Ada Statler – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com Breaking news from the Farm since 1892 Tue, 21 Feb 2023 05:42:24 +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 Ada Statler – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com 32 32 204779320 Leaked emails show Hoover academic conspiring with College Republicans to conduct ‘opposition research’ on student https://stanforddaily.com/2018/05/31/emails-between-ferguson-scr-reveal-opposition-research-against-ocon-prompt-fergusons-resignation-from-cardinal-conversations-leadership-role/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/05/31/emails-between-ferguson-scr-reveal-opposition-research-against-ocon-prompt-fergusons-resignation-from-cardinal-conversations-leadership-role/#respond Fri, 01 Jun 2018 02:23:40 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1141872 Emails between the Hoover Institution's Niall Ferguson and well-known Republican student activists John Rice-Cameron ’20 and Max Minshull ’20 reveal coordination on “opposition research” against progressive activist Michael Ocon ’20 — referenced as “Mr. O” — and efforts to shore up support among members of the Cardinal Conversations steering committee.

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Emails between the Hoover Institution’s Niall Ferguson and well-known Republican student activists John Rice-Cameron ’20 and Max Minshull ’20 reveal coordination on “opposition research” against progressive activist Michael Ocon ’20 — referenced as “Mr. O” — and efforts to shore up support among members of the Cardinal Conversations steering committee.

Ferguson resigned from his leadership role in the Cardinal Conversations program on April 16, after Provost Persis Drell became aware of the email chain.

“I very much regret the publication of these emails. I also regret having written them,” Ferguson wrote in a statement to The Daily.

Drell said that Ferguson “offered to resign,” and that she accepted the resignation.

“The emails … were contrary to the spirit and intent of Cardinal Conversations,” Drell said.

Ferguson himself is well-known for his conservative views. He made headlines in March for organizing a conference of 30 white male historians.

The Ocon emails are not the first time that Ferguson has made a statement he later withdrew.

In 2013, for instance, he stated that acclaimed economist John Maynard Keynes did not care to consider future generations when discussing current affairs because he was gay. Ferguson later apologized for the statement.

He has also been criticized for his outspoken support of colonialism and the British empire.

Ocon — the subject of the emails —  may be remembered for his recent ASSU executive campaign alongside Khaled Aounallah ’19, which became particularly dramatic thanks to a facetious last-minute “endorsement” from The Stanford Review that claimed Ocon had links to the conservative Turning Point USA Foundation (TPUSA).

Rice-Cameron is known on campus for his role in organizing for that same group, TPUSA, as well as his role as president of Stanford College Republicans (SCR). Minshull, meanwhile, was recently in the news for his involvement with a recent “coup-attempt” of the Stanford Conservative Society, as written about by the Fountain Hopper.

The emails use harsh and at times war-like language to describe liberals and “social justice warriors” (SJWs).

“Slowly, we will continue to crush the Left’s will to resist, as they will crack under pressure,” Rice-Cameron wrote.

Leaked emails show Hoover academic conspiring with College Republicans to conduct 'opposition research' on student

“[The original Cardinal Conversations steering committee] should all be allies against O. Whatever your past differences, bury them. Unite against the SJWs. [Christos] Makridis [a fellow at Vox Clara, a Christian student publication] is especially good and will intimidate them,” Ferguson wrote.

Leaked emails show Hoover academic conspiring with College Republicans to conduct 'opposition research' on student

“Now we turn to the more subtle game of grinding them down on the committee. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance,” Ferguson wrote.

The previous messages were interspersed with greater discussion of the Cardinal Conversations committee and planning process, as well as a discussion appearing to be about student government.

In the email chain, Ferguson wrote, “Some opposition research on Mr. O might also be worthwhile,” referring to Ocon.

Minshull wrote in response that he would “get on the opposition research for Mr. O.”

Leaked emails show Hoover academic conspiring with College Republicans to conduct 'opposition research' on student

Minshull is presently Ferguson’s research assistant at Hoover, according to Minshull’s LinkedIn profile.

“When these emails were written, I was worried that Cardinal Conversations would cease to be an organization commited [sic] to inviting speakers of diverse viewpoints; we believed that activists were trying to restrict conservative voices from being heard,” Minshull told The Daily. “That said, I harbor no personal animus against Michael Ocon and apologize that my emails crossed a line.”

The Hoover Institution has in the past provided monetary support to SCR, which Rice-Cameron is president of. When contacted about whether that money had been in the service of the recent SCR event featuring leadership from TPUSA, Ferguson did not respond.

The Cardinal Conversations program itself, meanwhile, has sparked its fair share of controversy. Its invitation of social scientist Charles Murray — who has advanced spurious claims about the relationship between race and IQ — prompted “Take Back The Mic” counter-programming by student activists.

Ferguson said that he was “deeply concerned” by the campus anticipation of, and response to, Charles Murray’s visit on Feb. 22, just days before the email chain occurred.

“It seemed to me that the Cardinal Conversations student steering committee was in danger of being taken over by elements that were fundamentally hostile to free speech,” he wrote to The Daily. “It was, however, rash of me to seek to involve the Stanford Republicans, and reckless to use such inflammatory language.”

Cardinal Conversations’ student steering committee, also referenced in the emails, has drawn criticism. A February op-ed published in The Daily and co-authored by eight student groups said that the details of how the committee was formed is not publicly known. The piece also criticized the makeup of the committee.  

“Cardinal Conversations’ Steering Committee, which claims to represent student voices, does not reflect the broad range of political beliefs and identities on campus,” the letter read. “The leadership of Cardinal Conversations as a whole leans toward the right of the political spectrum, thus the speakers the initiative invites neither represent both sides of the story nor raise the voices of communities that have been historically silenced.”

Ferguson actually appears to have made reference to the emails in his April 22 column in The Times, writing of a panic attack triggered by “a few intemperate emails, inadvertently forwarded to unintended recipients.”

 

Editors’ Note: Ada Statler was listed in the email as a steering committee member based on her former role as Editor-in-Chief of The Daily. However, she declined membership after being invited to participate via email and never attended a Cardinal Conversations meeting.  

Correction: An earlier version of the article mistakenly stated that Ferguson was writing about “opposition research” in response to Minshull’s Feb. 23 email, when Minshull was in fact responding to Ferguson. 

 

Contact Brian Contreras at brianc42 ‘at’ stanford.edu, Ada Statler at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu and Courtney Douglas at ccdouglas ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Environmental scholars and the (political) climate https://stanforddaily.com/2018/04/11/environmental-scholars-and-the-political-climate/ Thu, 12 Apr 2018 05:26:09 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?post_type=tsd_magazine_post&p=1138269 On Nov. 9, 2016, earth systems science professor Noah Diffenbaugh ’96 M.S. ’97 was contacted by the Associated Press fewer than five minutes after the organization had called the presidential election for Donald Trump. He was asked what the outcome meant for global climate change, and it’s a question he hasn’t stopped hearing since. “With […]

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On Nov. 9, 2016, earth systems science professor Noah Diffenbaugh ’96 M.S. ’97 was contacted by the Associated Press fewer than five minutes after the organization had called the presidential election for Donald Trump. He was asked what the outcome meant for global climate change, and it’s a question he hasn’t stopped hearing since.

“With everything that’s happened,” Diffenbaugh said, “I’m at least glad to be able to be in the position to be asked.”

He’s not alone. Indeed, what the Trump administration means for global climate change seems to be the question keeping environmental scholars across Stanford’s campus and beyond awake at night. Beyond the anxiety, however, the community of scholars seems to have a two-fold approach to their new (political) climate: doubling down on their research, and doing their damnedest to communicate that research to the public and decision makers.

I first met Diffenbaugh more than three years ago as a starry-eyed freshman in my fall quarter, when I stumbled into his 15-person introductory seminar, “Global Warming Paradox.” Although the focus of the class was to understand the tension between the human benefits of energy use and the negative climate consequences of greenhouse gas emissions, there were also questions I would grapple with from a more journalistic perspective. What is the balance between scientific integrity and communication? Does it matter if we call it global warming or climate change? Is there a difference between saying “climate change causes drought” and “climate change increases the likelihood of drought?”

During his own time as an undergraduate at Stanford, Diffenbaugh lived in Synergy, a co-op known for its vegetarianism, proclivity for activism and more alternative lifestyle. In class, however, Diffenbaugh drew a careful line when it came to communicating his science versus participating in advocacy.

Because of this, I wouldn’t have guessed that Diffenbaugh would come to make semi-regular appearances in the opinions section of the New York Times. Yet since the presidential election, Diffenbaugh has been published in four op-eds on topics ranging from the Oroville Dam disaster near Sacramento to the predictability of massive storms like Hurricane Harvey. When I asked if this is a reflection that his views had changed on scientific advocacy, he shook his head.

“My approach is to stick to evidence and my expertise,” Diffenbaugh explained. “I avoid being prescriptive because there are a lot of people out there advocating for solutions, and relatively fewer people to just explain the science.”

In fact, Diffenbaugh acknowledged that while the some on the political right may criticize him as a climate alarmist, he is simultaneously criticized by some on the left for not advocating particular responses and solutions to the climate crisis.

“I have a deliberate approach to communication,” he said, referring to his tendency not to suggest solutions. “Not everyone agrees, but what I can say is that I’ve given it a lot of thought and talked to experts who study communication on these issues. Society needs for the people creating the evidence to be at the table explaining it.”

This last point, that scientists ought to be sharing their research outside the bounds of academia, is a viewpoint that seems to be spreading.

“Stanford has a societal obligation to make the best information available in the most scientific depth as possible,” said Stephan Graham, the recently-appointed dean of the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth). Graham came to the job with a research background in geology — more specifically, sedimentary basins such as those exploited to produce oil. He emphasized, however, that oil and gas researchers at Stanford respect and appreciate climate work done within the school. Many, he pointed out, have begun to focus their work on reducing emissions from oil and gas operations.

As for the question of science versus advocacy, Graham discussed the fully defensible nature of scientific methods used at Stanford.

“Our scientists are dedicated and rigorous,” he said. “Being humans concerned about the future of society, they can’t help but be personally involved.”

University offerings have expanded with this seeming need for involvement in communicating the climate problem. Stanford Earth’s coterminal master’s degree in environmental communication, for example, has rapidly grown since its inception in the 2015-2016 school year.

And at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, offerings like the Rising Environmental Leaders Program (RELP), a program piloted in 2010 for Stanford graduate students and post-docs, and the Leopold Leadership Program, for environmental scholars at institutions across the country, focus on training scientists to communicate within the policy setting.

Heidi Hirsh, a Ph.D. candidate in the earth systems science program and a RELP participant, has appreciated the availability of such training.

“It can definitely feel isolating in academia,” she said. “I know I need to get the data and analyze it, and I know how to do that, but I don’t know feel like I know just yet how to engage with the political side. But it’s also like, if I can’t use my research for good, what was that five or six years for?”

Another RELP participant, civil and environmental engineering Ph.D. candidate Andrew Sonta, said that he sought out the program because he realized that environmental progress requires conversation between science-literate policymakers  and policy-literate scientists.

After the election, Sonta noticed that the discussions he led for the Hard Earth lecture series almost always turned to political questions.

“I do think it’s scary to say that any conversation has a political bent — it’s like science is no longer just science,” Sonta admitted. “As a researcher, you like to think that you’re coming up with solutions. But in this political climate, if you can’t communicate those ideas, you’re risking not being effective.”

Admittedly, science communication wasn’t cast aside prior to Trump’s election. Biology professor and Jasper Ridge Biology Preserve faculty director Liz Hadly, for example, cited the late Stanford scientist Stephen Schneider as an early champion of explaining climate science in her recent piece “Making America great again requires action on scientific knowledge.”

Hadly did say, however, that she’s noticed a sudden increase in the field of people wanting to share their research with the public. Needless to say, it’s a movement she’s supportive of.

“People should spend time to communicate why what we study matters to someone other than ourselves,” Hadly said. “You’ll hear people ask how climate really affects them. But when you take the time to actually communicate how they’re already seeing climate change in their daily lives, they get it.”

When I first spoke with Hadly, she quickly introduced me to her dog, Dasher, who was happily wandering her office. When I later asked her how working in the shifted political climate has affect her work, she laughingly answered “puppies.”

“You think I’m kidding, but one of the ways it’s all changed is this puppy,” Hadly said. “In reading the news and following everything that was happening, I was just kind of depressed and flabbergasted. This was a way of re-engaging and finding that energy.”

In some ways, this fits with Hadly’s environmentalist persona. She described her journey toward ecology as never growing out of the curiosity about the world everyone is born with; gravitating away from the crowded indoors and toward the outside and places with less people. And yet, she insisted that scientists aren’t, and can’t afford to be, hermits.

“My deepest motivation is that I believe in people,” Hadly said.

It made sense, then, that some of the hardest emotional points in her work have come in hearing about conflicts between humans and tigers.

“I do work in the tiger genome, and so for me it’s on my mind that there are less than 3,500 tigers left in the wild,” she explained. “But it’s hard to see this local-global disconnect on these issues.”

Indeed, when I asked each environmental scholar the moments in the past 14 months they found most difficult, the answers varied according to their research focus.

For Diffenbaugh in atmospheric science, it was Presidential tweets suggesting that perhaps the US “could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming” to warm up on cold winter nights. Diffenbaugh groaned a bit as he talked about the tweet, citing a study he co-authored with Deepti Singh Ph.D. ’15 and five other scientists. The study found that increased extreme cold in the Northeast is not just consistent with global warming, but more likely.

For Richard Nevle Ph.D. ’95, the deputy director of the earth systems program, it has been absorbing environmental news each day. It’s difficult, but he keeps tuning in: “I keep reading all the headlines and environmental news I can even when it’s depressing because I feel a sort of duty to at least bear witness to what’s happening,” Nevle said.

His position isn’t a unique one. Scholar after scholar recounted how hard it can be to continuously hear the news of another rollback or threat to funding. Julia Goolsby ’18, a student in the environmental communication coterm program, told me that she’s taken to putting her New York Times updates in a folder labeled “ahhhhhhhhh.”

For Graham, his biggest worry has shifted toward maintaining research funding since stepping into the role of dean.

“I’m first and foremost concerned about their ability to continue to do the type of research that they do,” Graham said. “That’s job number one for me.”

A forlorn look crossed the dean’s face as he mentioned a project in earth systems science in the climate space that lost funding midstream. According to the dean, the project was left with partial results but no way to finish.

The fear of not finding funding seems to be especially prominent in younger environmental scholars. Graham said that younger professors and graduate students seem to be more on edge, and Hirsh — one of the graduate students and RELP participants — even sent me a follow-up link to a story about the narrow preservation of National Science Foundation funding programs a few hours after we met.

Of course, the concerns about environmental changes in the new administration aren’t just limited to scholars in the sciences.

For Deborah Sivas J.D. ’87, director of Stanford Law School’s Environmental Law Clinic, the most difficult challenge of the Trump administration has been the onslaught of climate policy rollbacks — the Paris Accords and the Clean Power Plan, but also “a whole host of other things around methane and public lands that the media can’t even pay attention to with all the other chaos.”

Sivas describes herself as an environmentalist first and a lawyer second, although the students that work and study in the clinic are driven by a mix of ideological career goals and the simple desire to attain legal skills. Either way, she says, environmental law and other politically-targeted fields can be hard due to the lack of linear trajectories toward progress.

“There’s ups and downs, and we’re in a down right now,” Sivas said. “Keeping people motivated and not demoralized is very important to me. And it can be demoralizing–working on something for 10 years and having Congress wipe it out with a single sentence in a rider isn’t easy.”

It’s because of Sivas’ calm persistence that Danny Cullenward ’06 M.S. ’07 J.D. ’13 Ph.D. ’13, a lecturer in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources, reached out to Sivas last year to co-teach “U.S. Environmental Law in Transition.”

According to Cullenward, the class was created in part because he could feel panic amongst students following the election. As a last-minute enrollee in the class myself, I had to laugh at how spot-on his analysis was. But Cullenward also added that he had his a personal reason for wanting to teach:

“Staying motivated can be a huge struggle,” Cullenward said. “If you spend your professional life working on a problem you know won’t be solved and that will cause major consequences for virtually every species, it’s hard to get out of bed sometimes … I know that me putting my shoulder to the wheel every day in my life is going to make an imperceptible difference in those problems. But what I can do is teach. And when I present primary material to students, they tend to not fall for the lies … that gives me some hope.”

Cullenward and Sivas’ class wasn’t the only student-facing response to the Trump political tide. In the medical school, for example, talks have surfaced about creating a comprehensive class on the health implications of climate change. And even within two weeks of the presidential election, I was added to an “Earth Systems Community” group on Canvas, a website normally reserved for course announcements and academic assignments. The page was described as a place for Stanford community members to “collaborate, educate each other, ask questions, learn new information, form working groups, and figure out how to take action in this new political climate.”

There have also been more formal changes in how Stanford Earth presents itself to Stanford stakeholders and beyond. According to Barbara Buell, associate dean and chief marketing/communications officer of Stanford Earth, there’s been a big push to make ensure that research being produced actually gets read. Buell lead the charge in creating a website for the Stanford Earth Matters magazine, including easy-share options and a subscription list targeted not just at Stanford community members, but also key decision makers in the public and private sector.

Even the school itself (formerly just the School of Earth Sciences) was renamed in 2015 to capture a broader swath of environmental work — although the change predated Trump’s rise. Prior to that, the School of Earth had been born out of the defunct School of Mineral Sciences in 1963. It was soon after this restructuring that a degree in “applied earth sciences” first joined the spattering of offerings in petroleum and mineral engineering.

Stanford Earth is perhaps less recognized on campus than other schools for a reason: By the numbers, it’s small. It boasts the second-to-least number of faculty, four percent of graduate students and just two percent of declared undergraduates. Yet the school’s impact has been undeniably significant, with the Stanford News’ press release page typically being peppered with studies on topics ranging from models of extreme weather patterns to reviews of corporate sustainability measures to surveys of coastal fisheries.

Indeed, Stanford Earth’s programs have continued to grow from the original move toward academic interdisciplinarity initiated by former president John Hennessy. Other entities outside of the school such as the Woods Institute, Precourt Institute, Freeman Spogli Institute, The Center for Ocean Solutions and more have all taken on climate change in their work, too.

It’s not that all the changes have come directly as a response to the Trump administration — the two new coterminal master’s programs, the M.A. in Environmental Communication and an M.S./M.A. in Sustainability Science and Practice, for example, were already being developed — but that the political changes have caused an increased sense of urgency for such integrated, interdisciplinary approaches.

As Diffenbaugh told me when he explained his role in studying systems, “A wise person said that if you can say what discipline you’re in, you’re probably doing something old.”

Dean Graham emphasized that in addition to interdisciplinary work within members of the school, Stanford Earth wants to reach students in all corners of the university.

“We’ve been working on the ‘80×20’ goal for a while now,” Graham said. “By 2020, we want to be touching 80 percent of Stanford undergraduates in some way.”

For Graham, it’s important to encourage students pursuing majors and careers unrelated to the environmental space to gain a basic literacy about how the earth works. So far the school has felt fairly successful in these initiatives with popular new classes like “Science Outside” and a 200 percent enrollment jump in the school’s introductory class, Earth Systems 10, over the past two years.

The Dean was also excited about the prospects of the sustainability white paper produced as part of the long-range planning process initiated by President Marc Tessier-Lavigne.

Initially, sustainability wasn’t intended to receive its own paper in the process; the four steering groups were established as Education, Research, “Our Community” and “Engaging Beyond Our University.” As Tessier-Lavigne and Provost Persis Drell wrote on their blog, however, “sustainability was such an important cross-cutting topic that the four steering groups collaborated to produce a single white paper on it.”

About a third of the public suggestions incorporated into the paper focused on campus sustainability measures, about a fourth on innovating sustainability on topics from climate science to urbanization and the remaining portion on sustainability education.

“Taken together,” the paper reads, “the collective body of sustainability-related proposals limn a compelling, ambitious, and hopeful vision for Stanford’s future.”

Nevle, who in addition to his role in earth systems served on the Education steering committee, said that he thinks the sustainability paper offers an exciting opportunity for Stanford to walk the talk.

“I think what emerges is a vision of Stanford as an even more committed sustainability leader,” Nevle said. “There really seems to be a desire to make this a core part of our mission at Stanford.”

In the often dire-seeming times, it’s the little things that can carry scholars through the rough nights.

For Hirsh, it’s been the experience of doing field research in Palau, a small island nation in the west Pacific Ocean. In the international climate community, Palau is known both for its vulnerability to biological change and its outspoken leadership in responding to such changes. During the Paris climate negotiations, for instance, Palau called for a more aggressive plan to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, rather than the 2-degree limit in the final proposal and the 4-degree trajectory warming that many scientists predict. In the country itself, 80 percent of Palau’s exclusive economic zone — some 500,000 square kilometers of coral- and fish-heavy ocean — commercial fishing is entirely banned in order to protect the ecosystem.

“It’s funny to do fieldwork in Palau and see how different everything can be,” Hirsh said. “Sometimes I’ll joke that if all goes to hell I’ll just go there, but I also know I can’t run away. There’s such a contrast of in how even as we’re going backward and stripping away marine protections here, there they are marching forward with hope and respect for what they have. That gives me hope.”

There’s somewhat of analogy between how Hirsh sees Palau as a small spot of political hope and resilience and the marine chemistry work she does there. She studies how different seagrasses might protect shelled-animals, coral and other calcifiers from increasingly acidic water due to carbon dioxide in the water. Specifically, her goal is to understand how some small underwater localities have managed to stay resilient even under less hospitable conditions — and then to find ways to mimic that resilience in other locations.

“I know that I’m just one person and that one single person can’t save the world,” Hirsh reflected. “But it is hopeful to think local and find those pockets of resilience.”

For many scholars, state and local government in California has served as a sort of pocket of resilience, too.

“Jerry Brown has really had some moments of carrying the flag for us on climate,” said Katherine Burke, deputy director of the Center for Innovation in Global Health.

Situated in the medical school, Burke was the lead author of a Sept. 2016 white paper commissioned by the Woods Institute for the Environment aiming to add a “human face” and health perspective to climate change for the 45th president. Like many Americans, the researchers assumed a different president at the time of writing the paper. Despite the lack of uptake the paper and its recommendations have received under the Trump administration, Burke maintains that it was still better to put forth an audacious plan.

“It’s better to put bold ideas out there than to pull back,” Burke said. “The way I see it, the election has only made the work we’re able to do in California more important.”

Across campus at the law school, Sivas expressed a similar sentiment. Normally, she explained, the environmental law clinic is involved in administrative cases pushing governments to do better environmentally. In the last 14 months, that focus has shifted toward just defending existing environmental protections.

