STANFORD TODAY September/October 1996 Photograph by Richard Barnes Letter from the President a LONG-TERM INVESTMENT by GERHARD CASPER

September/October 1996 The Class Of 2000 The next freshman class prepares for college–and life in the 21st century In This Issue

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1996

Departments Stanford Today 27 PRESIDENT’S COLUMN A long-term investment is a production of STANFORD NEWS SERVICE Stanford University, News Sections Stanford, CA 94305-2245 28 (415) 723-2558 ON CAMPUS An initiative to raise money for fellowships http://www.stanford/edu/ bolsters graduate studies; Bass elected chair of trustees news/stanfordtoday e-mail: stanfordtoday@forsythe. 31 stanford.edu SCIENCE & MEDICINE Stanford Medical Center/NASA collaboration; Knuth wins prestigious Kyoto Prize DIRECTOR Douglas Foster 34 EDITOR SPORTS Cardinal athletes mine gold, silver and bronze in Atlanta Alan Acosta

Features ART DIRECTOR 36 David Armario CLASS OF 2000 Stanford’s first class of the new millennium ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR is ready to make its mark Jack Hubbard BY MARISA CIGARROA EDITOR, STANFORD REPORT 40 Eileen Walsh CYBER WINDOW ON THE STUDENT SOUL Home is where ADMINISTRATION your page is, and for thousands of students, that’s on the Web Enelda Wade BY JEFF BRAZIL WRITERS 45 SCIENCE Janet Basu & David Salisbury ESSAY In an excerpt from his new book, Professor Jack Rakove reflects on originalism and the framing of the Constitution UNIVERSITY GOVERNANCE Marisa Cigarroa 48 ARTS AND HUMANITIES PRIDE OF PLACE As the campus buzzes with new construction, Diane Manuel an architectural vision emerges SOCIAL SCIENCES BY MICHAEL CANNELL Kathy O’Toole PHOTOGRAPHY Linda Cicero

COPY EDITOR Heidi Beck

PRODUCTION Grace Evans

LIBRARIAN Yae Ozaki

CENTRAL OFFICE Alicia Smith, Cynthia Lindsey

Front cover: Photograph by Michael Johnson Back cover: Photograph by Robert Holmgren This page: 26 STANFORD TODAY September/October 1996 Photograph by Richard Barnes Letter from the President A LONG-TERM INVESTMENT BY GERHARD CASPER

HILE DEVOTING A GREAT DEAL OF duction of creative scientists and engineers. “From an time and attention to undergrad- emphasis on long-term investment,” the report said, uate education over the last four “there has been a progressive shift to a procurement ap- years, the Stanford faculty and I proach and philosophy.” have not forgotten that one-half Now, in the post-Cold War environment, even that of our students are in graduate commitment is waning. Charles Vest, president of MIT, and professional programs. One has pointed out that at present the United States spends of Stanford’s greatest strengths is our balanced combina- only one quarter of one percent of all federal outlays on Wtion of undergraduate studies, graduate studies and re- genuine research and development. Everyone wants to search. ■ That is why we now begin to raise funds for a benefit from advances in science and health care, of major initiative titled Stanford Graduate Fellowships. course, but federal support for the basic research that Next fall, the first of an eventual complement of at least produces them is in steady decline. 300 fellows at any one time will be awarded tuition It is vital to the nation that we continue to make grants and stipends for three years. Starting with a grant graduate education attractive to the most talented stu- of $2 million from the Lucille P. Markey Charitable Trust, dents – students that traditionally have relied on federal our goal is to raise at least $200 million in permanent en- support. And it is vital to Stanford that our university dowment – generating support equal to roughly one-half remain attractive to the very best graduate students, un- of our current federal funding for research assistantships. dergraduates and faculty. They all are interconnected in Stanford Graduate Fellowships will go to the best what Wilhelm von Humboldt called the modern univer- graduate students, regardless of discipline, in depart- sity’s “unceasing process of inquiry.” ments that depend heavily on federal “The teacher’s performance depends on sources of funding: the sciences and engi- the students’ presence and interest,” Hum- neering, mathematics, statistics, basic sci- boldt wrote in 1810. “Without this science ences in the School of Medicine, and several and scholarship could not grow. If the stu- disciplines in the social sciences. (In the hu- dents who are to form his audience did not manities, Stanford already funds most come before him of their own free will, he, teaching assistantships and fellowships.) in his quest for knowledge, would have to Such support will make Stanford even seek them out. The goals of science and more attractive to graduate students by giv- scholarship are worked toward most effec- ing them full freedom to pursue their own tively through the synthesis of the teacher’s course of research rather than having to se- and the students’ dispositions. The teacher’s lect a project based on the availability of mind is more mature but it is also some- increasingly tight federal funding. And what one-sided in its development and not knowledge that such graduate-student fund- quite as lively; the student’s mind is less de- ing is available also should prove attractive to young fac- veloped and less committed but it is nonetheless open ulty we wish to recruit. and responsive to every possibility. The two together are In the post-World War II environment, Stanford’s a fruitful combination.” president and provost saw new opportunities for re- We seek to ensure that combination of the best fac- search based upon the federal government’s willingness ulty members and the best students through Stanford to invest in university research and education. Wallace Graduate Fellowships and its companion initiative, Sterling and Fred Terman seized these opportunities with Stanford Introductory Studies. The undergraduate plan imagination and determination, contributing greatly to will integrate and enhance the first two years of college, the rise of both Stanford and the Silicon Valley. including providing faculty-led small seminars to all By 1986, however, a White House Panel on the freshmen. Health of U.S. Universities, chaired by David Packard, The years ahead pose serious difficulties for research deplored the government’s retreat from the long-standing universities, but Stanford is strong. With proper prepa- agreement that an intimate connection between univer- ration and investments like these, it can confront the ST Linda Cicero sity education and research is fundamental to the pro- challenges ahead and grow even stronger.

