Alexa Liautaud – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com Breaking news from the Farm since 1892 Wed, 08 Jun 2016 22:23:11 +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 Alexa Liautaud – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com 32 32 204779320 For love and for light https://stanforddaily.com/2016/06/08/me-ay-for-love-and-for-light/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/06/08/me-ay-for-love-and-for-light/#respond Thu, 09 Jun 2016 06:59:48 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1116084 There’s something about you, Stanford. A feeling, a warmth, a spirit. I can’t quite put my finger on it. It seems no one can. Four years with you and I still can’t define what it is that has left me so speechless with gratitude. For the mishaps, the fortunes, the wins, the losses, the heartaches, […]

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There’s something about you, Stanford. A feeling, a warmth, a spirit. I can’t quite put my finger on it. It seems no one can. Four years with you and I still can’t define what it is that has left me so speechless with gratitude. For the mishaps, the fortunes, the wins, the losses, the heartaches, the loves and, mainly, for your imperfections — all I can say is, thank you.

Thank you, Stanford, for your obsession with technology. Though my relationship with your obsession has been rocky, it has taught me that pure human intimacy can never be replicated. You scared me at first. As a freshman, I quickly became overwhelmed by the apps and websites and messaging platforms attempting to virtualize how we interact. I feared we were diluting our rich three-dimensional lives into the two-dimensionality of our screens. I feared we would no longer be able to connect, empathize and understand others as we were too preoccupied chasing the next notification, the next “like,” the next hit. I feared we would lose conversation and the art of sparring back and forth on spontaneous topics about the world around us. Indeed, many of these fears came to pass. We speak less, we connect less, we are more anxious. We are incapable of remembering things. We are told we are more connected, but in reality, we feel less close.

However, the realization that technology fails to truly satisfy our craving for human interaction is not a depressing one but a beautiful one. It has pushed me to seek valuable, authentic and fulfilling relationships more so than ever before. In essence, Stanford, your obsession with technology has not scared me away from human interaction but has instead showed me what truly matters: time, attention and authenticity.

By natural extension, thank you, Stanford, for the people I have met here. I am grateful for the friendships that have grown so deeply over the years, the friendships where no words have to be spoken — just a look, a glance, an understanding of mutual love. The friends you can call on at any hour of the night knowing full well you’ll be answered with a wholehearted “Hi, what’s up?” — these are the friendships that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. Though they do not incur depth, I am also grateful for those fleeting, passersby friendships. You know — those where we say hi and then we quickly say bye. These interactions most commonly exist on the way to class, in line at Starbucks or ever-so-briefly at a party. At the beginning of my time at Stanford, I became infuriated by these interactions, believing they personified the apocalyptic downfall of our ability to socialize. On the contrary, however, they have now taught me that the beauty of intimacy is in its rarity and that those fleeting hello’s are spaces in which to practice compassion and consideration for those we might feel less connected to.

Though it is less overtly spoken about, I am also immensely grateful for the tougher, darker relationships at Stanford. Not the odd tussle with a friend but real pain, real darkness, real loneliness. For college students, these often appear in the form utter heartache, in which the agony seems to take all the air from your lungs, where your mind seems drained of light, where you can almost physically feel your heart crack open with pain. Yet I have learned such suffering is necessary. It peels back new layers, quietly building strength of character, fueling empathy for others and expanding resilience. Thank you, Stanford, for pain, because through it, you have given me the opportunity to grow and to love.

Thirdly, thank you, Stanford, for your natural beauty. It is one of your greatest, most incontestable gifts to us. No stronger antidepressant, no lighter touch, no greater joy exists than the feeling of the sun glowing on my face while walking the Dish, or Lake Lag, or through the Quad. We live in a world of overwhelming politicization, labels, controversies and violence, and yet your winding trails, bright flowers, Byzantine mosaics, red roofs and beige bricks provide us with a sanctuary and an optimism that brightens everything that we do.

Finally, thank you to all the forces that make up Stanford and the administration. It is the Stanford way to rise up and speak out, and I have been encouraged to see how positive change can be, the power that change holds and how it can open doors for those who had previously never been given the opportunity. To be sure, Stanford, you have not been perfect. Causes have been ignored, justice has not always been served, worthy people have been pushed aside. Yet in your imperfections, Stanford, you have also taught me that good change is steady and that true radicalism is not always an explosive innovation but a task demanding patience and a relentless pursuit of action. In its very essence, you have taught me to be optimistic about change without being spiteful of tradition.

For your love and for your light, all I can say is thank you, Stanford. I leave you not with a 4.0 GPA but with an unbounded appreciation for imperfection. It is through imperfection that I have learned, grown, gained and been strengthened throughout my time here. As I ready myself to leave, I have realized that imperfection does not mean inadequate, it means human — and that is the greatest gift we have.

 

Contact Alexa Liautaud at alexal ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Syrian-Canadian citizen Amro Taleb discusses his time in Syria https://stanforddaily.com/2015/01/12/syrian-canadian-citizen-amro-taleb-discusses-his-time-in-syria/ https://stanforddaily.com/2015/01/12/syrian-canadian-citizen-amro-taleb-discusses-his-time-in-syria/#respond Mon, 12 Jan 2015 22:55:07 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1093587 Amro Taleb is a Syrian and Canadian citizen who has worked as a consultant to several NGOs in Syria. Taleb has taught at the Syrian International University for Science and Technology. He holds a masters degree in engineering from the University of Toronto and a doctorate from the Swiss Management Center. Taleb spoke at Stanford at the end of last year, and The Daily interviewed him to learn more about the situation in Syria and his experiences there.

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(Courtesy of Amro Taleb)
(Courtesy of Amro Taleb)

Amro Taleb is a Syrian and Canadian citizen who has worked as a consultant to several NGOs in Syria. Taleb has taught at the Syrian International University for Science and Technology. He holds a masters degree in engineering from the University of Toronto and a doctorate from the Swiss Management Center. Taleb spoke at Stanford at the end of last year, and The Daily interviewed him to learn more about the situation in Syria and his experiences there.

 

The Stanford Daily (TSD): I know you have both Canadian and Syrian but could you speak a little bit more about yourself and your personal background?

Amro Taleb (AM): So I am Syrian-Canadian. I’ve spent most of my childhood in Damascus and I studied in Mining Engineering at the University of Toronto […] In 2009, I went back to Syria to work as a professor teaching business courses and providing consultation to the ministry on renewable energy. As of March 2011 the revolution started. I tried just to show the people that the administration was changing.

Assad’s wife was building this idea of attracting new blood, highly educated people, to the administration in Syria to show the people that there were adjustments. But it didn’t work that well because we realized the atrocities. Me and a few other moderates, civilian, well-educated people took a side based on a humanitarian point of view […] Soon though, the Assad regime put a lot pressure on us; they showed us how they treat people in prison, so we got the message to leave Damascus, and I explored the rest of Syria to see what was really going on.

I really wanted to know why this Revolution started. I realized it started as a suburban revolution because Assad was very smart to please the people in city—Aleppo, Damascus; all the business people were happy and fine. The people in the city didn’t start it. The people in the suburb area did because they suffered, because they were poor; they had no services and the Assad family controlled everything. They are a totally different people.

TSD: What did you do with this realization?

AM: I decided to go all across Syria, and I witnessed the violence myself. I witnessed the way [Assad] is killing people; using the air stick rockets and barrels of bombs I had to collect heads and bodies; we saw a lot of kids dying. I became so attached to the children. There are a lot of children that are so close to my heart and they died in front of me. That is when I decided it is not about this revolution, it’s not about regime/anti-regime, so I decided to work with the kids.

I focused on engineering, infrastructure, water dams, creating electricity, traveling around the world making speeches about Syria, focusing on how we can better do humanitarian aid and providing awareness to the world.

I have my own school that I teach over there grades 1-12. It’s run by my company Canaturk, and I help out university students as well and other charities. We have about 200 orphans we are taking care of, and Canaturk is a joint venture with local organizations, each of which is doing something different. One is focusing on humanitarian aid, one is focused on orphans and one is focused education. I also provide consultation to NGOs on how they deliver aid and how they provide infrastructure.

TSD: Considering the chaos, how effective are the NGOs working in Syria, both the local ones and the ones that are commissioned from the outside? How has that changed of the course of the last few years?

AM: Unfortunately, there is a crazy amount of money being handled by these NGOs. But when you compare to the work on the ground, nothing happens. […] So most of them, what they do is a workshop in a five star hotel just talking about conflict-resolution and peace building, bringing activists that have no idea about what’s going on the ground. Even when you do these workshops that are overpriced and not the right time, at least bring the right people, like students who are ex-fighters or people who are really on the ground.

TSD: With ISIS spreading, do you think it’s too late to help?

AM: Well I say it’s never late, but it is in a late stage, this can’t be fixed in one or two years. It will take time, and you have to pick the right key players. When the United States talks about the moderate fighters, they choose the wrong moderate fighters. […] Because these people they don’t have any loyalty to anybody. Regimes can buy them, Saudis can buy them, Qataris can buy them.

Up until now, it was impossible for the United States to fund any moderate fighters because the regime, Nusra and ISIS [would] assassinate them. The only exception is the south of Syria where there is good coordination over there with the Americans supporting the fighters. But most of Free Syrian Army are a bunch of thieves and good ones with no supports. So unfortunately, the people in Syria, if they give them a choice between Nusra, Regime and Free Syrian Army, they will choose the Nusra.

TSD: But isn’t stealing less bad then the horrible violence that ISIS and the regime commit every day?

AM: Nusra and ISIS, you see the horrible violence part of them, but there is a second part who are the non-military part. Most of them, they are very well-educated people, they know how to talk to people, administrations and airports. Number two, because of the frustration of the Sunni from the Shia from the Alawite, they are at the point where they are willing to shake hands with the devil.

And I can see that in Iraq. So we are now waiting for someone who is stronger, who can compete with the regime, who offers them the minimum life. Also, Nusra and ISIS try to create very good relationships with the tribes and the businessmen. Even though these people hate their ideology, and hate everything they are doing, they have to adapt to the reality and they want to work with them to protect their city. There are people in ISIS and Nusra that really do have experience running a city, running a state and how to deal with the mentality of the Syrian people in terms of emotion and community. But you have to distinguish between Nusra and Isis. Nusra is 80 percent Syrian. ISIS has a different agenda.

TSD: Can you elaborate on the last time you were there and how often you’ve been back?

AM: The last time I was there was [in November]. I was in Kobani, where the Kurds are fighting. This is where all the journalists are. They stand at the Turkish border to see what’s going on.

Recently, there are very few journalists within Syria. To get out, they have to negotiate and it really depends on who is taking them.

TSD: What had changed when you most recently went back?

AM: When the coalitions started, they gave Assad a huge gift. Because this guy now doesn’t have to worry about bombing north Aleppo and all that so he focuses on killing more people in other areas. And he managed to retake control in other areas so this is really bad.

In the area where the coalition is bombing ISIS, all the logistics help and aid has completely stopped so people are suffering and are isolated. They can’t do their normal trade that they are surviving on.

But at the same time, what is the positive side? The positive side is that they stopped the spread of ISIS. So they slowed them down. Number two, they are destroying ISIS in an economical way. They don’t have resources because most of their resources come from selling oil and gas. So when you’re hitting the refineries of oil and gas, and when you have them surrounded, they cannot maneuver.

TSD: One of my last questions is about the time you spent working with the children on the ground. What were the biggest challenges you faced?

AM: I have a huge challenge with the psychology of the kids. I have two kinds of kids. Kids who suffer watching their mom and dad die in front of them, and kids that in addition of watching their parents die by the regime, they are brainwashed by ISIS [such that] these kids sometime play with beheaded people.