“In the post-Trump world in California, you’ve got state and local governments actually trying to be more progressive than the federal government,” Sivas said.

That’s not to say the local work can’t have a big impact. In one case, for example, law students in the clinic are helping defend efforts by the city of Oakland to ban the handling of coal in city facilities. The efforts have come under fire from industry groups hoping to use the Port of Oakland to ship coal from the United States to China and other East Asian countries.

Like his longtime mentor Sivas, Cullenward also described changes he’s seen within the environmental community. In addition to his research position with the Carnegie Institute for Science on the edge of campus, he’s been directly involved in the policy sphere through the nonprofit Near Zero, which aims to curb greenhouse gas emissions, and was appointed to the Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee, the board in charge of reviewing California’s cap and trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

And yet even in that setting, Cullenward said he’d spent the past couple of years before the election fighting with people that should have been on the same page. These groups realigned after the election, offering a sort of “catharsis.”

“So on the one hand, the election was a complete disaster, Cullenward explained. “On the other hand, it’s a real opportunity to start a conversation around what it’s going to mean to make serious progress on the climate front and not just put a bandaid on and declare victory.”

Cullenward cited the emerging preeminence of environmental justice advocates as an example of one of these progressive success. Sivas cited examples inside and outside of the environmental space, such as the #MeToo movement.

“Those things just couldn’t break through except in this kinda awful time,” she said.

For almost all the scholars, working with students has played a direct role in keeping motivation high.

Nevle described the experience of witnessing transformation among students who came to let it out and cry in his office soon after the election to these same students coming back for engaged, advocacy-minded conversations.

“It keeps me young at heart, and it is really such a huge privilege to work with students and have these daily interactions,” he said.

For Hadly, it has been not just her dog, but also the freshmen in her first-year introductory seminar who have been particularly inspiring.

“These young students get more eager as the years go by,” she said. “They demand to be learning and making a difference. They’re not waiting.”

Dean Graham was no exception to the pattern:

“You know,” he added as our conversation began to wind down, “the other bright spot during this time is you. We’re seeing this big increase in interest from undergraduates in particular in these issues, increasingly taking up advocacy. That’s got to be viewed as a bright spot because you guys are going to be living this life in the next century and you’ll have to take up that role and buy in and be interested.”

From the perspective of a coterm in environmental communication, Goolsby echoed the Dean’s sense of urgency and emphasis on timing.

“It feels like this time is what will be in the textbooks, and it’s cool and motivating to have that kind of accountability,” Goolsby said. As a communicator, she said she has found the election to be a case study on the importance of “paying attention to who you’re talking to.”

Many scholars also said that they’ve been impressed by campus activism both in the climate space and on other hot-button issues. For Stephanie Fischer ’18, another earth systems major headed toward the environmental communication coterm, those issues are often intimately connected.

“I’m focused on the inequities of climate,” she said. “This discourse about race, especially nowadays, is extremely fatiguing for me. Coupled with the president’s castaway attitudes toward climate, it feels like its two battles at once and that the hill just keeps getting steeper.”

Fischer originally came to the earth sciences as an academic interest, not such a personal one. She got her start in paleoclimatology research as early as high school. But as a native of New York, her perspective was forever changed by Superstorm Sandy. Fischer was in her house when the storm came, and experienced firsthand the hardship of dealing with the impacts of the storm for months after the media attention faded away. But she also noted what she learned from lots of communities of color like hers sharing the experience.

“In some ways, it was also a sort of gem of hope to be with my community,” Fischer said. “It gave me one of my favorite moments in feeling love with my neighbors.”

Now, Fischer is one of the students working to preserve that hope and bring healing to the environmental community. For her senior capstone project, she is co-organizing “Earth in Color,” an Earth Day event to be held at the O’Donohue Family Stanford Educational Farm.

With support from the earth systems program up through to administrators like Graham and Tessier-Lavigne, Fischer is excited about the prospect of drawing together people who may not normally think about attending Earth Day events. According to the description, the event is led by “student artists and environmental justice activists of color who want to see an Earth Day celebration as colorful as the people on this planet.”

In addition to bringing in the healing power of art to the often traumatic environmental space (especially for people of color), Fischer told me she hopes to share the power of looking horizontally.

“It’s necessary more than ever to be with other people and to remind yourself of what you love and why you’re doing this work,” she said. “That’s what keeps me going.”

Contact Ada Statler at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Study finds complicated efficacy of supply chain sustainability measures https://stanforddaily.com/2018/02/15/study-finds-complicated-efficacy-of-supply-chain-sustainability-measures/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/02/15/study-finds-complicated-efficacy-of-supply-chain-sustainability-measures/#respond Fri, 16 Feb 2018 07:41:36 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1136943 While ethical consumerism is often touted as a potential solution for climate change and other environmental problems, recent research from Stanford suggests it might be a less clear practice than previously believed. According to the study, supply chain sustainability efforts are overestimated by consumers thanks to the proliferation of media coverage and “sustainable” product labeling. […]

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Study finds complicated efficacy of supply chain sustainability measures
Courtesy of Joann de Zegher

While ethical consumerism is often touted as a potential solution for climate change and other environmental problems, recent research from Stanford suggests it might be a less clear practice than previously believed. According to the study, supply chain sustainability efforts are overestimated by consumers thanks to the proliferation of media coverage and “sustainable” product labeling.

However, the research wasn’t all doom and gloom, acknowledging that more than half of global companies surveyed had implemented some sort of sustainability practice in their supply chain. And according to lead author and Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources graduate student Tannis Thorlakson, there’s reason to believe that consumer pressure can still push such sustainability efforts forward.

“The pressure consumers put on firms when they demand more sustainable products might be paying off,” Thorlakson told Stanford News. “I hope this paper acts as a call to action for those 48 percent of companies that aren’t doing anything to address sustainability challenges in their supply chain.”

The study, which was the first large-scale analysis of supply chain sustainability in private companies, analyzed 449 publicly traded companies in industries ranging from food to textiles. The potential impact of corporate supply chains is substantial, affecting more than 80 percent of workers worldwide and being involved with more than 80 percent of global trade.

“Advancing environmental and social goals in supply chains can quickly become very complex,” said Joann de Zegher, study co-author and postdoctoral fellow at the Graduate School of Business.

This complexity is one of the reasons consumers might not understand what a sustainability label really means. For instance, the study found that more than 70 percent of the supply chain sourcing practices only addressed a given portion of the materials needed to produce a given product. In such cases, a product might have sustainably sourced packaging but have unsustainable direct inputs.

The researchers also found limits to which “tiers” in the supply chain were addressed. In the textile industry, for instance, sewing factories were more intentionally planned than facilities in charge of dying cloth or growing cotton.

And within companies at large, “sustainable” products are often marketed as a single line among a wide variety of options. So while a corporation might market one chocolate bar as being sustainably sourced, they are likely to still sell many other varieties of non-sustainable chocolate. Indeed, over 25 percent of sustainable supply chain rules within a company apply to only a single product.

Despite these issues, the researchers found optimism in the fact that companies with headquarters in countries with more nongovernmental organizations were more likely to implement sustainable supply chain measures.

“Our results show a glass half full and half empty,” said co-auther Eric Lambin, a professor in the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences.

 

Contact Ada Statler at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Privacy breaches in University file system affect 200 people https://stanforddaily.com/2017/11/17/privacy-breaches-in-university-file-system-affect-200-people/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/11/17/privacy-breaches-in-university-file-system-affect-200-people/#respond Fri, 17 Nov 2017 12:07:23 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1133761 Stanford is in the process of notifying some 200 people — a mix of employees and former students — that their privacy may have been breached due to incorrect settings in one of the University’s file-sharing systems.

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Stanford is in the process of notifying some 200 people — a mix of employees and former students — that their privacy may have been breached due to incorrect settings in one of the University’s file-sharing systems.

Until this week, files including sexual violence records based on counseling sessions, confidential University statistics and emails to the Office of Judicial Affairs — some with names and email addresses attached — were left broadly available on an internet server that students, faculty and staff from over 50 institutions regularly use. Any Stanford faculty, student or staff member with a SUNet ID was able to access the sensitive files; The Daily also found that an MIT student username and password were able to grant access.

The University was unaware of the data breach until it was notified by The Daily last Thursday. The Daily withheld reporting on the leak until the University secured all confidential information and notified affected parties.

“This is absolutely unacceptable and the campus is working diligently and urgently to assure that shared files are secure throughout the university,” wrote Stanford spokesperson Lisa Lapin in an official statement Thursday. “A thorough university investigation is under way as to the extent and duration of the file exposure.”

“We extend the deepest apology to the employees and former Stanford students who expected that their personal information would be treated with the greatest care by campus offices,” she added.

Stanford has used the Andrew File System (AFS) directory, where the sensitive information was until recently kept unlocked, since the 1990s. Every user with a SUNet ID is allotted 5 GB of data for personal storage and may also use the file system to access course materials and other resources.

But the sprawling server — home to over two decades of information from a range of departments in the University — compromised, among other data, 247 emails addressed to the Office of Judicial Affairs and at least 38 files recording confidential information on crimes, mostly sexual assaults, described to campus mental health counselors, the Office of Community Standards and other groups. The latter information on sexual violence was intended for tracking and reporting under the 1990 Clery Act, which mandates disclosure of campus crime.

Michael Duff, assistant vice president and chief information security officer, said that while the University can track overall AFS activity, it cannot track who has accessed specific files and folders. He said University IT also can not yet determine exactly how long many files intended for privacy were accessible for.

Compromised personal data

Within each directory, some folders and files were secured against general user access, even as the Clery files and confidential emails were left open to Stanford community members as well as people from the many other organizations that use AFS.

In the Vice Provost of Student Affairs (VPSA) directory, a file containing emails addressed to the Office of Judicial Affairs detailed concerns ranging from spousal assault to Honor Code violations to a discrimination complaint against a current faculty member. All correspondence included contact information for the sender, revealing names, email addresses and often phone numbers.

One of the Clery files also included the name and email address of the reporting party.

Most of the other Clery documents omitted names, noting instead basic demographic information such as gender, age, class year and ethnicity, as well as the accused student’s group affiliation at Stanford, in addition to a summary of what they reported.

But in a community the size of Stanford, data can be identifying even without names. Some of the documents described victim and assailant as narrowly defined as a pair of roommates of a certain class year living in a specific dormitory, or a student of a specific age and ethnicity assaulted by an upperclassman in a particular student group. Many of the files were also accompanied by dates.

In some cases, the level of detail present might have identified a reporting student to an acquaintance in the same social circles — or potentially to the individual they accused of assault.

In files where the involved parties may be identifiable, the University must notify the individuals. According to Duff, that’s where the University Privacy Office needed to make judgments on just how revealing the previously-accessible information was.

“If the population that fits given descriptions is large enough, no one would be able to identify that person,” Duff said. “It’s a whole field into itself — identification or re-identification of the data so that we can determine who we need to notify.”

Files recording sexual violence cases in a Clery Act folder were generated when an individual or a “Campus Security Authority” — for example, a counselor at Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) — filled out a web form created by the University’s Sexual Violence Advisory Board.

While many of the files are based on information disclosed to CAPS, James Jacobs, director of Vaden Health, emphasized that Vaden had no role in managing the Clery report files and that CAPS counseling records, which are separate from Clery data, have not been compromised.

“Vaden clinical records … have been and continue to be completely separate, completely protected and not shared,” he said.

According to Jacobs, CAPS and other entities on campus no longer file Clery reports with the AFS-linked system. Further, he said, CAPS therapists are no longer among the campus entities expected to make Clery reports.

The Clery files, which span from 2012 to 2015, were located within a folder owned by the Stanford University Department of Public Safety (SUDPS). However, according to the University, the summaries of individuals’ cases were not intended for police use or investigation; they were meant solely for fulfilling the University’s duties under the Clery Act, which a non-officer employee of SUDPS oversees.

CAPS’ website states that chart notes from a counseling session — recorded electronically — are kept for 10 years by law but protected with “strict security measures … including physical safeguards, encryption, and password protection.”

The University emphasized that because the Clery reports were generated from a separate process than in-session counseling notes, “SUDPS did not and does not have access to counseling records maintained by CAPS.”

But due to the mistake in the Clery folder’s privacy settings, the text entries to the Clery forms were essentially public.

In some cases, the Clery files potentially shed light on University decisions that confounded and angered many students when they were first announced.

One file described a sexual assault involving two members of the Stanford Band. Another file detailed a student’s account of being sexually assaulted by another student after at a campus event on the Quad.

A handful of files dealt with students who recalled experiences of sexual assault or molestation before they ever came to Stanford.

According to the University, it generally “would have been challenging if not impossible to conduct an investigation” given the high level information recorded in most of the forms.

Confidential University information

Other directories previously left unlocked on AFS include the Office of the President and Provost, the Vice Provost for Student Affairs and Vaden Health Center. Within these folders, however, subfolders and files had varying degrees of privacy.

Files that were accessible included 10-year compilations of University statistics produced each academic year by the Office of Institutional Research and Decision Support. Specific datasets marked as confidential range from statistics on faculty ethnic and gender diversity to detailed breakdowns of financial support for graduate students and levels of government-sponsored activity by school and laboratory.

Some documents include data from other institutions as well, such as a report comparing Stanford with its peer schools on metrics such as median student income, financial aid, research funding sources and faculty diversity. Stanford has since reached out to these schools to apologize for the breach.

Documents like these were not publicly available elsewhere — for example, on the University website — but were unlocked in AFS.

Budget planning resources, as well as memos between then-Provost Condoleezza Rice and the Faculty Senate, were likewise open to anyone with AFS access, including users from other schools.

What is AFS?

Named after Andrew Carnegie and Andrew Mellon of Carnegie Mellon University, the Andrew File System has been in use at Stanford for close to three decades and is also used by a variety of universities and research laboratories. AFS allows a large number of users, each with their own computers, to access a centralized digital workspace owned by their institution or workplace.

Whenever Stanford affiliates log into a desktop machine with their SUNet ID and password, they are accessing the data stored in their personal AFS workspace. For example, students can download useful files into their workspace on a library computer and retrieve that file again when they log in to a dorm cluster computer.

At the same time, AFS allows individuals to use all the institution-owned resources that they are granted access to from their home computers. For instance, computer science majors often use AFS to download and submit homework assignments by entering the directory corresponding to their course.

“Essentially all of my assignments for CS classes are stored there,” said Jorge Ochoa ’18, a computer science major. “I keep my code there for safekeeping and because we have to upload our homework to AFS anyways to turn it in for most classes.”

One of the biggest concerns raised by the AFS data breach: It is hard to know who may have seen or even saved the exposed files during the time that they were accessible.

“I don’t usually need to look for things outside of my personal folders, but I have clicked around a bit either out of curiosity or trying to find class resources which are in a different directory,” Ochoa said.

When asked specifically about the SUDPS and Judicial Affairs files found by The Daily, however, Ochoa said he hadn’t seen any of the information in question.

Andrew Milich ’19, a computer science student who has used AFS for coursework, said that most students doing their homework would probably not stumble into places they shouldn’t be.

“The file system is a little hard to work with,” he said, although he admitted there could be a temptation to browse around. “You kind of have to know what you’re looking for to find something.”

Duff emphasized that any student who finds a security problem in a Stanford system is required by the Honor Code and Fundamental Standard to report the issue immediately to the Information Security Office, the University Privacy Office or another relevant department.

Every institution that employs AFS groups the folders used by its member departments into a single top-level directory. Since AFS was also designed to help different organizations share files, top-level directories are typically visible to users from other organizations that use AFS — meaning that organizations have to take charge of protecting their own information from non-members.

According to Duff, each department at Stanford is responsible for setting its folders and files to the correct accessibility level. That means that the University “relies heavily” on these subgroups to manage their files well. Centralized oversight is difficult, he said, not just for AFS but also for all file-sharing systems, from Dropbox to Google Drive.

“The challenge is how to achieve a zero error rate in the permissions across the hundreds of millions of files [and] folders stored at Stanford,” Duff said.

He added that the sheer scale of the systems needed to store information for an organization the size of Stanford means that each department must take charge of its own security.

The very top-level directory for Stanford, ir.stanford.edu, is overseen by University IT and has the correct settings, according to Duff.

Asked about what support Stanford provides to departments on setting AFS access, Duff pointed to online documentation, saying that “those using AFS are expected to understand how it works.”

However, Duff did describe actions that University IT can take to better ensure information privacy. For one, he said, it can improve awareness about privacy setting issues; right after The Daily informed the University of the incorrectly shared files, Duff emailed Stanford’s over 1,300 IT professionals with a note about the situation and extra tips for managing permissions.

“Inevitably, there are going to be some folks who maybe don’t understand how the permissions work, and they’re not IT people, these are just regular staff members and employees,” Duff said. “Because AFS has been here for so long, I do think there’s an element of, someone else set up the permissions a long time ago and over time just kind of forgot they were open and then other people starting dumping stuff in there.”

According to Duff, a push to move Stanford away from AFS toward other systems such as Box and Google Drive is underway; he hopes the process will prompt departments to review outdated files.

Still, he warned that the permissions errors are not “something there’s a 100 percent solution for.”

“As much as we will try, and we have tried for many years, to do all this stuff right, the scale makes it really tough,” he said.

Duff said that University IT adjusted settings on particular AFS folders to protect the mistakenly public data within two hours of being notified. But cleaning up after the leaks is a longer process. For instance, the University had to request the deletion of cached webpages on Google to prevent people from finding sensitive information even after it was locked.

Potential ramifications

According to Chief Privacy Officer Wendi Wright, the University is “informing individuals in accordance with FERPA and state privacy notification requirements, as applicable.”

Legally, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) protects “any information that protects the privacy of student education records” from being shared without written permission.

There are also additional state privacy laws — both statutory and constitutional — covering both students and employees.

According to Robert Rabin, Stanford’s A. Calder Mackay Professor of Law, the University could also be liable to tort lawsuits based on public disclosure of private fact if victims of the data breach can prove that a harm occurred (for example, that their information was accessed and used during the period that it was available).

“There could be two different pathways to responsibility,” Rabin said. “Vicarious liability is where the University is responsible for any branch of the university in violation. The other pathway is negligent supervision, that would be a direct claim that the University should have exercised greater oversight over the branches.”

However, Rabin also said that going into court is an expensive and time consuming process, especially when harms might not be tangible. He was not confident such cases would be pursued, but did stress the significance of the blunder.

“If a vice provost or the department of public safety or whoever is not exercising sufficient caution about protecting student privacy, then the university should be concerned about that,” Rabin said.

In addition to the strictly legal ramifications, Stanford Law Professor and sexual assault activist Michele Dauber worries that there may be consequences for those considering reporting sexual assault in the future.

“One concern that I have is that when survivors find out that Stanford was not adequately safeguarding information that they thought was confidential, they may be even more reluctant to report sexual assault,” she said. “We don’t want students to feel reluctant to report, but an incident like this could have a chilling effect on the willingness of victims to come forward.”

Dauber emphasized that this is especially worrisome given that the last campus climate survey indicated a very low percentage of victims actually report their experiences with sexual assault to anyone at the University.

“The mistake was obviously inadvertent, and I’m sure whoever did it feels terrible about it,” Dauber said. “I’m sure that it wasn’t like Stanford wanted to do this, but this is important, and it’s important to get it right.”

Contact Fangzhou Liu at fzliu96 ‘at’ stanford.edu, Hannah Knowles at hknowles ‘at’ stanford.edu and Ada Statler at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Letter from the editor: On intentionality in our Robert Spencer coverage https://stanforddaily.com/2017/11/14/letter-from-the-editor-on-intentionality-in-our-robert-spencer-coverage/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/11/14/letter-from-the-editor-on-intentionality-in-our-robert-spencer-coverage/#respond Tue, 14 Nov 2017 09:00:53 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1133440 You’ve probably heard by now that the Stanford College Republicans are bringing Robert Spencer to campus, and you’ve likely even read about it in our publication. We’ve covered Spencer’s upcoming speaking event in our news section, and we have published op-eds from community members with all sorts of opinions on the event. And this morning, […]

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You’ve probably heard by now that the Stanford College Republicans are bringing Robert Spencer to campus, and you’ve likely even read about it in our publication. We’ve covered Spencer’s upcoming speaking event in our news section, and we have published op-eds from community members with all sorts of opinions on the event. And this morning, we ran a full-page ad written by Spencer himself and supported by the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

It’s a controversial topic, and we want to be transparent about why we are covering the event in the ways that we are.

In some ways, it seems inevitable that the debate over free speech on college campuses would come to Stanford; it’s why before Spencer’s visit to campus was even announced, our Editorial Board took on the issue of free speech in an age of intentional controversy. We found that as a college newspaper, we have “a duty to defend free speech, but we also recognize that we bear a certain responsibility in promoting speech that is constructive and useful.”

Here’s what this means for our coverage at The Stanford Daily.

1. We will continue to report on Spencer with intentionality.

Our news section will cover both the Stanford College Republicans’ event and any rallies and other forms of protest that arise in relation to the event. As a publication, we write about student group events and prominent speakers every week. The Stanford College Republicans’ event fits into these categories. We also always have our eye out for campus activism and student reception to speaker events; thus, we will likewise cover any related protests.

2. We will continue to share and protect all community voices.

Op-eds published in The Daily are, by nature, intended to share community voices, not represent our paper, and so we will continue to run op-ed submissions from different perspectives on the Spencer issue. This assumes, of course, that submissions meet our usual standards of quality and do not contain threatening language or hate speech. It also means that those who are brave enough to share their voices will be protected from threatening language and hate speech of the variety that sometimes pops up in the comment section — we can and will ban users.

3. We will donate Spencer’s ad money to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

The ASSU Senate decided to fund security costs for the Stanford College Republicans event because its job is to support all student groups and provide equal opportunity. However, the ASSU explicitly did not endorse (and even criticized) Spencer’s ideological preachings. Likewise, The Stanford Daily is doing its job to promote free speech and open dialogue by allowing Spencer to respond to claims made about him in our paper. However, we support our Muslim readers and community members, and we do not seek to profit from hateful ideology. Instead, we will use this money to support ICIJ, a group that works to cover quality, border-crossing investigative stories in a time when— as Spencer’s event demonstrates — global issues are more locally relevant than ever.

4. We are paying careful attention to other campus news and urge you to do so, too.

Just as we remain committed to covering Spencer-related news, we remain dedicated to not sensationalizing the topic, either. Last week, I was interviewed by a local TV station that repeatedly asked leading questions suggesting that as a news editor, I would be happy about the controversy and potential action on campus. I found this astounding.

Islamophobia and free speech are important topics, but sensationalization can overwhelm other ethically important issues. In just the last week or two, we have also reported on sexual assault allegations against Stanford professors and the lowering of financial burdens to Stanford applicants. These stories affect the community substantially — and we suspect that Spencer’s arrival to campus won’t magically stop other significant news events from occurring.