September/October 1996 STANFORD TODAY 27 On Campus Far Fewer Sleepless Nights NEW GRADUATE FELLOWSHIPS RELIEVE SOME PRESSURE by Diane Manuel

as fast as the liquid nitrogen in Cole- man’s lab, the new fellowships are designed to augment federally funded research assistantships. Students who are nominated by their departments and selected by a faculty committee will be given a tuition voucher of $12,000 and a stipend of $16,000 for each of three years. They can take the money to the lab or research group of their choice, rather than having to select a research project or adviser based on available funding. Amanda Peet, a theoretical physicist who received her Ph.D. from Stanford in 1994 and currently is a postdoc at Princeton University, says her life would have been signifi- Michele Coleman TAPPED MANY SOURCES TO SUPPORT HER GRADUATE STUDY. cantly easier if she’d had “free” money as a graduate student. ICHELE COLEMAN SPENT MORE SLEEPLESS NIGHTS than she cares to “As it turned out, my thesis ad- remember during her first year as a graduate student in experimen- visers and the physics department tal physics. ■ To qualify for a research and teaching funding package had to move heaven and earth to from her department, she had to take three intensive physics and find funding, to make sure I could Mmath courses each quarter, in addition to putting in 8 hours of work stay in their research group,” she says. each week in a research group and doing another 12 hours of tutorial work. Peet, a native New Zealander, It all added up to 80 hours on the job each week, with only four or five hours spent her first year at Stanford of sleep per night. ■ By the third quarter, discouraged and convinced that she searching for external funding, but was on the verge of flunking out, Coleman went to see Walter E. Meyerhof, came up against two stark realities. who was then chair of the admissions committee for physics. Not only was there less money na- “He said, ‘What would help? If you didn’t have to teach this quarter?’ tionwide for theoretical physics – as “And I said, ‘Yes!’ opposed to experimental physics – “So he talked to the right people and found some research funding and but there were virtually no fellow- got me excused from teaching for one quarter. And he gave me tremendous ships for foreign students. emotional support and encouragement, too. I remember leaving his office feeling just great, like I could conquer the universe.” The new Stanford fellowships – which The relief that Coleman experienced that day, knowing she could begin will be open to foreign students – to commit full time to her studies, undoubtedly will be shared by some 300 are the talk of graduate lunch tables future scholars who will qualify as Stanford Graduate Fellows under the ini- and labs these days. The prospect of tiative proposed by President Gerhard Casper [see letter, page 27]. At a time portable funding has a tantalizing

Linda Cicero when federal support for the sciences and engineering is evaporating about appeal, particularly for those in the

28 STANFORD TODAY September/October 1996 exploratory years of graduate study. you’re doing,” she says. “We spend whatever,” she says. “The university “I didn’t know what I wanted to most of our days thinking about kept sending me bills, saying, ‘Here’s do when I came to Stanford,” Cole- what kind of screws we’re going to how much you owe,’ and then an- man recalls, “but I certainly didn’t use and how we’re going to put other note would come, saying, have a burning desire to do low-tem- grease on them. Probably half of ‘Look, someone’s already paid for perature physics.” what I do is plumbing.” you.’ So I felt very secure, knowing After spending a quarter with the money was there.” John Lipa’s low-temperature re- Coleman was collecting data from her But Coleman’s NASA fellowship search group, however, she knew “cold” experiment to take to an in- runs out in October and she once she’d found her academic home. ternational physics conference in again will become a department re- Today Coleman has staked out Prague. Her work already has been search assistant, with substantially Lab 028, deep in the basement of the published in the prestigious journal reduced funding. She will receive tu- Varian physics building. White crys- Physical Review Letters, and making ition support plus about $15,000 per tals envelop the pipes that connect a the right contacts at the conference year in salary – compared to her tank of liquid nitrogen to a conglom- could open postdoc doors. $16,000 NASA stipend. Before her eration of thermometers, ion gauges, Coleman began saving money for NASA grant ended, she also was re- heaters and surgical tubing that are the trip to Prague three years ago, ceiving a research supplement of attached to what looks like a giant when the conference was announced. about $2,500 per year, paid from her blue thermos bottle. She spent a re- She had landed a $22,000-a-year adviser’s funds, which brought her cent afternoon twiddling dials and grant ($16,000 for stipend, $6,000 to- total income, to $18,500. logging temperatures in her lab book ward tuition) from the National Aero- Coleman now will have to pay as she monitored her confined he- nautics and Space Administration, one some $900 annually in required uni- lium experiment. of only 300 that are awarded nation- versity fees, including mandatory “When you do experimental ally, and was able to accumulate travel health insurance. The increased fees physics, you find that you can go for funds for three years. and decreased take-home pay mean days or weeks or months without “The NASA fellowship meant $4,000 less in her pocket. thinking about the physics of what money for tuition, required fees, continued on page 30 Bass to Chair Board of Trustees GSB ALUMNUS IS SEVEN-YEAR BOARD VETERAN By Marisa Cigarroa

USINESSMAN ROBERT M. BASS, of space [to match] the stature and excel- Silicon Valley attorney and venture Fort Worth, Texas, has been lence of Stanford’s science and engi- capitalist. Freidenrich will remain a elected the 22nd chair of the neering programs. At the same time, trustee. BBoard of Trustees. He succeeds we’re completing the earthquake re- As the chair of the trustees’ Land John Freidenrich, who has headed the covery and seismic strengthening pro- and Buildings Committee, Bass has board since 1992. gram that will restore the Main Quad approved and helped plan many of Bass, MBA ’74, first was elected a and the rest of the campus.” the construction projects that are un- trustee in 1989. He is a director of the Bass said that adopting manage- der way on campus. Stanford Management Company and ment practices that emphasize “effi- Bass and his wife, Anne, made a has served as a member of the Business ciency and effectiveness” in academic $25 million gift to the university in School Advisory Council and as a di- planning will be increasingly impor- 1992. They also have endowed five rector of the Business School Trust. tant if the university is to continue professorships in the School of Hu- Bass, 48, said that this is “an aus- adding innovative programs and ini- manities and Sciences, funded four fel- picious time in Stanford University’s tiatives to its lowships at the Graduate School of history. The recently announced ini- curriculum. Business and made numerous gifts of tiatives in undergraduate and gradu- He said equities to the university. ate fellowships will enhance Stan- that his main Bass’s business interests include in- ford’s attraction for the best and the challenge will vestments in financial services indus- brightest. be to main- tries, manufacturing, information ser- “The transformation of the sci- tain the posi- vices, real estate, and gas and oil ence and engineering facilities into a tive momen- companies. He is president of Key- real Quad has begun, and once con- tum set by stone Inc., an investment company

Linda Cicero structed, it will provide a physical Freidenrich, a based in Fort Worth. ST

