are any big discrepancies in admitted students.”

The $1,200 test, which analyzes fetal DNA in expectant mothers at 10 weeks, is being offered by Verinata Health — a Redwood City biotechnology company — which licensed a technique designed by Stanford biophysicist Stephen Quake.

A Verinata-sponsored clinical trial, published in the journal of the American Congress of Obstetrics and Gynecology, demonstrated the test’s effectiveness. The technique was able to predict all 89 cases of Down syndrome in 532 maternal blood samples, 35 of 36 cases of Edwards syndrome and 11 of 14 cases of Patau syndrome.

(AUBRIE LEE/The Stanford Daily)

The new test offers the possibility of being able to examine fetal DNA as early as five weeks into pregnancy and to test it with just a blood drop, according to Stanford Law School professor and technology ethics expert Hank Greely ‘74.

The blood test eliminates the risk of more invasive tests such as amniocentesis, which can only be carried out later in pregnancy and create a higher risk of miscarriage. The blood test counts the millions of free-floating fetal DNA in maternal blood, detecting excessive genetic material that might signal a birth defect.

“This would not entirely replace the more invasive method of amniocentesis, but it might significantly reduce the number of mothers that undergo amniocentesis,” wrote Ahmad Salehi, a clinical associate professor in the Stanford School of Medicine, in an email to The Daily.

“This is the first step toward a real transformation to how we have babies in this country,” Greely said. “We’ve been able to do prenatal testing for over forty years but it involves difficult, expensive, unpleasant, risky procedures. This is no long needle or invasive procedure.”

“There are five million pregnancies in the world and 2 percent get genetic testing,” Greely added. “In a few years, this kind of testing will be very common.”

While testing is currently limited to Down syndrome, Edwards syndrome and Patau syndrome, the technique may be broadly applied in the future.

“Soon you will be able to look at any section of the genome you want,” Greely said. Doctors would be able to see if the fetus has Tay Sachs disease, sickle cell anemia, “if they’re a redhead, a boy or a girl.”

The test opens up “broader discussions,” according to Greely.

“We need to let parents have complete decision-making power,” he added. “It’s just better than having the government decide what you can and can’t do in pregnancy.”

“I believe the availability of rather easy techniques for prenatal detection of Down syndrome would be like a double-edged sword,” Salehi wrote. “On the one hand, it may lead to an increase in abortion rates of fetuses with Down syndrome. However, it may also open up a new window for early detection and treatment.”

“It needs to become more accurate to become diagnostic. Right now it’s recognized as screening, not as diagnostic,” added Greely. “By making it easier to test you make it easier to terminate pregnancies you don’t want. It raises some hard questions for some people.”

(AUBRIE LEE/The Stanford Daily)

“Our research has shown that among more than 300 genes triplicated in Down syndrome there are a few genes that play major roles in cognitive disabilities,” Salehi wrote. “For this reason, targeting these specific genes and reducing their expression to normal in utero might be a fundamental therapy for children with Down syndrome.”

Founded by the ASSU Executive during spring quarter last year, CAB is a coalition of 23 representatives from across Stanford’s campus aiming to explore issues of diversity and identity on campus. One of the Board’s stated goals on its website is to “advocate for increased diversity in academics.”

According to CAB representative Vivian Wong ‘12 in an email to the Daily, the Board drafted the letter over several weeks at its regular Monday meetings. She said the group used a shared Google document, which allowed for communal editing and rewriting.

“As a Board and individually, we felt that identity and diversity were not sufficiently addressed in the original SUES report,” Wong said. “As Stanford students, we were adamant about advocating for more attention to these issues on an institutional level.”

CAB chair Holly Fetter ‘13 said that the letter is “primarily concerned with three issues: increased faculty diversity, increased course diversity, and an increase in the accessibility of academic resources and experiences for students.”

She added that the letter both identifies the Board’s concerns with the report, in addition to proposing possible solutions.

Requirements for graduation

The Board offered a solution to students in high-unit-count majors “without the freedom to explore courses about identity and diversity” by suggesting that departments add more courses about ethics and diversity within their requirements, in addition to increasing cross-listing of courses relating to identity and diversity, “so that they count for multiple majors and are therefore accessible to more students.”