My guess is as good as anyone’s as to what precise events will unfold over the course of Spencer’s visit. What I can say with certainty is that we value providing a service to our community and will continue striving to do so in the most intentional and conscientious way possible.

Ada Statler

Editor-in-chief, Volume 252

eic@stanforddaily.com

 

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Duran Alvarez: A pillar of stability in an evolving institution https://stanforddaily.com/2017/11/08/magazine-duran-alvarez-a-pillar-of-stability-in-an-evolving-institution-copy-ep/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/11/08/magazine-duran-alvarez-a-pillar-of-stability-in-an-evolving-institution-copy-ep/#respond Wed, 08 Nov 2017 22:04:48 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1131550 When I ask how long he’s been at The Daily, Hiram Duran Alvarez — known to most as just Duran — shrugs and then looks up at the collection of framed front pages on the wall, carefully curated to represent significant moments in the paper’s history. He points to the “7.0 quake rocks Stanford” headline […]

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When I ask how long he’s been at The Daily, Hiram Duran Alvarez — known to most as just Duran — shrugs and then looks up at the collection of framed front pages on the wall, carefully curated to represent significant moments in the paper’s history. He points to the “7.0 quake rocks Stanford” headline from 1989.

“Around then. That quake was crazy.”

It’s his typical way of speaking: short and to the point, in soft but slightly laughing tones. Duran’s laid-back presence in the office is something students in the newsroom have come to expect like clockwork. He is most often in his corner workstation, eyes flitting from one monitor to another and fingers alternating between the keyboard and tablet-mouse, his wrist in a carpal tunnel prevention brace.

Officially, Duran’s role is listed as “production manager” in the paper. This means that he uses special software to format and place all of the articles, pictures and advertisements into the paper each day before editors fill in blank headline and caption spots. In addition to this role, however, he has also been a guide and mentor to generations of Daily staffers.

When Duran started at The Daily, the paper was laid out by hand each night. It was his job to manually cut and paste stories, setting column sizes and arranging them to fit together. Each page would then be set onto a cookie sheet-like tray in order to be copied. Photos were processed by hand, and an AP wire machine sat in a nook in the wall making mechanical clicking noises as national and world news was tapped out onto a rolling sheet of paper.

Duran laughs about all the changes that have happened since then. Throughout all the changes in the newsroom — physical, technological and otherwise — Duran has been the lone constant.

In an organization where student editors turn over twice a year, Duran is the primary source of accessible institutional knowledge.

And yet, Duran was reluctant to be featured and even more reluctant to be photographed when I told him about the upcoming magazine issue themed around the history of The Daily. He has a calm and quiet demeanor, tending to shy away from the spotlight.

In keeping with these traits, Duran’s method of sharing his knowledge is more hands-off than a typical teacher might be.

As former editor-in-chief (EIC) and COO Margaret Rawson ’12 described it, “Duran has a way of not needing to tell you that something looks bad but still somehow making sure that you know, and you learn it for yourself.”

Duran himself said he enjoys teaching students but that he also knows it’s important to give new editors the time to make their own mistakes and learn that way, too. Some volumes, he says, it takes more time than others. But eventually the new team figures it out.

“It’s just his simple observations that pack a punch and can really make you reevaluate what you’re doing,” Rawson said. “It has been years since I’ve seen him, but I can hear his voice perfectly in my head.”

In all my conversations with former Daily staffers, there was one description of Duran that everyone came to at one point or another: patient. Patient, but still dedicated to getting the work done and done well.

“What stands out most, even now, is the uncanny ability he had to infuse everything with that unmistakeable easygoing energy of his, making even an obsessive like me feel calm and, more importantly, like what we were doing deserved exactly that much time and care,” wrote former EIC Nadira Hira ’02. “It’s a lesson — in both staying centered and taking our work deeply to heart — that’s never left me.”

As one might imagine, nights in a newsroom frequently go late, with deadlines ranging from midnight to one or two o’clock in the morning. But when a photo doesn’t come in or an error in an article is caught at the last minute, these nights can quickly turn even later. For students, this often causes escalating stress levels.

Duran’s response?

“He’d always just say something like, ‘Woah dog, what happened?’ but never get mad or anything like that,” said former EIC Victor Xu ’17.

Another way Duran teaches is by making personal and lasting connections with the students that cycle through The Daily each volume.

When I talked with Xu, he proudly reminded me that he won he “Duran’s Favorite” award at three end-of-volume banquets, a record. He also fondly recalled engaging in lengthy discussions about sports at Duran’s favorite taco joint in San Jose.

Xu is not the only staffer to have bonded with Duran over sports. Former editors told me numerous stories about venting over games or speculating on boxing matches with him. In one of the periods when Duran wasn’t working at The Daily, he ran his own exercise gym and boxing studio. Even now, he trains boxers in addition to his work with the paper.

According to former sports editor and EIC Joey Beyda ’15, who also presented Duran with the Spirit of The Daily award in 2015, football or boxing are easy go-to topics when he returns for visits.

“I’m not a big NFL fan, but I keep rooting for the Raiders for Duran,” Beyda said.

In Beyda’s time, it was fairly common for sports editors to gather in the office at night and toss around a football. Duran would occasionally join in — but only when the game was far away from the layout computers.

“Once we hit one of Duran’s monitors, and he got pretty protective, understandably,” Beyda said. “I think that was the only time I ever saw Duran get mad.”

In many ways, Duran is the muscular, to-the-point guy wearing basketball shorts and a sweatshirt that you might expect from a boxing trainer — one popular entry on the office’s quote board featured Duran’s sarcastic comment about watching his “girlish figure” — but he also builds relationships with the less sports-inclined members of the office.

When former staffers come back to visit the office, Duran is sometimes one of only a few faces Daily alumni will know on staff. With current staffers, he has little rituals with different students, whether it is two-handed high fives or barking “arts!” after he’s finished laying out the section and ready for the editors to add headlines.

On particularly laid-back evenings in the office, Duran will share battle stories from Daily deadlines of past. Sometimes it is laughing about a physical fight that nearly broke out between staffers; other times it is recounting late production nights when the power went out and everything had to be redone. 

More rarely, Duran will talk about his personal life. Rawson remembers how Duran’s face lights up when talking about his kids. Sure enough, Duran’s smile widens as he tells me his youngest daughter is now studying to become a graphic designer, too.

When the paper is finished and sent to the printer each night, it’s typically just one editor left and, of course, Duran. According to Duran, this is one reason why he has forged such strong connections with each set of EIC and executive editors.

On one memorable night, Duran showed me all the files uploaded to the shared print server, with publications ranging from high school zines to The University of California, Berkeley’s Daily Californian. He opened up the PDF, pointing to a headline or a photo and suggesting a potential change or two in the spirit of the front-page-switch following The Play. (For the record: This is not an opportunity we plan to take advantage of.)

When I asked Duran if after all these years he still reads all the articles he lays out, he laughed a bit and hid his face under his hands.

“Sometimes I read them, I guess — especially sports and opinions.”

He laughs a bit more before adding that even without reading the articles, it’s pretty easy to know their content just from being around the office.

“I hear a lot of conversations,” he told me.

I pressed him, of course, on how much student gossip that also includes.

“Oh, there’s always gossip or Daily politics, but I try to stay out of that. That’s not for me.”

But that doesn’t mean Duran doesn’t appreciate the fresh faces and constantly changing conversations at The Daily. He says he enjoys the intergenerational aspect and the high energy of the office.

In addition to the time he spent on the gym venture, Duran took a couple of years away from The Daily early on to make fundraising graphics for Stanford. He learned quickly that this type of isolated, high-stress environment wasn’t what he wanted.

“When you’re made to feel you can’t make a mistake, when the deadlines are always one after the other, that’s just not a good place to work,” he said.

It didn’t take long before he was back with the paper.

“The Daily’s been loyal to me, and I’ve been loyal to it,” Duran said. “After being in a situation where that wasn’t appreciated or present, that means a lot to me. It’s the culture I come from.”

Duran’s loyalty hasn’t gone unnoticed in the office, where he hasn’t missed a single day of work. But for many readers, his work goes unattributed. As former Daily staffer Kelley Fong ’09 wrote in her senior farewell column, “when the paper looks particularly good, people praise the (certainly deserving) students who write and edit it, overlooking the man whose behind-the-scenes labor and creativity make everything possible.”

Fong concluded her column by thanking the people in her life that she called “Durans,” the unsung heroes that have supported her and countless others through the Stanford experience.

Indeed, Duran’s job doesn’t sound the most appealing on the surface: late nights in the office, with a commute from the East Bay, to boot. Duran says he’s got the night owl sleeping schedule down by now, though, and jokingly declines to tell me exactly how fast he drives on his way home.

“It’s all worth it,” Duran told me as we wrapped up our interview after production one night. It was 2:45 a.m., but he was as energized as ever. “You know, it’s cool to see all the students come through here with this drive and a want to take on challenges and the talent to take on the challenges. When I see people who really want to be a part of The Daily, I want to be a part of them.”

Duran told me that nothing at The Daily feels permanent, but it’s hard for me to doubt that his legacy will be a lasting one.

Contact Ada Statler at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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[magazine] Letter from the editor [copy ep] https://stanforddaily.com/2017/10/22/magazine-letter-from-the-editor-copy-ep/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/10/22/magazine-letter-from-the-editor-copy-ep/#respond Mon, 23 Oct 2017 02:42:55 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1131506 When I first walked into The Stanford Daily, I knew I cared about what was going on in the world and enjoyed writing well enough. I had never written a news story before, but soon became versed in the time tested method of learning by doing — and by following the example of those that […]

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When I first walked into The Stanford Daily, I knew I cared about what was going on in the world and enjoyed writing well enough. I had never written a news story before, but soon became versed in the time tested method of learning by doing — and by following the example of those that came before me.

In today’s political climate, it seems that “mainstream media” is perceived as both more threatened and threatening than ever. But when I step back from this and think about the big picture, I hold a lot of hope for the future of the media.

Some of my hope comes from what I observe in The Stanford Daily newsroom: the record-breaking applicant pool of 168 total students and the returning staffers eager to train new journalists; the enthusiastic tips and the concerned emails we regularly receive from the community; the innovative methods of presenting data stories and the exciting new technological platforms to present our content anew.

But part of my hope for the media also comes from thinking about the past. When a senior staffer first pitched the idea of taking all 32 pages of our magazine to reflect on the history of The Stanford Daily, I worried it would be self-indulgent. As a writer and then an editor — and as a generally reflective person with a healthy dose of self-skepticism — I have always wondered about what the impact of a college newspaper can be.

But as I listened to the senior staffer’s ideas for the themed magazine and really thought hard about stories of The Daily over the past 125 years, it became an easier sell. Why?

Questions of media independence and ethics have been tested again and again throughout The Daily’s history. Perhaps the media is under threat now, but this isn’t the first time and it likely won’t be the last. By examining our past — from expelled editors to Supreme Court cases — we can learn resiliency strategies for the future.

There are many factors determining a newspaper’s resiliency. Some of the factors are financial or on the business side, but I fully believe that the most important thing we can do is commit to continuously improving ourselves and our coverage. This means finding the corners of our community that we aren’t yet representing. Examining the ways we approach sensitive topics. Deepening our explorations of issues that matter but might not normally be a topic of conversation. Reviewing our ethical reporting standards on issues such as third-party verification and anonymity. Paying attention to our internal organizational culture and inclusivity practices.

While making this issue, I learned a lot about the history of The Stanford Daily and of the University as a whole. In the process, I felt energized and motivated, and I hope that you, our readers, will also enjoy both of these experiences. So read and learn, but also feel empowered to reach out. As our Editorial Board once wrote, accountability reporting happens best when the press is also accountable.

The communication of journalism, just like interpersonal communication, operates best as a two-way street. So send us an email, whether it’s a news tip or an op-ed or a potential correction. As an editor, I never “enjoy” receiving an email alerting us to a misstated source title or perhaps a more serious ethical issue with our coverage. This means that we have temporarily lapsed in our duty, and making mistakes doesn’t feel good. At the same time, however, I am honored and humbled and inspired by these emails because each one is a reminder that our community still cares.

I myself have had countless opportunities that would never have been possible were it not for The Daily. My freshman year I interviewed Oprah Winfrey, and my sophomore year I broke the story when John Boehner announced he wouldn’t support “Lucifer in the flesh” Ted Cruz in the presidential election. Events like these are part of what makes being at Stanford so special, but so are some of the more “ordinary” stories.

My sophomore year I worked as an embedded reporter at the weeklong Fossil Free Stanford sit-in outside the president’s office, and my junior year I spearheaded a series examining Stanford’s mental health resources. Working on stories like these impressed upon me just how much compassion for others is present on this campus. Without my work at The Daily, I wouldn’t have had these transformative experiences.

As The Stanford Daily turns 125 years old, and I am proud to be a part of such a long-standing institution. In just my four years here, I have seen how quickly and yet carefully the newsroom can change, and I look forward to seeing how it continues to grow.

— Ada Statler-Throckmorton, Editor-in-Chief, Vol. 252

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Walmart heiress and alum Carrie Walton Penner joins Board https://stanforddaily.com/2017/05/19/walmart-heiress-and-alum-carrie-walton-penner-joins-board/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/05/19/walmart-heiress-and-alum-carrie-walton-penner-joins-board/#respond Fri, 19 May 2017 08:24:33 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1127767 Walmart heiress and Graduate School of Education alum Carrie Walton Penner ’97 has been elected to a five year term on the Board of Trustees. Penner, who is also chair of the board of directors at the Walton Foundation and an advocate for school choice, will start her term on June 1.

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Walmart heiress and alum Carrie Walton Penner joins Board
School choice advocate and GSE alum Carrie Walton Penner will begin her term as trustee on June 1 (Courtesy of Stanford News).

Walmart heiress and Graduate School of Education alum Carrie Walton Penner ’97 has been elected to a five year term on the Board of Trustees. Penner, who is also chair of the board of directors at the Walton Foundation and an advocate for school choice, will start her term on June 1.

“Carrie brings an extensive level of experience and an extraordinary depth of involvement in philanthropic educational organizations,” said Steven Denning MBA ’78, chair of the Board. Denning spoke highly of Penner, saying that she will provide an invaluable perspective.

According to the Stanford Report, Penner has focused on education research and philanthropy for more than 20 years with an emphasis on “improving access to high-quality schools for every child, particularly those in low-income communities.”

Much of this philanthropic work has directed funds toward charter schools. Penner is currently a board member of the KIPP Foundation and the Charter School Growth Fund, and was formerly a board member of the California Charter Schools Association. She was also a board member of the Alliance for School Choice — the largest U.S. organization supporting school choice, previously headed by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.

School choice is an education policy proposal that aims to offer alternatives to the traditional public school system by, in some cases, providing vouchers from tax revenue to families to send their children to private or charter schools. The policy has recently come under scrutiny after the appointment of Secretary DeVos, an avid supporter of school choice.

According to the Washington Post, the Walton Foundation donated over $6 million to the Alliance for School Choice in 2013, essentially doubling the organization’s budget.

Previous Stanford research published by the Economic Policy Institute has found troubling effects of school choice. Graduate School of Education Professor Martin Carnoy examined research over 25 years across a variety of U.S. cities and states that have used voucher programs and discovered that vouchers not only fail to improve scores, but also do not cost less than traditional public education, as proponents commonly argue.

In Milwaukee, for example, where the U.S.’s largest school voucher program has been ongoing for 20 years, black students have continued to rank last and second-to-last in math compared to 13 other urban school districts. (Black students make up 70 percent of the city’s voucher users).

Meanwhile, Carnoy found that improvements in scores actually came from public pressure of publicizing the test results, which caused teachers to teach explicitly to the test.

“There are many policy changes that are likely to have much higher payoffs than privatization,” Carnoy told Stanford News this February.

Penner and her husband, Greg Penner MBA ’97, have also contributed to a variety of political campaigns over the years, including both the Hillary Clinton Victory Fund and Kasich for America, Inc.

Elsewhere on campus, Penner is on the advisory council of the Graduate School of Education (GSE) and served on the school’s search committee for a new dean in the 2014-2015 school year. She and her husband are large donors to the Graduate School of Business, Stanford Athletics and the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program.

Penner will join a Board of Trustees that as of February 1 had 33 members. Board membership is limited to 38 individuals, and four more trustees are expected to be announced in the next year. According to the Alumni Association website, the Board makes decisions on topics such as “strategic allocation of resources, land use, academic programs, housing and other facility planning, regulatory responsibilities, federal and public support of education, community relations, minority affairs, audit and financial controls and fundraising planning.”

Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Penner was formerly the director of the California Charter Schools Association; this is incorrect as Penner was a member of the board of directors. The Daily regrets this error.

Contact Ada Statler-Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu. and Fiona Kelliher at fionak ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Cardinal Courses continue to grow, engage with larger community https://stanforddaily.com/2017/04/21/cardinal-courses-continue-to-grow-engage-with-larger-community/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/04/21/cardinal-courses-continue-to-grow-engage-with-larger-community/#respond Fri, 21 Apr 2017 07:20:36 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1126302 In the four years since its pilot project, Community Engaged Learning (CEL) classes run through the Haas Center for Public Service have taken off at Stanford.

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In the four years since the pilot project, Community Engaged Learning (CEL) classes run through the Haas Center for Public Service have taken off at Stanford. The service-focused, experiential learning courses have offered over 1,700 students annually the chance to put their skills to work in the real world. Many of these popular classes have worked to engage Spanish-speaking members of the local community.

Cardinal Courses continue to grow, engage with larger community
(Courtesy of International Institute of the Bay Area)

CEL classes are offered in many departments and subjects, from comparative studies in race and ethnicity to earth systems, with approximately 130 Cardinal Courses each year. In some instances, CEL is offered as a special section in addition to lecture, whereas other classes are structured as CEL in their entirety.

“The demand for Cardinal Courses has exploded in the past year and we hope to extend our program to even more courses,” said Director of CEL Paitra Houts to Stanford News.

While some Stanford classes worked to integrate Spanish into the curriculum even before CEL, engagement with Spanish-speaking people and their cultures has been a growing focus. CEL classes have engaged with over 50 local adults since the Spanish program’s inception.

While such programs have many important applications such as immigration, Ali Miano, coordinator of the Spanish program at the Language Center, said that it will have a local impact as well.

“I wish Stanford students and faculty would engage more with workers on campus,” Miano said.

That’s just one of the reasons the community engagement option is now available in the third-year language sequence each quarter, in which students create multimedia histories following interviews with Spanish-speaking workers around the university.

Other Spanish-themed Cardinal Courses have helped artists spread their work, high school students become involved in activism and immigrants in Redwood City study for their citizenship tests.

In Citlalli Del Carpio’s course, Stanford students help Spanish-speaking high schoolers at East Palo Alto Academy learn about environmental activism, recycling and art. For her, the practical and hands-on components were crucial to the success of the class.

“My students can see the fruit of their labor in real time,” Del Carpio said. “They can connect Spanish-speaking teenagers … ultimately, they come out with a toolbox that will elevate their engagement not only with these communities in the Bay Area, but with the rest of the world.”

Students in the CEL classes have been similarly moved by the experience, which brings awareness to the often invisible presence of immigrants.

“[Spanlang 13SL: Second Year Spanish, Emphasis on Service Learning] is a class filled with beautiful stories and beautiful people that we never get to hear about,” said Kelley Gomez ’17. “It is the opportunity of a lifetime to pull back the veil we tend to keep in place.”

 

Contact Ada Statler-Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Hundreds turn out to show support, appreciation for LSJUMB https://stanforddaily.com/2016/12/11/hundreds-turn-out-to-show-support-appreciation-for-lsjumb/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/12/11/hundreds-turn-out-to-show-support-appreciation-for-lsjumb/#respond Sun, 11 Dec 2016 23:42:17 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1120980 Organizers of the event – both former members of the Band and students who have never participated in LSJUMB – said that they aimed to provide students a space to talk about what the Band meant to them.

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(MICHAEL SPENCER/The Stanford Daily)
(MICHAEL SPENCER/The Stanford Daily)

Hundreds of students gathered in White Plaza despite the rain on Saturday in an emotional show of support and appreciation for the Leland Stanford Junior Marching Band (LSJUMB), which was recently notified of its total suspension and subsequent institutional restructuring.

Organizers of the event both former members of the Band and students who have never participated in LSJUMB said that they aimed to provide students a space to talk about what the Band meant to them.

“This isn’t just former Band members organizing a sympathy movement,” said one organizer, themself a former Band member. “It’s students who feel the University more seriously needs to respect the notion that students are adults and that there are serious issues, but the University can’t distinguish these or are just choosing to prioritize image over substance.”

According to the organizer, between 300 and 400 students attended the rally and over 20 spoke. Some speakers had prepared words, and others spoke off the cuff. From Stanford Trees to Dollies to Band recruiters, all highlighted how being in Band or watching the Band had encouraged them to be themselves.

(MICHAEL SPENCER/The Stanford Daily)
(MICHAEL SPENCER/The Stanford Daily)

“I have so much to be thankful for,” said current Tree Sam Weyen ’18, who also writes a humor column for The Daily from the perspective of the informal mascot. “I love this organization and I don’t know what I’m going to do without it, but what I do know is that the individual people I have met have become more themselves, I have become more myself, and I’m not going to change.”

While most of the speeches focused on the community aspect, there were nevertheless allusions to the reasoning behind the band’s suspension.

One such speech came from Maddie Simons ’19. She discussed her reaction to the Band’s use of sex-related puns and spellings, a practice that multiple Band members say the University has expressed disapproval of.

(MICHAEL SPENCER/The Stanford Daily)
(MICHAEL SPENCER/The Stanford Daily)

“Sex is not a bad word,” Simons said. “In a time when misogyny and the objectification of people’s bodies permeates our society, when victim blaming and cover ups replace meaningful discourse and systematic change, the last thing we should be worried about is the admitting that sex is in fact a thing that happens.”

According to the event co-organizer and former band member that agreed to speak to The Daily, there has been significant discussion about the University’s multi-part investigation of the Band in comparison to the “mishandling and mischaracterization” of sexual assault cases, a well as suspicion surrounding the timing of the news.

The organizer added that there was nevertheless a sense of happiness and nostalgia in addition to the determination and sadness at the rally, a sentiment that was also expressed by several of the speakers.

“I may be the last Tree in its current form, but we made a hell of a run,” Weyen concluded.