September/October 1996 STANFORD TODAY 29 ancestry, 39are black,36are Latinoand2are NativeAmerican. Of the1,459facultycurrently atStanford, 1,200 are menand259are women;120are ofAsian 1.70 to2.67;andthepercentage ofNativeAmericanfacultydropped slightlyfrom 0.15to0.14. centage ofLatinofacultygrew from 1.47to2.47;thepercentage ofblackfacultygrew from percentage offacultyAsianancestry wentfrom 3.40to8.22.Duringthesametime,per- From 1985to1995,thepercentage ofwomenonthefacultyrose from 9.88to17.75,andthe during thepast10years,according toareport presented totheFacultySenatethisspring. class is50.3percent male,49.7percent female. applications fortheClassof2000was16,359,highestsincemid-1980s.Theentering tem intheFinancialAidoffice, whichassistedintimelyawards,” Montoyasaid.Thenumberof the Undergraduate AdmissionsandFinancialAidstaffs.“We implementedanewtechnicalsys- country. Alsocontributingtothestrong yield,Montoyasaid,wasaclosercoordination between sions process. Alumniandparents hosted21receptions forprospective freshmen around the sion. Montoyaalsocitedincreased involvementoffacultymembersandalumniintheadmis- had tocommitenrolling atStanford inexchangeforanearlier-than-normal admissiondeci- the freshmen whowillenroll thisfallwere acceptedthrough thenewprogram. Thosestudents gram, offered forthefirsttimethisyear, wasakeyfactorintheincrease. Thirty-fivepercent of dean ofundergraduate admissionsandfinancialaid,saidtheuniversity’s EarlyDecisionpro- decide toenroll –was61.4percent thisyear, upfrom 55.1percent lastyear. JamesMontoya, annual budgethas grown tomore than $500,000. Currently, there are five people ontheadministrativestaff The andnumerous studentinterns. one half-timestaff memberandatotalannualbudget of$27,000. decades. Whenthe25-year-old Cartunstarted, Stanford Hillelhad size andbudgetallhaveincreased significantlyinthelasttwo United States.Therangeofservices offered, thelibraryholdings,staff ing ahandfulofstudentstoone of thelargest Hillelprograms in the The organization grew during Cartun’s tenure from asmallgroup serv- continue toteach,write,lecture andleadJewisheducationalprojects. Foundation after21yearsasitsexecutivedirector. Cartun,46,will Cartun Retires Today Stanford and athletics.Stanford’s webaddress ishttp://www.stanford.edu/. on admissions,academicandadministrativedepartments,technology Web. ThesitealsooffersWide recent campusnews,plusinformation a highlightoftheuniversity’s redesigned homepageontheWorld Surfing Stanford Diversification Faculty Yield RateUp From Russia,WithLove history ofRussiainthe20thcentury. unpublished. TheHooverInstitutionhasoneofthecountry’s mostsignificantcollectionsonthe spondence andmanuscripts,manyofthempreviously housed attheHooverInstitution,includesfamilycorre- by herfather. collection,whichwillbe ThePasternak graph, Josephineposeswithpaintingsofherselfdone Inthis1980photo- of poetandwriterBorisPasternak. Russian impressionist painterLeonidPasternakandsister archives daughterof ofthelateJosephinePasternak, and theHooverInstitutionrecently acquired thefamily at http://www-leland.stanford.edu/dept/news/stanfordtoday/. Campus News Stanford’s who closelywatched“yieldrate”–thenumberofadmittedfreshmen also isavailablethrough theStanford page,ordirectly Rabbi AriMarkCartunretired July 1from theHillel A phototourthatincludes2,500campusscenesis Progress toward achieving amore diversefacultyhasbeenuneven Stanford UniversityLibraries ST JOSEPHINE PASTERNAK JOSEPHINE RABBI ARI CARTUN night.” subject that keeps usawakeat if ourfundingisdropped. It’s the be thefateofourgraduate students graduate initiativewasannounced. electrical engineering,saidwhen the Goodman, chairandprofessorof complete theirdegrees,”JosephW. sources thatourstudentsneedto moral obligationtoprovidethere- about, thenwehaveanethicaland that manyofusareconcerned change intheleveloffederalfunding ten criticaldeliberations. gets fromafacultyknownforitsof- ships hasbeenaboutashearty asit take meon?’” won’t costyouanything.Will you ber Xandsay, ‘I’m funded and gram. “Theycangotofacultymem- will beneededtosustainthepro- $200 millionfund-raisingdrivethat ment officerwhoisspearheadingthe says SusanAbernethy, adevelop- gardless ofwherethey’regoing,” dents willbeassignedmoney, re- competitive. less costlyandmore which shouldmakethoseproposals search assistantsingrantproposals, have toincludethecostofpayingre- Graduate Fellowsintheirlabswon’t Professors whowillhaveStanford prized fellowshipssuchasNASA’s. add upto$6,000morethanmany ition voucherand$16,000stipend one thing,the$12,000annualtu- Stanford GraduateFellowships.For forthe bers thathavebeenproposed pressed satisfactionwiththenum- ing forspace-shuttleexperiments. since hehassubstantialoutsidefund- nate tobeinLipa’s researchgroup, Coleman alsocountsherselffortu- port financiallywithresearchgrants. dates eachyearasitsfacultycansup- cepting onlyasmanydoctoralcandi- encouraging womenscientistsandac- for nurturingitsgraduatestudents, land inadepartmentthatisknown Initial reaction totheproposed SLEEPLESS NIGHTS, continuedfrom page29 NIGHTS, SLEEPLESS “We all worryaboutwhatwill “If wegothroughtheabrupt “Under thenewprogram,stu- Many facultymembershaveex- Still, sheknowswasluckyto ST fellow-

Top: Hoover Institution Archives Bottom: Chuck Painter Science and Medicine Not Exactly Rocket Science

