Katie Salmon – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com Breaking news from the Farm since 1892 Mon, 02 Jun 2014 22:34:36 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://stanforddaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cropped-DailyIcon-CardinalRed.png?w=32 Katie Salmon – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com 32 32 204779320 Hank Greely wins prestigious Lyman Award https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/01/hank-greely-wins-prestigious-lyman-award-2/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/01/hank-greely-wins-prestigious-lyman-award-2/#respond Fri, 01 Feb 2013 09:42:45 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1074552 Greely is the latest recipient of the Lyman Award, a prestigious honor given in recognition of faculty service by the Stanford Alumni Association.

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LINDA CICERO/Courtesy Stanford News Service
LINDA CICERO/Courtesy Stanford News Service

“You know, it’s kind of silly to get an award for giving a lot of talks,” Hank Greely ’74 said. “Especially when you’re a ham like me. I kind of felt like I should pay them for giving me audiences.”

Greely is the latest recipient of the Lyman Award, a prestigious honor given in recognition of faculty service by the Stanford Alumni Association.

Greely, a professor of law and the director for the Center for Law and Biosciences, won the award for his dedication to giving frequent talks and lectures to the alumni community both on campus and at events across the country.

Howard Wolf ’80, president of the Stanford Alumni Association, said that Greely was a clear choice for this year’s award, which was named in President Emeritus Richard Lyman’s honor and was established in 1983.

“Stanford faculty are at the core of our alumni programs, helping us reach, serve and engage alumni,” Wolf said. “Hank’s a great Stanford ambassador, taking every opportunity to connect with alumni and share what’s happening on campus, even beyond his own academic work.”

As both an alumnus and a current professor, Greely has close ties to the Farm that began with his undergraduate years during the early 1970s.

“I lived in Larkin and in Zapata and Twain, [but] Burbank was notorious for their wild parties,” he recalled. “My freshman and sophomore years, there was still some significant anti-war riots, and those were really interesting experiences.”

Greely decided to study law after realizing he was not cut out for a math major during his freshman year.

“It was the second [math] midterm during my third quarter of my freshman year that my natural math ability deserted me without giving me much warning,” he said. “So I decided I should be a lawyer and not be a scientist.”

After obtaining a degree from Yale Law School in 1977, Greely worked for Judge John Minor Wisdom on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. His son, John Wisdom Greely, is named after the judge, giving him “a name to try to live up to in more ways than one.”

Greely went on to clerk for Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, then worked briefly for the Carter administration’s Department of Defense and Energy before joining the Los Angeles law firm Tuttle and Taylor. Dissatisfied with litigation work, Greely became restless.

In an effort to find a career that better suited his intellectual drive, Greely returned to the Farm in 1985 as a professor.

“I was hired to teach oil and gas law because I’d worked at the Department of Energy,” he said. “Stanford had the country’s two leading oil and gas law scholars, and they both retired. The Department of Energy actually had nothing to do with traditional oil and gas law, but if the Stanford faculty thought it did, who was I to correct them?”

Despite the initial confusion, Greely has been at Stanford ever since, where he specializes in teaching the ethical, legal and social implications of biomedical technologies, an emerging field of research.

Although much of his work deals with the controversial issues at the intersection of ethics, biotechnology, law and politics, Greely remains philosophical about his public role.

“My main goal isn’t to persuade people but to educate them,” he said, explaining his philosophy on presenting contentious information that, for instance, deals with the ethics of abortion or stem cell research.

“I want to point out some of the consequences and some of the analogies, but I’m not going to try and change your mind,” he said. “At least about whether you think it’s right or wrong. I try to change your mind about what the social response should be.”

Greely’s perspective on his work is analogous to a lawyer’s role in client interactions.

“You lay out the options, the pluses and minuses, in an intelligent way so that your client can make a good decision,” he said.

To do so, the science behind biotechnologies must be simplified and explained to an audience with no assumed technical background.

“I try to remember how I first learned it because I don’t have a scientific background,” Greely explained. “My last biology class was in 10th grade. My undergrad degree is in science, but it’s in political science, which is not quite the same. I had to learn all this.”

Greely’s devotion to the Stanford community, both as an alumnus and as a professor, shows no sign of wavering, given his love for his alma mater.

“It’s the best place in the world,” he said. “[Stanford has a] culture that is fun. It’s stimulating. There’s a sense of possibilities, the feeling that everything is possible. You know that it’s not, but could be.”