 

Contact Ada Statler-Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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In break from past, Stanford declines to release early admissions data https://stanforddaily.com/2016/12/10/in-break-from-past-stanford-declines-to-release-early-admissions-data/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/12/10/in-break-from-past-stanford-declines-to-release-early-admissions-data/#respond Sat, 10 Dec 2016 21:22:26 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1120970 In a brief email to The Daily, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Richard Shaw wrote that the release of early admissions data in the last several years had been “exceptional.”

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High school students across the globe anxiously checked their emails on Friday evening, hopeful to become early admits to Stanford’s Class of 2021. Some gained the anticipated acceptance, others a deferment and others the dreaded rejection. In a break with recent tradition, however, the early admission statistics will not be released at this time.

In a brief email to The Daily, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Richard Shaw wrote that the release of early admissions data in the last several years had been “exceptional.”

“Our policy is to release data at end of cycle,” Shaw wrote. “We have returned to our standard approach in communicating about the Class.”

Stanford had released the number of early acceptances, deferrals and rejections from the restricted early applicant pool in 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011 and 2010. According to vice president for communications Lisa Lapin, these were not formal releases of data.

“We don’t do press releases on early action and never have,” wrote Lapin in an email. “The Daily has asked and sometimes they have been provided to The Daily.”

Stanford News did, however, release a brief on early admissions data for the Class of 2020 last year, as well as for the early admits to the classes of 2019, 2018 and 2017. Stanford’s previous release of early admissions numbers has been in line with that of peer institutions. Princeton, Yale and Harvard have all released their early applicant results in recent Decembers. In past years, Stanford has stood out with the lowest early admissions rate even among these institutions.

The move comes at a time when the University has been criticized for a lack of transparency in other areas such as the handling of sexual assault cases and the recent change in alcohol policy.

In response to a follow-up email from The Daily asking about the reasoning behind the apparent change, Shaw emphasized that the University does not view this as a policy change and will release the Class of 2021 data when all candidates have been notified.

In an interview last spring with the Washington Post, however, Shaw indicated that he doesn’t find low admissions rates to be something to brag about.

“[Releasing the percentages] just diverts everybody’s attention from the fact that we took 2,000-plus kids that are magnificent,” Shaw told the Washington Post. “My feeling is, what’s the difference between 7 percent and 4 percent?”

 

Contact Ada Statler-Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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California elects Harris, legalizes marijuana, among other measures https://stanforddaily.com/2016/11/09/california-elects-harris-legalizes-marijuana-among-other-measures/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/11/09/california-elects-harris-legalizes-marijuana-among-other-measures/#respond Wed, 09 Nov 2016 09:55:26 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1119557 As California predictably voted in favor of Hillary Clinton on Tuesday night, voters also elected Kamala Harris as the second ever black woman to serve in the U.S. Senate and ushered in an array of new ballot propositions, including legalization of recreational marijuana.

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As California predictably voted in favor of Hillary Clinton on Tuesday night, voters also elected Kamala Harris as the second ever black woman to serve in the U.S. Senate and ushered in an array of new ballot propositions, including legalization of recreational marijuana.

Congressional races

In a heated race for the seat vacated by long-time senator Barbara Boxer, California Attorney General Harris defeated Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez with 64.6 percent of the vote and 52 percent of precincts reporting at the time of publication. The race was a test of California’s new “top two” policy, which allowed the two Democrats to face off against one another after receiving the greatest number of votes overall in the primary. In addition to becoming the second black woman senator, Harris is the only black senator to be elected from the state of California.

In the House, Anna Eshoo (D) handily won her race against Republican Richard Fox, maintaining her representation of Stanford and the rest of CA District 18.

Economics professor and Democrat Ro Khanna also defeated his opponent in District 17. Khanna led fellow Democrat and incumbent Mike Honda with 59 percent of the vote at the time of publication, by which time 50 percent reporting had been reached.

Propositions

With the passage of Proposition 64, Californians aged 21 and older gained the right to possess, transport and buy up to 28.5 grams of marijuana for recreational use. The measure also creates a 15 percent tax on retail sales. With its passage and that of a similar resolution in Massachusetts, six U.S. states have now legalized recreational marijuana usage.

Proposition 57 also passed in a victory for Governor Jerry Brown. Prop 57 changes the legal system in three main ways: It requires judge approval to charge younger defendants as adults and increases opportunity for parole and “good behavior credits” for certain nonviolent offenders.

Californians also took a stance on gun control with Proposition 63, which requires background checks for the sale and purchase of ammunition, bans ammunition magazines with more than 10 rounds and makes it an infraction for sellers to not report bullet theft within 48 hours. The legislation was authored by Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, and will also implement harsher punishments for stolen firearms.

Other resolutions passed included Prop 52 for Medi-Cal Hospital Fees; Prop 54 for Public Display of Legislative Bills Prior to Vote; Prop 55 to Extend the Prop 30 Income Tax Increase Initiative; Prop 56 to Increase the Cigarette Tax; and Prop 58 to Repeal English-Only Education.

At the time of publication, not enough votes had been collected to decisively call Propositions 51, 53, 59, 60, 61, 62, 65, 66 and 67.

 

Contact Ada Statler-Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Student Activities Fee waiver deadline extended https://stanforddaily.com/2016/10/18/student-activities-fee-waiver-deadline-extended/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/10/18/student-activities-fee-waiver-deadline-extended/#respond Tue, 18 Oct 2016 07:09:44 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1118160 The Student Activities Fee waiver deadline has been extended two weeks, but the ASSU Financial Manager cautions against using it.

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The period to waive all or part of the Student Activities Fee has been extended by two weeks until next Friday, Oct. 28, according to ASSU financial manager Jelanie Munroe ’16. The extension was granted in response to technical problems in the new online waiver process.

In the notice, Munroe emphasized the implications of students waving fees.

“The fee directly funds student-led initiatives that are voted on annually by students,” the notice read. “Waiving a fee means that you choose not to fund certain campus organizations and do not intend to participate in any of the activities partly or fully supported by those organizations.”

Fee waivers have been a topic of controversy in the past, including last fall, when a full 13 percent of undergraduates waived their fee. According to Munroe, however, waiving fees does not constitute “free money.”

The notice concluded by stating thanking students for their patience.

“The ASSU is sincerely grateful for your patience throughout this process, as we work to best serve you,” the notice read. “There has never been any intent to disempower students who wish to responsibly waive their fees.”

Students with further questions or technological difficulties should contact the ASSU’s assistant financial manager, Sean Means, via email.

 

Contact Ada Statler-Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Rape reported on east campus Friday morning https://stanforddaily.com/2016/09/30/rape-reported-on-east-campus-friday-morning/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/09/30/rape-reported-on-east-campus-friday-morning/#respond Sat, 01 Oct 2016 06:08:29 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1117467 A rape was reported to a Campus Security Authority on Friday. While it has not been said when the report was made, the female victim said she was raped in the early morning hours on Sept. 30 and a Community Alert was sent by the University late that night. The assault, which was perpetrated by […]

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A rape was reported to a Campus Security Authority on Friday. While it has not been said when the report was made, the female victim said she was raped in the early morning hours on Sept. 30 and a Community Alert was sent by the University late that night.

The assault, which was perpetrated by a male unknown to the victim, occurred in a student residence on east campus. No information about the suspect and no further details are available, according to the alert. However, updates will be posted by the Stanford University Department of Public Safety.

The alert also said that Stanford “does not tolerate sexual assault, sexual misconduct or sexual harassment” and encourages victims or such actions to report the incident. The University also consolidated a list of resources for students, found below.

Confidential Resources:

Stanford Confidential Support Team

https://vaden.stanford.edu/get-help-now/sexual-assault

650-726-6933 or 650-725-9955 (after hours)

 

YWCA Stanford Rape Crisis Hotline

650-493-7273

 

CAPS (Counseling and Psychological Services)

650-723-3785

https://vaden.stanford.edu/caps-and-wellness/counseling-and-psychological-services-caps

 

Faculty Staff Help Center

650-723-4577

https://cardinalatwork.stanford.edu/faculty-staff-help-center

 

Non-Confidential Resources:

Title IX Office

https://titleix.stanford.edu

650-497-4955

 

Sexual Assault and Relationship Abuse (SARA) Office

https://sara.stanford.edu

 

Additional Resources:

https://notalone.stanford.edu

https://stanford.app.box.com/sexual-assault-resources

https://www.police.stanford.edu/security-report.html

 

 

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Mixed responses to alcohol policy in residential staff training https://stanforddaily.com/2016/09/26/mixed-responses-to-alcohol-policy-in-residential-staff-training/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/09/26/mixed-responses-to-alcohol-policy-in-residential-staff-training/#respond Mon, 26 Sep 2016 14:04:22 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1117218 As student residential staff completed their training prior to New Student Orientation, The Daily checked in with residential staff members as to their feelings and plans with regard to the recent change in alcohol policy.

From interviews and an anonymous survey filled out by a quarter of student residential staff members, 86 percent of respondents said they were not in favor of the changed policy -- and questions about enforcement displayed a wide range of plans and confidence levels among residential staff.

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As student residential staff completed their training prior to New Student Orientation, The Daily checked in with residential staff members as to their feelings and plans with regard to the recent change in alcohol policy.

From interviews and an anonymous survey filled out by a quarter of student residential staff members, 86 percent of respondents said they were not in favor of the changed policy — and questions about enforcement displayed a wide range of plans and confidence levels among residential staff.

Lack of support, enforcement uncertainty among student residential staff

The survey, which had 106 responses and was conducted internally by a Resident Assistant (RA) who requested anonymity, was distributed to all student residential staff. The respondent pool was largely RAs (93 percent) and freshman dorm staff (45 percent).

In the comment section of the survey, a variety of reasons were given for opposing the hard alcohol limit. As one respondent wrote, “this policy is unsafe and discriminatory against low-income students.” Other comments included that “we all know this is just a PR move for Stanford” and that the policy “addresses the symptoms of the true issue, not the issue itself.”

In addition to the general lack of support for the new alcohol policy among staff members, only 21 percent said they would enforce the policy; 45 percent indicated they might enforce the policy and 35 percent indicated that they do not plan to enforce the policy.

While a strong majority of staff members — 70 percent — would have taken their positions had they known about the new policy, only 35 percent of staff members would have taken their positions had they known that they would be required to enforce the new policy. For both questions, the next most popular choice was “I’m not sure” followed by “no.”

Mixed messages in residential staff training

Another common theme amongst the survey’s additional comment section was that student staff perceived a lack of unified opinion among Residential Education (ResEd), the Office of Alcohol Policy and Education (OAPE) and higher-ranking administration.

According to Dean of ResEd Deborah Golder, ResEd anticipated that the new alcohol policy would be a big focus for staff members and planned accordingly to allow RAs to discuss the policy among themselves and various involved parties, including OAPE and Student Affairs.

“We were the first people that RAs got to talk to, but throughout training, we set up multiple places within alcohol training and small group, set up time with Greg Boardman and Ralph Castro,” Golder said.

For the trainees, however, this messaging did not always appear consistent. One survey respondent wrote that ResEd, Castro and Boardman “all sort of seemed like ‘oh, I can’t really justify the policy because it’s not my policy and I don’t agree with it.’” The commenter indicated a wish for someone within the university to take ownership of the policy changes.

A returning RA, who also spoke to The Daily on the condition of anonymity, said that different stances seemed to be advocated at different points throughout the training.

“At one point, we were told it was about reducing the number of transports, and then the severity of transports — a measure Stanford doesn’t even track,” the RA said. “Later, we were told it was about campus culture and non-drinkers feeling excluded, but there weren’t any studies or surveys done to demonstrate that.”

Varying plans for enforcement

According to several of the anonymous staff members interviewed, ResEd more so than OAPE and Student Affairs expressed an understanding that the policy would likely have to be enforced on a case-by-case basis, with adjustments based on the situation.

“We have found the greatest success by not being subscriptive,” Golder told The Daily. “This requires real sophistication on the part of our staff — ResEd’s job is only as facilitator.”

In an attempt to build consistency in the policy’s rollout, several of the residence deans held meetings with the RFs and student staff members under their jurisdiction. One new freshman dorm staff member agreed to talk to The Daily anonymously following one such meeting.

“Our goal of the all-complex meeting was to come to a consensus and have some consistency across the board, but I don’t think we accomplished that,” the staff member said. “I personally feel very comfortable with the policy that my dorm has decided upon — being concerned with behavior and not bottle size — but I’m concerned about other dorms being inconsistent and having to change the policy we’ve come up with because freshmen might only go to more lenient dorms to party.”

According to another freshman RA, their dorm staff plans to treat the new policy the same way previous RAs have treated the rules against anyone under the age of 21 — essentially not enforcing the policy. That being said, the RA described the change as another tool to identify high-risk behavior and support necessary responsive action.

Golder also added that different types of residences, from freshman to four-class dorms and from coops to Greek houses, would likely need to evaluate the policy and its enforcement practices differently for their given needs.

Maintaining the resident-staff member relationship

According to Golder, this flexibility is part of ResEd’s commitment to keeping a good relationship between RAs and their residents, which has traditionally led to improved resident safety and sense of dorm community.

“Our standing approach to the alcohol policy new and old is to keep relationships at the center,” Golder said. “This is what Residential Education is all about, and so that’s our starting point among alcohol, risk mitigation and community.”

According to one of the freshman dorm staff members The Daily talked to, ResEd’s attitude toward the policy and toward staff relationships was very clear. The staff member said that ResEd doesn’t seem to want RAs to act as “police” in the dorms.

“I feel like this policy was devised by people who were very high up in the ranks, and ResEd tried to push back,” the staff member said. “ResEd’s first priority has been maintaining the student-staff relationship.”

While most of the student-staff that spoke with The Daily agreed that this was ResEd’s priority, some still expressed worry that the new policy would make it harder for RAs to encourage safe drinking practices.

In particular, the returning RA said they were concerned about the lack of empirical evidence to support the policy and not knowing how to explain themselves in potential enforcement situations.

“It’s hard enough convincing people you’ve done something for their own good when it’s justified, like under the old policy,” the RA said. “It will be a lot harder when, at the end of the day, it’s just the stricter policy and there’s no research.”

 

Contact Ada Statler-Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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NCAA announces Stanford Athletics violations in football, softball programs https://stanforddaily.com/2016/09/15/stanford-athletics-admits-to-ncaa-violations-by-football-softball/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/09/15/stanford-athletics-admits-to-ncaa-violations-by-football-softball/#respond Thu, 15 Sep 2016 19:54:54 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1117062 In a statement released Thursday morning, the NCAA confirmed that Stanford Athletics committed two Level II violations, one in softball and one in football.

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In a statement released Thursday morning, the NCAA confirmed that Stanford Athletics committed two Level II violations, one in softball and one in football. While Stanford has previously committed less serious Level III and IV violations, these are the University’s first major violations. The incidents, which were internally investigated and reported by Stanford in 2014, were followed with self-imposed penalties and an additional $5000 fine levied by the NCAA.

The internal investigation into the women’s softball violation occurred in spring of 2014 under former head coach John Rittman. While Rittman resigned in 2014 amid a number of complaints related to inappropriate relationships with and unequal treatment of players by his coaching staff, the Level II violation was invoked by findings that players had been practicing more than 20 hours a week. According to the University statement today, it was as a result of this inquiry that the head coach was asked to resign and the assistant coaches were not given return contracts.

In addition to the replacement of the coaching staff, Stanford also created a full-time staff position to monitor and verify the practice hours of all student-athletes to ensure that practice limits are not exceeded.

Former Stanford wide receiver Devon Cajuste self-identified as having unknowingly accepted impermissible benefits in violation of NCAA regulations. A one-game suspension was imposed by Stanford, and Cajuste was required to donate the monetary value of the benefits to charity. (RAHIM ULLAH/The Stanford Daily)
Former Stanford wide receiver Devon Cajuste self-identified as having unknowingly accepted impermissible benefits in violation of NCAA regulations. A one-game suspension was imposed by Stanford, and Cajuste donated the monetary value of the benefits to charity. (RAHIM ULLAH/The Stanford Daily)

The football violation pertains to impermissible benefits accrued by former Stanford wide receiver Devon Cajuste in the summer of 2014. The benefits totaled close to $3500, with about $3000 being loaned for Cajuste to purchase a bike and another near $400 of benefits coming from meals, movie tickets and the use of a vacation home all provided by a University-arranged landlord.

Although the bike loan had been repaid prior to the investigation by Stanford, Cajuste was deemed ineligible and suspended for one game. He was also required to donate the remaining value of benefits gained from the landlord to charity.

In a statement earlier today, Cajuste self-identified as the athlete in question and said he was unaware of the benefits’ illegal nature:

“I unknowingly accepted impermissible benefits from my summer landlord. I look forward to moving on from this incident and to supporting my alma mater for many years to come. I will have no further comment on this matter.”

The NCAA also investigated whether there were more violations committed, given that Cajuste was one of many football players staying with community homeowners for the summer based on agreements made by Stanford Football. In 2014, the University recognized the risk of such arrangements and has since housed athletes on campus for summer training.

In its statement, Stanford pledged to continue to be diligent in its support of student-athletes and its monitoring of athletic programs.

“Stanford will continue to work towards a tradition of excellence and hold itself to the highest standards of conduct and compliance,” the release said.

 

Contact Ada Statler-Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

 

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Office of Alcohol Policy and Education changes website in response to victim-blaming accusations https://stanforddaily.com/2016/08/24/office-of-alcohol-policy-and-education-changes-website-in-response-to-victim-blaming-accusations/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/08/24/office-of-alcohol-policy-and-education-changes-website-in-response-to-victim-blaming-accusations/#respond Thu, 25 Aug 2016 05:51:28 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1116780 OAPE director says alcohol policy is independent of sexual assault issues.

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After significant student and media criticism, the University issued several statements clarifying that the hard alcohol limits announced Monday were not intended as a response to sexual assault problems on campus.

However, after an initial change on Monday night, the Office of Alcohol Policy and Education fully replaced the page “Female Bodies and Alcohol” with one called “Alcohol Metabolism” and an apologetic disclaimer on Wednesday evening. In light of the recent change, many students drew negative connections between the “Female Bodies” page and the heavily publicized Brock Turner case.

 

University argues alcohol policy not intended as sexual assault response

According to Ralph Castro, director of the Office of Alcohol Policy and Education (OAPE), the hard liquor limits stem from previous actions and not the recent focus on sexual assault issues on campus.

“This has been part of a cascade effect started in 2011 with the creation of the OAPE,” Castro said. “That’s been from the original alcohol policy to launching Cardinal Nights, 5-SURE and education in freshman dorms.”

However, Castro also acknowledged that OAPE thinks the liquor limits may affect campus culture, not just preventing alcohol-induced vomiting.

“All campus student issues are ecological, where things impact everything else,” he said.

Many students have been skeptical of these claims, however.

“Even if the University refrains from explicitly stating anything regarding sexual assault…it is unrealistic to think that in the wake of the high level publicity from Brock Turner’s case and Turner’s comments and efforts regarding alcohol consumption and promiscuity that such lines will not be drawn by the student body,” said Maya Burke ’18.

The comments and efforts referred to by Burke are well documented, including Turner’s deposition blaming his actions on Stanford’s “party culture.” Before his sentencing, Turner also presented at schools on the dangers of alcohol.

Matthew Baiza ’18, co-founder of Stanford Association of Students for Sexual Assault Prevention (ASAP), also found it likely that Stanford at least accounted for the idea that the hard liquor prohibitions would curb sexual assault, although he believes that the University did initially just intend for the limits to curb the number of alcohol-induced medical transports.

“Perception is everything,” Baiza said. “For Stanford’s first big announcement to be a change in alcohol policy after the attention on the Brock Turner case was an ill-advised move… However, I am glad that it has people talking now on the issue of victim blaming and how alcohol can play a role in that. These are the types of conversations we need to have.”

OAPE material changes

Burke and Baiza both suggested that much of the conversation was prompted by the now-removed “Female Bodies and Alcohol” page. The page garnered attention after the announcement of the new alcohol policy, though it had been on the website previously. Student criticism focused on whether the article victim-blamed by focusing exclusively on female’s choices, as well as the binary nature of the language.

After initial attention, the page appeared to be removed on Monday, but later reappeared on a less-direct part of the OAPE’s website. According to Castro, the removal and new placement of the page was merely a part of a greater web overhaul.

“The page was created after the creation of an alcohol and women task force that was put together in the 2012-2013 school year,” Castro told The Daily on Tuesday. “Most of the material is taken from Cornell’s Smart Women Campaign, and we didn’t mean it as some be-all, end-all piece…I will agree that some of this needs updating, and it’s something we’ll consider in our web review.”

The reposted page on Monday, however, appeared to have edits as pointed out by media. Of particular note, the section on “Sexual Intent and Aggression” had been removed.

As of Monday, the page argued that women get drunker faster than men with the same amount of alcohol and that this puts women at greater risk for harm, “including hangovers, nausea and vomiting, memory loss and blackouts, and other regretted behavior.” Further, the page maintained an instruction for women to “make a decision about sex that night before you go out.”

Baiza said he was upset about the “cherry-picking” of scientific evidence about female anatomy to make the claim that females shouldn’t drink or else will be sexually assaulted.

“If Stanford is to address alcohol use and the differences between genders, they should have at least had a section on male use, too,” Baiza said.

In the Tuesday conversation, Castro added that the intention was not to victim-blame, and that OAPE considers themselves to be strong allies of the Title IX and Sexual Assault and Relationship Abuse (SARA) offices on campus.

The page was taken down entirely on Wednesday evening and replaced with the article on alcohol metabolism, citing research from National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). According to Castro, the alcohol policy change was inspired by NIAAA research.

At the top of the new page reads the following disclaimer:

We would like to apologize for an outdated and insensitive article on women and alcohol that was here.  The content of the article did not reflect the values of our office.  We are sorry for the harm that the article may have caused people who read it.”

The new page describes the chemical processes that alcohol undergoes in the body, but does not devote attention to how this may or may not differ by biological sex.

Contact Ada Statler-Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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New policy restricts hard alcohol https://stanforddaily.com/2016/08/22/new-policy-restricts-hard-alcohol/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/08/22/new-policy-restricts-hard-alcohol/#respond Mon, 22 Aug 2016 22:17:12 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1116740 Starting this fall, hard alcohol will be prohibited at “all categories of undergraduate student parties,” the University announced on Monday. According to an email from Vice Provost for Student Affairs Greg Boardman, the University is tightening is alcohol policy to decrease the consumption of hard alcohol. The updated policy also prohibits “high-volume distilled liquor containers” for undergraduate students.

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Starting this fall, hard alcohol will be prohibited at “all categories of undergraduate student parties,” the University announced on Monday. According to an email from Vice Provost for Student Affairs Greg Boardman, the University is tightening is alcohol policy to decrease the consumption of hard alcohol. The updated policy also prohibits “high-volume distilled liquor containers” for undergraduate students.