COLLABORATIONS WITH NASA HELP SHARPEN SURGICAL TOOLS by Mike Goodkind

PLASTIC SURGEON STEPS INTO Although the virtual reality tech- face. Data from the scans are used an “operating room,” dons nology is complicated, Schendel in a software package developed goggles and gloves, and be- likens it to Mr. Potato Head, the through the Stanford-NASA collab- gins to rearrange the de- children’s toy. oration to create a three-dimen- Aformed facial features of a “It’s a model that allows some- sional image of the patient’s facial child. The first result doesn’t please one to put together various facial el- skin overlying the skull. him, so he starts over. He manipu- ements,” Schendel says. “With Mr. A user of this virtual environ- lates the features repeatedly until he Potato Head, the variables are parts ment can manipulate the bone struc- finds a satisfactory result. such as ears, nose, mouth and mus- ture using his hands and virtual sur- This may not sound much like tache, but in the 3-D visual simula- gical tools. Changes in the bony rocket science. But it is closer than tor, laser and CT scans allow for skeleton are reflected in the soft- one might imagine. tissue laser scans. The surgeon is operating in the Stephanides says that realm of “virtual reality” as part of a the patient, for example, collaboration between NASA’s Ames might be a child who is Research Center and Stanford’s De- born deformed “and you partment of Functional Restoration have to rearrange his skull to develop technology that will enable bones: Unless you have physicians to try out a variety of sur- somebody like Dr. Schen- gical outcomes before ever stepping del who has done this into a real operating room. many times, you will The space agency is interested in spend a great deal of time designing tools that would allow sur- in the operating room try- geons to perform procedures during ing to obtain a decent long-term space missions, while Stan- result.” ford’s goal is to improve the outcome The software, says Muriel of reconstructive surgery. Ross, director of Ames’ “In plastic surgery there are often Biocomputation Center in several ways to achieve the same re- Mountain View, Calif., sults, but usually only one surgical NASA’s Muriel Ross views ‘virtual surgery.’ where much of the work route is optimal,” says Dr. Michael has been conducted, Stephanides, Stanford resident in changing subtler facial characteris- makes it possible “to do patient-spe- plastic and reconstructive surgery. tics, specifically skeletal structure cific reconstructions that will allow Predicting which outcome will be and cartilage.” surgeons to ‘see’ the affected bones best is “something surgeons could The gloves and goggles, which and to work on them as though the not do before with any accuracy,” are similar to those used with NASA surgical manipulations were real.” says Dr. Stephen A. Schendel, profes- flight simulators, currently allow She says the group has made sor and chair of the Department of surgeons to interact with 3-D im- good progress after only five Functional Restoration. “They had ages of patients, Stephanides says. months, but they now need to to rely on many years of experience work with computer manufacturers doing these operations, which was at To build the 3-D image, a technician and developers of virtual environ-

NASA Ames Research Center times less than perfect.” makes laser scans of the patient’s ments to bring the technology to

September/October 1996 STANFORD TODAY 31 workstation level. should have other uses. The probe, equipped with a tiny Stephanides says Another collaboration between a pressure sensor, will enter the brain, the team hopes to Stanford-affiliated physician and gently locating the edges of tumors have the final prod- NASA has centered on a robotic while preventing damage to arteries. uct ready for physi- probe that could help improve the Its small size also should reduce dam- cian testing within a safety and accuracy of neurosurgery. age, Mah says. Potentially, he says, year. They are espe- Russell J. Andrews, former clini- the robots “will be able to ‘feel’ brain cially interested in cal associate professor of neuro- structures better than any human working with chil- surgery, worked for two years with surgeon, making slow, very precise dren to correct de- NASA Ames engineer Robert W. movements during an operation.” SURGICAL PROBE formities of the Mah to develop a miniaturized A modified form of the robot head and face, and with mastectomy probe that could “learn” the brain’s possibly could be used for other types patients needing breast reconstruc- characteristics by using neural net of surgery that employ “smart” sen- tion. But eventually the technology software. sors, Mah says. ST Donald Knuth Wins Kyoto Prize AUTHOR OF “BIBLE AND ENCYCLOPEDIA FOR COMPUTER SCIENCE” by David F. Salisbury

ONALD E. KNUTH, ONE OF THE to finish by the time his first child was of mathematics and programming to founding fathers of computer born. That son, John, is now a the art of typeface design and science, has been awarded the Stanford graduate, and Knuth has typesetting. He developed a 1996 Kyoto Prize, Japan’s completed three volumes. Although document preparation system called Dequivalent of the Nobel Prize his colleagues have characterized his TEX and a font design system called and the country’s highest private work as “the bible and encyclopedia METAFONT that first gave computers award for lifetime achievement. ■ for computer science,” Knuth says it is the ability to control text layouts Knuth, professor emeritus of computer not finished. In fact, he took early typographically and print with typeset science, will receive approximately retirement in 1993, when he was only quality. These programs have been $460,000, along with a certificate and a 55, to devote full time to this task. He called the single most important gold medal, Kazuo Inamori, founder estimates that he will add about 250 achievement in publishing since the and president of the Inamori pages per year, starting next year, for invention of the printing press. Rather Foundation, announced in June. 15 to 20 years before he is finished. than copyrighting and licensing the “This is just a dream and I’ll have Part of the reason the project has programs, Knuth put them in the to wake up to see who really won the turned into a life’s work is public domain. prize,” Knuth said. He added that he the rate at which the field Since his retirement, and his wife have decided to donate of computer science is Knuth has given se- the money to charity developing, he said. “In ven to eight lectures The Kyoto Prize is awarded each the 1960s I could be annually under the title year in three categories: advanced exhaustive. Now I have to of “Computer Musings.” technology, basic sciences and be content with boiling He said he intends to creative arts. Knuth won in advanced down the most important continue this practice as technology. developments into the a way to contribute to He is best known as a pioneering clearest, most concise Donald E. Knuth the department. mathematician whose research has language possible.” Knuth is the third been of primary importance in the But another reason is Knuth’s computer scientist to win the Kyoto analysis of computer algorithms – passion for perfection. When he saw Prize since its inception in 1985. John procedures by which computations are the galleys for the second volume of McCarthy, professor of computer carried out. He is also a leading Programming from the printer, he was science at Stanford and the creator of investigator of programming horrified at how ugly they looked. “My the language used in artificial languages, and his work has been first edition had been typeset by hand intelligence research, won in 1988. instrumental in establishing the field and was very beautiful, but the second Maurice Wilkes of Cambridge as a scholarly discipline. edition had been typeset by University won in 1992. Among his most widely acclaimed computers. Knowing a computer was Stanford Dean of Engineering

works is the series The Art of the culprit made me even more John Hennessy said that the prize is NASA Ames Research Center Bottom: Linda Cicero Top: Computer Programming. When he upset,” he said. “the closest thing we have to a Nobel started writing it in 1962, he expected So Knuth applied his knowledge Prize in computer science.” ST Carcinoma Gene Found Researchers from Stanford and the Uni- versity of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have found a gene that, Treatment when defective, causes the most common form of human cancer – a skin cancer called basal cell carcinoma. This type of cancer usually affects pale-skinned people of Northern European ancestry and Tested strikes during middle age or later. But unlike many other cancers, these tumors do not spread throughout the body. The finding provides a promising new direction for researchers pursuing treat- for Diabetes ments, said Ronald Johnson, a postdoctoral fellow in developmen- CANCER RESEARCHERS tal biology at Stanford. Clinicians currently treat basal cell carcinomas with surgery or radiation. TEAM HOPES TO REDUCE Using the new information, scientists may be able to develop drugs that could be applied di- DISEASE’S ILL EFFECTS rectly to the skin for treatment, said Dr. Ervin Epstein Jr., a UCSF professor of dermatology. The by Rosanne Spector team’s finding was published in the June 14 issue of Science.