Noting that there is a 40 percent underrepresentation of underrepresented minorities within high-unit-count majors, the letter recommends that SUES develop pre-college programs for students coming from under-resourced schools, referencing The Stanford Summer Engineering Academy and The Leland Scholars Program as examples of this kind of program.

The letter also stresses the importance of having more underrepresented minorities teaching within the high-unit-count majors in order to better inspire students to succeed.

The Board also critiqued the “Engaging Difference” title for the proposed “Ways of Thinking, Ways of Doing” requirement as “inappropriate [and] stigmatizing.” Instead, the Board suggested the name be changed to “Engaging Identity,” in order to “level the playing field where no particular vantage point is promoted above another.”

Sequencing a liberal education

“Students need more exposure to discussions of identity and inequality,” the letter reads, suggesting that at least one “Thinking Matters” course be focused on conversations of privilege and identity and that “September Studies” classes be offered about these issues.

Fetter noted that “many students have only a vague understanding of what SUES is, latching onto the fact that it has the power to do away with IHUM without actually engaging with the report and its contents.”

“As a Board, we wanted to thoroughly read the report and craft a letter that offers our insight into what’s there, as well as our concerns about what is absent,” Fetter continued. “This report has the possibility to radically alter undergraduate education, and we think it’s crucial that students show the faculty and administration that we care about the future of our collective educational experience.”

Opportunities outside the classroom

Looking to the Structured Liberal Education (SLE) program as a model, the Board suggested that the Integrated Learning Environments (ILEs) discussed in the SUES report be “founded on values of justice and empowerment of minority-identified students” by “creating at least one ILE centered on identity, social justice, and/or privilege.”

The Board added, however, that the University should take care not to replicate SLE’s “exclusively West-centric syllabus.”

Noting the importance of integrating studies of identity into the residential learning experience outside of ILEs, the letter suggests that those studying minority identities be offered seminars or lecture series in residences or dining halls.

The Board advised that more public service and service learning be integrated into the Bing Overseas Studies Program (BOSP), using the South Africa Cape Town program as a model.

BOSP is not adequately supportive of minority students, the letter states, adding that many of these students feel unprepared as they travel overseas. The Board suggested that all BOSP programs be accessible to students with disabilities, that counseling services be made available to students traveling abroad and that minority students be better prepared for traveling by offering “information sessions, peer mentors, and/or detailed guides that are tailored to one’s identity and destination.”

Institutional support

Fetter noted that issues of diversity should move beyond just residential halls.

“At Stanford, education around identities is often relegated to the residential sphere, because these are perceived to be isolated, interpersonal issues,” Fetter said. “However, we know that the inequality that creates prejudices and discomfort among students is rooted in structural issues, and that these should thus be addressed and understood at a structural level — the academy.

The letter goes on to note the importance of advisors and tutors for undergraduate students and suggests that advisors and tutors be stationed at the various Community Centers around campus, to increase accessibility and utility.

“Faculty office hours are often inaccessible and intimidating to underrepresented minorities,” the letter states, suggesting that more opportunities for causal interactions with professors be created, such as conversations in dorms and dining halls.

The Board described faculty pre-major advisors as “often irrelevant and inaccessible,” and advises a system in which students can “browse the profiles of prospective pre-major advisers and then select an appropriate one during the summer before freshman year.”

Additional concerns

The Board criticized the SUES report for failing to consider students with disabilities and LGBT-identified students when speaking about diversity and suggested more incorporation of these “significant identities” when discussing diversity, especially when hiring professors.

Faculty diversity should include “Black, Hispanic, and Native American, LGBTQ-identified, and first-generation/low income faculty members, as well as faculty members with disabilities,” the letter states.

The Board added the importance of hiring more professors studying minority issues, such as ethnic, gender, or sexuality studies, in order to make pursuing a degree in those areas easier for undergraduate students.

Finally, the Board strongly emphasized the importance of incorporating many voices, including students, faculty, scholars and staff, into the discussion about changes to undergraduate education. The Board suggests convening “a task force of members of the Stanford community invested in affecting academic change, ensuring that students are at the core of these groups.”

“This conversation around the SUES report is more serious than quarrels about IHUM and PWR — its about supporting and empowering the students to become strong, empathetic leaders,” Fetter said.

The University founded SARA last June to assist student victims of sexual assault and relationship abuse with subsequent personal and academic difficulties.