While the change falls short of a full ban on hard alcohol, Boardman’s email said that the University finalized the changes in order to limit the availability and accessibility of hard alcohol. Hard alcohol — defined as more than 20 percent alcohol by volume or more than 40 proof — will be limited to bottles smaller than 750 mL (also known as a fifth) in residences and public spaces.

Undergraduate parties will be limited to serving beer and wine only. Any group or residence that has undergraduate members is subject to the new policy. Additionally, graduate groups that host parties may only have hard alcohol in mixed drinks (rather than shots, which have long been prohibited at parties) and must register their “Members” parties.

The policy change follows rumors of a ban spurred by a University meeting with resident fellows (RFs) last March, which was met by campus wide opposition. In a campus-wide referendum in April, 91.46 percent of voters opted against a hard alcohol ban, and approximately 1,720 people signed a petition against the proposal.

“We’re not necessarily looking at popularity, but rather functionality,” said Ralph Castro, director of the Office of Alcohol Policy and Education (OAPE), in an interview with The Daily.

According to Boardman, the new policy is the brainchild of a working group composed of administrators from the OAPE, Vaden Health Center and Residential Education (ResEd). The group convened early last school year to find potential solutions for binge drinking and what it identified as a social culture centered on alcohol consumption. Boardman said the group consulted with multiple voices, including undergraduates, RFs and resident assistants (RAs), while crafting the policy. Not all of them agreed with it — some RFs did not support a ban of any sort — but the administration decided to move forward.

Dean of ResEd Deborah Golder said the new alcohol policy will help to combat an alienating culture that excludes many students who choose not to drink.

“Bottom line, there needs to be a change,” Golder said. “We tend to talk about what we’re losing rather than what we’re gaining.”

According to the University’s frequently-asked-questions page, the policy will reduce the availability of hard alcohol since most retailers only sell large volumes of hard alcohol. The website explains that limits were chosen over a complete ban because the focus is on “not a total prohibition of a substance, but rather a targeted approach that limits high-risk behavior and has the backing of empirical studies on restricting the availability of and access to alcohol.”

The repercussions for policy violations remain unchanged; students failing to comply with the new changes will be referred to Residence Deans and the Office of Alcohol Policy and Education (OAPE). Multiple violations or “concerning behavior” could also result in removal from university housing or a referral to the Office of Community Standards.

Golder also sent out an email to incoming RAs asking for their cooperation in helping to enforce the new policy. While the email acknowledged some RAs may view this as a shift in their role, Golder wrote that the role of an RA “first and foremost is still to develop rapport and relationship” with residents.

“We don’t see this as policing,” Golder told The Daily. “We see it as promoting a set of norms in the house.”

 

Contact Ada Statler-Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu or Victor Xu at vxu ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Manzanita Park renamed after Gerhard Casper https://stanforddaily.com/2016/05/31/manzanita-park-renamed-after-gerhard-casper/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/05/31/manzanita-park-renamed-after-gerhard-casper/#respond Tue, 31 May 2016 07:59:28 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1115879 Stanford will rename the Manzanita Park residence area as the Gerhard Casper Quad in a private dedication ceremony on Tues., May 31 to honor former University president Gerhard Casper.

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Stanford will rename the Manzanita Park residence area to the Gerhard Casper Quad in a private dedication ceremony on Tuesday to honor former University president Gerhard Casper. The dining hall for the residences — which include the Humanities House, Kimball Hall, Castaño Hall and Lantana Hall — will be named the Gerhard Casper Dining Commons.

Manzanita Park was renamed Gerhard Casper Quad today in a private ceremony (ALISA ROYER/The Stanford Daily).
Manzanita Park was renamed Gerhard Casper Quad today in a private ceremony (ALISA ROYER/The Stanford Daily).

The speakers at the ceremony will be outgoing president John Hennessy, chair of the Board of Trustees Steven Denning and Casper himself.

According to Hennessy, Casper is being recognized for his significant contribution to Stanford’s educational development during his tenure as president from 1992-2000.

“The Stanford undergraduate experience would not be what it is today were it not for Gerhard Casper’s leadership,” Hennessy said.

Casper’s contributions included the creation of Introductory Seminars to provide more intimate class options for freshmen and sophomores. As Casper’s successor, Hennessy established permanent funding for these programs in the Campaign for Undergraduate Education.

Casper, who was born in Hamburg, Germany, is now the president of the American Academy in Berlin. He is also a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). Casper is a law professor emeritus at Stanford and also served a brief stint as the director of FSI from 2012-13.

Casper’s lasting legacy at Stanford also includes his role as the head of the Stanford Arts Initiative’s executive committee. The Arts Initiative has included projects such as the opening of Bing Concert Hall, the McMurtry Building for the Department of Art and Art History, and the Anderson Collection.

Casper’s academic focus has been mainly in the fields of constitutional law, constitutional history, comparative law and jurisprudence. In addition to his published academic work in these fields, Casper wrote about his time as University president in “Cares of the University” and “The Winds of Freedom: Addressing Challenges to the University.”

 

Contact Ada Statler-Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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New director of Stanford Live and Bing named https://stanforddaily.com/2016/05/24/new-director-of-stanford-live-and-bing-named/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/05/24/new-director-of-stanford-live-and-bing-named/#respond Tue, 24 May 2016 07:01:11 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1115588 Chris Lorway has been named as the new executive director of both Stanford Live and Bing Concert Hall.

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Chris Lorway has been named as the new executive director of both Stanford Live and Bing Concert Hall. Lorway is currently the director of programming and marketing of Massey Hall and Roy Thomson Hall, home to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto International Film Festival, respectively. Lorway will assume his new position at Stanford in the late summer, prior to the fifth season of Stanford Live performances.

In his work in Toronto, Lorway curates an annual season of about 150 performances. Prior to his work in Massey and Roy Thomson Halls, he was the executive director of Soundstreams, a company that commissioned and showcased contemporary composers.

According to Stanford Live, Lorway is “incredibly excited” to work with Stanford faculty, students and community members. Lorway is also looking forward to having access to Stanford’s many other resources.

“I’m thrilled to be joining the team at Stanford Live and to have the opportunity to animate Bing Concert Hall, and to work in other spaces across the Stanford campus, in collaboration with the world’s foremost artists,” Lorway said.

Leslie Hume, co-chair of the Stanford Live Advisory Council, and Stephen M. Sano, chair of the Department of Music, led an international search to fill the position. The search committee considered experience as well as potential in candidates.

According to Hume, the committee also placed particular emphasis on innovation because Stanford is located in the social, cultural and geographic setting of Silicon Valley.

“We sought leadership with a long-term vision,” Hume told Stanford News. “A compelling depth and breadth of experience in performing arts presentation, an excitement about exploring an expansive diversity of music and a creative approach to engaging new audiences were key criteria.”

 

Contact Ada Statler-Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Influential statistician, professor Ingram Olkin dies at 91 https://stanforddaily.com/2016/05/05/influential-statistician-professor-ingram-olkin-dies-at-91/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/05/05/influential-statistician-professor-ingram-olkin-dies-at-91/#respond Thu, 05 May 2016 07:51:10 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1114671 Professor Emeritus of Statistics and Education Ingram Olkin, an influential statistician and early champion of women in academia, passed away on April 28 at the age of 91. He is best known for developing methods for statistical analyses of education.

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Professor Emeritus of Statistics and Education Ingram Olkin, an influential statistician and early champion of women in academia, passed away on April 28 at the age of 91. He is best known for developing methods for statistical analyses of education.

According to the Stanford News Service, the death was caused by complications following Olkin’s lengthy battle with colon cancer. Nevertheless, Olkin was described as mentally alert and energetic.

Olkin was born in Connecticut on July 23, 1924, and was raised by his parents, both immigrants from Eastern Europe, in New York City. Following his service as a meteorologist in the U.S. Army Air Force from 1943 to 1946, Olkin completed his undergraduate degree in mathematics at the City College of New York. He earned his master’s degree in mathematical statistics at Columbia University and his Ph.D. in the same subject at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1951.

Prior to working at Stanford, Olkin served as an assistant professor at Michigan State University and rose to full professor during his nine years there. During this time, one of his two sabbatical leaves was at Stanford. After working at the University of Minnesota for one year, he made the permanent move to Stanford in 1961.

Olkin was dedicated to both teaching and research in this field and held a dual appointment with the Graduate School of Education as well as the Department of Statistics.

Scientifically, Olkin’s notable contributions lie in multivariate statistical analysis, majorization and inequalities, linear algebra and meta-analysis. He co-authored and co-edited many books in these areas, including “Inequalities: Theory of Majorization and its Applications” (with Albert Marshall) and “Statistical Methods for Meta-Analysis” (with Larry V. Hedges).

He also served as the editor of the prestigious journal “Annals of Mathematical Statistics” and helped to form the “Journal of Educational Statistics” (now known as the “Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics”).

Among other awards, Olkin earned a Wilks Medal and Founders Award from the American Statistical Association, a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Melvin Zelen Leadership Award from Harvard University’s School of Public Health. Olkin was also elected to the National Academy of Education and served as president of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics.

As an advocate for women, Olkin also worked with the National Science Foundation and other groups to increase the number of and respect for women in academia. In one such effort, Olkin helped create a program that brought untenured female statistics professors to Stanford for a summer to interact with leaders in their field. In recognition of this vocal advocacy, Olkin is the the first and only male recipient of the Elizabeth L. Scott Award for the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies.

In his later years, Olkin maintained membership in the Stanford Emeriti Council, which plans talks for University retirees and their spouses. He also was an active community participant at Hillel’s monthly faculty lunches.

As Olkin was also an art lover — with a particular appreciation for opera — donations in his memory are being taken at Stanford Hillel and West Bay Opera.

No memorial service has yet been announced, but Olkin arranged for his body to be donated to Stanford Hospital for research purposes. The professor emeritus is survived by his wife Anita, his daughters Vivian, Rhoda and Julia, and his grandchildren.

 

Contact Ada Statler-Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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John Boehner talks election, time in office https://stanforddaily.com/2016/04/28/john-boehner-talks-election-time-in-office/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/04/28/john-boehner-talks-election-time-in-office/#comments Thu, 28 Apr 2016 08:31:34 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1114314 “You can call me boner, beaner, jackass, happy to answer to almost anything,” said former Speaker of the House John Boehner as he took the stage at CEMEX Auditorium on Wednesday evening.

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“You can call me boner, beaner, jackass, happy to answer to almost anything,” said former Speaker of the House John Boehner as he took the stage at CEMEX Auditorium on Wednesday evening. Boehner joined David M. Kennedy, faculty director and history professor emeritus, in a talk hosted by Stanford in Government (SIG) and the Stanford Speakers Bureau.

This joking yet blunt attitude set the tone for the night as Kennedy and the former Speaker discussed topics ranging from Boehner’s upbringing in Ohio to the future of the Republican Party. For the second half of the program, Kennedy opened up the floor to student questions.

2016 presidential election

Much of the discussion — and laughs — focused on Boehner’s views on the current presidential candidates. Segueing into the topic, Kennedy asked Boehner to be frank given that the event was not being broadcasted, and the former Speaker responded in kind. When specifically asked his opinions on Ted Cruz, Boehner made a face, drawing laughter from the crowd.

“Lucifer in the flesh,” the former Speaker said. “I have Democrat friends and Republican friends. I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life.”

In his comments at Stanford, former Speaker of the House John Boehner referred to Ted Cruz as "Lucifer in the flesh" and Donald Trump as a "texting buddy." Photo by Nafia Chowdhury (Nafia Chowdhury)
In his comments at Stanford, former Speaker of the House John Boehner referred to Ted Cruz as “Lucifer in the flesh” and Donald Trump as a “texting buddy.” (NAFIA CHOWDHURY/The Stanford Daily)

Boehner described other Republican candidates as friends. In particular, he said he has played golf with Donald Trump for years and that they were “texting buddies.”

His friendship with Ohio Governor John Kasich, however, was a little more ambiguous.

“[Kasich] requires more effort on my behalf than all my other friends … but he’s still my friend, and I love him,” Boehner said.

Boehner for the most part accepted Trump as the presumptive Republican nominee, though he did express his surprise at the candidate’s success. While he did not praise Trump’s policies, the former Speaker did say he would vote for Trump in the general election if he becomes the Republican nominee. He said he would not, however, vote for Cruz.

When it came to the Democrat primaries, Boehner asserted his belief that although Bernie Sanders has put up a significant fight, Hillary Clinton will win the nomination. While stating that he disagreed with Sanders on all the issues, he also called Sanders a nice guy and the most honest politician in the race.

On Clinton, Boehner’s reviews were more mixed. Early in the talk, he impersonated Clinton, saying “Oh, I’m a woman, vote for me,” to a negative crowd reaction. Later, he added that he had known Clinton for 25 years and finds her to be very accomplished and smart.

Boehner also speculated about surprises that could come closer to the Democratic National Convention if Hillary Clinton’s emails became a larger scandal.

“Don’t be shocked … if two weeks before the convention, here comes Joe Biden parachuting in and Barack Obama fanning the flames to make it all happen,” Boehner said.

Time in office

Kennedy also spent a large portion of the talk asking the former Speaker about his time in office and his relationship with President Obama. Having been elected to office 13 times — a number which he was quick to clarify with Kennedy — Boehner said he had learned a lot from previous Speakers, including Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi.

Throughout the talk, Boehner frequently referenced the Freedom Caucus as the “knuckleheads” and “goofballs” in Congress. When Kennedy asked about the Democrats in Congress, Boehner asserted that both parties have their own inner divisions.

“The thing that’s different about Republicans and Democrats is that [Democrats] do their fights behind closed doors,” he said. “Republicans are way too independent for that.”

Although he talked about the challenges of working with a partisan, gridlocked Congress, Boehner reflected positively on his relationship with Obama. Although he acknowledged that the two disagree, Boehner said the two get along well.

Boehner described his days in office as fairly repetitive and very busy. He would wake up around 5:30 a.m., walk to Starbucks for coffee, then return home to do some morning reading. He would go into the office around 8 a.m., and “then it was like a sprint all day long.” According to Boehner, however, he always made sure to go home by 10 p.m.

“I think my proudest accomplishment is walking out of there the same jackass I was 25 years before,” Boehner said.

In speaking of his retirement, the former Speaker said he didn’t regret a thing. As a Catholic, Boehner said it was particularly moving to meet Pope Francis when he spoke to Congress. Boehner resigned the following day.

Student reactions

When the floor was opened for student questions, questions ranged from asking Boehner to push for the censure of former Speaker Dennis Hastert to his opinions on the future of the Republican Party.

Brandon Camhi ’16 asked Boehner about how he would prevent more socially progressive conservatives from becoming disillusioned with the Republican Party.

“If I were running for president, I’d be running on things that unite Republicans,” Boehner said. “These other issues are just going to keep coming up, and the Democrats know where our soft spots are.”

According to Camhi, this was as much as he expected the former Speaker to be able to answer his question.

“He said as much as he’s going to say, and what he said is true,” Camhi said. “The Republican Party has to move away from divisive social issues.”

More generally, Camhi was surprised by how candidly Boehner spoke. According to Alex Lee ’18, who attended the smaller reception with Boehner after the event as a member of the Stanford Speakers Bureau, this same candor was present in his personal conversations as well.

According to Lee, it was also interesting to have a minority political opinion being represented on Stanford’s predominantly liberal campus.

“I could [feel] the tension in the room when Boehner said certain things, namely claiming that Clinton was leveraging her gender or discussing South Carolina bathrooms,” Lee said.

At the end of the discussion, Kennedy re-focused the talk by asking Boehner who his political heroes were. In his answer, Boehner re-emphasized his own relatively moderate stances within the Republican Party.

“Well you know I’m a big fan of Ronald Reagan,” Boehner said. “But I love all these knuckleheads talking about the party of Reagan. He would be the most moderate Republican elected today.”

 

Contact Ada Statler-Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Varsity athletics programs to fly carbon-neutral https://stanforddaily.com/2016/04/27/varsity-athletics-programs-to-fly-carbon-neutral/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/04/27/varsity-athletics-programs-to-fly-carbon-neutral/#comments Wed, 27 Apr 2016 09:12:45 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1114227 Stanford’s varsity athletics program will be the first in the country to become carbon-neutral in air travel with the student-initiated program, Stanford Carbon Offsets to Reduce Emissions (SCORE). The program works with carbon offset company 3degrees to invest money into a landfill methane recycling project. Energy produced from the landfill methane will then save emissions equivalent to the annual emissions from the Athletics Department’s flights.

The project’s partners include clubs Students for a Sustainable Stanford (SSS) as well as Stanford Students Environmental Consulting (SSEC), with additional support from the Athletics Department, the Office of Sustainability and the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Science. A grant from the TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation will primarily fund the project, providing $3,062 to cover all 36 varsity sports teams over the next year.

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Stanford’s varsity athletics program will become carbon-neutral in air travel with the student-initiated program, Stanford Carbon Offsets to Reduce Emissions (SCORE). The program works with carbon offset company 3degrees to invest money into a landfill methane recycling project. Energy produced from the landfill methane will then save emissions equivalent to the annual emissions from the Athletics Department’s flights.

The project’s partners include clubs Students for a Sustainable Stanford (SSS) as well as Stanford Students Environmental Consulting (SSEC), with additional support from the Athletics Department, the Office of Sustainability and the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Science. Financial support from the School, SSS, Athletics and the TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation will fund the project, providing $3,062 total to cover all 36 varsity sports teams over the next year.

While all of these groups have supported the project, the director of student-athlete leadership and development, Kristen Azevedo, credits varsity track and cross country runner Emma Fisher ’17 with taking the lead.

“While we are really trying to create inroads for student athletes to become involved in these types of initiatives … this is 100 percent student driven,” Azevedo said. “Certainly there needs to be support from administration, but my hat is off to Emma and her team.”

Fisher, who is also an active member of SSS, began researching the potential to offset plane flights last year. As an Earth Systems major and environmentalist, Fisher felt conflicted about her frequent flights across the country to compete in collegiate athletics.

According to the SCORE website, student-athletes at Stanford took a total of 14,000 flights to competitions in 2015. This meant emitting 2,600 metric tons of carbon dioxide, which would require 700,000 new trees to absorb this amount from the atmosphere.

“My personal carbon footprint has exploded since I got [to college], both from athletic flights and visiting home,” Fisher said. “Obviously, teams are going to keep competing and have to travel, but this was a way to make myself feel okay with it.”

After some preliminary research by Fisher — mostly looking into whether or not offsets were valid environmental options or just a positive public relations move for airline companies — SSEC got on board with more in-depth research this fall.

According to Ashley Hammerbacher ’16, co-president of SSEC, the team considered a range of options, from funding renewable energy research to lowering the number of carbon emissions permits in the California cap and trade market. The methane capture and reuse project ended up being the most affordable, in part due to a deal arranged with a Stanford alum at 3degrees.

“We presented a suite of options to the Athletics Department, and they were really excited by landfill methane gas because we could afford to offset all the teams,” Hammerbacher said. “[Investing in an energy project] also helps to make offsets something more understandable and impactful for students and alumni.”

Fisher also emphasized that in addition to the convenient price of landfill methane gas projects, the SCORE team wanted to choose an offset that would provide additional environmental justice benefits. The additional criteria in offset selection included having a third-party verification system and a U.S.-based project.

Because the funding was secured only for the first year via grants, this year’s offsets are being treated as a pilot program. According to Hammerbacher, this year’s offsets will only cover the emissions of in-season travel. In the future, SCORE would like to cover off-season travel as well.

“Our senior staff [in the Athletics Department] is completely open to the idea of expanding the travel offset program, but we want to see how it goes this first year,” Azevedos said.

 

Correction: A previous version of this article stated that the primary portion of funding came from TomKat Ranch. Although TomKat Ranch gave the first round of funding, the largest portion ended up coming from the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences. Further, although it was reported that Stanford was the first university to have a carbon-neutral Athletics Department, Colorado and Florida have also taken offset measures. The Daily regrets these errors.

Contact Ada Statler-Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Classy Classes: Econ 183: “The Cardinal Fund” https://stanforddaily.com/2016/04/07/classy-classes-econ-183-the-cardinal-fund/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/04/07/classy-classes-econ-183-the-cardinal-fund/#respond Thu, 07 Apr 2016 10:13:10 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1113242 Together with their teaching staff, the 13 students of Econ 183: “The Cardinal Fund” act as the wealth manager for the $1 million Cardinal Fund provided by the Stanford Student Enterprises (SSE) endowment. The class has seen questionable investment returns, but remains a unique learning experience for its members.

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Together with their teaching staff, the 14 students of Econ 183: “The Cardinal Fund” act as the wealth manager for the $1 million Cardinal Fund provided by the Stanford Student Enterprises (SSE) endowment. The class has seen questionable investment returns but remains a unique learning experience for its members.

Divided into teams of Health Care and Materials, Information Technology and Financials, Industrials and Energy and Consumer and Utilities, students pitch which companies they want to buy and sell stock in. Although the class has relative autonomy with decisions, the teaching team offers guiding advice.

At the start of class, class president Caroline Frost ’16 goes over logistics. Then Kevin Mak, a lecturer in management at the GSB and director of the Real-time Analysis and Investment Lab (RAIL), begins exchanging with the students, discussing percentages off “the index” and the class’s average cash balance. Mak co-teaches the group of juniors and seniors with Jonathan Berk, the A.P. Giannini Professor of Finance in the Graduate School of Business (GSB).

As the class progresses, decisions must be made. Diego Torres Patino, the class’s teaching assistant, facilitates a blind vote among the students to determine which stocks they invest in. In a 9-4 decision, they voted to invest in IWM, the iShares Russell 2000 Index Fund.

Cutting their losses and looking to the future

At the class’s inception in spring 2015, it was awarded $1 million from the SSE to manage various well-researched investments. As of April 5, 2016, the amount it manages has fallen to $866,400, a return of -13.36 percent.

The returns differ with the some of the largest stock market indexes in the United States: the S&P 500 Index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which have dropped 2.63 percent and 2.39 percent respectively since April 20, 2015.

However, the class compares their results to an index linked to the fund when they took over management. The index is called the Russell 2000, which is down 13.37 percent since April 20, 2015.

“Most of our money is invested in the index portfolio we took over, so we measure our performance on whether we under or out-perform that,” explained class member Ricky Mariscal ’17. “We’re pretty much tracking that.”

According to Frost, however, the numbers aren’t the only way the class measures success.

“We evaluate ourselves in sort of a twofold way,” Frost said. “Of course we are managing money and have a fiduciary duty, but it is also about an educational experience.”

This educational experience isn’t always low-stress. Because the students are dealing with real money, their decisions can also lead to real losses. For some of the students, this has meant viewing the class — and success in the class — through a different paradigm.