That is the great challenge I have; I need an expert in that. I need a great support. I need a psychologist, and I need someone who is going to support the kids with education. University students, they are fighters but if we can give them the chance to continue education, they will stop the fight. They are my students; they told me that. When you provide education for the kids, when you do therapy, when you help the students on the ground, this helps me enormously.

TSD: My last question is what can Stanford students possibly do? What can people in the U.S. do who aren’t affiliated with the government who want to see a peaceful solution in Syria but feel very distant from the conflict and powerless?

AM: Doing more studies about Syria. Field trips to Turkey like George Mason University has done where they can meet face-to-face with Syrian activists. They have knowledge and a better understanding; they can provide a better awareness. And of course, there is food supply, donations and blankets. If you spread awareness, people will be interested, and better research will come about.

 

This interview has been condensed and edited.

Contact Alexa Liautaud at alexal ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Stanford Knight Fellow promotes female journalists in Afghanistan https://stanforddaily.com/2014/04/10/stanford-knight-fellow-promotes-female-journalists-in-afghanistan/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/04/10/stanford-knight-fellow-promotes-female-journalists-in-afghanistan/#respond Thu, 10 Apr 2014 08:55:57 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1084302 As U.S. troops gradually withdraw from Afghanistan and as the country nears a pivotal presidential election, gender roles and the status of women in Afghanistan have been thrown into uncertainty. Amidst that disruption, Amie Ferris-Rotman '14, a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow, has launched an initiative that aims increase the number of local Afghan female journalists working for international news agencies.

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Courtesy of Amie Ferris-Rotman
Courtesy of Amie Ferris-Rotman

As U.S. troops gradually withdraw from Afghanistan and as the country nears a pivotal presidential election, gender roles and the status of women in Afghanistan have been thrown into uncertainty. Amidst that disruption, Amie Ferris-Rotman ’14, a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow, has launched an initiative that aims increase the number of local Afghan female journalists working for international news agencies.

The Sahar Speaks project is a one-year, three-part mentorship and training program that will allow aspiring local female journalists to join agencies and produce investigate first-person reporting on the ongoing war. Ferris-Rotman said that she was inspired to develop the project while working as a foreign correspondent in Kabul for Reuters for two years.

“The more I looked around—looked at The New York Times, looked at BBC, looked at the Associated Press, all the major foreign news outlets that were operating out of Kabul—I realized that none of them hire local Afghan female reporters,” Ferris-Rotman said.

Even so, there are a significant number of female reporters in Afghanistan. According to Ferris-Rotman, there are almost over 2,000 Afghan female reporters in the country, but the majority of them work for local news, television and radio.

“None of them worked for foreign news outlets. To me, this just seemed like a total disaster,” she said. “It was heartbreaking as well because we weren’t getting proper stories about women out.”

Afghan-American filmmaker Miriam Arghandiwal, who interned for Reuters in Kabul while Ferris-Rotman was a senior correspondent, described her experience working for a foreign news agency as a lonely one and emphasized the value of projects like Sahar Speaks.

“I was probably one of the only Afghan females employed by international news agencies,” Arghandiwal said. “Afghanistan is the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman and the road to actually try to access these women, and know their stories and their pain, is so complex and so dire to understand. Afghan women can understand that better than anyone else.”

Both Arghandiwal and Ferris-Rotman were adamant about the need for more investment in the security of the women in order to ensure any range of success.

“We need to go the extra step to get them to work,” Arghandiwal explained. “They need our investment in them. It’s not like they’re going to walk into our bureaus and be really assertive.”

“It’s something that can happen but you need news organizations that are willing to go the hard way. You have to stand up for women that are working for you and that [ensure] their security needs are being taken care of,” Arghandiwal said.

The project—one of 21 other Knight fellow projects—is currently in the process of seeking partnerships, non-profits and grants with which to move forward. Ferris-Rotman framed the amount of funding as a principal determinant of the program’s structure.

“The plan will depend on grant funding…whether it’s a Skype or phone relationship or actually going there. But I think going there is really crucial,” Ferris-Rotman said. “There are a lot of foreign women who are interested in helping out and who would love to go to Afghanistan and meet these women and help them.”

Looking toward the future, Ferris-Rotman discussed the value of her project in the face of a slowly deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan.

“The question obviously is how badly it will deteriorate…[like] if it gets to a point like Syria when you can’t really operate anymore on many levels in terms of journalism,” Ferris-Rotman explained. “That only creates a need for a project like mine, to have Afghan women on the ground, reporting on their communities, what their life looks like in the face of such a security vacuum. It makes it more necessary [and] obviously it makes it more difficult.”

 

Contact Alexa Liautaud at alexal ‘at’ stanford ‘dot’ edu.

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Palo Alto implements new parking rules https://stanforddaily.com/2014/01/29/palo-alto-implements-new-parking-rules/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/01/29/palo-alto-implements-new-parking-rules/#comments Wed, 29 Jan 2014 08:51:12 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1081866 After a unanimous vote by the City Council on Monday, Palo Alto will introduce a controversial new permit parking program, which enables neighborhoods to restrict their parking spots to prioritize local residents.

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After a unanimous vote by the City Council on Monday, Palo Alto will introduce a controversial new permit parking program, which enables neighborhoods to restrict their parking spots to prioritize local residents.

In order to be part of the parking program, neighborhoods will have to petition to a governing body with the proof that their area has at least 75 percent occupancy and will also have to undergo a city staff analysis for high congestion in the area. Afterwards neighborhoods would go through public hearings with area employees.

The decision to implement the program raised numerous criticisms from small downtown business managers and other property owners, whose employees do not live in the area and cannot afford to pay the permit. Several of those who complained believe that the the permit program should be postponed until other transportation options such as shuttles and larger parking garages are put in place.

On the other hand, residents protested that businesses and grocery stores should take some share of responsibility for the amount of traffic and inconvenience they bring to neighborhoods. Residents also have requested that the requirement of 75 percent occupancy in order to qualify for the permit program be brought down to around 50.

The costs of the permits and other details have yet to be finalized.

 

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Stanford net assets rose in 2013 fiscal year https://stanforddaily.com/2014/01/08/stanford-net-assets-rose-in-2013-fiscal-year/ https://stanforddaily.com/2014/01/08/stanford-net-assets-rose-in-2013-fiscal-year/#respond Wed, 08 Jan 2014 09:56:33 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1081280 Stanford University’s 2013 fiscal year report announced an 11 percent increase in net assets, which include Stanford Hospital & Clinics and the Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital.

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Stanford University’s 2013 fiscal year report announced an 11 percent increase in net assets, which include Stanford Hospital & Clinics and the Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital. The net comes to $29.7 billion — $3 billion more than Stanford’s net assets from the year prior.

The net assets of the Stanford Hospitals & Clinics alone increased 25 percent to $4 billion in the 2013 fiscal year, which ended Aug. 31.

Randy Livingston, vice president for business affairs and chief financial officer, attributed the growth to profitable investments, donors and an increase in healthcare revenues.

Stanford’s endowment also increased significantly. Trumping its own record high of $17.2 billion in 2008, Stanford University’s endowment reached a new high of $18.7 billion, an increase of 9 percent from the year before.

In terms of the University’s operating activities, the fiscal review reported a significant decrease in the amount of surplus. This past fiscal year, the University finished with $165 million in surplus from operating activities, a decrease from the $211 million in surplus the year before.

Operating revenues also increased by 4 percent, totaling $4.1 billion.

 

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Stanford’s Afghanistan Legal Education Project faces challenges in 2014 https://stanforddaily.com/2013/12/04/stanfords-afghanistan-legal-education-project-faces-challenges-in-2014/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/12/04/stanfords-afghanistan-legal-education-project-faces-challenges-in-2014/#respond Wed, 04 Dec 2013 10:10:40 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1080930 In 2007, two Stanford law students approached Erik Jensen with the idea of writing legal education textbooks to meet a growing demand for more widespread law enforcement and better judicial practices in Afghanistan.

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In 2007, two Stanford law students approached Erik Jensen, now director of the Rule of Law Program at Stanford Law School, with the idea of writing legal education textbooks to meet a growing demand for more widespread law enforcement and better judicial practices in Afghanistan.

Courtesy of Sam Jacobson
Courtesy of Sam Jacobson

The student-led Afghanistan Legal Education Project (ALEP) was created that year with the first textbook, titled “An Introduction to the Laws of Afghanistan,” sent to the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF) in Kabul for vetting by leading Afghan academics and law experts. ALEP was the first legal education project for the Rule of Law Program. By 2010, the project had produced three textbooks and was awarded a grant of $1.3 million by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs to continue its work.

“My students were demanding something where they could not delay the gratification of doing something meaningful in their lives and embrace the textbooks, and the students on the other side could not get enough of the textbooks,” Jensen said.

With five books published, ALEP helped establish a full-fledged law department this year at AUAF that grants graduates a bachelor’s degree in arts and law and offers a selective academic project for Stanford law students through which they gain real-world experience and degree credit by writing textbooks. ALEP is currently being led by Christopher Jones J.D. ‘14 and Samuel Jacobson J.D. ‘14.

Samira Abrar, an undergraduate from Kabul who received a scholarship from the U.S. Embassy and is now pursuing a law degree at AUAF through ALEP, said she appreciates the textbooks more than her domestic academic material.

“[The textbooks] are very high-quality and they are a reference on our own laws and also the parts they have been discussing in every chapter…[is] new for me,” Abrar said. “In our own textbooks we do not have such things. [The new textbooks] make us think critically or lead us to discuss more or to seek other solutions to address the problem.”

While the project has seen success over the past six years, ALEP will soon face new obstacles. With new presidential elections and therefore widespread uncertainty surrounding the future of Afghanistan’s social, economic and political security, 2014 will be a critical year for Afghanistan.

“The level of insecurity among Afghans—and this includes the students in AUAF—about 2014 is palpable,” Jensen said.

Abrar acknowledged this uncertainty, specifically in regards to the future of her own education.

“What’s going to happen in 2014 is not something clear for everybody,” Abrar said. “What we hope as a student is that they support the law program. I hope that any changes to the system will not have a negative effect on our studies.”

According to Megan Karsh, the Rule of Law Program teaching fellow for ALEP, the effect of insecurity on the degree program is already noticeable in the enrollment numbers.

“Enrollment has been growing more slowly than we expected.” Karsh said. “We just accept that there’s this uncertainty and we continue to provide the best classes we have.”

Looking past lower enrollment figures, one of the worst-case scenarios for Stanford’s program after the 2014 pullout of American troops from Afghanistan and national elections is the Taliban retaking control of the capital and shutting down universities in Afghanistan all together.

However both Ghizaal Haress—who began as an adjunct lecture for ALEP in 2012 and recently left her other responsibilities to become a full-time law faculty member at AUAF—and Jensen, as well as other experts, are relatively confident that Kabul will resist coming under Taliban control after 2014. Their greater concern is that Afghanistan will experience an economic recession that will undo the economic progress made since the fall of the Taliban.

“We’re looking at a really tough several years,” Jensen said. “But it’s not so much hinged on the insecurities of the pullout in 2014, as it is a really serious contraction in the Afghan economy where we need to figure out ways to bridge through these economically difficult times.”

AUAF students echo this concern, fearing that they will not be able to afford to pay tuition as the majority of American and international NGOs pull out and the economy worsens.

“This is a concern for every student because all of them who are studying at AUAF are supported financially either by their families or by a scholarship,” Abrar said. “So when their families are acquiring salaries with international projects mostly, it’s a big concern for them whether their projects will be continued after 2014 changes or not.”

“Myself, I am working on such a project. I am not sure whether I will be able to financially afford the cost of my education or not,” she added.

Abrar hopes that political changes will not affect her dream of becoming a lawyer through the ALEP program, but she explains that many students, herself included, still express fear despite promises of continued support from the international community.