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University nixes proposal for on-campus ice rink https://stanforddaily.com/2013/01/30/university-nixes-proposal-for-on-campus-ice-rink/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/01/30/university-nixes-proposal-for-on-campus-ice-rink/#respond Thu, 31 Jan 2013 06:03:06 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1074517 While the Stanford club ice hockey team, which spearheaded the proposal, raised enough funds last year to support a feasibility study of the project, the University declined to conduct such a study, effectively terminating the project.

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The University is no longer considering a proposal for the construction of an on-campus ice rink facility, according to administrators and team members involved in the discussions. While the Stanford club ice hockey team, which spearheaded the proposal, raised enough funds last year to support a feasibility study of the project, the University declined to conduct such a study, effectively terminating the project.

Courtesy of Jack Werner
Courtesy of Jack Werner

Deputy Director of Athletics Ray Purpur worked briefly with the club ice hockey team on the proposal, stating that the department had viewed the facility as “one of our master plan projects.”

After the proposal was presented to Stanford’s Capital Planning group, however, the University decided that the project was “not a priority,” Purpur said.

Purpur said that challenges facing the project– such as finding a suitable place for the rink to be located on campus– discouraged the school from pursuing the proposal. Additionally, an ice rink would be expensive and difficult to maintain, and the University expressed doubts about the revenues that could be raised from such a facility.

The Daily originally reported on the ice rink proposal last January after the club ice hockey team raised approximately $26,000 within 24 hours to fund a feasibility study. The proposed facility would have incorporated multiple sheets of ice, as well as storage and training space for other sports and recreational opportunities. At the time, team member Jack Werner ’14 anticipated construction taking approximately four years if the project received approval.

The Club Sports Facilities Department was not involved in the project, according to its director Tim Ghormley, however the Club Sports department was supportive of the idea. Director of Club Sports Pam Mahlow, who has worked with the ice hockey team over the past four years, expressed the potential value of an on-campus rink for the team’s recruitment. She echoed earlier arguments made by current players and other student-athletes, citing the difficulties the team faces by practicing and competing off-campus.

Mahlow confirmed that the team had been working independently for fundraising and planning. In fact, Mahlow said she first learned about the initial plans for the ice rink through The Daily’s coverage of the proposal more than a year ago.

“I haven’t really heard anything since then, either from the team or University, regarding it,” Mahlow said.

The Department of Capital Planning, a branch of Land, Buildings and Real Estate (LBRE), is responsible for reviewing and prioritizing capital project requests based on “fiscal, funding, physical and other constraints,” according to its website. Without a feasibility study, a project cannot proceed to the next stages of the development process, which include programming, schematic design and, ultimately, construction.

While the project appears dead for now, Purpur said the proposal might be revisited in the future and that he remains optimistic about the potential for Stanford to get an ice hockey rink on campus

“Even though the efforts to build the rink were ultimately unsuccessful, they demonstrated the huge amount of alumni support the team has,” Werner wrote in a statement to The Daily. “The team is alive and well and always looking for new players.”

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Proposal for on-campus ice rink dropped by University https://stanforddaily.com/2013/01/30/proposal-for-on-campus-ice-rink-dropped-by-university/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/01/30/proposal-for-on-campus-ice-rink-dropped-by-university/#respond Wed, 30 Jan 2013 08:26:07 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1074469 The University is no longer considering a proposal for the construction of an on-campus ice rink facility, according to administrators and team members involved in the discussions. While the Stanford club ice hockey team, which spearheaded the proposal, raised enough funds last year to support a feasibility study of the project, the University declined to […]

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The University is no longer considering a proposal for the construction of an on-campus ice rink facility, according to administrators and team members involved in the discussions. While the Stanford club ice hockey team, which spearheaded the proposal, raised enough funds last year to support a feasibility study of the project, the University declined to conduct such a study, effectively terminating the project.

Deputy Director of Athletics Ray Purpur worked briefly with the club ice hockey team on the proposal, stating that the department had viewed the facility as “one of our master plan projects.”

After the proposal was presented to Stanford’s Capital Planning group, however, the University decided that the project was “not a priority,” Purpur said.

Purpur said that challenges facing the project — such as finding a suitable place for the rink to be located on campus — discouraged the school from pursuing the proposal. Additionally, an ice rink would be expensive and difficult to maintain, and the University expressed doubts about the revenues that could be raised from such a facility.