POTENTIAL TREATMENT FOR Eco-Friendly Chips It takes roughly 10 gallons of water to make a single computer chip. That juvenile-onset diabetes that may not sound like much, but multiply it by the millions of chips made each year, and the result could eliminate the need for is a large and growing demand for water. Chip making also requires large amounts of energy insulin shots is under study at and many toxic chemicals. Now, a group of Stanford researchers has harnessed one of the in- AStanford. ■ “If the treatment dustry’s own products – computer-aided design tools – to find ways to reduce the environmen- works, it will spare patients not only tal impacts of chip manufacturing while cutting operating costs and improving industry com- from the inconvenience of insulin in- petitiveness. The group – headed by C. Robert Helms, a research professor of electrical jections but also – and maybe more engineering – has joined researchers at the University of Arizona and the Massachusetts Insti- important – the harmful effects of tute of Technology to form a “virtual center” – the Center for Environmentally Benign Semi- sharp ups and downs in their blood conductor Manufacturing – that will boost the level of basic research in this area. “We hope to sugar levels,” said Dr. Donald Dafoe, train a new breed of engineer, one who knows how to design in environmental factors from the senior researcher on the project and beginning,” Helms said. “You start with raw materials – water, energy, chemical sources. We director of Stanford’s Multi-Organ want to ensure that we do as good a job as possible to minimize the use of these materials and, Transplant Center. if we do use them, to recycle them.” The treatment, which stems from research on rats, including a study led by surgical resident Dr. Gregg A. Adams, is based on implanting fetal Science & Medicine News pancreas tissue into the patient’s forearm. It would provide an inter- Controlling Tuberculosis A new mathematical model challenges conventional wisdom about nal, self-regulating insulin source, the control of tuberculosis. The model indicates that a poorly managed TB control program but patients would need lifelong may do more harm than no TB control program at all, and that worldwide elimination of TB treatment with immunosuppressive might actually require more efficient programs in underdeveloped countries than in developed drugs to prevent them from rejecting countries. Though traditional epidemiologists might question such conclusions, said Dr. Peter the implanted tissue. M. Small, acting assistant professor of medicine, the fact is that current programs have not been The researchers are testing the successful in eradicating TB, even though it has been treatable and preventable for 50 years. strategy first on diabetic kidney ”In the next decade, even the most optimistic scenario suggests there will be 80 million cases transplant patients who already take resulting in 30 million deaths. What this paper allows us to ask is, ’What level of tuberculosis the immunosuppressants. Ulti- control would be necessary to allow us to significantly reduce that number or to eradicate tu- mately, all juvenile-onset diabetes berculosis completely?’“ Small and colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, patients may be eligible for the treat- used the model to compare the effects of various levels of TB control programs. Their findings ment, as long as fetal pancreas tissue are reported in the July 26 issue of Science. is available. Juvenile-onset diabetes results New Parasite Discovered By analyzing DNA from a strange mass when damaged cells in the pancreas of tissue found in a man’s abdomen, researchers have discovered a no longer can produce enough in- previously unknown parasite that can infect and kill humans. The sulin to control the individual’s organism has been detected in only one person, an AIDS patient blood sugar level. The disease, also who died at age 44 from the parasitic infection. After his death, re- called type 1 diabetes, affects about a searchers found that the parasite had formed two large masses million people in the United States. composed of many sacs of unusual cells surrounded by fibrous tis- The standard medical treatment in- sue. The researchers have yet to name the parasite or determine its cludes insulin injections (usually three-dimensional structure, though they can recognize its cells LUIS FAJARDO about three a day), regular exercise under a microscope. They say it may be in the same class as tapeworms, although it seems far ST Visual Art Services Visual and a low-sugar diet. more aggressive. The parasite’s mode of transmission and natural host remain unclear, said pathology Professor Luis Fajardo. Discoveries of human parasites are quite rare. ST Sports Showing Mettle in Atlanta STANFORD ATHLETES SHINE AT OLYMPIC by Mark Zeigler

VEN FOR THE OLYMPICS, THE “I became a surgeon out there,” three relay legs, three gold me1dals (she potential for drama hardly Lynch said. “I think I’m ready to work now has five). Kent Steffes (paired with could have been greater. A in any MASH unit now.” Karch Kiraly) prevailed in the inau- crowd of 32,500 in the Georgia It was that kind of Olympics for gural Olympic beach volleyball tourna- E Dome and an international tele- Stanford: nerve-wracking, exhilarat- ment while Chryste Gaines ran the lead vision audience of millions watched ing, historic. The numbers alone were leg on the victorious U.S. women’s intently as the individual apparatus fi- impressive: A single university deliv- 4x100-meter relay team. nals of the gymnastics competition – ered 49 athletes, coaches and man- The Cardinal also played its part and the last chance for an American agers to teams from 11 countries in 11 in one of the real legacies of the men’s medal – unfolded before them. sports. At times there were so many Atlanta games: the emergence of But for Jair Lynch – Stanford “S” caps and T-shirts in evidence, the women’s sports from the shadows of grad, assistant project manager at Sil- athletic competition. Softball and icon Graphics and Bay Area commu- women’s soccer were new additions to nity activist – it was not just a scene the Olympic program, and for the first of high drama. It was a moment that time women’s basketball players defined the full range of his athleti- seemed to command respect commen- cism – his brains and brawn, his surate with their talent. Stanford’s courage and spirit. longtime commitment to women’s During warmups on the parallel athletics was apparent in each case. bars, a discipline requiring a blend of Tara VanDerveer, who took a power and dexterity that converges leave of absence from her post as the where the hands meet the bars, a callus Stanford women’s head coach to on his left palm had cracked open. guide the U.S. women’s national team, Lynch looked at the quarter-inch-wide helped steer her players, including hole in his left hand and realized it Katy Stedding and Jennifer Azzi, would only worsen rubbing on the members of Stanford’s 1990 NCAA wooden bars. He had 15, maybe 20 Jeff Rouse: Two for two. championship team, to the gold. minutes, to do something about it. 1993 grad Julie Foudy was co- Lynch grabbed a razor blade and Olympic Village resembled White captain of the U.S. women’s soccer began slicing away, meticulously cut- Plaza on a spring afternoon. team, and after beating China 2-1 in ting the edges of the callus so it would- The results were equally notewor- the final found herself on the phone n’t rip further, then smothering it in thy: 22 medals, 18 of them gold. Not with the Clintons. Her post-Olympic benzoin compound. And then he counting multiple team medals, Stan- visit to the White House was her third waited to be nodded onto the podium. ford brought home 12 gold medals; this year. “I hope you have some idea only six countries – the United States, of how exciting it was for every Amer- Unfazed by the throbbing wound on his Germany, Russia, China, France and ican, but particularly for women and palm, Lynch nailed his parallel bars Italy – won more. There was Jeff Rouse girls,” the first lady told the team. routine, scoring a 9.825 and winning winning the gold in the 100-meter The women’s gymnastics compe- the silver medal. He became the first backstroke that had eluded him by .06 tition at the Georgia Dome was African American gymnast ever to seconds in 1992, then getting another equally high-profile. The U.S. women win an individual Olympic medal and for his backstroke leg on the 400-meter won the prestigious team gold for the the only American male to snag a medley relay team that broke the world first time in history. Two of the seven