Haress described investing in education as a natural concern for Afghan students and very much in line with the broader trend of decreasing investment in Afghanistan. According to Haress, many have refrained from buying cars and houses because of the growing uncertainty in the stability of Afghanistan’s financial markets.

“If people are not planning to invest much in property, they may not be willing to invest in a four-year program or a five-year program if they’re not completely sure what’s going to happen next,” Haress said.

Further affirming Jensen’s concern over the economy, the new year will affect ALEP’s efforts by reducing state resources, notably those used to pay the salaries of qualified judges, who, according to Haress, are already extremely limited in number. With the lack of basic living services for judges in Afghanistan as well as a minimal pension system, Haress explains the moral predicament behind not having economic assurance for the future.

“If a judge sees all of that, what are the incentives for him to be honest?” Haress said. “He will take bribes to just make sure that he has a house to live, that his children go to school, and they have enough to eat, and they have enough clothes.”

Additionally, the relatively high number of women pursuing law degrees or taking law-related classes at AUAF—a continuing achievement for ALEP—might be jeopardized by a resurgence of the Taliban and increased insecurity in the country.

Despite the numerous obstacles that ALEP has to confront, much optimism has been expressed surrounding the continued endurance of the program.

With growing demand for textbooks from Afghan law students as well as the growing interest in real-life legal educational experience from Stanford students, ALEP was awarded an additional $7.24 million grant from the U.S. Department of State in 2012, which, according to Karsh, allowed the project to expand its efforts significantly and further strengthen its partnership with AUAF.

The latest grant lasts until 2017, and according to Jensen, many grants given by the U.S. government are intentionally longer term, in part to assuage the fears among Afghans about the uncertainty post-2014 and refute the idea that the U.S. will just pick up and ship out of Afghanistan as history might warn.

“I think American University [in Afghanistan] will continue,” Haress said. “I think the number of students that we have here will continue to study here, because it’s one of the most prestigious educational institutions that we have in the country.”

Jensen further explained that they have hired a new professor this year from the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, an area that experiences significant security challenges. They are also working to develop closer ties with Nangarhar University to increase outreach and textbook distribution beyond Kabul.

A group of Stanford law students currently working with ALEP is scheduled to travel to Kabul in February 2014 to meet with AUAF law professors, judicial officials and ministers, as well as the AUAF students who will provide them with feedback on their textbooks.

“We have a mandate,” Karsh said. “We are helping to establish this law department and we’re providing curriculum for the next five years. No matter what happens in 2014, we are going to continue providing this educational opportunity.”

 

Contact Alexa Liautaud at alexal ‘at’ Stanford ‘dot’ edu.

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University creates maps to show off campus works of art https://stanforddaily.com/2013/11/30/university-creates-maps-to-show-off-campus-works-of-art/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/11/30/university-creates-maps-to-show-off-campus-works-of-art/#respond Sun, 01 Dec 2013 00:11:57 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1080889 DAILY NEWS BRIEF:Two new maps have been created in order to help students, faculty, and visitors, to locate pieces of art on the Stanford campus.

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DAILY NEWS BRIEF: Two new maps have been created in order to help students, faculty, and visitors, to locate pieces of art on the Stanford campus. The Stanford Arts Map is available on smartphone or tablet, and includes a range of historical and logistical information on the 85 sculptures, murals, galleries, paintings, and other works located on the Stanford campus.

The interactive map uses color-coded pins to differentiate between public works of art, major architectural sites, Stanford art departments, and other buildings and galleries related to art.

The second map is a hard paper map available for those who would prefer not to use electronic devices. Of the 32 public art works located, key sites include El Centro Chicano’s façade Mural in Old Union, the Papua New Guinea sculpture garden hidden in a grove near Roble dorm, the Bing Concert Hall.

Additionally, the maps outline the arts district on campus that will soon be expanded by the acquisition of the Anderson Collection in 2014 and the opening of the McMurtry Building for the Department of Art and Art History in 2015.

 

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Franklin Orr nominated to serve as under secretary at U.S. Dept. of Energy https://stanforddaily.com/2013/11/19/franklin-orr-nominated-to-serve-as-under-secretary-at-u-s-dept-of-energy/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/11/19/franklin-orr-nominated-to-serve-as-under-secretary-at-u-s-dept-of-energy/#respond Tue, 19 Nov 2013 10:07:37 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1080630 Professor Franklin “Lynn” Orr is the director of the Precourt Institute for Energy and previously served as the director of Stanford’s Global Climate and Energy Project from 2002 to 2008, as well as the Chester Naramore dean of earth sciences from 1994 to 2002.

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Courtesy of Franklin Orr
Courtesy of Franklin Orr

Professor Franklin “Lynn” Orr is the director of the Precourt Institute for Energy and previously served as the director of Stanford’s Global Climate and Energy Project from 2002 to 2008, as well as the Chester Naramore dean of earth sciences from 1994 to 2002. He is currently a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. The Stanford Daily recently sat down with Orr to discuss his nomination by President Obama to serve as the under secretary for science at the U.S. Department of Energy.

The Stanford Daily (TSD): Congratulations on your nomination. When were you notified?

Franklin “Lynn” Orr (FO): The official notification was with the press release from the White House on Thursday afternoon, but I had a little warning that that was going to happen.

 

TSD: You’ve been nominated as the under secretary for science at the U.S. Department of Energy. What exactly does that position entail?

FO: Within the Department of Energy, there’s an office of science, and what it does is to provide support for scientific research…They are also involved with many of the national laboratories that provide user facilities for scientists around the country, so SLAC is one of those for example…

You can think of it as the under secretary who looks after the energy research program for the United States. But remember that each of these programs has their own assistant secretary who really has a lot to deal with as well, so this kind of a position that works with all of the assistant secretaries.

 

TSD: What do you see as the main challenges that the Department of Energy faces today?

FO: The challenge we have to face is that we need to supply the energy that people need to live comfortable and productive lives. Energy is woven completely through the fabric of modern societies. We live in a place like this where we are so fortunate to really have all the energy we need and at a reasonable price, but that’s not true for everybody in the world, so working on ways to supply energy in a secure and reliable way, to supply energy in way that is better balanced with the planetary systems…At the same time, doing it in way that we can afford—so the economic side of things as well.

 

TSD: Assuming that you are confirmed into the role as under secretary, how would you hope to accomplish these goals? How would that play out?

FO: The Department of Energy has a whole lot of really talented people there, and the national laboratories around the country. Part of the job is figuring out how to use all those assets as effectively as we can, and part of it is supporting the research that is done in lots of academic institutions around the country. Both of those functions are very important.

 

TSD: In the past, you were dean of the School of Earth Sciences, founding director of the Global Climate and Energy Project, and you currently lead the Precourt Institute for Energy. Where did your passion for environment and energy come from?

FO: At the very beginning of my career I worked for the Environmental Protection Agency, and I worked on the implementation of the Clean Air Act, which had just passed in 1970. That was largely about air pollution and those kinds of things, but it stuck with me over the years and I’ve spent my whole career working on energy in some ways.

Part of it was oil recovery—getting oil out of the ground; part of it was pushing high pressure [carbon dioxide] back into the ground, and then in the last decade or thereabouts, it’s very much been about how do we supply the energy that the world needs but at the same time, reduce impacts like carbon emissions and other air pollution. So in one way or another, I’ve really spent my whole career working in related areas.

 

TSD: Assuming again that you are accepted in to the under secretary position, you will have to step down from your role at Stanford. What do you think you’ll miss most about Stanford?

FO: I think what I’ll miss the most is teaching my classes. I’m actually teaching an energy class with a couple of colleagues this quarter as part of Thinking Matters—it’s  just such fun. And then I teach my other classes for graduate students as well. I just know for a fact that I’m going to miss that part a whole lot. They’ll be plenty of chances in Washington to think about energy matters but I don’t think I’ll be teaching any Stanford students there.

 

Contact Alexa Liautaud at alexal ‘at’ stanford.edu.

A previous version of this article incorrectly named the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment as the Woods Institute for the Environment. The Daily regrets this error.

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FoCUS draws dignitaries to summit on U.S.-Mexico policy relations https://stanforddaily.com/2013/11/11/focus-draws-dignitaries-to-summit-on-u-s-mexico-policy-relations/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/11/11/focus-draws-dignitaries-to-summit-on-u-s-mexico-policy-relations/#respond Mon, 11 Nov 2013 09:23:39 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1080361 The U.S.-Mexico FoCUS conference concluded Saturday afternoon as part of a four-day event featuring speakers such as George Shultz, the 60th U.S. Secretary of State, and Eduardo Medina Mora, Mexico Ambassador to the United States.

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Courtesy of Jorge Olarte
Courtesy of Jorge Olarte

“To me, immigration is a sign of change, and what we are experiencing in this country right now—if you are observing what is going in the civic life of the United States—is what I believe, dramatic change,” said Congressman Xavier Becerra ‘80 J.D. ’84 to 30 student delegates in the closing summit of the U.S.- Mexico Forum for Cooperation, Understanding and Solidarity (FoCUS) conference.

The U.S.-Mexico FoCUS conference concluded Saturday afternoon as part of a four-day event featuring speakers such as George Shultz, the 60th U.S. Secretary of State, and Eduardo Medina Mora, Mexico Ambassador to the United States.

Delegates engaged in group project workshops, speaker panels and dialogue sessions surrounding the theme of improving bilateral relations between the United States and Mexico.

FoCUS was founded last year by Jorge Olarte ‘13 and Alejandro Navarro, a student from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) university. The cross-national group held a primary conference in April in Mexico City and the closing summit this past weekend at Stanford. Student delegates from various U.S. and Mexican universities were able to attend the closing summit.

“We began with the idea summer of last year when we wanted to make a little conference for people to talk about issues of Mexico and the drug trade and issues like that because there was almost no conversation at all about U.S. and Mexico at Stanford,” Olarte said.

“We thought at the beginning that it was a really small idea, but then we began talking to faculty at Stanford, and they really pushed us to think big and go beyond a one-day conference,” he added.

The FoCUS conference was loosely modeled on the Forum for American/Chinese Exchange at Stanford (FACES) and the American Middle Eastern Network for Dialogue at Stanford (AMENDS)—both multi-cultural conference models dedicated to promoting awareness of international, political and cultural issues and global relations.

Yet what’s unique about FoCUS is its partnership with one of the top universities in Mexico, ITAM, where the Mexico delegation is based.

Delegates were split into collaborative teams in January and worked on themed policy-constructing projects between the April conference and the Stanford summit. On Nov. 9, they presented their work to a panel of experts and audience.

Mexican delegate Andrea Conde hopes that her team uses the work they produced to affect real-life international policy.

“My team was a security team, and we want to get our working paper published,” Conde said. “We are probably going to talk to academics and send our working draft. We also have emails of politicans to get feedback on practical things.”

Anna Hillary, a U.S. delegate studying as a grad student at New York University, also had similar ambitions for what she wanted to take away from the conference.

“We’re really just hoping to influence policy,” Hillary said. “It’s a really nice forum for us to be heard and to put forth our ideas on how the security strategy should look between the U.S. and Mexico and how different aspects of the relationship should look.”

Hillary, Conde and Olarte all emphasized the importance of the close relationships that they formed throughout the program.

“It’s like seeing old friends, but we also have a really nice professional relationship,” Hillary said.

With regards to the future, Olarte expressed his enthusiasm regarding the fast growth of the FoCUS program in such a short amount of time and hopes the network will continue.

“It’s really creating this bridge between students from both countries and this group of students with the people who are changing our countries right now,” Olarte said.

“We want to be part of the dialogue, and we’re starting to,” he added.

This year, the main themes of the conference included security issues, immigration and other broader aspects of the relationship between the United States and Mexico.

For next year’s conference, Olarte and Navarro hope to hold the same events, including the conference in Mexico City in April, but with a focus on business, trade and economics.