“I think Stanford students have been conditioned to have to be right 95 percent of the time,” said Matthew Chen ’16. “With finance, as long as you’re right more often than your peers, you can do a lot of good.”

Class structure, application and required commitments

Unlike most classes at Stanford, which consist of a teaching team and students, members of Econ 183 each play different roles in the group. Frost, as president, serves as a go-between for the students, teaching team and SSE.  Other roles include Trent Meinke ’16, chief investment officer, and Chenyi Shi ’17, chief compliance officer.  According to Mariscal, the seniors tend to take on extra leadership.

“It’s a steep learning curve, but the seniors in each subgroup kind of hold your hand,” Mariscal said.

According to the course site, applications are typically collected in May and require a six quarter commitment. Applicants must be sophomores or juniors who plan to coterm in order to fulfill the two-year commitment.  Additionally, students must have taken Econ 102A: “Introduction to Statistical Methods for Social Scientists” before entering the program. Once accepted, students are required to take Econ 190: “Introduction to Financial Accounting” in their first quarter of the program and Econ 135: “Finance for Non-MBAs” or equivalent by the end of their first year in the program.  

Although there are more traditional, abstract economics classes that are required as prerequisites, Mak emphasizes that the value of Econ 183 is in its applied nature.

“Investment is the most conducive to experiential learning because it’s very real life,” Mak said. “The fundamentals you can learn anywhere, but the hands on ‘let’s look at these companies and understand what they’re doing’ is only done by putting in a lot of time.”

 

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the Cardinal Fund began investing in spring 2014, not spring 2015, and thus provided incorrect benchmarks for the fund’s performance. Shi’s class year was also inaccurate. The Daily regrets these errors.

Contact Ada Statler-Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu and Max Pienkny at maxp123 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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SLAC building world’s most powerful X-ray laser https://stanforddaily.com/2016/04/05/slac-building-worlds-most-powerful-x-ray-laser/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/04/05/slac-building-worlds-most-powerful-x-ray-laser/#respond Tue, 05 Apr 2016 09:35:38 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1113033 The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) is beginning construction on what will be the world’s most powerful X-ray laser, which will be known as Linac Coherent Light Source II (LCLS-II). The laser is scheduled for completion in 2020, and the $1 billion in construction costs are being paid for by the Department of Energy (DOE).

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The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) is beginning construction on what will be the world’s most powerful X-ray laser, which will be known as Linac Coherent Light Source II (LCLS-II). The laser is scheduled for completion in 2020, and the $1 billion in construction costs are being paid for by the Department of Energy (DOE).

The new laser’s predecessor, LCLS-I, was built six years ago. At the time it was groundbreaking technology as an X-ray microscope, capturing shots of changing chemical bonds and and the 3-D structure of disease-proteins. LCLS-II will serve similar purposes at a higher quality, but also increase the SLAC’s capacity for research, an important development in the shared facility operated by Stanford on DOE’s behalf.

While LCLS-I was able to capture idealized, single points, LCLS-II will aim to capture real systems within real environments.

According to Mike Dunne, the director of the LCLS program, the new laser will allow for more effective use of the facility both in quality and quantity of experimentation. Previous experiments with LCLS-I led to six different Nobel prizes in physics.

“Because LCLS is an open science facility where anyone in the world can apply to perform an experiment, it is a highly competitive process to get time in the lab,” Dunn said. “LCLS-II doubles the capacity of scientists using the device… from 32 states in the US and over 20 different countries.”

The technology to be used in the new laser is known as “superconducting” — when the tunnel of the laser is chilled to minus 456 degrees Fahrenheit, electrons flow freely, with no electricity loss. The laser itself will take up approximately one third of the two-mile length of the linear accelerator, and will work in tandem with its predecessor, LCLS-I.  However, the new laser is anticipated to be 10,000 times brighter and 8,000 times faster than the original.

The construction period will necessitate the shut-down of other SLAC operations for about a year starting in mid-2018.

“This is a somewhat major disruption and is painful, but the benefits of the new machine will outweigh that,” Dunne said.

Additional partners for the construction LCLS-II project include Cornell University and four other national research cites: Argonne, Berkeley Lab, Fermilab and Jefferson Lab. Nevertheless, Dunne sees the further construction as strengthening Stanford’s leadership.

“LCLS was the first machine of its kind… and this makes sure that we continue to be at the international forefront,” Dunne said. “[SLAC] wants to stay in that leadership position.”

 

 Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that Nobel prizes had been awarded based on previous LCLS experiments. This has been removed, as the four Nobel prizes were as a result of SLAC, but not the LCLS program. The Daily regrets this error.

Contact Ada Statler-Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.  

 

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Kairos’ beloved mason jars smashed https://stanforddaily.com/2016/04/01/kairos-beloved-mason-jars-smashed/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/04/01/kairos-beloved-mason-jars-smashed/#respond Fri, 01 Apr 2016 09:31:03 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1112799 After ordering 200 artisan-crafted mason jars, the kitchen manager of the Kairos coop was tragically upset to discover every jar had been smashed Thursday night. Members of Kairos suspect that Phi Psi purposefully broke the jars in a fit of jealousy.

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After ordering 200 artisan-crafted mason jars, the kitchen manager of the Kairos coop was tragically upset to discover every jar had been smashed Thursday night. Members of Kairos suspect that Phi Psi purposefully broke the jars in a fit of jealousy.

“I walked into the kitchen,” said the Kairos kitchen manager (KM) through tears, “and saw the jars in pieces like my broken heart.”

Kairos is distraught after finding two hundred newly-ordered artisanal mason jars smashed (ALISA ROYER/The Stanford Daily).
Kairos is distraught after finding two hundred newly-ordered artisanal mason jars smashed (ALISA ROYER/The Stanford Daily).

Tensions have been rising between the houses for the last few weeks. According to members of Kairos, the purchase of the jars has caused massive uproar in Phi Psi, which prides itself on its cutting-edge glassware.

“Honestly, we’re the engineering frat,” said an irate member of Phi Psi. “If anyone appreciates the gentle curve of an artisan mason jar, it’s us.”

Kairos residents, who have requested anonymity, report that several members of Phi Psi had been caught casting furtive glances across their shared patio space at Kairos residents as they snack on yogurt and granola in the mason jars during breakfast.

The jars, made by a team of unnamed artisan rodents in West Oakland from locally sourced crystal, cost upwards of $400 each to purchase. Kairos wanted a more “upscale” approach to their famed Wine and Cheese nights on Wednesday evenings, but maintain that the jars are about more than aesthetics.

“It’s obviously not about showing off,” added the KM. “It’s that we really appreciate artistic products with everyday uses, especially when made hyper-hyper locally.”

According to one Kairos resident, the daily life at the house has been drastically altered since the incident.  

“Not only is it hard to imagine the level of uncontained bad energy that someone would have to have to do such a thing, but our daily lives have been disrupted,” said the resident. “We literally had to pay full price for coffee in a disposable cup.”

The disturbance has been noticed by students outside the coop as well. According to one student in PHIL 80, “Mind, Matter, and Meaning,” there was a noticeable lack of herbal tea scent in class.

Other coops have taken measures to protect their own glassware.  EBF, which typically hosts a happy hour each week, is considering suspending their socials or at least restricting the kitchen area.  

As the investigation continues, the Kairos KM says that more mason jars are on their way. The coop luckily keeps a strong funding base for artisan glassware.

“Nevertheless,” said the KM, “we intend to watch the unfolding investigation very closely.”

 

Editor’s note: This article is part of The Daily’s April Fools’ Day coverage. All attributions in this article are not genuine, and this story should be read in the context of entertainment only.

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Protesters disrupt meat-eating debate https://stanforddaily.com/2016/02/24/protesters-disrupt-meat-eating-debate/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/02/24/protesters-disrupt-meat-eating-debate/#comments Thu, 25 Feb 2016 06:49:52 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1111532 A group of animal rights protesters disrupted the debate between Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey and The Good Food Institute director Bruce Friedrich, representing the argument that meat is unethical and unhealthy, and Stanford debaters Jack Affa ’18 and Jimmy Zhou ’18, representing the negative. The event, which was scheduled to begin at 7 p.m., was delayed 20 minutes by the protesters.

Event organizers -- which include Stanford People for Animal Welfare (PAW), Stanford Center for Ethics in Society, Speakers Bureau and Students for a Sustainable Stanford -- had some awareness that there might be protesters at the event.

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A group of animal rights protesters disrupted the debate between Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey and The Good Food Institute director Bruce Friedrich, representing the argument that meat is unethical and unhealthy, and Stanford debaters Jack Affa ’18 and Jimmy Zhou ’18, representing the negative. The event, which was scheduled to begin at 7 p.m., was delayed 20 minutes by the protesters.

Event organizers — which included Stanford People for Animal Welfare (PAW), Stanford Center for Ethics in Society, Speakers Bureau and Students for a Sustainable Stanford — had some awareness that there might be protesters at the event.

The first interruption came from an individual woman who asked the crowd to be quiet for a moment. The woman held up pictures of closely-confined chickens she claimed to be from a meat vendor that sells to Whole Foods. The woman emotionally implored the crowd and Mackey to do better.

The woman was escorted out of the room by security. As she exited, she asked Mackey if they could talk, to which Mackey responded “not now.”

Soon after the first protester was removed, another group of eight protesters from Direct Action Everywhere, rose from their seats, chanting and walking to the front of the room. The protesters carried signs reading “What is Whole Foods hiding?” and progressed through a variety of chants.

The reaction of the audience was generally unsympathetic, with several audience members booing or yelling back at the protesters. After about 10 minutes of chanting phrases such as “it’s not meat, it’s violence,” the debaters left the room.

Security officers filmed the action but did not otherwise interfere. After 20 minutes, the protesters left the room.  

Both the security officers and PAW representatives declined to comment, but PAW did confirm that the protesters were from Direct Action Everywhere. Prior to the debate, signs were posted declaring that protesters were not allowed in academic buildings, and security guards were spread throughout the Law School to check for Stanford IDs.

In his opening speech, Mackey commented that if the protesters had stayed, they might have found out they were on the same side.

There were no further disruptions at the event.

 

Contact Ada Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Q&A with John Mackey and Bruce Friedrich https://stanforddaily.com/2016/02/23/qa-with-john-mackey-and-bruce-friedrich/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/02/23/qa-with-john-mackey-and-bruce-friedrich/#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2016 09:50:27 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1111300 John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods Market, and Bruce Friedrich, the executive director of The Good Food Institute and founding partner of New Crop Capital, will be participating in a debate on Weds. at 7:00 p.m. in Room 290 in the Law School. Mackey and Friedrich will argue that eating meat is not ethical/healthy against Stanford Debate Society members Jimmy Zhou ’18 and Jack Boffa ’18. The Daily had a conversation with Mackey and Friedrich before the debate about their interests in the area.

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John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods Market, and Bruce Friedrich, the executive director of The Good Food Institute and founding partner of New Crop Capital, will be participating in a debate on Wednesday at 7 p.m. in Room 290 in the Law School. Mackey and Friedrich will argue that eating meat is not ethical or healthy against Jimmy Zhou ’18 and Jack Boffa ’18, both of whom debate for Stanford. The Daily had a conversation with Mackey and Friedrich before the debate about their interests in the area.

The Stanford Daily (TSD): Why did you want to participate in the debate at Stanford?

(Courtesy of John Mackey)
(Courtesy of John Mackey)

John Mackey (JM): I’m very interested in the topic.  The ethics, environmental responsibility and health gains from not eating animal foods are very compelling. It is important that more people understand this. I also really like Bruce and this gives me the opportunity to spend a bit of time with him. Finally, I think it will be fun! I love to debate ideas.

Bruce Friedrich (BF): Stanford’s students are the best and the brightest, and they are in an area of the country that is focused on finding technological solutions to global problems. We now know that the meat industry is causing vast pollution, that the inefficiencies of meat production are contributing to global hunger and that meat is linked to cruelty to animals on a scale unrivaled in human history. My hope is that some of Stanford’s students and more of the school’s professors will feel inspired to follow in the footsteps of entrepreneurs like John Mackey and Stanford Professor Pat Brown, using their considerable talents and chosen vocation to get involved in disrupting animal agriculture.

TSD: How did you personally come to your views on the ethics and health considerations of eating meat?

JM: My consciousness about eating meat and other animal foods has been an ongoing journey since I was about 23 and became a vegetarian. In 2003, I read a dozen books or so on how livestock animals are treated and the ethics of being a vegan. I found the arguments compelling and upgraded my diet to vegan.

(Courtesy Bruce Friedrich)
(Courtesy of Bruce Friedrich)

BF: I read a book called “Diet for a Small Planet,” which points out that it takes at least 9 calories of crops fed to a farm animal to create one calorie of edible meat. That process is vastly inefficient, so it drives up the price of wheat, corn and soy, leading to starvation. It also leads companies to chop down rainforests to grow feed crops, displacing subsistence farmers. It’s an immoral system that harms the global poor the most, and it’s something I decided that I didn’t want to support.

TSD: Can you give us a short preview of the argument you plan on making in the debate?

JM: I’m going to focus on the health aspects. The scientific evidence is very compelling that eating meat and other animal foods greatly increases one’s risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer, and lessens one’s longevity. I’m going to present some of this scientific evidence.

BF: I grew up in Oklahoma, and I certainly never thought about the hidden costs of eating meat. But every time we sit down to eat, we make a choice that has consequences. If we’re eating meat, we’re supporting cruelty and suffering for animals, and we’re eating a product that requires nine times the caloric input of eating plants directly. That relationship is bad for the environment, the global poor and animals — and the kicker is, it’s also bad for our health.

TSD: How do you view your role as an advocate for vegetarianism? When and to whom is it appropriate?

JM: I make an important distinction between my personal beliefs and values and Whole Foods Market’s purpose and direction. These are not the same and this often confuses many people who believe Whole Foods is my own company and that I can do whatever I want. This is simply not the case. As a public company, I don’t own Whole Foods and my personal beliefs are just that — my personal beliefs. I believe I’m free to advocate for my personal beliefs regarding veganism and healthy eating, but not free to try to force Whole Foods to move in a direction that is against its best interests. I’m currently writing a book titled “The Whole Foods Diet.” It will be published in 2017 and my personal healthy eating views will then reach a much larger audience.

BF: Professionally, I now focus principally on making vegetarian eating easier. We’re trying to create a market segment of plant-based and cultured alternatives to animal products, so that it’s simply cheaper, tastier and more convenient for people to make choices that better align with their values. A lot of my time is focused on trying to convince governments, corporations and venture capital firms to support these alternatives as an excellent way of addressing problems like climate change and global hunger.

TSD: What tips do you have for someone who may want to try a meat-free diet but isn’t sure they have the willpower?

JM: It really has very little to do with willpower. We learn to enjoy whatever foods we accustom ourselves to eating. Once we eat a food 10 to 15 times, we will come to enjoy it. As a kid, I ate zero green vegetables. However, as an adult, I taught myself to enjoy all vegetables by simply eating them in small quantities and over time, I came to love them. It is all about training our taste buds. Just like any other skill we acquire, we must practice. To be a skillful and healthy eater, we must practice until we master it. There is no other single thing we can do that would improve our health more than to become a skillful eater — weaning ourselves off of animal foods and training ourselves to eat and enjoy fruits, veggies, beans, whole grains, nuts and seeds.  

BF: I grew up as a hardcore meat-eater in Oklahoma; if I can do it, absolutely anyone can. Try it for 21 days and see how you do — I’ll bet you’ll love it and never turn back. For inspiration, you might want to check out Mercy For Animals’ veg guide, at www.ChooseVeg.com. For someone who wants to move incrementally, please consider that the smallest and worst-treated animals are chickens and fish — so start by eliminating those animals, plus eggs, from your diet. But most critically, everyone should educate themselves about these issues and then get involved. Don’t just make this about personal choices; seriously consider dedicating your life to changing the world for the better.

 

This interview has been condensed and lightly edited.

Contact Ada Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Woods Institute for the Environment launches FUEL program to engage with undergrads https://stanforddaily.com/2016/02/11/woods-institute-for-the-environment-launches-fuel-program-to-engage-with-undergrads/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/02/11/woods-institute-for-the-environment-launches-fuel-program-to-engage-with-undergrads/#respond Thu, 11 Feb 2016 17:32:17 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1110622 The Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment is launching a new pilot program, the Forum for Undergraduate Environmental Leadership (FUEL), in order to engage with a broader portion of campus and expose environmentally-minded students to various career pathways.

The program, which is open to current juniors, seniors and coterms, will begin spring quarter. According to the Woods Institute website, the forum will allow selected students to “meet and network with emerging leaders and seasoned professionals in both the private and public sectors.”

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The Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment is launching a new pilot program, the Forum for Undergraduate Environmental Leadership (FUEL), in order to engage with a broader portion of campus and expose environmentally-minded students to various career pathways.

The program, which is open to current juniors, seniors and coterms, will begin spring quarter. According to the Woods Institute website, the forum will allow selected students to “meet and network with emerging leaders and seasoned professionals in both the private and public sectors.”

Brian Sharbono, the program’s coordinator, said that FUEL is modeled after the Woods Institute’s Rising Environmental Leaders Program (RELP) that targets graduate students. Like its graduate student equivalent, FUEL aims both to teach leadership skills as well as to grant exposure to top members of the field. However, while RELP is a year-round program kickstarted with a “bootcamp” in Washington, D.C., the plans for FUEL are more local.

Throughout the quarter, the Woods Institute will invite outside speakers onto campus in order to participate in a dinner series and meet with students afterward. The series will culminate with a trip to Sacramento, where students will have the opportunity to meet with policymakers, nonprofit workers and private sector representatives working in the capital.

While many classes may focus on a single approach to solving environmental problems, Sharbono hopes to introduce students to each field so that they can compare the different opportunities available to them. After the more formal meetings in Sacramento, the students will also participate in a reception with Stanford alumni working in the area.

Although FUEL is selective — the target size for the first cohort is 15 to 20 students — Sharbono emphasized that students from any major or background are welcome, as long as they have an interest in pursuing environmentally-oriented careers.

According to Sharbono, the Woods Institute hopes to excite undergrads in a different way than classes might.

“Courses sometimes bring in outside speakers, but our whole focus is on that high level of personal engagement,” said Sharbono. “We want to be more practical and more rooted in the actual career world.”

 

Contact Ada Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Tech culture yields opportunities and challenges for Stanford https://stanforddaily.com/2016/01/29/tech-culture-yields-opportunities-and-challenges-for-stanford/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/01/29/tech-culture-yields-opportunities-and-challenges-for-stanford/#respond Fri, 29 Jan 2016 10:02:49 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1109987 With famous alumni scattered as founders of companies like Google, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Yahoo and Palantir, Stanford’s proclivity for computer science and tech ventures is well known and widely discussed. While Stanford’s impact on Silicon Valley has been widely acknowledged, tech culture has a strong influence on undergraduates at the University as well.

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With famous alumni scattered as founders of companies like Google, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Yahoo and Palantir, Stanford’s proclivity for computer science and tech ventures is well known and widely discussed. While Stanford’s impact on Silicon Valley has often been acknowledged, tech culture has a strong influence on undergraduates at the University as well.

In a snapshot, it is clear that tech is a big deal on campus. Computer science (CS) is the largest undergraduate program, with 365 newly declared majors in the 2014-2015 academic year. In 2014, the most recent year for which data is publicly available, CS accounted for the largest portion of undergraduate degrees conferred, making up a little over 12 percent.

Yet according to the undergraduate CS website, computer science is not confined to one major at Stanford. In addition to the major in CS, the department lists the related degrees of mathematical and computational sciences, electrical engineering and symbolic systems. All four majors together represented 18 percent of degrees conferred in 2014 and have seen growth in the subsequent year.

CS and the “Stanford Experience”

According to popular CS professor Mehran Sahami ’92 M.S. ’93 Ph.D. ’99, part of CS’s popularity at Stanford is due to its proximity to Silicon Valley.

“I think it’s really part of student culture,” Sahami said. “Students tell friends in their freshman dorms about CS 106A and it spreads around.”

CS 106A, the introductory CS class at Stanford, is popular even among students who don’t plan on pursuing computer science. According to Sahami, 1,600 students took the course during the regular 2014-2015 school year and approximately 90 percent of undergraduates take the class during their time at Stanford.

Teddy Becker-Jacob ’18 is a prospective philosophy major who lives in the Humanities House and participated in the Structured Liberal Education program (SLE) his freshman year. While he doesn’t have an interest in CS as a major or career, he said he nevertheless plans to take CS106A.

“I don’t think I would be doing Stanford right if I didn’t take CS106A at some point,” Becker-Jacob said. “It’s a rite of passage.”

When asked if there was a humanities equivalent, a class in the humanities field that is similarly popular, Becker-Jacob couldn’t think of an equivalent. Kinsey Morrison ’18, an international relations major, expressed a similar sentiment.

“Even if they haven’t taken [CS 106A], everybody knows Karel [a CS 106A assignment] and everyone knows the story of Mehran throwing candy,” Morrison said. “I don’t want to take away from how phenomenal it is, but I wish we had that elsewhere.”

Morrison clarified that she believes many classes in other departments are taught equally well, but don’t “get the publicity they need and deserve.”

When asked why she thinks students are so excited about computer science, Morrison discussed her experience as a tour guide. According to Morrison, it seems like students are often introduced to CS once they get to Stanford.

“It doesn’t seem like prospective students are predominantly more interested in CS, or even engineering,” Morrison said.  

According to computer science course advisor Juliana Cook ’15 M.S.’16, many students come to her in their sophomore and junior years having recently become more interested in switching to CS. While the majority seem to be switching from different fields within engineering, she says that there are a significant number of students with a background in music or art who want to “see what their options could be.”

For Cook, who didn’t plan on majoring in CS before she came to college, Stanford can help students discover this interest earlier.

“I think if I was at a different school, I still would have been exposed to CS, but I’m not sure at what point it would have been in my career,” Cook said. “CS 106A is a very welcoming environment, which isn’t always the case at other schools where it isn’t as fun or engaging.”

For some students who aren’t interested in computer science, however, the experience can be less positive.

Roberts Mencis ’18, a philosophy and religious studies double major, took CS 106A but has since decided that computer science is not for him. Socially, this has not always been easy.

“Not to bash CS, because there’s a lot of super brilliant and interesting people,” Mencis said, “but it sucks that there’s some issues, whether it’s politics or philosophy, [where] it can be hard to find people to talk about those things.”

Mencis is not alone in this phenomena. According to Dan Edelstein, Resident Fellow of the Humanities House and professor of French, the difference in numbers can make it hard for students interested in the humanities to meet each other.

“I hear from a lot of freshmen in particular just how hard it is to be a student interested in the humanities when everyone else on your floor is excited about 106A or has just declared CS,” Edelstein said.

