Support independent, student-run journalism.

Your support helps give staff members from all backgrounds the opportunity to conduct meaningful reporting on important issues at Stanford. All contributions are tax-deductible.

Editorial Board: Make Stanford (tastefully) Lit Again

by — No Comments

This week, The Daily’s Editorial Board congregated under the bright red umbrellas that appeared outside of Treehouse by the grace of The Social Project. The new lights, fun colored chairs, the beer on tap, and spiked kombucha are all part of Stanford’s new outdoor bar. You didn’t read that wrong. The school that’s desperately trying to curb drinking has just opened its first outdoor venue where students can drink! Let us just say — the Editorial Board is unanimous in that this decision is brilliant.

Editorial Board: A murky future for the Undergraduate Senate

by — No Comments

This spring, The Daily interviewed and reviewed the platforms of 17 candidates running for the position of ASSU Undergraduate Senator. Of them, we ultimately decided to endorse six — roughly a third of our applicant pool. However, our vetting process revealed a concerning level of dissonance between many candidates’ perception of the Senate, as well as institutional processes, and the realities of how student government functions and interfaces with the University at-large. We suspect this dissonance is precisely what feeds into what is widely considered to be an inefficient and uninformed elected Senate.

Correcting the record on ResX

by — No Comments

As student representatives, we seek to center student voices in everything we do. When we ran for ASSU Executive President and Vice President last spring, it was with three collective years of experience in working with administrators between the two of us. In so many of our meetings, we saw over and over that most University committees were content to do the bare minimum—if they had students on their committee their input would be considered, and if we were really lucky, the ASSU leadership would also be given an opportunity to provide input. We ran for our ASSU executive positions to counter this practice, and ensure that more student voice is heard than just ours as critical decisions are made. While many committees continue to struggle with this, ResX is one of three committees that’s gone above and beyond any other committees we’ve ever worked before.

Uninformed and uninvolved: ResX and the dystopian future of undergraduate housing

by — No Comments

Monied clusters of Greek organizations, geographically segregated ethnic houses, and nepotistic, thematically-lifeless Row houses plague Stanford’s housing system, bemoan University administrators. Stanford has consequently adopted the belief that a vast overhaul of campus housing is the cure-all for these ills: the University’s ResX Task Force — a branch of Residential Education (ResEd), has recently been discussing what they call “the ideal neighborhood concept.” Substantive details on this proposed housing restructure are scarce. Nonetheless, we believe it would be useful to infer what the consequences of such systematic changes might be.