 

Contact Alexa Liautaud at alexal ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Ambassador Dennis Ross shares views on Middle East at Hillel event https://stanforddaily.com/2013/10/31/ambassador-dennis-ross-shares-views-on-middle-east-at-hillel-event/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/10/31/ambassador-dennis-ross-shares-views-on-middle-east-at-hillel-event/#respond Thu, 31 Oct 2013 09:37:49 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1079998 “If we want there to be a peace agreement we are going to have to change the dynamic; we are going to have to show that something is different this time,” said Ambassador Dennis Ross in regard to Israel-Palestine relations at an event hosted by Hillel at Stanford.

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“If we want there to be a peace agreement we are going to have to change the dynamic; we are going to have to show that something is different this time,” said Ambassador Dennis Ross in regard to Israel-Palestine relations.

SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily
SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily

Ross, who served in various national security and diplomatic roles during the Reagan, H.W. Bush, Clinton and Obama administrations, spoke to an audience of roughly 270 in Dinkelspiel Auditorium on Wednesday night, as part of an event series hosted by Hillel at Stanford.

Co-president of the Stanford Israel Alliance, Alon Elhanan ‘14 introduced Ross and Larry Diamond ‘73 M.A. ‘78 Ph.D. ‘80, director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford, who moderated the question and answer session on the topics of foreign policy discussed.

While his talk was entitled “A Wide Angle Perspective on a Democratic Israel,” Ross interspersed light humor and personal anecdotes into a range of foreign policy topics and international issues.

“We have not seen a period like this sort of upheaval,” Ross said as he traced back through history in demonstrating that between Egypt, Syria, Iran and the Arab-Israeli issue, the world has never seen more conflict at one time.

Ross spoke specifically about the controversial relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia, stating that neither the United States nor Saudi Arabia want a failed Egyptian state, yet the Saudis are preoccupied with eliminating Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood while American influence is ebbing in Egypt.

Ross also spent time discussing the possibility of a deal with Iran regarding the rollback of its nuclear advancements.

“This is not the time to be lifting sanctions,” Ross said, further elaborating on the threat to Israel that Iran currently poses.

The second half of his lecture was dedicated to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Ross argued that because there is so much going on in the Middle East, the lack of specific focus on the Arab-Israeli conflict opens up a space for political dialogue.

Moreover, he brought up the necessity for specific compromises from both sides, referencing his own 16-point plan to get the Middle Eastern peace process back on track.

While he did display optimism regarding progress in the future, he also acknowledged the deep mistrust between sides that currently hinders the negotiation process today.

“If you’re looking at the core issues…what they are trying to negotiate—borders, security, refugees, Jerusalem—each side stakes out the maximal position and has no reason to begin to solve or even to think about creative ways to deal with it as a long as they disbelieve,” Ross said. “The disbelief makes it very difficult to take advantage of the context that might create a possibility.”

Contact Alexa Liautaud at alexl ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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PA City Council sets aside money to help ‘high-risk’ homeless https://stanforddaily.com/2013/10/09/pa-city-council-sets-aside-money-to-help-high-risk-homeless/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/10/09/pa-city-council-sets-aside-money-to-help-high-risk-homeless/#respond Wed, 09 Oct 2013 09:36:10 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1079231 Palo Alto city officials have voted to spend $250,000 on improving living conditions for the homeless population of the city.

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After recent and highly contested decisions by the Palo Alto City Council to close Cubberley Community Center at night and create a ban on people living in cars, city officials have voted to spend $250,000 on improving living conditions for the homeless population of the city.

SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily
SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily

This spending budget would include funding homeless shelters and case managers—employees who will be in charge of locating homeless individuals and guiding them through the housing procedure by facilitating logistics with the landlord as well as handling personal issues and long-term housing retention.

In an Oct. 7 City Council meeting, an 8-0 vote initiated a partnership between Santa Clara County and the City of Palo Alto to assist those who are at high risk and have had contact with the criminal-judicial system get off the streets as soon as possible.

These actions have been categorized as a one-off, short-term solution addressing a small portion of a much larger problem that still needs to be solved. City officials and others involved with these new efforts have simultaneously expressed the need for more sustainable, long-term solutions to the problem.

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Stanford scientists awarded over $17 million in NIH grants for innovative research https://stanforddaily.com/2013/10/02/stanford-scientists-awarded-over-17-million-in-nih-grants-for-innovative-research/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/10/02/stanford-scientists-awarded-over-17-million-in-nih-grants-for-innovative-research/#respond Wed, 02 Oct 2013 08:50:47 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1079011 The National Institutes of Health awarded over $17 million to eight Stanford scientists on Sunday. The grant will enable the recipients to pursue major, groundbreaking projects in the field of biomedicine that might otherwise be too unconventional for mainstream funding, which generally requires more certainty. The awards are divided into categories: the Pioneer Award, of […]

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The National Institutes of Health awarded over $17 million to eight Stanford scientists on Sunday. The grant will enable the recipients to pursue major, groundbreaking projects in the field of biomedicine that might otherwise be too unconventional for mainstream funding, which generally requires more certainty.

The awards are divided into categories: the Pioneer Award, of which one was given to a Stanford faculty member; the Innovator Award, of which three were given; the Transformative Research Award, of which four were given; and the Early Independence Award, the only grant not awarded to a Stanford faculty member.

The recipients were Michael Lin, Catherine Blish, Maximilian Diehn MD ‘01 Ph.D. ‘04 MF ‘06, Elizabeth Sattely, Thomas Rando, Tony Wyss-Coray,  David Relman, and Susan Holmes.

Some of the research that was recognized included a fluorescent light-inducible protein (FLIP) switch that controls the activity of a protein using light, a study of the positive effect of physical activity on the brain’s functioning capabilities and an investigation of the microbiology of certain vegetables to explain why they are beneficial to human health.

The Stanford researchers are among 78 National Institutes of Health grantees, who were awarded a total of approximately $123 million for their initiatives.

 

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Stanford engineers reach breakthrough in nanotechnology advancement https://stanforddaily.com/2013/10/02/stanford-engineers-reach-breakthrough-in-nanotechnology-advancement/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/10/02/stanford-engineers-reach-breakthrough-in-nanotechnology-advancement/#respond Wed, 02 Oct 2013 08:49:57 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1079010 A team of Stanford engineers has succeeded in creating a faster, more energy-efficient computer using transistors made of carbon nanotubes.

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A team of Stanford engineers has succeeded in creating a faster, more energy-efficient computer using transistors made  of carbon nanotubes. The breakthrough comes after years of scientific efforts around the world attempting to utilize this material as a replacement to the current silicon transistor. No one has been able to prove its functional use until now.

The notable team was led by Stanford professors Subhasish Mitra Ph.D. ‘00 and H.S. Philip Wong.

According to several experts, the continued use of silicon chips is becoming increasingly hazardous and inefficient.

The electronics industry’s increasing demand for thinner and thinner devices has led to the need for smaller and smaller silicon transistors. The smaller the transistor, the more energy is needed and the more power is wasted – demonstrated by the heat felt from the bottom of one’s computer. Carbon nanotubes offer lower-power computing with better energy efficiency, both in conducting and controlling electricity.

While scientists agree that there is still much more testing to be done before commercial use, the proof that carbon nanotubes can substitute pure silicon transistors in powering a universal computer is nevertheless a cutting-edge stride in nanotechnology.

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Q&A: Abbas Milani, director of Stanford’s Iranian Studies Program https://stanforddaily.com/2013/09/30/qa-abbas-milani-director-of-stanfords-iranian-studies-program/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/09/30/qa-abbas-milani-director-of-stanfords-iranian-studies-program/#comments Mon, 30 Sep 2013 08:05:25 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1078916 Abbas Milani is the director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford, co-director of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution and author of the book “The Shah,” among others. With recent news of direct talks between Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani and the Obama administration, The Daily sat down with Milani to provide a context for the revived presence of US-Iran relations in the media sphere.

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Abbas Milani is the director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford, co-director of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution and author of the book “The Shah,” among others. With recent news of direct talks between Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani and the Obama administration, The Daily sat down with Milani to provide a context for the revived presence of US-Iran relations in the media sphere.

The Stanford Daily (TSD): What do you see as the main challenges facing Iran? Of these issues, what are the Iranian people expecting President Rouhani to improve on?

Abbas Milani (AM): Domestically the biggest challenge, by far, is the economy. Unemployment is officially at 20 percent… realistically at about 40 percent. Inflation is increasing above 40 percent, and realistically it’s about probably double that. Oil revenues, which are 80 percent of the government’s source of revenue, are dwindling. There is no sign of increase-in fact every indication shows that with the sanctions increase there will be further dwindling.

The second challenge is that the right-wingers are now regrouping and are trying to rock any reversal of diplomacy that would hurt them economically and politically. We can look to further tensions there within the regime.

The more strategic tension is that Iran is a multi-linguistic, multi-ethnic country, and there are increasing signs of dismantlement amongst the Kurds, amongst the Turks, amongst the Balochi, and holding the country together as it has been for 2,000 years is going to take some savvy-hopefully Mr. Rouhani will have that.

TSD: Regarding the economic challenges, what do you expect President Rouhani’s position to be in terms of mitigating the debilitating economic effects of the sanctions imposed by the United States on the Iranian people?

AM: I expect [President Rouhani] to do two things. First of all: to stop some of the utter corrupt incompetence that defined Ahmadinejad.

If [Ahmadinejad’s administration] had not squandered billions and billions–by some accounts seven hundred billions of dollars in the last seven to eight years–they could have weathered the sanctioning much more easily. So one aspect of what I expect Rouhani to do is to try, but it’s not going to be easy because the government is so used to corruption and losing money.

The second thing I expect him to do is to see as quickly as possible whether he can find a way of easing sanctions. More oil, import more and attract more foreign investment. They have already announced a major program to attract new tourism. They are trying to increase the revenue, control the expenditure, bring the budget under control, create some employment and get out of the mess that Ahmadinejad has created.

TSD: Upon his election, President Rouhani spoke about “resetting relationships around the world.” Do you think that he is going to be willing to make the necessary reforms to the trajectory of the Iranian nuclear efforts, as well as simultaneously restore relations with the West?

AM: His views are that, “We are not going to give up our program, but we are willing to make the kinds of concessions that would allow the international community’s mind to rest at ease and would allow us to continue some from of peaceful nuclear program.”

At the same time, the fact is that there are radical groups on both sides in the West and Israel, and in Iran, that don’t want these negotiations to be fruitful. Tension is in their benefit, and they might well find a way of torpedoing this. Rouhani has some room to maneuver, but he can’t maneuver too much. He has to concoct a solution that can be sold at home as a victory over the West and over Israel, and then be acceptable very much to the West and Israel as a serious enough concession to allow the regime to continue. It sounds like an oxymoron, but that’s exactly what he has to do.

TSD: Taking matters from the other side, what does the international community need to do in order to act affirmatively towards Iran, yet without removing Rouhani’s capability of reforming his country with the support of his people?

AM: The difficulty that the international community faces is that, on the one hand, they don’t want to make no response, but on the other, the Iranian regime is now in a much better negotiating mood because it is feeling the effect of the sanctions.    You don’t want to completely let them off the hook, but you also don’t want to hurt the Iranian people unnecessarily. The Iranian population is overwhelmingly pro-Western, and that is a very important political capital not to squander. Finding a balance between these two, in other words-telling Rouhani that his good behavior is going to be rewarded but at the same time not falling prey to some shenanigans of the regime…making some pretend concessions and then going back as soon as the pressure is lifted-is going to be the challenge of the U.S. policy.

TSD: Looking back 20 years from now, what should the United States have done regarding its approach to Iran and the nuclear weapons program?

AM: I think they should have accepted early on that Iran has the right to enriched uranium within the NPC but that, because [Iran] has lied in the past, because it has launched programs without duly notifying the IAEA, it needs to sign the Protocol; it needs to accept more intrusive inspections.