“The Office has been engaged in many facets of prevention and response from contributing to communication to incoming students, to delivering class lectures on violence against women, to assisting with the revisions to campus policies on sexual assault,” wrote Exson in an email to The Daily.

In recent months, two assaults and four peeping Tom incidents have been reported to campus police.

If peeping Tom incidents involve sexual misconduct, the SARA Office can address those cases, according to Exson. The protocol is to respond in a timely manner and help ensure the confidentiality of the victim. Appropriate notifications are then made to alert those who may be impacted, and further action is conducted on a case-by-case basis.

Awareness through education

Exson said SARA has collaborated with students, faculty, staff and other campus partners to assess the needs of the community and how the Office can best be of service.

“We have been conducting outreach, education and professional trainings to increase awareness of sexual and relationship violence,” Exson said.  “I have been working with students to create spaces for survivors to engage and support each other in addition to accessing campus and community resources.”

SARA has collaborated with Residential Education, the Graduate Life Office, iThrive at Stanford and the Office of Judicial Affairs, and has participated in their respective training efforts.

“We have worked with the Office of Alcohol Policy & Education (OAPE) on their ‘Say Something’ pilot program for bystander intervention, and in training the Sober Monitors for campus events,” Exson added in the email.

SARA has also established a Male Engagement Initiative, which asks men to assist with efforts to prevent and raise awareness of sexual and relationship violence.

The first event for this initiative will feature Kevin Powell, an acclaimed author, activist and media figure in the movement to end gender-based violence. Powell will speak at the Black Community Services Center in the Henry and Monique Brandon Family Community Room on Feb. 21.

SARA hopes to address the problem of sexual assault and relationship abuse by increasing awareness through education and spaces for dialogue.

“The best way to empower ourselves and each other is through factual knowledge of the underlying causes of all forms of sexual and relationship violence and in holding those who commit these violations accountable,” Exson said in the email.

Nicole Baran ‘00 is the founder and director of the Center for Relationship Abuse Awareness, another resource for students. According to its website, the organization works, “to educate and train communities and institutions to respond effectively to women who are experiencing relationship abuse.”

“Our goal was to institutionalize a comprehensive response to these issues on campus,” Baran said. “Since that has been achieved, we are expanding to the broader community and other universities…Our office is now located off-campus.”

“We will continue to collaborate with the SARA office and provide training and education for the campus as needed,” Baran said. “Angela [Exson] will hire the Center to help with training and education initiatives.”

Future plans

Exson wrote in her email about SARA’s future plans, which include working toward implementing protocols to centralize the organization’s response structure and conducting outreach to students.

In an interview with The Daily on Sept. 30, Exson spoke about establishing protocol during the first year.

“There is policy for dealing with sexual assault policy but no protocol, and with relationship abuse, we have protocols but we don’t have policy in place,” Exson said in the interview.

“Sexual assault protocols and guidelines for relationship abuse have been drafted and we will begin the process of consulting with staff to assess and implement them during the spring quarter,” Exson said in this month’s email.

One of Exson’s other priorities is to increase SARA’s involvement with the graduate student community, “as they often have unique needs and concerns that we also want to support,” she said.

SARA will also work with student groups to participate in their planned initiatives and to organize programming events, including “a presentation and training on the issue of consent and how we all can be sure that it is effectively obtained to prevent sexual assault,” according to Exson.

“Since April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, we will be planning and collaborating on a number of events to promote education and sensitivity around this issue,” Exson added.

“The Office is faced with the challenge of dealing with issues that are often controversial and contested,” Exson said. “The greatest resource that we have and will continually need is the support of the campus and the expertise and assistance from students, faculty and staff to accomplish our mission and goals.”

“It is important to make a commitment to intervene and let someone know when you see or hear something that may subject yourself or someone else to vulnerability or danger,” she added.

“It’s really the few that attempt to get away with this sort of thing [plagiarism] that should be forewarned that it’s not in their best interest,” Director of Undergraduate Admissions Bob Patterson said. “It’s our expectation they’re going to be honest and open and transparent in their application, and when they sign off that everything is their work, that has to have meaning.”

Patterson said that while his office has not been made aware of any instances of plagiarism from applicants in past years, it was “concerned there could be.”

He added that the University decided to utilize the software because of reports in the media about higher levels of plagiarism in applications.

“If we do see that there is plagiarism in an application, we will definitely reach out to the student and ask for the student’s input, and then we would make decisions from there,” he said.