Robert Holmgren gymnastics medal in Atlanta. record. There was Jenny Thompson: team members, Amy Chow and Do-

34 STANFORD TODAY September/October 1996 Cardinal Takes Sears Cup Stanford has won the most prestigious collegiate athletics award, the minique Dawes, Sears Directors’ Cup, for the second straight year. The award, honoring the best collegiate athlet- had planned to ics program, is sponsored by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics and start their fresh- Sears, Roebuck and Co. Stanford has won the cup for two of the three years it has been awarded man years on the and came in second the other year. The cup goes to the institution that demonstrates a successful Farm this fall. But record across a broad-based athletics program. ■ Stanford offers 33 varsity sports, including 18 for with individual women; no other Pacific-10 Conference school offers more. This year, 13 Cardinal teams finished medals on top of their season in the top five nationally, 23 in the top 10, and two teams each won NCAA champi- their golds (Chow onships – women’s swimming and men’s tennis. Cardinal teams came in second in women’s tennis, on the uneven third in men’s gymnastics, and tied for third in both women’s volleyball and basketball. Other high- bars, Dawes in AMY CHOW ranking teams included men’s golf (fourth), women’s golf and men’s cross-country (fifth), fencing floor exercise), (seventh), and baseball (ninth). ■ “Our goal in Stanford athletics is to establish and maintain the pre- that is likely to change. A lucrative exhi- eminent athletic program in the country,” said Athletic Director Ted Leland. “Most of all, the intrin- bition tour awaits them and the closest sic value to the participant is the primary criterion by which the worth of the program should be other students may come to seeing judged.” The winner of the Sears Directors’ Cup receives a $35,000 Waterford crystal trophy, five them this year is on the Wheaties box in $5,000 post-graduate scholarships and $1,000 post-graduate scholarships for each championship the food service line. won. The trophy will be displayed on campus in the Arrillaga Family Sports Center’s Hall of Fame. The largest contingent of Stanford athletes was at the Georgia Tech Aquatics Center. Thirteen swimmers and the U.S. men’s and women’s head coaches – Skip Kenney and Richard Sports News Quick – were in Atlanta. Six swimmers won golds and Rouse, Thomp- Athletes Honored The Athletic Board’s annual awards honored 30 ath- son, Lisa Jacob and incoming frosh letes for their achievements on the field, academically, and in leader- Catherine Fox won at least two ship and public service. Co-winners of the top honor, the Al Masters apiece. Most came in relays; three legs Award for attaining the highest standards of athletic performance, lead- of the women’s 400-meter freestyle re- ership and academic achievement, were Cary Wendell, women’s vol- lay were by Stanford swimmers. leyball, and Tiger Woods, golf. ■ Wendell, two-time National Player of The former Cardinal athlete most the Year, was 1995 Pac-10 Player of the Year, and one of only three play- in evidence in Atlanta won no medals, ers in conference history to be a four-time all-Pac-10 selection. She also but delivered a world-class perfor- was Pac-10 All-Academic twice. Woods, two-time U.S. Amateur Cham- mance. During the opening cere- pion, won the NCAA championship this year, was Pac-10 Player of the monies, Janet Evans emerged from a Year and First Team All-American. The Donald Kennedy Award for com- TONG cluster of parading Olympians to munity service, academics and athletics was given to David Walker carry the torch on its final leg, up a (football) and Amy Chiminello (tennis). Pac-10 Athletes of the Year were long ramp and into the trembling Jessica Tong (swimming), Kate Starbird (basketball) and A.J. Hinch hands of Muhammad Ali. Three days (baseball). ■ Other athletes honored were Jeff Salzenstein (tennis), Jes- later, she sat in a press conference at sica Fischer (soccer), Elise Morgan (field hockey), David Harbour (bas- the aquatics complex and blinked ketball), Tod Surmon (wrestling), Maureen McLaren (swimming/volley- away tears, having failed to qualify ball), Dena Dey (soccer/track & field), Julie Bowen (golf), Jeff Buckey for the 400-meter freestyle. In the 800 (football), Clark Bailey (fencing), Cameron Stephenson (lacrosse), Brevin free, she finished a distant sixth. Knight (basketball), Ian Bachrach (gymnastics), Mhairi McKay (golf), Then, while Evans was being inter- Claudia Franco (swimming), Anthony Bookman (football), Kyle Peterson viewed for German TV, a thunderous (baseball), Lisa Sharpley (volleyball), Ania Bleszynski (tennis), Ryan HINCH explosion flashed in the background. Wolters (tennis), Chad Hutchinson (baseball), Mary Cobb (cross- The clip would be replayed hundreds country/track & field) and Amy Murakami (gymnastics). of times in the next week and Evans became something of an unofficial Cyclists Wheel to Another Title The cycling team, a co-ed Club Sport, spokeswoman for Olympic athletes in has won the national championship for the second year in a row in the Atlanta, displaying a mix of remorse sport’s major segment – road racing. Counting results from the other two and resiliency in the wake of tragedy. categories – track and mountain biking – Stanford has been No. 1 in the “I felt the highs and lows,” Evans nation since 1994. It also has won the Western Collegiate Cycling Con- said. “It’s been a heck of a ride.” ST ference championship for the past two years. Leading the Cardinal team in the national championship 93-mile road race was Tracy Timms, who MARK ZEIGLER, ’85, is a sportswriter for just graduated and is headed to Harvard Medical School this fall. As an STARBIRD The San Diego Union-Tribune and has individual and team member, she has won national road-racing championships every year since Simon Bruty/All Sport covered five Olympics. 1992. Other key team members were Andrew Lewis, a senior, and Dave Bailey, graduate student in Rod Searcey Middle and Bottom: David Gonzales Top: physics. The team’s coach is Art Walker, a 1990 Ph.D. in physics. ST classof2000 FIRST IN A SERIES Keeping Tabs on the First Class of the New Millennium

BY MARISA CIGARROA

ou have been here before: The drab cream-colored walls, the steel-

and-particle-board desks with tan formica veneer, the big institu- Ytional clock ticking away the minutes. And there is that smell of classroom . . . accompanied by the intensely mundane this-class-will-never-end feeling that imbues its surroundings with

a universal quality of enforced conformity most of us will never forget. ■ But this is no ordinary day for Christina Mc-