I think that the outline of an agreement is fairly evident. Iran continues at five-percent enrichment, it opens up all of its nuclear sites and it makes a very clear categorical statement that is in some ways verifiable, that it won’t take larger steps towards weaponizing.

If they had insisted on trying to do that, I think there would have been an agreement some time ago. Rouhani was very close to getting this deal, and radicals torpedoed it. Whether the ‘torpedoists’ will succeed in torpedoing it again, I hope not. But there are enough people in Iran who are worried that unless they make some kind of a concession, the whole system will collapse.

Contact Alexa Liautaud at alexal@stanford.edu.

 

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Two professors awarded MacArthur fellowships https://stanforddaily.com/2013/09/26/two-professors-awarded-macarthur-fellowships/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/09/26/two-professors-awarded-macarthur-fellowships/#respond Thu, 26 Sep 2013 07:24:33 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1078807 Two Stanford professors were awarded MacArthur fellowships, also known as “Genius Grants” from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation on Tuesday.

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Two Stanford professors were awarded MacArthur fellowships, also known as “Genius Grants” from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation on Tuesday.

Dr. David Lobell Ph.D. ‘05, associate professor in Environmental Earth System Science and associate director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment (FSE), and Dr. Kevin Boyce, associate professor in the department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, will each receive a sum of $625,000 over the course of five years, with zero requirements or reporting conditions.

Lobell, an agricultural ecologist who was appointed as senior research scholar at the FSE in 2008, has researched the effect of climate change on crop production and food security around the world.

Boyce, a paleobotanist, has investigated ancient plants and how certain physiological and biological changes through evolution affect today’s ecosystem.

Boyce and Lobell join 22 other 2013 MacArthur fellows representing a variety of fields.

“This year’s class of MacArthur Fellows is an extraordinary group of individuals who collectively reflect the breadth and depth of American creativity,” said Cecilia Conrad, vice president of the MacArthur Fellows Program, in a press release.

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Sophomore College creates new seminars, sees application decrease https://stanforddaily.com/2013/09/25/sophomore-college-creates-new-seminars-sees-application-decrease/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/09/25/sophomore-college-creates-new-seminars-sees-application-decrease/#respond Wed, 25 Sep 2013 08:04:12 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1078776 Although the number of applications and students enrolled in Sophomore College decreased between 2012 and 2013, the Stanford Introductory Studies (SIS) department introduced five new seminars for this year’s program.

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Although the number of applications and students enrolled in Sophomore College decreased between 2012 and 2013, the Stanford Introductory Studies (SIS) department introduced five new seminars for this year’s program.

A three-week summer program reserved for rising sophomores, the 2013 Sophomore College program accepted 488 applicants with a total of 245 rising sophomores enrolled. The 2012 program had 545 applicants and a total of 299 students enrolled.

A representative of the Stanford Introductory Studies department attributed the decrease in applicants to the smaller number of courses offered in total this year. While last year’s Sophomore College boasted a selection of 22 seminars, this year’s selection included 18, even with the newly created offerings.

One of the new 2013 seminars, In the Age of the Anthropocene: Coupled-Human Natural Systems of Southeast Alaska, took students to Sitka, Alaska, where they conducted fieldwork as part of an exploration of ecological systems and the challenges of modern day environmental stewardship. Unlike many of the other courses offered, this one was spent entirely off campus and students were given the opportunity to go camping, visit the Inian Islands and interact with locals.

Dylan Anslow ‘16, one of the Alaska seminar participants, said the group was able to interact with various Sitka natives including fishermen and timber builders, who through both their occupation and lifestyle engage with ecological systems.

“We also went on amazing hikes and saw 30 whales breach one after another and learned the names of dozen of plants in the woods and their traditional uses,” Anslow said.

Another new addition to this year’s selection was Photography, Truth or Fiction or…, a course examining the ethics and validity of photography taught by Connie Wolf ‘81, the John and Jill Freidenrich director of the Cantor Arts Center.

Kristen Stipanov ‘16, who participated in the photography course, said they took several field trips into San Francisco and met with artists, curators, advertisers and others involved in photography or art.

“We also really explored how Stanford uses photography,” Stipanov said, “and I really enjoyed learning about the different resources on campus and how to use Stanford to pursue my specific interest in photography.”

Stipanov also pointed out, however, that the course deserved more than just two units because of the amount of time students dedicated to the class outside of the classroom.

“Even when we are not in class, we are living in the dorm with the other students, eating with them and having discussions,” Stipanov said. “The residential experience is a part of the class, and that means that your mental energy is always focused on the class during the weeks that you are taking it.”

The other three new classes were Journeying In and Out: Creative Writing and Performance in Prison, which enabled Stanford students to work directly with the youth at Hillcrest Juvenile Hall in San Mateo; When Engineers Go Sailing: the Science and Technology of America’s Cup Yachts and Matches, which allowed students to learn the basics of engineering and technology design through the study of the America’s Cup boats; and Public Education & Schooling: The Great Equalizer or the Fiercely Competitive Field?, which focused on understanding the issues within American public education and the public school infrastructure itself.

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Stanford to open Muslim resource center next year https://stanforddaily.com/2013/05/29/stanford-to-open-muslim-resource-center-next-year/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/05/29/stanford-to-open-muslim-resource-center-next-year/#respond Thu, 30 May 2013 06:58:45 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1077499 Stanford will open a Muslim resource center at the start of the 2013-14 academic year, culminating an effort by Muslim students and other supporters -- almost 25 faculty members -- that has lasted nearly a decade.

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Stanford will open a Muslim resource center at the start of the 2013-14 academic year, culminating an effort by Muslim students and other supporters —  almost 25 faculty members — that has lasted nearly a decade.

The Markaz: Resource Center for Engagement with the Cultures and Peoples of the Muslim World will occupy a two-room complex on the second floor of Old Union’s Nitery Building.

According to the project’s student leaders, the effort to establish the center reached a tipping point at the end of winter quarter when the students were able to discuss the issue with Provost John Etchemendy Ph.D. ‘82.

“I think it was just an accumulation of all of the conversations we had with the administrators,” said Mahta Baghoolizadeh ’13, former president of the Muslim Student Awareness Network. “When we spoke with Provost Etchemendy, his response was, ‘It’s time for this to happen.’”

Associate Vice Provost of Student Affairs Sally Dickson, who will oversee the center’s creation and operation, agreed that the center fulfills a student need.

“There was a general recognition that there was a need with the growing Muslim student population,” Dickson said.

“Stanford talks a lot about diversity and promoting diversity, and we saw that it could be done better,” said Subhan Ali M.S. ‘09 Ph.D. ‘14, another leader who contributed to the effort to establish the center. “I think this is why they also agreed to have the center because it allows the University to embrace the diverse cultures of the Muslim world, which hasn’t been fully done yet.”

The center’s name — Markaz — means ‘center’ in Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, Turkish and Hebrew. The center will serve as a place for the discussion of Islam, the Middle East, North Africa and South and Southeast Asia, and will also serve as a safe space for Muslim students to talk with each other as well as with non-Muslim students.

“Right now the University has a very dedicated set of resources on the academic front towards engagement with Muslim civilization: with faculty, the Abbasi [Program in Islamic Studies] — these things exist,” Ali said. “[The center] is going to provide a whole new avenue for students, faculty, staff, to engage with these topics outside of the traditional academic realm.”

The University has started a search for a director who is a scholar in Islam and the Muslim world. Preliminary talks with the Office of Development have discussed funding and donor engagement to support the center’s director and the cost of programming, with involved students hoping to model their approach off that of the Diversity and First Generation Office.

Unlike Hillel at Stanford, which is a 501(c)(3) organization legally independent from Stanford, the students wanted Markaz to be part of the University and associated with the Office of Student Affairs.

“We had the option of being a 501(c)(3), but we wanted this to be under Student Affairs,” Baghoolizadeh said. “We wanted to establish a relationship between the student body and the administration that hasn’t been there before for students of Middle Eastern background, Muslim students, North African students, South Asian [students] and Southeast Asian [students].”

“I will be working very closely with the students who have been very engaged and excited about this and we’ll all be working together,” Dickson added.

According to Ali, similar initiatives at other universities have given Stanford students cause for optimism.

“Duke University set up something similar to this, and the people I’ve talked to there, once they had this, said that it completely shifted the culture of the conversation on campus around what people thought and felt about Islam and the Muslim people,” said Ali. “We really hope to see a similar effect.”

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Q+A: Lina Khatib on American intervention in Syria https://stanforddaily.com/2013/05/27/qa-lina-khatib-on-american-intervention-in-syria/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/05/27/qa-lina-khatib-on-american-intervention-in-syria/#comments Tue, 28 May 2013 05:57:03 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1077456 Together with Larry Diamond, Khatib authored an article last month in The Atlantic making the case for greater American and international involvement.

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Lina Khatib, co-founder of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law, has been an outspoken voice in favor of American intervention in Syria. Together with Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, she authored an article last month in The Atlantic making the case for greater American and international involvement. The Daily sat down with Khatib to further discuss the conflict in Syria and what might come after.

 

The Stanford Daily (TSD): You said that you were interested in Syria before the uprisings. What captured your interest before everyone else started looking at the country?

Lina Khatib (LK): Before the uprising, my work on Syria was mainly about the struggle between the citizens and the state. I was interested in finding out whether any voices of dissent existed within Syria so I went on fieldwork to examine both state propaganda and activists. At the time, I came to the conclusion that the political space in Syria was very closed and that the state really had the upper hand.

 

TSD: Looking at Syria now, what is your reaction to everything that is going on, and how the international community has decided to respond?

LK: Because the state in Syria is so strong and it had succeeded before the uprising in quelling any kind of oppositional political voice within Syria, it has been very difficult for the Syrian opposition since the start of the uprising to stand up to the state effectively. I think this is not surprising because of the lack of experience in engaging in oppositional politics. Having said that, the international community has set the bar too high for the opposition in terms of expecting the Syrian opposition to be more sophisticated, to be more united, to have clear goals — it’s not realistic to have these kinds of expectations knowing the context of Syria.

These kinds of issues have been used for the past two-and-a-half years or so as an excuse for the international community not to intervene in the Syrian crisis — neither diplomatically nor militarily. What we’ve witnessed is a process of leading from behind where the international community says the right things in terms of supporting the resistance against Bashar al Assad, but this rhetoric has not been coupled with enough practical support.

 

TSD: What exactly is “practical support?” Military aid?

LK: Practical support early on in the crisis could have been simply diplomatic pressure on certain international actors who were still supportive of the Assad regime. Today, unfortunately, the time for a diplomatic solution, in my opinion, has passed. Practical help means both diplomatic pressure and military support. I don’t think the Assad regime will fall with the current level of resources. The Assad regime is much stronger on the ground — you need to tip the balance in favor of the opposition and one way of doing that is by having multilateral international military support.

 

TSD: Do you think the United States could lead such a multilateral initiative without Russia and China’s backing?

LK: The problem really is mainly with Russia because Russia regards Assad as a key ally. It has not only sent weapons to support the Assad’s regime but also military personnel who are manning some of the anti-aircraft missile bases in Syria. Part of Russia’s motivation for doing this is geopolitics. Russia wants to maintain its position vis-à-vis the United States in global politics. But, it is not in Russia’s long-term interest to keep supporting a regime that is definitely falling. The United States can do more to reassure Russia regarding its political reputation in the region but at the same time to forge a new kind of relationship with Russia whereby partnering with the rest of the international community to find a solution for the Syrian crisis. The United States cannot lead international action without bringing in Russia and China onto the same side.

 

TSD: If the international community decided to act militarily, what would that mean on the ground with regards to the growing humanitarian crisis and potential terrorist groups who can take advantage?