The software compares submitted admissions documents with its extensive database of “Internet content, subscription content and previously submitted documents to create a comprehensive Similarity Report,” according to the Turnitin for Admissions website.

This Similarity Report recognizes both word-for-word and paraphrased text matches, which are then highlighted and linked back to the corresponding documents in the database. The Report also gives the option of building an internal database for all of the institution’s applications, as well as the option of participating and submitting content to the central Turnitin for Admissions database.

Stanford is one of only a dozen universities using Turnitin for undergraduate programs. Most admission offices currently use the software to assess graduate school applications.

Anna De Cheke Qualls, director of graduate affairs and admissions at Johns Hopkins University, said that her office began using the software in Sept. 2011. According to Qualls, the software is important because the University requires applicants to give complete disclosure in their applications. If applicants don’t exercise that full disclosure, they are rejected, she said.

“Our faculty have a greater ability to focus on applications, not authentication,” Qualls said. “We try to safeguard our institution and our departments from making an inappropriate decision.”

The graduate admissions office at Johns Hopkins gives the software to various departments, which can then individually decide how they wish to use it. Qualls said that while her office has heard of anecdotal instances of the software’s use, including text matches in applications, the office needs more data about how the plagiarism-checking software is being used in individual departments to determine its functionality.

Andrew Ainslie, senior associate dean at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, said that while faculty members have used the software in classrooms for many years at the graduate school, it has only recently been made available for admissions use.

“Initially we used it to see what sorts of results it would get for us,” Ainslie said. “It seemed like a great source of information about people who are plagiarizing, and it is able to verify the plagiarism.”

Ainslie noted that the software links to places from where plagiarism is detected, such as when the application shares a quote with another document on the Internet.

“It seems like a very useful tool to ensure that the people we allow into the program are the right kind of people…It is a pretty major offense to pass off someone’s intellectual property as your own,” Ainslie said.

“We think it is important that students are honest in their applications,” Patterson said. “We just want to make sure we are doing everything that we can.”

This increase follows a trend that has been visible since the late 1970s and is composed of numerous ups and downs, according to computer science professor Eric Roberts. Roberts attributed the popularity in the 1980s and ‘90s to the idea that no matter what a student was majoring in, he or she would benefit from some kind of computer science background, increasing the number of students who took CS courses.

“Now, students are majoring in CS because they are excited and engaged,” Roberts said. He added that about 90 percent of all Stanford undergraduates enroll in at least one introductory CS class before they graduate. He continued, “These students get excited and decide to major in CS.”

Roberts also confirmed that computer science is the second most popular major at Stanford, after human biology. In an email to The Daily, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Harry Elam added psychology, biology, economics, English, history, international relations and political science to the list of the largest majors by degree conferred in 2010-11.

“Overall, the School of Humanities and Sciences has seen a slight decrease in degrees conferred in the past twenty years (mostly in humanities and social sciences), with engineering and earth sciences each up,” Elam wrote.

The Computer Science Department overhauled its curriculum in 2008. Mehran Sahami, an associate professor of computer science, explained some of these curriculum changes.

“We modified the CS major to allow students to choose a track … in CS after completing a small set of core classes,” Sahami said. “This structure provides students with much more flexibility in the courses they can take for their major. We also allowed for more interdisciplinary work by allowing courses from other departments that are relevant to particular tracks in CS to also count toward the major.”

Both Roberts and Sahami noticed an increase in undergraduates taking CS courses after the overhaul.

“We wanted to measure the impact of the curriculum change, so we started paying very close attention to changes in enrollment,” Sahami said. “We noticed the interest in the department and the number of majors increased substantially.”

“Two years after the overhaul, there was a near-doubling of CS majors,” he added.

Both Roberts and Sahami talked about the appeal of introductory CS courses, such as CS106A, that pull undergraduates in and result in them deciding to major in CS.

“These courses change someone’s efficacy,” Roberts said. “So that they can do more things at once.”

Roberts added that the introductory courses allow for a very tangible way for the students to see change and improvement in their skills, especially when creating applications for the class.

Sahami expressed a similar view.

“It is about the notion of empowerment of what someone can do in computing,” he said. “Someone with an idea and computer skills can build something.”

James Nam ‘14 said he enjoyed CS106A when he took it last year.