Into the Future

Stanford has recently taken steps to re-emphasize the role of the humanities at Stanford. Actions have included a new campus tour instituted at the beginning of this year to highlight the humanities, the Summer Humanities Institute to attract high school students with strong interest and talent in humanities fields and the Humanities House itself.

Yet according to Becker-Jacob, hearing about how the humanities are “dying” or “in crisis” can get old.

“It’s exhausting to hear about it over and over,” Becker-Jacob said. “It really just drains the energy from the room and makes people sad.”

Edelstein took a similar attitude, saying “if there is one myth that will not die, it’s that students need to have pre-professional majors in order to get a job.”

According to Edelstein, this myth has been refuted by employment patterns and the fact that employers overwhelmingly look for applicants who can communicate clearly and write well.

“Everything that makes the humanities ‘fuzzy’ is what makes it practical in the real world,” Edelstein said.

However, Edelstein acknowledges that the unequal distribution of majors persists.

“I think what I find really disappointing is how there seems to be a certain … lack of academic diversity,” Edelstein said. “I think it leads to this unfortunate desire to find hierarchies of disciplines everywhere.”

 

Contact Ada Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Q&A with the three co-founders of Stanford IGNITE https://stanforddaily.com/2016/01/25/qa-with-the-three-co-founders-of-stanford-ignite/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/01/25/qa-with-the-three-co-founders-of-stanford-ignite/#respond Tue, 26 Jan 2016 07:10:44 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1109814 The Stanford chapter of IGNITE, a nationwide nonprofit that aims to help realize the political power in every young woman, put on its first event, Women in Civic Leadership, on Jan. 19, featuring guest speakers like Palo Alto City Councilwoman Liz Kniss, East Palo Alto Mayor Lisa Yarbrough and former East Palo Alto Mayor Laura Martinez. The Daily sat down with the three co-founders of Stanford IGNITE, Julianne Dones ’18, Blanca Diaz ’18 and Anika Benons ’18, to discuss the event and their time leading Stanford’s chapter of the organization.

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The Stanford chapter of IGNITE, a nationwide nonprofit that aims to help realize the political power in every young woman, put on its first event, “Women in Civic Leadership,” on Jan. 19, featuring guest speakers like Palo Alto City Councilwoman Liz Kniss, East Palo Alto Mayor Lisa Yarbrough and former East Palo Alto Mayor Laura Martinez. The Daily sat down with the three co-founders of Stanford IGNITE, Julianne Dones ’18, Blanca Diaz ’18 and Anika Benons ’18, to discuss the event and their time leading Stanford’s chapter of the organization.

The Stanford Daily (TSD): Can you briefly introduce yourselves and how you became interested in starting an IGNITE chapter at Stanford?

Blanca Diaz (BD): I actually was a part of IGNITE in high school — they have chapters at both education levels — and actually brought it from high school into college. So I knew that it was a great organization and that it empowered me to pursue a leadership role as a woman. I wanted to share that on campus.

Julianne Dones (JD): So we heard about it through Blanca when we all lived in the same freshman dorm. I’ve always been interested in political issues, and hearing from Blanca’s experience, it seemed like this organization could bring a lot of opportunities and exciting events to Stanford.

Anika Benons (AB): I’ve also always been interested in political issues, and I thought IGNITE would offer a good learning experience with leadership roles. Even though I don’t necessarily want to run for office myself, I’ve found support in the group.

TSD: Why do you think having a group like IGNITE on campus is so important?

AB: I feel like there is a lack of women’s perspectives in political leadership, so having this group encouraging women to engage is really important.

JD: It’s currently around 25 percent women in elected offices, significantly lower than half. If we want a truly representative government, that’s something we should strive toward. Plus a more diverse government is better because it offers the skills and experiences of a diverse populace to make the best outcome for all.

TSD: How does IGNITE differ from other groups on campus?

JD: Although there are many groups on campus that address political leadership, IGNITE is the only national organization. There’s a different dimension of learning from other universities and their approach to getting women in leadership as well as a lot of networking through the IGNITE name that brings leaders to campus.

TSD: What are your goals for the Stanford chapter of IGNITE?

BD: Right now we are all about growing the group and getting more students on campus to join. We are hoping to hold more workshops on things like public speaking, campaigning and all these steps in running for office, and we want to make sure that these resources are available to anyone who wants to join.

TSD: What are some of your upcoming events?

AB: Tuesday we had an event co-sponsored with Stanford in Government (SIG) that brought in two speakers who discussed their experience as leaders. Unfortunately we aren’t an officially, technically recognized student group yet so we don’t have concrete plans.

JD: But we are planning on creating a base and having weekly meetings.

BD: Additionally, there is the upcoming annual IGNITE conference coming up for anyone who wants to join. That will be in San Francisco on March 4 with the Chief Justice of [the Supreme Court of California] Tani Gorre Cantil-Sakauye as a guest speaker.

TSD: And how did your first event go?

BD: Overall [it] went well. A lot of people came up to the speakers after and asked them questions, and it did manage to stay non-partisan, which is always our goal.

 

Contact Ada Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Stanford releases annual financial report https://stanforddaily.com/2015/12/20/stanford-releases-annual-financial-report/ https://stanforddaily.com/2015/12/20/stanford-releases-annual-financial-report/#respond Sun, 20 Dec 2015 22:40:21 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1108585 On Dec. 8, 2015 the University released its financial results for fiscal year 2015. During the fiscal year, which ended Aug. 31, 2015, Stanford’s consolidated net assets increased to $35.5 billion, up 5 percent or $1.7 billion from the previous year.

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On Dec. 8, 2015 the University released its financial results for the 2015 fiscal year. During the fiscal year, which ended Aug. 31, 2015, Stanford’s consolidated net assets increased to $35.5 billion, up 5 percent or $1.7 billion from the previous year.

Randy Livingston, vice president for business affairs and chief financial officer, told the Stanford Report that Stanford’s financial position is strong but also expressed a note of caution.

“Despite these positive results, investment market volatility, pressure on federal sponsored research funding, high Bay Area housing costs and changes to the healthcare marketplace will continue to challenge us and remain on the forefront of our planning efforts,” Livingston said.

The consolidated results include the performance of the University itself, Stanford Health Care and Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, as well as other entities controlled or majority-owned by the three big organizations.

Considered separately, the net assets of the University are at $30.4 billion, an increase of 4 percent from last year.  Operating revenues made up $5 billion of this, an increase of 10 percent or $453 million over the year.

The largest portion of the assets, however, is in the $22.2 billion endowment, which also increased in value by 4 percent over the past year. The endowment funded 23 percent of the University’s expenses over the past fiscal year. This meant $1.1 billion from the endowment, or a 7 percent increase in endowment payouts.

In the hospitals and their majority-owned or controlled entities, net assets finished at $5.1 billion for the year, an increase of $522 million or 11 percent.

Contact Ada Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Fossil fuel divestment sit-in ends with rally, Hennessy meeting https://stanforddaily.com/2015/11/21/fossil-fuel-divestment-sit-in-ends-with-rally-hennessy-meeting/ https://stanforddaily.com/2015/11/21/fossil-fuel-divestment-sit-in-ends-with-rally-hennessy-meeting/#comments Sun, 22 Nov 2015 04:37:25 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1107961 After a five day sit-in starting on Monday, student protesters concluded their occupation of the Main Quad Friday morning by holding a rally for full divestment from fossil fuels. Later in the day, students met with President Hennessy to discuss their cause.

The night before the rally organized by Fossil Free Stanford (FFS), the participants had received another warning from the University, this time with a more clear timeline for punishment as well as an extended threat to suspend investment requests currently in the process of being reviewed.

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After a five-day sit-in starting on Monday, student protesters concluded their occupation of the Main Quad Friday morning by holding a rally for full divestment from fossil fuels. Later in the day, students met with President John Hennessy to discuss their cause.

(MISO KIM/The Stanford Daily)
(MISO KIM/The Stanford Daily)

The night before the rally, organized by Fossil Free Stanford (FFS), the participants had received another warning from the University, this time with a more clear timeline for punishment as well as an extended threat to suspend investment requests currently in the process of being reviewed.

University-FFS exchanges

On Thursday night, the administration delivered another notice to sit-in participants, many of whom were members of Fossil Free Stanford. Following up on the previous warning, the second letter outlined that if the protesters were not gone by 5 p.m. on Friday, they would be issued Fundamental Standard charges.

The letter clarified previous statements about Hennessy’s willingness to meet with protesters, saying that he will only meet with sit-in participants “on the condition that Fossil Free members are not continuing to act in violation of the university policies in regard to the Main Quad.”

The University’s message concluded with a warning that the University “is considering suspending Fossil Free’s request to APIRL [Advisory Panel on Investment Responsibility and Licensing] until they are in compliance with University policies.” The APIRL “advises and makes recommendations to the Office of the President on issues related to socially responsible investing,” which would include evaluating student proposals such as fossil fuel divestment.

Similar to the exchange between the administration and FFS participants earlier this week, participants in the sit-in released an Op-Ed letter in response to the University’s. After summarizing what they view as the success of the sit-in (375 students at the opening rally, 80-100 students camping out around the clock, over 30 faculty led teach-ins and 30 alumni joining the protest and announcing the withholding of donations to the University), the FFS letter heavily criticized the University’s threat to suspend APIRL processes.

According to the response letter, by not processing APIRL requests, the University would not be punishing the students for breaking the Main Quad Policy but rather “condemning all of the people on the front lines of climate change and pollution, who face injustices perpetuated by the oil and gas industry everyday.”

“If we will have earned a charge under the Fundamental Standard at 5 p.m., we have earned it already,” the letter said. “Come charge us at 11 a.m. in our encampment. We are not just Fossil Free Stanford. We are Stanford. And we are not going away.”

Concluding rally

On Friday morning, sit-in participants woke early to prepare for a concluding rally and potential Fundamental Standard charges, which the University ultimately did not press.

(McKENZIE LYNCH/The Stanford Daily)
(McKENZIE LYNCH/The Stanford Daily)

A half hour before the rally began, Stanford members of two workers’ groups — Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 2007 and the janitorial group DTZ — joined sit-in participants for a pizza lunch provided by SEIU. Francisco Preciado, the executive director of SEIU, emphasized the need for students and workers to join in solidarity on causes of social justice.

“We’re asking for your support to raise the standards for wages, for just and socioeconomic research related to health,” Preciado said to a crowd of staff and students. “We’re here to support you in this just cause, and we hope you come to support us in our just cause as well.”

When 11 a.m. rolled around, no students had been charged with violations, and the closing events proceeded in the Main Quad uninterrupted. Rebecca Behrens ’19 opened the rally by saying that although Stanford has not committed to divest from fossil fuels, FFS was ending their sit-in “in victory.”

“I felt ignored, frustrated and hopeless, because of the apathy that Stanford showed,”Behrens said. “Yet every day… I was inspired and uplifted by all of you.”

“[The administration] cannot ignore us when we made international headlines as we did all this week,” she added. “This week, we showed the world that our voices do matter… We showed the world that we can win.”

A medley of speeches and performances followed. Four students detailed personal encounters with consequences of the fossil fuel industry — from environmental degradation in Alaska to conflict in the Middle East. Fossil Free’s a cappella group sang an original song calling for climate change action.

Pedro Martins ’19 and Sadie Cwikiel ’19 took the microphone to acknowledge the many campus groups — students, faculty, alumni and staff — that have supported the sit-in, contrasting these groups’ solidarity with the University’s response.

Cwikiel then explained FFS’s decision to end their sit-in at 11 a.m. and said that FFS hoped all participants would attend the Transgender Day of Remembrance event occurring in White Plaza at noon.

At that point, members of FFS stepped in to announce that they had just confirmed a 2 p.m. meeting with Hennessy, open to all.

Finally, after a performance by the a cappella group Talisman, Behrens affirmed that although the sit-in was ending, FFS “will continue to escalate and take direct action until the University divests fully from fossil fuels.”

The sit-in closed the same way that it began — students holding hands and singing.

Meeting with Hennessy

The meeting with Hennessy was held in the Oak Lounge in Tresidder Union, where administrators had to pull up additional chairs to seat more students. Despite this measure, many students had to remain standing in the crowd of around 100.

The meeting opened with FFS leader Yari Greaney ’15 M.S.’16 summarizing the five day long sit-in. Greaney stressed the real-world negative impacts of climate change and fossil fuels.

(McKENZIE LYNCH/The Stanford Daily)
(McKENZIE LYNCH/The Stanford Daily)

Hennessy, who sat in the circle with his senior assistant Jeff Wachtel, said that while he agreed on the facts of climate change, that didn’t change the fact that not everyone on the Board of Trustees supports divestment. According to Hennessy, the Board has a very specific process for investment decisions that requires significant amounts of time and research.

Quite frankly if I asked SCIR [Board of Trustees’ Special Committee on Investment Responsibility] on to do divestment, they would say no,” Hennessy said. “I will tell you completely honestly [complete fossil fuel divestment] has no chance of passing because it has no background research.”

The issues of the Board processes and the research necessary for action became two of the central topics of discussion. According to the FFS leaders, the research required has already been done by outside parties around the world, including the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the Board has access to this information.

“We aren’t going to fudge these numbers — we are here because of those numbers,” said Josh Lappen ’17.

While Hennessy said that the Board would move as fast as possible while still being “deliberate,” he also stressed how far Stanford has come by divesting from coal.

ASSU President John-Lancaster Finley ’16, who was present at the meeting but did not participate in the sit-in, said that while divesting from coal had made Stanford a leader, the community shouldn’t stop at just coal.

“We really need to show that Stanford can lead on this, and Stanford should lead on it again,” Finley said.

Finley also emphasized that he was representing not just his own views, but the views of the student body that has voted in favor of full divestment.

At this point, Wachtel also entered the conversation, stressing that the University has other obligations and has to consider future divestment campaigns as well.

“Given the commitment you made to sitting around, it would in some ways be easier for us to divest,” Wachtel said. “But rather than taking the politically easy route and making everybody here feel happy about it, we are thinking about the long term.”

Beginning to wrap up the meeting, Lappen and fellow student leader Sijo Smith ’18 reiterated that FFS was requesting a commitment from Hennessy and the Board to use and publicize criteria based on scientific research.

With no real change as a result of the meeting, Greaney concluded the student input, telling Hennessy that Fossil Free “will still be here and will continue calling for full divestment.”

“I admire your conviction, but there can still be a disagreement on whether or not divestment is the solution,” Hennessy responded.

Correction: A previous version of this article listed Sadie Cwikiel as Sadie Cwikly. The Daily regrets this error.

Editor’s Note: Ada Throckmorton was an embedded reporter at the sit-in.

Contact Ada Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu and Hannah Knowles at hknowles ‘at’ stanford.edu.

 

Second Official Notice from Stanford University

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Life at the Fossil Free sit-in: a community comes together for divestment https://stanforddaily.com/2015/11/20/into-the-fossil-free-sit-in/ https://stanforddaily.com/2015/11/20/into-the-fossil-free-sit-in/#comments Fri, 20 Nov 2015 10:23:05 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1107698 At the site of the Fossil Free Stanford (FFS) sit-in outside the president and provost’s office, wakeup times are staggered as the sun rises. Some participants, in tents, sleep longer. Others, in sleeping bags under the Main Quad arcades, begin to wake earlier. Most begin to pull out laptops, starting their work for the day.

When most of the sit-in protesters are awake, Yari Greaney ’15 M.S.’16 gathers the group for their morning meeting. In a typical day, the participants meet all together twice -- once in the morning and once in the evening. Sitting in a circle on the quad, they share announcements, discuss their emotions as the sit-in continues and conclude each meeting in song.

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A group of local alumni joined in the sit-in on Thursday and marched to the Alumni Center to say that they will not donate if the University continues to invest in fossil fuels.(McKENZIE LYNCH/The Stanford Daily)
A group of local alumni joined the sit-in on Thursday and marched to the Alumni Center to say that they would not donate if the University continues to invest in fossil fuels.(McKENZIE LYNCH/The Stanford Daily)

At the site of the Fossil Free Stanford (FFS) sit-in outside the president and provost’s office, wakeup times are staggered as the sun rises. Some participants, in tents, sleep longer. Others, in sleeping bags under the Main Quad arcades, begin to wake earlier. Most begin to pull out laptops, starting their work for the day.

When most of the sit-in protesters are awake, Yari Greaney ’15 M.S.’16 gathers the group for their morning meeting. In a typical day, the participants meet all together twice — once in the morning and once in the evening. Sitting in a circle on the quad, they share announcements, discuss their emotions as the sit-in continues and conclude each meeting in song.

Greaney herself has been with FFS since its conception three years ago. An earth systems undergraduate and coterminal student, Greaney has experienced the impacts of climate change firsthand with widespread forest fires and lowering reservoir levels near her home in Redding, California. For Greaney, these experiences have reinforced the need for urgency in climate action — something FFS doesn’t feel the Stanford administration has taken into account.

“Toward the end of last year, we were realizing that the University might not follow through on its commitment to act quickly,” Greaney said. “When our mentor at 350.org asked if we would be interested in escalating to nonviolent direct action, we began to plan.”

As the sit-in has progressed, Greaney said the conflict between University administration and the Stanford community has become more apparent as the community has shown “overwhelming support” over the past week of the sit-in.

There are common activities from day to day of the sit-in: homework, teach-ins, film screenings, music, art. Food is brought in from co-ops or just friends of the participants. One alumnus brought hot chocolate to warm up protesters late Wednesday night, and on Thursday afternoon more alumni walked up carrying pizzas.

Many of the amenities brought to the protesters are offered to the police standing watch at the door to Building 10 as well. Most of the time, the officers decline the offers of coffee or granola bars, but the relationship between the officers and the sit-in participants is a comfortable one.

Chris LeBoa ’19, a freshman who heard about FFS during Admit Weekend last year, has been particularly interactive with the police.

“The police officers are there because they have to be, but they have a lot of stories too,” LeBoa said. “Carol, who’s working now, actually lived on a boat… Chris, the guy in the morning, is a surfer who lives in the Santa Cruz mountains. Israel wakes up at 4 a.m. to get his kids ready for school.”

According to LeBoa, the main “sacrifice” he has made to the sit-in is that his parents haven’t been supportive of the idea. They’ve told him that they didn’t intend to raise an activist.

“But for the first time, I’m not just doing what I’m told but doing what I think is right,” LeBoa said.

Students as well as protestors, the sit-in participants are frequently doing work to try and minimize the academic “sacrifice.” For some, this means getting a little distance (sitting 50 yards away from the main campsite) and getting some reading done. For others, this means pulling out a whiteboard and forming a Computation and Mathematics Engineering (CME) 100 study group.

Some of the participants hardly leave the site, while others continue to attend classes and other functions.

According to Zhanpei Fang ’19, an intended physics major who joined the sit-in because she felt powerless as a student in the “Stanford bubble” and saw the sit-in as having real cultural impact, the sit-in has been calm enough to get homework done. Nonetheless, she hasn’t stayed on-site at all times.

“I have been going to classes because I don’t want to fail,” Fang said. “And I went back to my dorm once to shower.”

In addition to individual studying, some of the teach-ins have taken the form of classes that either relocated to the site of the sit-in or classes that allowed students to attend via Skype in order to not miss out on learning opportunities.

Sijo Smith ’18, who Skyped into Earth Systems 112 with seven other classmates from outside Building 10, indicated that many professors have been very accommodating of students participating in the sit-in.

“It’s been great working with professors who have allowed students to make up classes one way or the other,” Smith said.

Throughout the day, work and learning tends to be broken up by musical interludes. On Wednesday alone, the sit-in was visited by Occupella, a Bay Area pacifist music group; the Stanford Collaborative Orchestra; and the University Singers.

Much of the music, however, is more impromptu. Walking through the arcades, songs are hummed under students’ breath. One student pulls out a ukulele, and a group surrounding her breaks into an impromptu cover of Vance Joy’s “Riptide.”

The most frequent instances of music, however, have been the songs of the protest itself. With simple songs about building power and expressing confidence in this power to effect change, the students sing both at meetings and at various other times during the week, such as when Smith presented FFS’s response letter to the administration’s warning letter.

Smith, who has been a member of FFS since her freshman year, said she came to the sit-in with a strong group of friends, but also with people she didn’t know as well or had never met.

In fact, participants in the sit-in have differing levels of connection to Fossil Free Stanford and the rest of the environmental community at the University. Fang, for instance, decided to come to the event after reading about it on several email lists, but she didn’t know anyone doing it particularly well.

“I have had my friends visit me though,” Fang said. “They’ve been very supportive of the cause.”

FFS organizers have also encouraged participants to attend other activist events on campus. On Tuesday, this meant a rally in the courtyard of Old Union to uplift Muslim and Arab voices in the wake of Islamophobia following the Paris attacks. On Wednesday, this meant a #StudentBlackout rally in White Plaza to stand in solidarity with students protesting racism at campuses across the country such as Mizzou, Yale, Claremont McKenna and all other educational spaces where discrimination occurs.

While the fossil fuel divestment movement is not directly about these racial discrimination issues, the global environmental justice implications of fossil fuels is heavily emphasized in the FFS campaign.

Gabriela Leslie ’15 M.S.’17 was one of the people that led the charge on an art project underscoring the way that the fossil fuel industry has impacted communities across the globe. The project was a large trifold structure placed first off the main quad facing the oval, then moved back to the site of the sit-in after being notified by the University that it would otherwise be taken down by workers.

The idea of the work, according to Leslie, is to “shine a spotlight on the high profile cases of global communities that have been directly affected by the negligence of the fossil fuel industry.” The piece specifically features stories from the Chevron oil spill in Ecuador, the threat of sea level rise in Tuvalu and the drought in California, among others.

“The two main criteria that institutions typically ask when deciding to divest is [one,] whether the product creates substantial societal harm and two, whether there are alternatives to the product or service readily available,” Leslie said. “We wanted to tackle this first question in particular.”

“[The project] really brings the moral issue to the absolute forefront in a place where the University can’t turn a blind eye,” she added.

Other actions have included the response letter presented back to the administration and an op-ed written by Andrea Martinez ’15 M.S. ’15 in response to an article published in The Stanford Review.

For the protesters, the work and the music and the visitors are all just part of the now natural sit-in routine. The final shakeup of this routine, however, may come when the group has a rally on Friday at 11 a.m. and a tentative public meeting with President John Hennessy at an undetermined time on Friday. While FFS organizers have met with Hennessy in the past, this will be the first time it will occur in a public setting.

Going into Friday, Greaney emphasizes the importance of attitude of the group.

In the words of Greaney, the students intend to show Hennessy just how “passionate and persistent, hopeful and determined” they are, as they once again make their case for fossil fuel divestment.