LK: Unfortunately, the longer the crisis is left to simmer as it is, the more opportunity terrorist groups have to become more powerful and influential in Syria. This is not helped by the fact that certain actors in the international community are supporting these kinds of groups simply because they are proving themselves to being more viable than other militants fighting the Assad regime. By sending weapons to nonextremist Syrian rebels, you are not only able to fight Assad more effectively but also not allow extremist groups to become more powerful. I don’t think that the scars of the Iraq War should be used as an excuse for non-intervention in Syria.

 

TSD: How can you be sure the weapons will reach the right people?

The way to ensure that the weapons reach the right people is to have a clear channel of communication and dissemination that identifies trustworthy, local Syrian leaders and working with them. This is certainly doable.

 

TSD: If a military intervention were to occur, what would happen after the regime falls? How much would the United States be responsible for sorting things out?

LK: It’s always difficult when a regime falls because just because the regime falls doesn’t mean the crisis ends — it’s just an important phase. One always needs to have a plan for how to handle the chaos that is inevitable after the fall of any regime. I am adamant that boots on the ground in any shape or form is not the solution — we’ve seen a good example of that in Iraq whereby the presence of military troops after the fall of Saddam did very little to contain the violence. We are not looking for a repeat of that scenario.

I think that Syria is not yet a lost cause but for this optimism to stay, action needs to happen very soon because if it doesn’t…Syria is heading in the direction of sectarian fragmentation, and if that happens then it will be very difficult for any entity to contain the potential violence. For now, there are enough indicators that there are certain potential leaders in Syria that could be called upon — along with the international community, perhaps the United Nations [peacekeeping forces]…[and] local Syrian leaders in order to prevent the country from disintegrating.

 

TSD: Notwithstanding the humanitarian needs of Syria, why is it in United States’ best interest to intervene?

LK: It’s because of regional stability in general. Already we are seeing the Syrian regime start a new fighting front in the Golan Heights in collaboration with Hezbollah. This is the first example of the kind of regional instability that could escalate in the future if this situation is not contained as soon as possible. Assad is using the Golan Heights as an excuse to present himself as the leader of a resistant regime.

This is a very dangerous situation to be in because Israel is starting to feel vulnerable regarding its security on its border, and we are seeing the ingredients for a wider regional war as a result. Already, the humanitarian crisis in Jordan is causing the Jordanian regime to start getting worried about stability within Jordan as well — Turkey is the same, starting to see clashes on its border with Syria. All of these things, if left as they are, are likely to escalate into regional instability that would be a real threat to United States’ interests in the region as a whole. It is also not in the United States’ best interest to alienate itself from Arab masses in the post-Arab Spring era. You need to gain allies in the region and you need stability in the region.

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Q+A: Daniel Hartwig, University archivist https://stanforddaily.com/2013/05/08/q-a-daniel-hartwig-university-archivist/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/05/08/q-a-daniel-hartwig-university-archivist/#respond Thu, 09 May 2013 06:55:30 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1077051 While Stanford’s students and faculty members frequently win acclaim for their contributions to the intellectual community, the behind-the-scenes work of University archivist Daniel Hartwig may be just as noteworthy and valuable. The Daily sat down with Hartwig to discuss the most challenging aspects of conservation, entrepreneurship in the library and his love for 19th-century photography.

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While Stanford’s students and faculty members frequently win acclaim for their contributions to the intellectual community, the behind-the-scenes work of University archivist Daniel Hartwig may be just as noteworthy and valuable. The Daily sat down with Hartwig to discuss the most challenging aspects of conservation, entrepreneurship in the library and his love for 19th-century photography.

Daniel Hartwig, Stanford University's archivist, holds a trowel that was used to lay down the campus' first cornerstone. Hartwig cites Eadweard Muybridge's historic photographs of locomotion as being some of his favorite university artifacts. (SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily)
Daniel Hartwig, Stanford University’s archivist, holds a trowel that was used to lay down the campus’ first cornerstone. Hartwig cites Eadweard Muybridge’s historic photographs of locomotion as some of his favorite university artifacts. (SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily)

 

The Stanford Daily (TSD): Can you tell us a little bit about your background? How did you first get involved in the field of library science?

Daniel Hartwig (DH): I grew up in Iowa, and I did my undergraduate [studies] at the University of Iowa. I double majored in history and philosophy. At the time, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do professionally, but I was somewhat interested in teaching history. I also had an interest in science so I went to the University of Indiana, Bloomington, and then got master’s [degrees] in history and the philosophy of science.

On the history side of things, I worked in the Lilly Library [at the University of Indiana] and did a lot of research with primary resources, [or] historic documents. I loved the archives there and I loved the work, and I thought there might be some type of career in that.

I then went to library school at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and worked at the Wisconsin Historical Society for two years. So that was how I got started and that’s how I fell in love with archives and the work that we do.

 

TSD: Why did you decide to make the transition to Stanford?

DH: Throughout my career and with most archival positions these days, the emphasis is on technology transitioning from a primary analog world — paper-based documents — to a digital world. I had a lot of web design experience, did a lot of digitalization, did a lot of computer applications at my time at Yale, and given Stanford’s innovative ways and various projects in terms of digital libraries, there was a real need to move the archives from an analog to a digital environment, so that was my foot in the door so to speak.

 

TSD: How has technology changed the culture of archiving?

DH: [This change has] radically uprooted the traditional skillset for [an] archivist, just as with any professional track or education — the things that you learn 20 years ago are obsolete now.

Digital preservation is perhaps the most pressing issue. We [used to be able to] put things in a box or in a cold, dry dark room and they’d be good for 500 years… well we can’t do that with computer files. You really have to curate the things over time… and be much more aware in terms of technology.

 

TSD: What is your favorite part about your position at Stanford?

DH: When I interviewed, I heard the word entrepreneurial maybe 20 times, so coming from Yale it was a different environment. I thought, “what is entrepreneurial?” Whenever I talk with people and try to explain what’s different about Stanford, it is that word — ”entrepreneurial.”

[I think entrepreneurship is] understanding and enjoying change, innovation, creativity and flexibility — being agile. You have your responsibilities, or your mission, but you have full flexibility and freedom to implement that in the way you see fit… That’s what I love and that’s what makes the job most exciting. It’s the totality of what we do that we enjoy, which is really collecting a lot of things not just to collect but to make them used… in research, teaching, learning, documentaries, exhibits. It’s seeing at the end of the day how resources are used that might be the most fulfilling aspect of what we do.

 

TSD: Can you describe an instance in your work with the archives during which you employed this entrepreneurial spirit?

DH: When I came here, we maybe only had 100 of our collections with online descriptions. Now, almost all of our 200 collections do. So, it’s transforming our online presence, in terms of the description about our collections and online access. I think over 200 of our collections are now available online and those 200 collections… include hundreds of thousands of images and videos.

 

TSD: What are some of your favorite items in the Stanford archives?

DH: I have a fondness [for] and a bit of a background in photography, architecture, and design. My favorites would include Eadweard Muybridge photographs. He did motion experiments [with Leland Stanford] and was one of the innovators in cinema and movies. His photographs are amazing.

We also have the Hanna House collections — the Frank Lloyd Wright house on campus. We have blueprints, architectural designs, a few sketches of Wright and a lot of photographs. We also have a print collection, which includes some of the original prints and campus plan by [architect] Frederick Law Olmsted.

 

TSD: Where are the university’s artifacts stored?

DH: More often than not, we’ll provide item-level conservation so we’ll put them in a Mylar sleeve and then put them in acid-free folders and boxes, and [finally] put them in our climate-controlled environment.

For digital files, there are several levels. One is having an open and well-understood file format; for images the format of choice is a TIFF file — they’re non-compressed, open, and will last for quite a while. For audio it’s a WAV file, and for motion pictures it’s some type of motion JPEG 2000. [We have to] convert those formats, get them into the Stanford Digital Repository and make sure all of the bits are transferred and backed up in the process.

 

TSD: How do you generate the material that goes into the archives? Where do all of the artifacts come from?

DH: It’s a bit of a combination — sometimes people donate their materials to us. We work with faculty to give [us] their papers. But we also analyze our holdings, so we’re very strong in science and engineering, physics, chemistry, to some extent psychology, but [we don’t have as much] in… mathematics, economics [and] art.

A third area is student organizations and student groups. Students are here for a short period of time. They’re very busy — they don’t always create materials that last.

 

TSD: How do you determine what is worthy of being archived?

DH: More often than not, there really isn’t [a] choice. It’s ‘does it speak to Stanford’s history?’ If so, then yes. If we already have similar materials, it’s ‘what story does this tell that isn’t already told?’ or supplements what we already have. We are very fortunate that we have adequate space so that we don’t have to say ‘no’ a lot. In terms of student groups, it’s the high-level decision making materials that are most valuable so that when future students are doing research they can see what those students [in the past] were thinking.

 

This interview has been condensed and edited.

 

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Jane Goodall urges Stanford to ‘roll up their sleeves’ on biodiversity, climate change https://stanforddaily.com/2013/04/07/jane-goodall-urges-stanford-to-roll-up-their-sleeves-on-biodiversity-climate-change/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/04/07/jane-goodall-urges-stanford-to-roll-up-their-sleeves-on-biodiversity-climate-change/#respond Mon, 08 Apr 2013 04:01:33 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1076250 Anthropologist Jane Goodall, the world's expert on chimpanzees, opened her presentation to a lively CEMEX Auditorium on April 7 with series of primate calls, later translating them as greetings.

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Anthropologist Jane Goodall, the world’s expert on chimpanzees, opened her presentation to a lively CEMEX Auditorium on April 7 with a series of primate calls, later translating them as greetings.

“I would grow up; I would go to Africa, I would live with animals; and I would write books about them,” Goodall said to introduce her life’s work. Starting in the fall of 1971, she taught human biology and psychiatry here at Stanford.

In her return to the Farm, Goodall recounted her childhood growing up in England and the factors that led her to becoming a leading activist for endangered species and against climate change.

Goodall’s mother was a defining thread in her story, inspiring her to pursue her dream despite financial pressures, War World II gender stereotypes and not having a college degree.

“If I had a different kind of mother, [my] curiosity might’ve been squashed. I might not be standing here now and the study of Gombe chimpanzees might never have happened,” Goodall said while urging Stanford students to work together and seize opportunities.

Goodall also emphasized the support she received from colleagues and superiors, citing Lewis Leakey — whose discoveries at the Olduvai Gorge are seminal to our understanding of human evolution — as someone who took Goodall under his wing when she was just 23 years old.

“I think he was surprised that a young girl straight from England knew so much about Africa. So he gave me a job,” she laughed. “A job as his secretary.”

Later, Leakey would give Goodall an opportunity to study chimpanzees in what is now Tanzania.

“[Leakey] reckoned that if somebody would go and study chimpanzees and find behavior that were similar or identical to chimpanzees and humans… that behavior could have been present in the common ancestor,” she recalled.

Over 43 years living with chimpanzees in Tanzania, Goodall has developed personal relationships with the apes she studies. She once observed a chimpanzee reach out, pick up a piece of grass and use it as a tool to fish termites from their nest, finally collecting evidence that Leakey had been looking for: chimpanzees were capable of intellectual performance as demonstrated by their ability to make and use tools. Until Goodall’s discovery, this was a trait thought to be exclusive to humans.

Goodall’s fascination with humans and apes gained an activist dimension after attending a researchers’             conference that underlined chimpanzees’ declining numbers, captivity conditions and the growing bushmeat trade.

“How is it that the most intellectual being is destroying our only hope?” Goodall asked of the human race.

Addressing Stanford students to “roll up their sleeves and get out there,” Goodall introduced Roots and Shoots, an organization dedicated to connecting young people around the world in order to positively effect the environment, the animals and people. Roots and Shoots was started by Goodall with 12 local Tanzanian teenagers and now spans 130 countries with more than tens of thousands of people involved.