“I wanted to do more research in CS so I declared my first year,” Nam said. He attributed the number of job opportunities available for CS majors as a reason for declaring.

Jay Patel, ‘14, was thinking about majoring in CS when he came to Stanford.

“I’ve been playing around with computers for a long time now, since fourth grade,” he said, “so I came in knowing I wanted to do something with computers.”

“Right from the beginning, CS106A did a really good job of making people excited about CS,” Patel added. “I have many friends who became majors because of that class. Some of my friends take CS because they want to do a start-up in the future.”

Both professors also attributed part of this increase in students choosing to major in CS to the economy.

“There are tremendous economic opportunities in computer science,” Sahami said, adding that there is an enormous demand for those who graduate with CS skills.

“After the economic crash in 2007, computer science was the only option for some students,” Roberts said, adding that other options for students disappeared as demand for jobs in business decreased during the downturn.

While many students are choosing this major and graduating with this degree, “the demand is still outstripping the supply,” Sahami said. “We still see the numbers continue to grow.”

“It’s amazing how few people we are training relative to the jobs available,” Roberts said. He added that the CS department doesn’t drive anyone away because of this high demand.

According to a Daily article published Jan. 11, the CS department has been trying to increase female student involvement in CS courses after CS106A. While he said he is not sure if there has been a noticeable increase in interest from female students, Roberts said that the courses are becoming more balanced in enrollment between the sexes.

“It is important to raise the numbers … and have more women entering the field,” Roberts said.

In comparison, the University of Southern California reported spending $580,000 last year lobbying the local, state and federal government. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the University of California system spent $770,000 last year on lobbying.

Horton is one of two registered lobbyists for Stanford, along with Ryan Adesnik. According to Horton, he and Adesnik lobby the federal government on behalf of Stanford’s interests.

“All the things we work on are all the things that Stanford University as an institution has an interest in and is qualified to speak on,” Horton said, adding that he and Adesnik do not lobby on individual projects.

Instead, Horton said, he and Adesnik lobby on issues such as education, intellectual property and federally sponsored research. In the case of federally sponsored research, Stanford representatives lobby to ensure that there is adequate funding for University research.

According to the quarterly reports, Stanford also lobbied on issues such as student financial aid, immigration and stem cell research. These lobbying reports record both the expenses related to lobbying and the lobbying activity. Horton must report what was lobbied and how the money was spent. Reporting incorrectly is a criminal offense, he noted.

When asked how the lobbying expenses for 2011 compared with previous years, Horton said that the expenses were about the same.

“We are a very small staff,” Horton said. “We have five professional people to handle all of Stanford’s community, state and federal relations.”

Stanford lobbyists do not have a Washington, D.C., office, something that many other, bigger schools, such as the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Michigan, do have.

According to the Political Activities section of the Administrative Guide Memo, approved by President Hennessy and applicable to all members of the University community, all members are “free to express their political opinions and engage in political activities to whatever extent they wish.” However, they “must avoid even the appearance that they are speaking or acting for the University in political matters.”

The memo lists the officials who can lobby on behalf of the University without specific authorization: the President, Provost, Deans of the Seven Schools, Vice Provost and Dean of Research, Vice Provost for Graduate Education, Vice President for Business Affairs and Chief Financial Officer, Vice President of Human Resources, Director of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Director of the Hoover Institute, General Counsel and the Vice President for Public Affairs.

Any faculty member who wishes to lobby on behalf of the University for specific purposes must be granted permission from the Vice Provost and Dean of Research and Graduate Policy. The Vice President for Public Affairs may grant permission to staff members to lobby on behalf of the University, and all lobbying on behalf of the University must be coordinated with the Vice President for Public Affairs, according to the guide memo.

Most of the money recorded in the quarterly reports is a percentage of the salary of the person who did the lobbying and any related expenses, such as travel and hotel costs.

“From time to time, Stanford does hire resources from Washington or from Sacramento to help us,” Horton said. “The amounts we pay for them would be included in our reports.”

According to Horton, Stanford mostly lobbies on federal government issues – primarily issues before Congress. Lobbying at the local or state level involves a different type of reporting requirements. For instance, no one at Stanford, not even Horton, is a registered lobbyist in Sacramento because nobody meets the threshold required to be a lobbyist in Sacramento politics.

“When it comes to local government, county government, city government…there is a different set of rules,” Horton said.