Carroll and her friends at Los Altos High School. After some 13 years in classrooms like these, they are preparing to move

on. Their dress is casual: Bermuda “I know everything will be dif- experience Stanford traditions, such ferent next year,” she says. “Even as Full Moon on the Quad, the Gai- shorts, cotton T-shirts, plaid miniskirts, simple stuff like chalkboards and eties, the Big Game and the Exotic classrooms will be different. So I’ve Erotic. Others may be engaged by jeans, sandals. But their look is intense been trying to spend time these last true learning for the first time, per- few weeks just soaking this all up, haps finding their intellectual or voca- as they slouch over their desks, brows talking with my teachers in the hall- tional calling. And still others could ways and hanging out with the peo- make lasting friendships, even meet furrowed, scribbling messages in each ple I’ve been in school with for so their life-long partners. long. It’s sad to think about how All those things could happen. other’s yearbooks. They write “good much I’m leaving behind.” There is only one absolute: For the Despite the scant eight miles be- more than 1,600 members of the luck” and “remember the time we . . . ” tween Stanford and Los Altos High Class of 2000, lives will change unal- School, for an 18-year-old who will be terably in the next nine months in and “I promise to stay in touch, no living away from home for the first ways they can’t now begin to imagine. time in her life, the campus she has Before classes even begin, the fresh matter what.” admired since childhood seems a crop of students will encounter a “There is something scary about world away. thicket of difficulties, from buying signing yearbooks,” McCarroll says. In fact, McCarroll and her fellow their own toothpaste and learning “You are kind of forced to look back members of Stanford’s Class of 2000 how to share a bathroom with and size up your experiences.” will be stepping into a different world strangers to opening a bank account, Since April, when she made the on Sept. 20, when they arrive on cam- figuring out which long-distance ser- decision to turn down Harvard Uni- pus for orientation. They no doubt vice to use and deciding whether to versity and Williams College in favor will learn to speak Stanfordese, let- buy new or used textbooks. of Stanford, McCarroll has done her ting terms like CoHo, CoPo, “the The sheer size of the Stanford best to put thoughts of graduation Claw” and “the Dish” fall from their campus, with nearly 8,200 acres of and college on hold so that she can sa- tongues as if they had spoken them land populated by 1,400 professors vor her last days in high school. since they were toddlers. Some will and 14,000 undergraduate and grad-

36 STANFORD TODAY September/October 1996 THERE IS ONLY ONE ABSOLUTE: For the more than 1,600 members of uate students, contributes to the sense of culture shock that all freshmen un- dergo, says Hector Cuevas, director of undergraduate advising. The 800- page course catalog and a list of about 500 student organizations to choose from comes as somewhat of a mixed blessing for students who are used to having their schedules handed out to them, he says. “Most of these students come from very structured high school envi- ronments where they went to classes at a certain time of day and did their homework after school,” Cuevas says. “Now they have a lot of freedom and independence and can make a lot of choices. Sometimes, individuals who are 17 or 18 years old, and who were so focused on academics in high school, don’t know how to handle not having limits. “Nobody tells them when to get out of bed, nobody tells them when to do their homework, nobody tells them when to go to class or whether they should go to class.” Students attending top-notch universities such as Stanford face the added challenge of having to adjust to a highly competitive academic environment, says John Gardner, director of the University of South Carolina’s National Center for the Study of the Freshman Year Experience. “In high school, they belonged to a small group of elite superstar stu- CHRISTINA MCCARROLL “We are really conscious that there is this other world we are going into.”

dents,” Gardner says. “Now they are The Bay Area native applied to dent’s Scholars in recognition of their at a university where everybody is like Harvard in part because she didn’t achievements in high school. Each them. They are all high achievers. This want people to say she blindly followed President’s Scholar is eligible for a can be a difficult transition, academi- the family tradition: Her two older $1,500 research grant. The program cally and emotionally.” brothers, Steven, 26, and Michael, 23, was created to target students ac- both graduated from Stanford. cepted to other top-tier schools; this McCARROLL, a features editor for her “As I got closer to actually having year, 87 President’s Scholars accepted high school paper, ranked at the top of to make a decision this spring, that Stanford’s offer of admission. her class alongside four other students still bothered me,” she says. “But then Although English and American in a class of 278. She scored a perfect I began thinking about how dumb it history were her favorite subjects in 1600 on the Scholastic Assessment would be if I didn’t go where I wanted high school, McCarroll hasn’t picked Test, the standard college admissions to go because of that.” a major yet. “I don’t want to go in exam, and was an active participant in McCarroll was one of 200 thinking I want to be [a certain] major

Michael Johnson her school’s mock court team. prospective freshmen designated Presi- because there is so much stuff I don’t the Class of 2000, lives will change unalterably in the next nine months in ways they can’t now begin to imagine. people get away with working less,” he MILENA FLORES, who received a full says. “But everyone who comes to scholarship to play basketball at Stan- Stanford is a hard worker and I am a ford, achieved a 4.0 grade-point aver- little anxious about that.” age and ranked number one alongside 15 other students in a class of 511 in JOSIA LAMBERTO-EGAN, also a President’s Snohomish, Washington. Captain of Scholar, graduated from Choate Rose- her school’s varsity basketball team mary Hall in Connecticut with honors since junior year, she has dreamed in English, French, math, history and about playing on the Cardinal team social science. A National Merit final- since she was in the sixth grade. ist, he was admitted in 1995 but de- “Stanford’s strong basketball team, together with the strong acade- know anything about. I want to wait mic program, is a hard combo to and see what there is.” beat,” says Flores, who has a pen- chant for history and wants to major DAVID LEE was born in Taipei and in one of the social sciences. “From ju- moved to the United States when he nior high school on, I kept taking was 10. Early on, Lee had trouble harder courses so I could apply and be communicating with his teachers and accepted. I guess I always had it in the classmates in English. Music was his back of my mind that whatever I solace. could do in academics and athletics “I can still remember sitting in our would help,” she says. red station wagon listening to the radio Juggling classwork with basketball on a hot summer day,” he wrote in his cided to take a year off to travel, work Stanford application essay. “The clouds and spend time with his parents and were scarce and promised no rain. Sud- four younger siblings in Manteo, denly, the tender melody of Chopin’s E- North Carolina, before heading west major Etude caught my unexpected for college. ears. I cried. I felt free. It felt good. This He ventured to Panama on a surf- is why I started playing the piano.” ing trip with his father and a friend, Lee, who thinks he may major in traveled to New Orleans with his 16- computer science, graduated fifth in year-old brother and visited the Do- a class of 208 students. He has won minican Republic and Italy. From Au- several first-place awards in piano gust to April, he worked on a competitions and now speaks English commercial tugboat that was cap- with ease. During a recent telephone tained by his father, a merchant practice will be a challenge, she says, interview, his mother could be heard marine. but she is certain she can handle it. in the background scolding him for “In a sense, the whole year was a By joining a team that attracts na- spending too much time on the departure from anything I had done tionwide attention, Flores, a first-gen- phone with friends. before,” says Lamberto-Egan, whose eration Mexican American and the “My brother and sister have been work- and travel-related experiences first person in her family to attend col- away from home for a long time, so shifted his interest away from science lege, hopes to be a role model and in- my parents have concentrated on and math toward the humanities and spire other Mexican Americans to me,” Lee says. “One of the things I social sciences. “I ended up wanting to reach for their highest goals. am really looking forward to about look more into topics that involve peo- “I think it’s great if people look up college is having more freedom and ple, languages and cultures,” he says. to me in that way and I’ll do my best more independence.” An avid surfer and runner, Lam- to represent my heritage,” she says. He also is looking forward to berto-Egan is looking forward to life meeting a diverse group of people on the West Coast. “I wasn’t sure AMEEN KHALIL SAAFIR, an African Amer- with different interests. “At Stanford, whether I wanted to come to Stanford ican from South Holland, Illinois, I’ll probably be in classes with people until I visited,” he says. “When I saw graduated eighth in a class of 538 stu- not majoring in the same thing as it, I was stoked. I went running in the dents. He was vice president of the me,” he says. hills the three days I was there. The lo- competitive math club, a member of Being in an environment where cation filled me. It’s big and spread the speech team and a varsity baseball most students are self-motivated and out, it’s near a city, but it’s not player. want to excel is a daunting prospect, crowded by the city, and it’s near the Saafir plans to major in biochem-