 

Editor’s note: Ada Throckmorton is an embedded reporter at the sit-in.

Contact Ada Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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University issues notice requesting protesters to leave Main Quad https://stanforddaily.com/2015/11/18/university-issues-notice-requesting-activists-to-leave-main-quad/ https://stanforddaily.com/2015/11/18/university-issues-notice-requesting-activists-to-leave-main-quad/#comments Wed, 18 Nov 2015 13:39:59 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1107340 Around 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, students participating in the fossil fuel divestment sit-in outside President John Hennessy’s office were issued a written warning issued by the University. The letter, which can be read verbatim below, mentions legal ramifications but does not constitute a legal dispersal order.

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(RAGHAV MEHROTRA/The Stanford Daily)
(RAGHAV MEHROTRA/The Stanford Daily)

Around 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, students participating in the fossil fuel divestment sit-in outside President John Hennessy’s office were issued a written warning by the University. The letter, which can be read below, mentions legal ramifications but does not constitute a legal dispersal order.

The notice was delivered by Nicole Taylor, associate vice provost for student affairs and dean of community engagement and diversity, and Chris Griffith, associate vice provost and dean of students, who also gave the students a more informal version of the warning Monday night.

The letter informs sit-in participants that they are violating Use of the Main Quad and Memorial Court Policy by participating in “an unscheduled and unsanctioned event.”

The warning also indicates that the actions of the protesters have “prevented the usual conduct of University matters in Building 10, which includes the offices of the President and Provost among others.” According to the University, this is an interference of lawful business, which constitutes the misdemeanor offense of trespassing under California law.

Thus far, sit-in participants have not given indication of complying with the University’s request.

“We currently have no intention of leaving,” said student organizer Michael Peñuelas ’15 M.S.’16. “Fossil Free Stanford stands by our commitment to staying here until our University is willing to meet our demands.”

The letter also suggests a “White Plaza Alternative” and authorizes the sit-in to continue in White Plaza through the conclusion of fall quarter, if operated in “a peaceful and safe manner.” The University declined to comment on a timeline for enforcing the request for protesters to move.

Fossil Free member Josh Lappen ’17 indicated that, if anything, organizers see the movement growing stronger.

“Over the last day our numbers and student commitment have only grown; this should further demonstrate to the University how united campus is on this issue,” Lappen said.

 

Editor’s note: Ada Throckmorton is an embedded reporter at the sit-in. 

Contact Ada Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

Official Notice from Stanford University

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Fossil Free Stanford stages sit-in, rally at president’s office https://stanforddaily.com/2015/11/16/fossil-free-stanford-stages-sit-in-rally-at-presidents-office/ https://stanforddaily.com/2015/11/16/fossil-free-stanford-stages-sit-in-rally-at-presidents-office/#comments Mon, 16 Nov 2015 23:12:49 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1107155 Around 1 p.m. on Monday, 104 students, many affiliated with Fossil Free Stanford, walked to Building 10, which houses the offices of the president and provost, and announced that they would be participating in a sit-in until the President John Hennessy and the Board of Trustees agreed to full divestment from fossil fuel companies. At the same time, a rally for full divestment took place in White Plaza. At the conclusion of the main rally event, students began to put up tents around the building to camp outside the office.

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Students protested outside of President Hennessy's office on Monday afternoon (RAGHAV MEHROTRA/The Stanford Daily)
Students protested outside of President Hennessy’s office on Monday afternoon (RAGHAV MEHROTRA/The Stanford Daily)

Around 1 p.m. on Monday, 104 students, many affiliated with Fossil Free Stanford, walked to Building 10, which houses the offices of the president and provost, and announced that they would be participating in a sit-in until the President John Hennessy and the Board of Trustees agreed to full divestment from fossil fuel companies. At the same time, a rally for full divestment took place in White Plaza.

At the conclusion of the main rally event, students began to put up tents around the building to camp outside the office. The participants were later issued a warning for potential violation of both the Fundamental Standard and California law.

Progress of the sit-in

When the group of around 100 students first reached Building 10, they were greeted by two police officers. Upon finding that the door was locked, Fossil Free Stanford member Michael Peñuelas ’15 M.S.’16 asked the police if they would be admitted, exercising the right of students to speak with administration.

The police officers denied the students any further entrance, and upon being asked for supervisors or administrators they could contact, the only name the officers would provide was Stanford police chief Laura Wilson.

In an email to The Daily, University spokeswoman Lisa Lapin wrote that “we respect the right of students to peacefully demonstrate in a way that does not impede University operations.”

Lapin also said that Hennessy would be willing to meet again with students if they set up an appointment through his office. Meanwhile, Hennessy was filmed around 2 p.m. getting a haircut at Stanford Hair in Tresidder Union, near the site of the rally in White Plaza. Lapin stated that Hennessy saw some students while getting his haircut but could not confirm the time.

Announcing disappointment in the Stanford administration for “refusing to even engage in the conversation,” Stanford Fossil Free logistics coordinator Yari Greaney ’15 M.S. ’16 called up letter-readers from the group of assembled students.

At the end of the letter reading, the students held hands and formed a ring encircling all of Building 10, taking off sweatshirts to reveal Fossil Free shirts. The students proceeded to join in song.

Simultaneously with this action, another group of over 200 students rallied for divestment in White Plaza to support the sit-in participants. Event emcee and Fossil Free Stanford member Emma Fisher ’17 gave a short speech highlighting the goals of the Fossil Free movement at Stanford and importance of swift action on the divestment issue and then led the gathered students in chants.

As the songs outside Building 10 continued, the group of students at the White Plaza rally marched to join the students outside the president and provost’s offices, led by Fisher and other members of Fossil Free.

After the arrival of this second group, ASSU Executives John-Lancaster Finley ’16 and Brandon Hill ’16 spoke, reminding the crowd of the “overwhelming” student support for fossil free divestment. The ASSU Undergraduate Senate, the Graduate Student Council and the student body have all voted for divestment.

[justified_image_grid ids=”1107152, 1107153, 1107154, 1107155, 1107156, 1107157, 1107158, 1107159, 1107160, 1107161, 1107162, 1107163, 1107164, 1107165, 1107166″ title_field=off caption=off]

Next, Andrea Martinez ’16 M.S.’16 spoke to the crowd. Citing the statistic that children in West Oakland are more than seven times more likely to be hospitalized with asthma than the average, she told the crowd, “I can not think of a human right more basic than breathable air.”

“We can not afford your apathy,” Martinez said as she turned toward the president’s office.

“Stanford may not be a sovereign nation, but we too are a global leader,” she added, referencing the need for action before the Paris climate negotiations in December.

Fossil Free Stanford representatives then read another letter to the larger group before announcing the beginning of the sit-in.

Potential repercussions for participants

At around 9 p.m. sit-in participants were visited and issued a warning by Nicole Taylor, associate vice provost for student affairs and dean of community engagement and diversity, and Chris Griffith, associate vice provost and dean of students. Taylor and Griffith were accompanied by a police deputy.

According to a statement read by Taylor, the students in the quad were in violation of the use of main quad and memorial court policy. This policy states that “unscheduled events and unsanctioned gatherings such as any activities with amplified sound, marches, rallies and performances” are prohibited, as is blocking the arcades in which the participants are camped out. Taylor continued that failure to comply with the policy could result in a referral to the Office of Community Standards under the Fundamental Standard.

In addition, participants were told that they could potentially be charged with a misdemeanor for trespassing or with a violation of the fire code under California law.

According to Taylor, tonight’s warning was preliminary and a formal written copy of the potential violations will be issued to participants at some time on Tuesday. She said that the purpose of this first visit was to make sure participating students were as informed as possible about policies and laws they might be violating.

Context of the sit-in

This particular civil disobedience strategy of “sit-ins” has been used at other universities with fossil fuel divestment campaigns. For example, a sit-in at Syracuse University last fall was part of a series of protests from both students and faculty that resulted in agreement by the administration to divest.

Last spring saw another wave of sit-ins at colleges such as Harvard, Swarthmore and Yale, all with mixed results. At Yale, 19 students were issued citations and fines for trespassing. At Swarthmore, the sit-in lasted 32 days before ending in a faculty vote for divestment, although the university’s board ultimately did not choose to divest.

More recently, students at MIT began a sit-in outside President L. Rafael Reif’s office on Oct. 22 after the university released a five-year plan to address climate change that did not include divestment.

The students participating in the Stanford sit-in issued a pledge in early October to engage in civil disobedience if the University did not agree to comprehensive fossil fuel divestment (as opposed to just divesting from coal companies) by the upcoming climate negotiations in Paris.

Since then, Hennessy and the Board released a letter indicating that Stanford takes climate change very seriously but did not make any further commitment to divest. While six faculty members released a response letter again urging comprehensive divestment, Fossil Free had not publicly released more details about their disobedience pledge until the start of the sit-in.

According to Fossil Free Stanford administration liaison Sijo Smith ’18, the group met in person with Hennessy, his assistant Jeff Watchel and Susan Weinstein, chair of the Advisory Panel on Investment Responsibility and Licensing (APIRL), the week before the sit-in.  

“We gave three criteria for not divesting in oil and natural gas companies on principle — that fossil fuel companies commit to keeping 80 percent of their current reserves in ground, stop seeking new reserves and stop lobbying against climate policy,” Smith said.

In her email, University spokeswoman Lapin wrote, “Stanford is a leader on both sustainability and the environment and has done more to reduce its impact on climate change than any university in the country.”

 

Hannah Knowles contributed to this report. Photos by Raghav Mehrotra.

Editor’s note: Ada Throckmorton is an embedded reporter at the sit-in. 

Contact Ada Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu. 

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Faculty members respond to Board’s COP21 letter, push full divestment https://stanforddaily.com/2015/11/11/faculty-members-respond-to-boards-cop21-letter-push-full-divestment/ https://stanforddaily.com/2015/11/11/faculty-members-respond-to-boards-cop21-letter-push-full-divestment/#respond Wed, 11 Nov 2015 09:14:55 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1106732 Six faculty members released a letter on Wednesday urging more immediate and comprehensive divestment from fossil fuels by the University, citing the petition signed by 376 faculty members last March. This most recent letter was written in response to an earlier letter written by the Board of Trustees and President John Hennessy in anticipation of the Paris climate negotiations to take place in December.

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Six faculty members released a letter on Wednesday urging more immediate and comprehensive divestment from fossil fuels by the University, citing the petition signed by 376 faculty members last March. This most recent letter was written in response to an earlier letter written by the Board of Trustees and President John Hennessy in anticipation of the Paris climate negotiations to take place in December.

The faculty’s response was drafted and signed by associate professor of English Paula Moya and professors Paul Ehrlich in the biology department, Mark Jacobson ’87 M.S. ’88 in civil and environmental engineering, Shelley Fisher Fishkin in the humanities and English, Elizabeth Tallent in English and David Palumbo-Liu of comparative literature.

According to these faculty members, Hennessy and the Board’s statement is not responsive enough to Fossil Free Stanford’s divestment demands.

“No criteria for divestment are specified, no timetable for the research is given, and no deadline for decisions has been indicated,” the letter reads.

While Hennessy and the Board of Trustees have said they will evaluate fossil fuel companies on a case-by-case basis, the response letter stressed that this commitment does not convey enough urgency in regard to climate change issues. According to the authors, the Board has thus far also ignored the input of the larger group of faculty members that called for divestment from fossil fuels last January.

The professors concluded their message by making a moral claim on behalf of students and future generations that will be faced with the impacts of climate change.

“We therefore advocate comprehensive fossil-fuel divestment as a clear ethical assertion that the University holds students’ well-being above any other value,” they said.

Although the professors wrote the letter independently, they are also working alongside efforts led by Fossil Free Stanford, which, along with over 200 student and faculty signatories, pledged earlier this month to engage in civil disobedience if Stanford did not commit to full divestment by the Paris negotiations.

According to Fossil Free member Michael Penuelas ’15 M.S. ’16, the student side of the movement has engaged a number of faculty members for strategic advice.

“We know that Stanford takes the urgency of climate change seriously, but we think that Stanford needs to take a bigger stance,” Penuelas said, referencing comprehensive divestment.  “We need to declare that not only are we going to work in our own little part of the world, but [that we will] leverage our power as an institution.”

 

Contact Ada Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Q&A with Grace O’Brien, freshman and founder of nonprofit Ears for Years, Inc. https://stanforddaily.com/2015/11/09/qa-with-grace-obrien-freshman-and-founder-of-nonprofit-ears-for-years-inc/ https://stanforddaily.com/2015/11/09/qa-with-grace-obrien-freshman-and-founder-of-nonprofit-ears-for-years-inc/#respond Tue, 10 Nov 2015 06:53:52 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1106543 As a freshman in high school, Grace O’Brien ’19 became interested in how she could expand access to hearing aids in areas where such accommodations weren’t readily available or affordable. By her sophomore year in high school, O’Brien had started her own nonprofit, Ears for Years Inc. O’Brien still runs the nonprofit, and her discussion about this project with The Stanford Daily is below.

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(Courtesy of Grace O'Brien '19)
(Courtesy of Grace O’Brien ’19)

As a freshman in high school, Grace O’Brien ’19 became interested in how she could expand access to hearing aids in areas where such accommodations weren’t readily available or affordable. By her sophomore year in high school, she had started her own nonprofit, Ears for Years, Inc.

O’Brien still runs the nonprofit, and she sat down with The Daily to discuss the project.

The Stanford Daily (TSD): What inspired your work in hearing aids?

Grace O’Brien (GO): I worked at a deaf theatre company. I have always done theatre, my whole life. So I did a volunteer project there over the summer, and I got more interested in deaf culture. Then my dad actually had a brain tumor and underwent some hearing loss, so I had a personal relationship to it, too.

TSD: How did you get the idea up and running?

GO: One of the things I did was reach out to the company Solar Ear and see if they thought that this was a viable project, what I was doing. They gave me a lot of support, and from there I started raising awareness in my community, raising money and applying for different grants and things like that. So by the time I had a little bit of money, I was able to start it up and go on my first trip. I went to Mexico where I was able to fit a few children with hearing aids there at a school for the deaf. So that was my first trip initially, and from there the project leapt forward and got a lot of attention, and people that wanted to help out.

TSD: How did you get connected with these schools?

GO: Solar Ear helped me by [connecting] me with people that they thought would benefit, and [some] people reached out to me. In Mexico I think they had heard of the project I was doing, and they reached out to me. That was a cool experience because I really could help them.

TSD: What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced?

GO: I’d say raising funds is often really difficult. I’d say that another challenge would be balancing all of the other things in life and doing this. Like doing schoolwork and extracurriculars and everything on top of having my own non-profit is a lot. Having to deal with legal stuff and things like that is also very difficult.

TSD: What ended up being your main funding source?

GO: Grants have been really good because it’s large sums of money. Also, one of the main things is that online, social media spreads the word really fast. So I’m able to get stories out there, and then they will pass around really quickly, and through that I can get money from people from all different places and backgrounds.

TSD: What has been the most rewarding part?

GO: The most rewarding part is when you’re fitting a kid with a hearing aid and watching their face get all lit up and excited. Feeling like I’m really doing something to help benefit their education and help them escape poverty. In that moment I feel like what I’m doing really matters and is actually making a difference in someone’s life.  So I think that that’s always the most rewarding part — seeing all of the hard work, the fundraising and everything — actually come into play.

TSD: How big is the operation currently?

GO: I have fit over 200 kids so far, but hopefully by the end of the year we will doubling that.

TSD: Do you plan to continue and/or expand on this work in the future?

GO: One thing I want to work on is trying to find ways to legally convince other countries that don’t have accommodations for people with disabilities to have [those accommodations]. In a lot of countries, they have a standard education system, which is great, but I think that being able to accommodate people with disabilities is really important. That’s maybe a little bit broader or bigger thing that I’m interested in, but obviously I want to keep up the project and keep fitting kids with hearing aids.

Another thing that I’ve noticed is you can’t just give them a hearing aid and be like “ok, everything’s going to be great.” The most important part about it is that they are getting a viable education after. So I’ve thought about coming up with a curriculum or something to help people who are hard of hearing learn better.

 

Contact Ada Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

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Contemplation by Design Week encourages focus on wellbeing https://stanforddaily.com/2015/11/04/contemplation-by-design-encourages-focus-on-wellbeing/ https://stanforddaily.com/2015/11/04/contemplation-by-design-encourages-focus-on-wellbeing/#respond Thu, 05 Nov 2015 04:24:35 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1106350 A coalition of campus groups across disciplines is putting on Contemplation by Design Week from Nov. 4 to Nov. 12. The week includes events ranging from lectures to labyrinth walks to bell concerts, and all events are open to all University faculty, students and staff.

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(Courtesy of Tia Rich)
(Courtesy of Tia Rich)

A coalition of campus groups across disciplines is putting on Contemplation by Design Week from Nov. 4 to Nov. 12. The week includes events ranging from lectures to labyrinth walks to bell concerts, and all events are open to all University faculty, students and staff.

According to the Contemplation by Design website, the overarching theme of the program is PEACE — pause, exhale, attend, connect and express. The goal is that by practicing the PEACE skills, participants can find “a way of living by which solutions are created, wellbeing is enhanced and excellence is sustained.”

The week kicked off Wednesday with an event entitled “Introduction to Contemplation: The Power of the Pause for Calm, Compassionate Competence.” Tia Rich ’84 M.S. ’85 of the BeWell program was the instructor for this event, and she also came up with the idea for Contemplation by Design, hosting the first event in May 2014.

“Over the decades of helping people with their health and wellbeing, I have come to realize that contemplative processes… are really central to happiness and wellbeing,” Rich said. “I wanted to bring more opportunity to the faculty, staff and students to enjoy contemplation.”

According to Rich, one of the central components of the week is the Carollin Concert in Dorhmann Grove near the base of Hoover Tower. In this event, registered attendees and passers-by alike are invited to find reprieve in the playing of the bells in Hoover Tower. Originally, Contemplation by Design was solely this concert, but the program expanded as mental health became more of a recognized issue on campus. This year’s concert will take place on Nov. 6.

In addition to the concert near Hoover Tower, events are spread out around campus, with locations ranging from dorms to the Windhover Contemplation Center to the off-campus Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. Registration is free and available online for all of the events, although some of the events that seek a smaller number of participants have already been filled.

In the year since its inception, Rich’s program has already grown.  Last year, there were 1900 total people registered for the event; this year, there have already been 2800.

According to organizer Patrick Boyden, an administrative associate at Stanford’s Health Improvement Program (HIP), the outreach effort and planning began in the summer. Of the invited groups, community members have registered for the event in larger numbers, while students have been the least represented group.

According to Monica Worline ’91, who works as a researcher at the Stanford Center for Compassion and Altruism Research, contemplation in the university setting is important because for many people, the university acts as not just a workplace or a school but also as a home.

Worline will be teaching a class entitled “Compassion in Management & Leadership” on Nov. 5 at noon in room 105 in the Geology Corner. She hopes to leave participants with three main takeaways in order to be more compassionate: actively try to notice the difficulties of people around you, practice personally “checking in” once a day to build empathy with others and understand that acts of compassion don’t need to be “big” to count.

“Thinking of the ways to build compassion and more mindful work is so important in today’s universities,” Worline said.

Rich also stressed that universities are an important place to work on being contemplative.

“In higher education we have these incredible ways of thinking and doing… But it still focuses on learning new concepts and facts,” Rich said. “Contemplation offers ways of knowing and being that are important to round yourself out as an adult and as a fully realized human being.”

 

Contact Ada Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Women’s club ultimate Frisbee team recruits brand new players https://stanforddaily.com/2015/10/14/womens-club-ultimate-frisbee-team-recruits-brand-new-players/ https://stanforddaily.com/2015/10/14/womens-club-ultimate-frisbee-team-recruits-brand-new-players/#respond Wed, 14 Oct 2015 15:45:04 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1104802 At the end of spring quarter last year, Stanford Superfly--the women’s ultimate frisbee club team--was both celebrating placing second at the USA Ultimate D-1 College Championships and saying goodbye to the six members of the team graduating. But unlike most other Stanford sports teams competing at the division one level, Superfly is recruiting new members this fall quarter.

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(Courtesy of Stanford Superfly)

At the end of spring quarter last year, Stanford Superfly — the women’s ultimate Frisbee club team — was both celebrating placing second at the USA Ultimate D-1 College Championships and saying goodbye to the six members of the team graduating. But unlike most other Stanford sports teams competing at the Division One level, Superfly is recruiting new members this fall quarter.

In fact, the majority of players that will eventually be placed onto the travel A-team, Superfly, or the less competitive B-team, will be completely new to the sport. According to Superfly co-captain Veronica Cruz ’16, this fall quarter is a “teaching season” to build the community.

In order to do so, the returning members of the team host open practices twice a week to teach strategy and skills to anyone interested in learning. Starting in late October, the practices will transition into tryout practices to place players onto the A or B team by mid-November.

Before doing so, however, the team has to get the word out to athletic students who may never have considered playing ultimate Frisbee.

According to Cruz, the team takes recruitment very seriously. Tactics range from fliers to approaching girls working out at the gym and asking them to throw around a disc.

“So the first step is just getting people to know about it, but it’s also really important for us to retain attendance,” Cruz said.

To keep girls coming back, the team pairs rookies with “veterans” at practice, follows up with newcomers after practices and invites them to hang out and be a part of the community.

“The most important things are a willingness to learn and work out and run around a lot,” Cruz said. “That was me my freshman year.”

Among this year’s freshmen are both players completely new to the sport and players like Hallie Dunham ’19 that have competed on the under-19 national team.  

Anna Verwillow ’19 said she decided to come out for the team because after playing soccer all her life she wanted to switch to a new physical activity.

“I’ve played a bit in the past, like tossing around a Frisbee at the beach,” Verwillow said. “The biggest change coming from soccer to ultimate is the atmosphere of the game…it seems a lot more about the honor of the sport.”

While the team goes around to freshmen dorms to recruit new members, upperclassmen are also welcome to try out for Superfly. Rookie Ash Ngu ’16 decided to try out after hearing friends who were on the team rave about the experience.

“After being invited the first time, I went and it was a whole bunch of fun,” Ngu said. “I just kept coming back.”

While Ngu and Verwillow don’t know which team they will end up on, both said they are excited for the tryout process and think playing on either team would be exciting.

Cruz also emphasized the importance of having a good community with the B-team.

“The hope is that the B-team becomes almost like a feeder,” Cruz said. “It’s really important for development of players, and it’s a really good community as well.”

Among both returning players and rookies just joining the team, the community consensus seems to be the more the merrier.

“It’s an amazing atmosphere,” Ngu said. “If you have the faintest inkling of wanting to join or even just wanting to learn to throw, you should try it.”

 

Contact Ada Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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