Occasionally Stanford does get involved in issues in Palo Alto if they have the potential for a significant effect on students and faculty at Stanford. For instance, Stanford takes interest in transportation and school board issues if they involve the interests of the school.

There is only one restriction on the kind of lobbying in which Stanford is allowed to participate: partisan politics.

“We cannot support a candidate or partisan activity,” Horton said. He added that Stanford never takes positions on “popular interests” of the day, instead focusing on issues that concern the school. Stanford can permit individuals to speak on campus, but campaign speeches are off limits, according to Horton.

The Center for Responsive Politics reported that Stanford University individuals contributed $595,716 to then-Senator Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008. These contributions did not come from the school directly; instead, they came from individual members who support a particular candidate and contribute their own money to campaigns. This number was the sum of money contributed by individual faculty and students, but not money donated on behalf of the school.

“When we take positions, we take positions on behalf of the University,” Horton said. “We only involve ourselves on issues that affect education and research.”

CS106A enrollment has shot up from 285 to 594 students from fall 2007 to this past fall. Meanwhile, CHEM31A numbers increased only slightly from 385 to 420, while MATH51 and ECON1A both decreased, from 400 to 300 and from 460 to 396, respectively.

(SERENITY NGUYEN/The Stanford Daily)

Mehran Sahami B.S. ’92 M.S. ’93 Ph.D. ’99, associate professor in computer science, taught CS106A fall quarter and has been doing so for the past few years. With regards to the increased enrollment, which has been noticeable for the past few years, Sahami wrote in an email to The Daily that he believes it is due to a combination of factors.

“Certainly the growing high-tech economy and the availability of job opportunities in computing is a factor,” he wrote. “Another factor is that computing is becoming critical in a variety of areas, as computers play a larger role in society…I think CS106A has a positive reputation on campus and that causes students to recommend the course to their friends.”

The next course in the sequence, CS106B, also saw higher-than-expected enrollment for this winter quarter.

“Over the break, the enrollment numbers in CS106B shot up so that there are now 100 more of you than would fit in the originally assigned room,” wrote CS106B professor Eric Roberts in an email to students.

The class has been moved to Hewlett 200, where CS106A was taught in the fall.

“I was really excited to have Mehran,” said Gabi Greenberg ’15, who took CS106A this past fall quarter. “I was also interested in pursuing a CS-related major.”

When asked about taking a class with more than 600 students, Greenberg said that it was a bit shocking on the first day that a lot of people couldn’t find seats, but added that Sahami was “very engaging” and that her discussion section leader helped break down the material.

Steven Longoria ’15 said he took the class because he knew that he wanted to major in CS and, while he did not have any experience with computer science before coming to Stanford, he is even more interested in pursuing CS as a major after taking 106A.

The Computer Science Department made changes this past quarter in order to accommodate the extra students. More section leaders and graders were hired, which contributed to a greater number of helpers at the LaIR computer cluster to assist students with their programming assignments in the course.

“For CS106A, we also had the class lectures videotaped to make it easier for the students to access the class material if they had difficulty getting seats in the lecture hall,” Sahami added.

Both Greenberg and Longoria said they utilized online lectures for review.

“If I didn’t understand something in class, I would go online and watch the lecture again so I wasn’t confused,” Greenberg said.

Longoria said that the large class size didn’t really discourage him from going to lecture; he used the lectures posted online to help him understand the material better.

Sahami added in his email, “the Computer Science Department also looks to expand the size of faculty to help address the growing enrollments in CS courses at all levels.”

In other introductory classes, such as Math 51, Chem 31A and Econ 1A, enrollment has remained steady over the past five years.

Many of these introductory courses have, on average, about 300 to 400 students. According to Roger Kuhn, student services manager in the Chemistry Department, “enrollment for Chemistry 31A and 31B has been consistent over the last few years,” and continues to meet the expectations of the department.

Many students who enroll in these introductory courses said they take them because of a desire to major in something related to the course, seeking a feel for the department and major or because the course fulfills a General Education Requirement or a prerequisite for another major.

The math and chemistry departments split introductory classes into several lectures to keep class sizes small, while economics and computer science do not.

“In the case of the 50s courses, we try to keep enrollments at most 50 per lecture,” wrote Brian White, professor of mathematics, in an email to The Daily. “We never keep students out.”