“It’s your future, your children,” Goodall said, concluding her presentation with a plea to the Stanford community.“Together we can make a difference. Help us grow this community. And don’t let anyone tell you it’s too late.”

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Researchers bring mobile learning to students around the globe https://stanforddaily.com/2013/04/02/researchers-bring-mobile-learning-to-students-around-the-globe/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/04/02/researchers-bring-mobile-learning-to-students-around-the-globe/#respond Wed, 03 Apr 2013 05:30:36 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1076105 In an effort to encourage collaboration and independent inquiry among students, a Graduate School of Education (GSE) program founded in 2005 has leveraged mobile devices to offer an interactive learning experience to 23,000 students in 25 countries.

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In an effort to encourage collaboration and independent inquiry among students, a Graduate School of Education (GSE) program founded in 2005 has leveraged mobile devices to offer an interactive learning experience to 23,000 students in 25 countries.

The Stanford Mobile-Inquiry Learning Environment (SMILE) program, which permits students to use mobile devices to create, share and evaluate questions about educational topics, was founded by Paul Kim, chief technology officer and assistant dean of the GSE.

After visiting schools in the migrant community in Baja California, Mexico, Kim realized that the classroom system was similar to that of many American schools, with students memorizing material presented by teachers in lecture form.

“Most students around the world are not being given the opportunity to make their own inquiries,” Kim said. “This a common challenge in every classroom. Most of the time it’s a teacher-dominated class where students are not given enough opportunity to reflect on the content and principles that they find interesting.”

SMILE has been piloted in developed and underdeveloped communities around the world, with users ranging from elementary school children in rural India to students at the Stanford School of Medicine. According to Kim, SMILE increases student engagement and encourages collaborative work, which can be lacking in schools with curriculums that do not emphasize “higher order learning activities” like critical thinking, analysis, creation and evaluation.

“I was frustrated,” Kim said. “Why are we not updating the pedagogy in the classrooms when everything else is evolving and changing, and we have 21st century children with 21st century literacy?”

Kim has recruited Stanford students, such as Aaron Sharp M.A. ’11, to work on SMILE pilot programs. Sharp was involved with a program at Ellis Elementary School in Palo Alto and traveled to Argentina on a SMILE trip with Kim last August.

“The kids were excited and engaged,” Sharp recalled. “[They were] particularly excited about using phones in class, but also excited about the questions they were making and the fact that immediately their peers were reading their questions and answering their questions.”

Both Sharp and Kim emphasized the value of community support in the program’s success, especially in foreign or underdeveloped areas, with Kim describing SMILE’s partners as the “most critical component” in the program’s work.

“They are the ones that know about the community, the culture and the people there,” Kim said. “If they do not value whatever you present, no matter how innovative it may have been in your lab, they’re not going to appreciate it, and they’re not going to use it.”

Arafeh Karimi, a SMILE research assistant who also worked on the Argentina pilot, said that she became involved with the program after meeting Kim at a conference in 2010.

“The ecosystem that SMILE creates is very unique,” Karimi said. “It empowers the community to work on its own and allows kids—especially street kids—to see education in a different way—not just sitting down, working and memorizing.”

Especially in underdeveloped regions, SMILE has faced several significant challenges. At some schools, students lack books or teachers, and electrical power can suddenly become unavailable because of inclement weather. As a result, Kim has created several pilot versions that allow for the use of the program without Internet or electricity, including a SMILE plug-in that creates an ad-hoc network for users.

Looking to the future, Sharp, Kim and Karimi said they aim to continue to improve SMILE technology and to make the infrastructure more easily accessible to students around the globe, as well as allowing students in different locations to collaborate through the program.

“Peers in the same classroom can use SMILE to evaluate and learn from each other within the community,” Karimi said. “But with global SMILE you can build bridges. Global SMILE would be communities teaching other communities.”

 

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Students propose Muslim resource center https://stanforddaily.com/2013/03/31/students-revive-muslim-community-center-proposal/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/03/31/students-revive-muslim-community-center-proposal/#comments Mon, 01 Apr 2013 06:57:39 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1075806 A proposal to establish a Muslim cultural resource center on campus has gained fresh attention in recent months, with a group of undergraduate and graduate students reviving a seven-year-old plan in meetings with senior University administrators.

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A proposal to establish a Muslim cultural resource center on campus has gained fresh attention in recent months, with a group of undergraduate and graduate students reviving a modified version of a seven-year-old plan in meetings with senior University administrators.

“Ever since 9/11, there’s been many more questions about Islam, about countries who are Muslim countries, about the different cultures and the diversity within the communities,” said Mahta Baghoolizadeh ’13, president of the Muslim Student Awareness Network. “There has been a greater and greater need for raising dialogue, and having a resource center would be the step forward.”

Baghoolizadeh has worked with Omar Shakir ’07 J.D. ’13 and Subhan Ali M.S. ’09 Ph.D. ’14 in approaching administrators with a proposal for the center. The trio, who are leading a larger 12-person effort associated with a number of student organizations, has already met with Vice Provost of Student Affairs Greg Boardman, President John Hennessy and Provost John Etchemendy Ph.D. ’82.

“We’ve identified three needs that we see as being potentially addressed through having a resource center and through hiring a community director,” Shakir said.

Shakir first identified the need for a center to serve as an entry point for students who want to engage academically with opportunities in the Muslim world.

“[The center would be] a central point on the map where any student who is doing a research project on, say, architecture in Indonesia or politics in Morocco has a place to go that they feel like they can connect to outside of academics,” Shakir said.

Shakir and Baghoolizadeh also emphasized the need for a safe space for contentious conversations and conflicting dialogues.

“We see a significant need for institutional support, visibility and safe place for those that identify academically, culturally, religiously, with the Middle East, North Africa and South and Southeast Asia,” Shakir said. “The net is cast really wide, with over a dozen student groups, political groups, languages, involved in some way with the region.”

Shakir also argued that Stanford’s current lack of a Muslim resource center — and the “vibrant discourse” that would accompany it — is inconsistent with the University’s global stature and reputation, alleging that the University “really doesn’t have any institutional support at all” for Muslim students beyond academic programming.

“Every other top school has either an allocated space to serve as a forum for these sorts of discussions, and also in most cases, [has] hired a staff person that is in charge of overseeing programming and fostering that type of environment,” Shakir said.

Though the a version of the center was first proposed seven years ago, Ali said that the lengthy process of advancing the proposal was the result of seeking a solution that met the needs of many different types of people.

“Half the battle is explaining it to people and getting them to see what it is,” Ali said. “We are not 100 percent sure what it’s going to look like. There are needs and solutions that we’ve outlined, but no specific demands have been made.”

“We’ve searched other ways of dealing with it, but resource center best serves [the] needs,” Shakir said.

There is no formalized process to gain approval for a new community or resource center, given that the University’s current centers all arose from unique historical circumstances and that any new center would fall under several administrative jurisdictions. However, Student Affairs has led the University’s approach to meeting the needs of the Muslim community.

“There’s different options as to what increased support for the Muslim community might look like,” Boardman noted.

He also observed that promoting the development of a Muslim community center might set a precedent for other religious communities on campus in the future.

“Our focus is on how can we best support Muslim student experience at Stanford, but we have to look also what does this mean beyond this,” he said.

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Oral History Program records University’s past https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/20/oral-history-program-records-universitys-past/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/02/20/oral-history-program-records-universitys-past/#respond Thu, 21 Feb 2013 07:44:18 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1075155 As a co-chair of Stanford’s Oral History Program -- and as a member of the Stanford community for over 50 years -- Susan Schofield '66 has lots of good stories to tell spanning a lengthy career. Her most memorable story, however, is a recent one.

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As a co-chair of Stanford’s Oral History Program — and as a member of the Stanford community for over 50 years — Susan Schofield ’66 has lots of good stories to tell spanning a lengthy career. Her most memorable story, however, is a recent one.

As part of the Oral History Program, which has recorded over 160 interviews with faculty, staff and alumni since its founding in 1978, Schofield had sat down to talk with Albert Hastorf, former vice president and provost at Stanford, about his life and experiences at the University.

“He and I did four or so interviews over the course of the year, tracing his entire career,” Schofield said. “He had been chair of the psych department, Dean of the [School of] Humanities and Sciences and provost, and was just a thoroughly fabulous, delightful gentleman and a great raconteur with lots of good stories.”

Because of Hastorf’s importance to the Stanford community, the Stanford Historical Society had planned to bind and publish his interview. Unfortunately, soon after the interviews were completed, Schofield received some bad news: Hastorf had been diagnosed with cancer.

The Society hurried to publish the interviews, which they presented to Hastorf and his wife, Barbara, who brought the book with her on her evening visits to her husband’s hospice.

“The Society was able to get the bound copy finished and present it to him before he passed away — it was very special,” Schofield said. “His wife would read to him from it in the evening –it was very nice.”

Beyond the interviews’ personal significance, Schofield said the details of Hastorf’s interviews contributed to a richer understanding of a key period in Stanford’s history.

The Oral History Program is run by the Stanford Historical Society with the purpose of conducting such interviews with people significant to the University community. In recent years, additional donor support has allowed the Program to go from conducting four interviews in 2007 to an average of about 30 per year now.

The essence of the Oral History program is to explore and document how individuals in the University community interacted with and experienced transformative periods of history. Right now, the Program’s focus is mainly on “the incredible post-World War II period when Stanford began to go from good to great,” according to Schofield.

“There were people around — faculty, administrators — who had been part of that transformation and they would have fabulous stories to tell and perspectives to give that weren’t necessarily going to be reflected in the written record,” Schofield added.

Personal anecdotes, critiques, different perspectives and situational analyses form the centerpiece of the program.

“Think about a traditional archive,” said Daniel Hartwig, the University’s archivist. “For example, the University archives have professors’ papers which the professor has given over perhaps after retiring; that is one primary source that speaks to a person’s experience at Stanford but also Stanford itself<\p>…<\p>Oral History helps to add a personal perspective to historical documentation.”

While the broad focus remains Stanford’s “good-to-great” transformation post- World War II, the program’s increased support has permitted the pursuit of a number of smaller, more acutely themed projects.

“When we began, we were really eager [to interview] people who knew about Stanford and the time and the era that we were going to be talking to people about, but not necessarily [their] individual stories,” Schofield said.

“There’s a greater concern now to tackle some of the lesser known, or ground-up themes within the University’s history,” Hartwig said,

“Taking both a top down and bottom-up approach to documenting the University.”

These have ranged from a series called ‘Alumni Stories’ — looking at old Stanford traditions and different undergraduate perspectives — to one on diversity to a project on presidential families, looking at life in the Hoover House. Both Hartwig and Schofield also mentioned a growing interest in pursuing a smaller-themed project regarding pioneering women.

“It’s [about] turning our eyes internally towards Stanford’s own development,” Schofield said.

Allison Tracy, one of two professional oral historians working within the Stanford Historical Society and the Oral History program, has many different roles, one of which is to coordinate and train volunteers to effectively interview the subjects.

“I’m trying to take [volunteers] to the next level in terms of the amount of interviewing that they’re doing,” Tracy said. “The volunteers are a mix of people — definitely alumni, emeriti faculty and staff members, also a handful of people who are local to the Bay Area and who are interested in oral history.”

According to Tracy, there are currently no students involved in the interviewing process. Students are, however, involved in the indexing and post-interview process, which Schofield described as a demanding responsibility.

“Once the interview is completed, it is digitally recorded and transcribed by an outside service,” Schofield said. “Once the transcript is back we do ‘write-editing,’ which is a editorial clean up process for the purpose of clarity.”

While the final product is deposited in the University archives, accessing most interviews no longer requires a trip to Green Library.

“Now almost all of our oral histories are available online as either a transcript or an audio recording,” Hartwig said.