The Daily originally reported on the ice rink proposal last January after the club ice hockey team raised approximately $26,000 within 24 hours to fund a feasibility study. The proposed facility would have incorporated multiple sheets of ice, as well as storage and training space for other sports and recreational opportunities. At the time, team member Jack Werner ’14 anticipated construction taking approximately four years if the project received approval.

The Club Sports Facilities Department was not involved in the project, according to its director Tim Ghormley, however the Club Sports department was supportive of the idea. Director of Club Sports Pam Mahlow, who has worked with the ice hockey team over the past four years, expressed the potential value of an on-campus rink for the team’s recruitment. She echoed earlier arguments made by current players and other student-athletes, citing the difficulties the team faces by practicing and competing off-campus.

Mahlow confirmed that the team had been working independently for fundraising and planning. In fact, Mahlow said she first learned about the initial plans for the ice rink through The Daily’s coverage of the proposal more than a year ago.

“I haven’t really heard anything since then, either from the team or University, regarding it,” Mahlow said.

The Department of Capital Planning, a branch of Land, Buildings and Real Estate (LBRE), is responsible for reviewing and prioritizing capital project requests based on “fiscal, funding, physical and other constraints,” according to its website. Without a feasibility study, a project cannot proceed to the next stages of the development process, which include programming, schematic design and, ultimately, construction.

While the project appears dead for now, Purpur said the proposal might be revisited in the future and that he remains optimistic about the potential for Stanford to get an ice hockey rink on campus

“Even though the efforts to build the rink were ultimately unsuccessful, they demonstrated the huge amount of alumni support the team has,” Werner wrote in a statement to The Daily. “The team is alive and well and always looking for new players.”

 

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Bing Concert Hall opens to praises https://stanforddaily.com/2013/01/14/bing-concert-hall-opens-to-praises/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/01/14/bing-concert-hall-opens-to-praises/#respond Mon, 14 Jan 2013 09:58:15 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1074070 The long-awaited Bing Concert Hall opened Jan. 11 with a musical ensemble of professional and student groups.

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Bing Concert Hall opens to praises
The St. Lawrence String Quartet performed at the Bing Concert Hall opening night. ANDREW HAN/ The Stanford Daily

The long-awaited Bing Concert Hall opened Jan. 11 with a musical ensemble of professional and student groups. Here are some reactions from performers ans attendees.

Michael Tilson Thomas, music director, San Francisco Symphony orchestra

“We had a lovely, lovely experience. We just went out there and started playing, and it was so exciting. We had a lot of clarity and ability to really discern the quality of each section of the orchestra. We look forward to being back here more and really having a little more time to exalt in this beautiful space.”

John Adams, composer

“This year Stanford finally, in addition to all the fantastic facilities they have, [has] a great facility for the performing arts. It took a lot of time, and we’re very thrilled to be here, and I particularly thought that the San Francisco Symphony sounded just fantastic tonight.”

Yasuhisa Toyota, Bing Concert Hall chief acoustician

“First of all, I’m so happy. I’m so happy, because this is just the beginning. For instance, the string quartet did a very good job, but still, when I heard them rehearse here, a couple months ago, the ensemble sounds much better today. It means that it is still going up. So this is just in the start. I hope that I can come back to listen to music more…everything will be more fruitful.”

Jennifer Brody, chair of the dance and theater performance department

“I think [Bing Concert Hall’s opening] marks the beginning of a new era in the arts and that I’m pleased that it’s going to be an interdisciplinary space and that it’s able to draw so much fellowship and good work.”

Timothy Hartung, Bing Concert Hall architect

“It’s fantastic, it’s very intimate and it’s aesthetically very wonderful and just seeing it full of people and seeing their faces and hearing the music–it’s a fantastic experience.”

Lesley Robertson, St. Lawrence String Quartet (Viola)

“It’s a spectacular venue, and we’re very richly rewarded here; it’s such a gift to the community, to the Stanford students, faculty and community. It’s fantastic; we couldn’t be happier. I wouldn’t say it’s a new beginning because it’s always been a vibrant scene here, but it’s coming together and we couldn’t ask for a more beautiful setting. [Bing Concert Hall] is just perfect, really, for chamber music anyway, and we’re loving it.”

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