“We’re making all that as available as we can,” Schofield agreed.

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Aero/Astro struggles to engage undergrads https://stanforddaily.com/2013/01/14/aeroastro-struggles-to-engage-undergrads/ https://stanforddaily.com/2013/01/14/aeroastro-struggles-to-engage-undergrads/#comments Mon, 14 Jan 2013 09:59:47 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1074088 David Gerson ’14 is impressed by the graduate students who have gone on to create startups such as Skybox and SpaceX, but says that Stanford’s Aero/Astro Department does not do a good enough job of engaging the undergraduate community.

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See below for correction 

In 2011, doctoral student Ivan Ravlich chose to accept his offer of admission to Stanford’s aerospace engineering program, which, according to U.S. News and World Report, ranks first in the field. He turned down second-ranked MIT and Caltech.

“I had some family friends in the aerospace world at Boeing and [Houlihan] Lokey, and they talked around to different engineers,” Ravlich said. “Their consensus was that Caltech and MIT are very, very good at the technical side of things…but Stanford is where the leaders and the innovators are cultivated from.”

Even before Silicon Valley transformed Stanford into a bridge between academia and the private sector, Stanford was making advances in space technology. Bradford Parkinson Ph.D. ’66, currently professor emeritus in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (Aero/Astro), went on to invent the Global Position System (GPS), and fellow Professor Emeritus Bob Twiggs co-invented CubeSats, miniature satellites employed by the U.S. Department of Defense and National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) in 1999.

Henning Roedel, another doctoral student, agreed with Ravlich.

“In terms of alumni contacts at aerospace companies, there’s always a Stanford alumni who is vice president, president or somewhere way high up,” he said.

Scott Hubbard, one such ‘high up’ in the field, acknowledged Stanford’s “strong connection to Silicon Valley.” Hubbard, a consulting professor, is the former director of the NASA Ames Research Center and a recipient of the Distinguished Service Medal, NASA’s highest honor.

“We’ve been very successful as a graduate program – our students have been placed not only at big companies but at startups as well,” he said.

Yet while the graduate program is highly lauded, undergraduates often find it difficult to access the department.

David Gerson ’14 is impressed by the graduate students who have gone on to create startups such as Skybox, but says that Stanford’s Aero/Astro Department does not do a good enough job of engaging the undergraduate community.

“Undergrads who are interested in Aero/Astro are not invited to any events, nor are they on any email lists,” Gerson said. “When people ask me what I am majoring in, I have to explain that Aero/Astro is an actual undergraduate major. It’s very small and few people know it.”

In fact, the department offers undergraduates an interdisciplinary major in Aero/Astro. Undergraduates obtain a Bachelor of Science degree in General Engineering. The department also offers undergraduate minors.

Amr Mohamed ’16 won the 2012 YouTube Space Lab competition by exploring the effects of microgravity on zebra spiders. He came to Stanford with a passion for space, but found the resources similarly lacking.

The Aero/Astro major did not have a table at majors night, which was really disappointing,” Mohamed said. “They don’t seem to be reaching out to us.”

Professors in the Aero/Astro department expressed a desire to engage with more undergraduates, but said the department lacks the faculty to fully handle both graduate and undergraduate interest.

Sanjiva Lele, professor of Aero/Astro and Mechanical Engineering, said the number of faculty in the Stanford Aero/Astro department is relatively small compared to other University departments which have both graduate and undergraduate majors.

“It’s a decision that the department made when it was established 50 years ago. The feeling was it would serve the aerospace community better by focusing on the graduate program…and contributing to training of people for the aerospace industry, Ph.D.s and so on,” Lele said.

“In our department…undergrads can shape their own major, can come in and can get an undergraduate degree in Aero/Astro,” Hubbard said. “But we just don’t have the faculty and staff to support a larger program.”

But students in the field believe its barriers to entry extend beyond uninvolved Stanford undergraduates.

“Everyone seems to be intrinsically interested in space, but not actively pursuing it,” Roedel said.

Mohammed pointed to the capital-intensive process of starting a space company as a dissuading factor. The amount of money can be daunting – SpaceX co-founder Elon Musk invested $100 million of his own money – and Roedel added that the competition can be intimidating as well.

“Honestly I think [the reason] is a little bit of fear,” Roedel said. “The perception of NASA is that it’s the best and the brightest, and it’s humbling to try and go for something like that.”

Student-led organizations attempt to fill in the support gap for interested undergraduates. The Student Spaceflight Initiative (SSI), founded by Gerson, attempts to create a stronger and more consistent dialogue between the undergraduate community, graduate students, faculty and aerospace industry professionals.

“The real aim was to try and create a group that would allow anybody interested in space to talk to each other,” Gerson said. “Allow undergrads to meet grad students, to get involved with professors labs, and to work on their own projects, and to then really connect everybody with what’s going on in Silicon Valley.”

“We want to [make] the vision of space a reality for more people at Stanford,” said Ravlich, who also leads SSI’s initiative to promote space-related discussion. “This is a blossoming field where there is plenty of room for growth.”

Correction: A previous version of this article misstated Stanford, MIT and Caltech’s Departments of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ rankings by the U.S. News and World Report. In fact, Stanford is ranked first while MIT and Caltech are tied for second. The Daily regrets the error. 

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Radical cameras: Photo League at Stanford https://stanforddaily.com/2012/11/02/photo-league-gets-historical-perspective-in-sf-field-trip/ https://stanforddaily.com/2012/11/02/photo-league-gets-historical-perspective-in-sf-field-trip/#respond Fri, 02 Nov 2012 07:57:19 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1072514 The trip to "The Radical Camera" exhibit in San Francisco marks the first part of a three-part project culminating in a student-led exhibition at the Robinson House.

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Eighteen students will travel to San Francisco this weekend to see a photography exhibit for the Robinson Photo League’s second year. The trip is the first part of a three-part project led by Robinson House Resident Fellow Kristen Taylor, whose personal passion for photography inspired her to found and direct the program.

This year, the Photo League will see The Radical Camera: New York’s Photo League at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. The program will continue with a photography workshop in January and conclude in March, when the Photo League students will display their own work.

Taylor, a professional photographer, began the program last year as a way to introduce students to photography and help seasoned photographers grow.

“I wanted to provide the opportunity for those who do not have experience in photography to develop an interest and encourage the people who already have experience to grow and get to know different photographers,” Taylor said.

She chose this year’s exhibit at the Contemporary Jewish Museum because of its historic importance. “The Radical Camera” consists mainly of historical documentary photography exposing Depression-era social issues.

“The [members of New York’s Photo League] helped document reality while communicating personal perspectives,” Taylor said. “It’s about us learning about the time period, the work that they did and the effect that they had.”

She hopes the exhibit will act as a guiding tool for the students to explore social perspectives in their own work. To teach both photography amateurs and veterans, Robinson Photo League participants will attend a workshop in January. They will use SLR digital cameras to create photojournalistic portrayals of ordinary life, a theme inspired by the exhibit at the Contemporary Jewish Museum.

The third and final component of Taylor’s program is an exhibit that showcases one photo taken by each participant. It will open in March on the first floor of Robinson House, replacing photos taken by last year’s students.

This year’s continuation of the three-part program was spurred in part by the success of last year’s League. Taylor led a group to see Bill Owen’s Ordinary Folks exhibit at the San Jose Museum of Art and was impressed by students’ work after the pilot workshop.

“It was amazing how many different areas on campus people covered,” Taylor said. “Everything from Quidditch matches to courtside of a men’s basketball game.”

According to John Machacon ‘13, a program participant this year, beginner photographers appreciate the addition of the post-trip photography workshop.

“It’s really exciting for people who haven’t already gotten into photography,” he said. “A program like this really pays homage to the history of photography itself.”

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Veterans talk military-civilian gap https://stanforddaily.com/2012/10/19/veterans-talk-military-civilian-gap/ https://stanforddaily.com/2012/10/19/veterans-talk-military-civilian-gap/#comments Fri, 19 Oct 2012 09:30:05 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1072029 Dustin Barfield '12 and others feel the University can improve how it deals with veterans on campus.

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Veterans talk military-civilian gap
Courtesy of Sergeant Erik Henrikson

“If my country was going to war, there was no damn way it would happen without me,” said Dustin Barfield ’12, a two-time combat veteran who transferred to Stanford in 2009.

While most students at Stanford enter their sophomore year reminiscing on their adventures as college freshman, Barfield had a profoundly different experience in the back of his mind. Despite attempts by his family and friends to dissuade him, he enlisted in December 2001 and served for four years in Iraq.

“They yelled at me,” Barfield said. “They threatened me. They told me to change my mind… they even tried to bribe me. I was already set though. It was happening.”

After serving in Kuwait, Barfield was deployed again to Iraq in August 2004 for the second battle of Fallujah, one of the bloodiest conflicts in the war. But according to Barfield, the American media wrongly sensationalized the military, causing him to lose confidence in public perception.

“You get back home, and you hear about 13 sergeants killed and one severely wounded,” Barfield said. “You don’t hear about us handing out humanitarian rations and building schools. You don’t hear about torture victims coming up to us, bawling, crying and hugging us, saying ‘George Bush…very good!’”

“It’s 99.9 percent waiting around, pointing your weapon at the middle of a desert, waiting on super high alert for someone who is going to try to kill you at any moment. Waiting and waiting and waiting.”

Upon his return from the Marine Corps in 2006, however, Barfield encountered the civilian-military divide. It’s a divide several members of the military at Stanford feel and acknowledge.

“There’s been a historic divide between civil society and the military–and this is something that has happened since the Vietnam era,” said Haney Hong ’03, president of the Stanford Military Service Network (SMSN). “Generationally, because people have had less exposure to the military, they have less of an understanding of it.”

According to Hong, who served as a submarine officer in the Navy after completing the Navy Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program at UC Berkeley, SMSN was founded to bridge the civilian-military divide as well as to help the community understand that Stanford military veterans are “just like everybody else.”

“It’s a lot of misconception, and that’s not necessarily [the community’s] fault,” Hong said. “When you’re not exposed to it very much, you don’t really understand. The image of someone in the military doesn’t mesh with what somebody thinks about as a Stanford student.”

William Treseder ’11, a Marine veteran and friend of Barfield, describes how not looking like the “typical military guy” helped him break the ice more easily.

“If you know he’s a veteran but doesn’t look like a veteran, that creates an interesting tension in your mind and you wonder why is this guy not conforming to the model in my head?” Treseder said.

Similar to Hong, Treseder suggests that part of what contributes to this negative attitude dates back to the Vietnam War era. As a result, he feels Stanford is also unprepared to support veterans returning back from war.

“Probably the single biggest part of this is the big chunk of people from the late ‘60s to mid-‘70s whose impression of where Stanford is now is very different from actually where it is,” Treseder said. “They think it’s the place that burned down the Navy ROTC building and that hates the military.”

Opinions vary in terms of what Stanford can do to improve the experience of war veterans on campus. Lillian McBee ’14, a ROTC student and active member of SMSN, believes that dialogue is the most organic way in promoting awareness between the civilian and military community.

“I think those types of questions, where we just get to know one another person-to-person is, at the end of the day, the best way of bridging this divide,” McBee said. “In general, even in my freshmen year, the reason I was afraid for coming out in my dorm was that there were a lot of the protestors for anti-ROTC groups. But now I see that if I talk to them over the years, get to know them a little bit better, they’ll still respect me for the fact that I am pursuing something that I love.”

While Barfield is grateful for the Marine Corps’ post-war support including services for his struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), he believes that Stanford still has room for improvement.

“Stanford University could do a better job connecting with its veterans, understanding their issues and being more sympathetic to them,” Barfield said. “It’s not the same case mentally or emotionally as an 18-year-old who was valedictorian.”

Toward that goal, SMSN is expanding and partnering with the Haas Center for Public Service and the Graduate School of Business.

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