Lee concedes. “In high school, some coast.” istry and hopes to become a doctor or Christopher Smith

I KNOW EVERYTHING WILL BE DIFFERENT NEXT YEAR. So I’ve been soaking this all up, talking with my teachers and a researcher. While he is optimistic nine months in an intimate setting cent of the Class of 2000 is Asian Amer- that he will excel in biochemistry, he with a complete stranger makes even ican, 9 percent is Latino, 8 percent is has chosen a fallback: computer sci- the most sanguine a little bit nervous. African American and 1 percent is ence. “I always like to have two path- Personal cleanliness, sleeping regime, American Indian/Eskimo. Men make ways, in case one doesn’t work out,” study habits, musical tastes, cultural up 50.3 percent of the class and women he says. “If I can’t handle one, I am differences – the idiosyncratic ways of make up 49.7 percent of the class. sure I can handle the other.” mismatched roommates is one of the Saafir’s father is a clinical psychol- minefields of collegiate life. ON A CLOUDLESS EVENING IN JUNE, 278 ogist and his mother is a clinical ther- Every summer, Stanford’s housing seniors at Los Altos High School glide apist. Although they can afford to office receives a number of angst-rid- across the football field in caps and fund their son’s college education, den calls from entering freshmen who gowns. “Pomp and Circumstance” Saafir has decided to pay his own way want to find out who they will be liv- through school. ing with. These students are always “I still have two younger sisters politely refused; relationships work who will be going to college,” he says. out best when roommates start on “I don’t need to put this burden on my equal footing, without any preconcep- parents right now.” tions about each other, officials say. He was accepted to the Navy Students can request to change ROTC officer training program, their rooming assignments during the which will pay his tuition in return for year, but these requests are granted four years of service after he graduates. only in the rarest of circumstances. “It’s a good opportunity because Lee just hopes his roommate will it’s tough to get a job these days,” he share his taste in music. “I don’t like says. “This way, I am guaranteed a rap or heavy metal,” he says. “I can’t mixes with whoops and cheers and job with the Navy, which has pretty deal with that day in and day out. then gives way to silence and tears as decent pay, and after four years I can Since the radio will probably be on the speakers take to the podium. decide whether I want to stay or most of the time, I don’t want it to be McCarroll, one of four seniors to whether I want to get out and do music that annoys me.” deliver a send-off address, speaks of something else.” After years of boarding school and her ambivalence about graduating. Saafir will travel to the University traveling, Lamberto-Egan is hoping “I may never get good at endings of California-Berkeley two days a for his own space. The odds are and goodbyes,” she tells her class- week to participate in the officer train- against him: It is extremely rare for a mates, “but realizing what I am leaving program. “That will take up most freshman to get a single room. ing at least makes me aware of all that of my time, outside my immediate Alejandro Martinez, director of I have. And graduation, hopefully, Counseling and Psychological Services will make us appreciate the people for the past six years, says the rising and possibility of the present as we costs of tuition, coupled with growing move into the promise of the future.” concerns about gloomy job prospects After the ceremony is over, the after college, have taken a toll on newly minted graduates shed their rooming relationships in recent years. caps and gowns and make their way “In the past, people saw coming to to a carnival hosted by their parents in Stanford primarily as a privilege and the school’s central quad. “Rock ’n’ they were willing to accommodate to Roll” is the carnival’s theme and Mc- some of the challenges of living with Carroll stays until 5 a.m. someone else,” Martinez says. “Now, Later that day, when five of her they feel that there is so much more rid- friends drop by her house, they hardly studies,” he says. “I hope I can stay fo- ing in terms of their future. As a result, speak of high school. cused, keep my head in the books and they are less likely to tolerate variables “We are really conscious that not get sidetracked. I’ve talked to a lot that might interfere with their studies there is this other world we are going of people who have told me the first and they are more likely to state what is into,” McCarroll says later. “Now, year in college is the most important.” OK and not OK [for their roommates] when we get together, we are always to do and ask them to change.” talking about what things are going to WHILE THEY SPEND SOME TIME thinking Martinez notes another change in be like in the future.” ST about the enormity of the changes fac- recent freshman classes: Students are ing them, for most incoming students, much more diverse in ethnic/racial In the Next Issue Members of the Class of their immediate concern is much makeup. Whites make up 54 percent of 2000 arrive at The Farm and em-

Christopher Smith closer to home. Spending the next this year’s entering class, while 23 per- bark on their collegiate odyssey. hanging out with people. It’s sad to think how much I’m leaving behind. September/October 1996 STANFORD TODAY 39 OU PROBABLY WILL never meet Stanford University student Emilio G. Acevedo, but this is what you – and the rest of the world, for that matter – can learn about him simply by signing onto the World Wide Web: ■ His father has not been around much, but Acevedo remains grateful for his influence just the same. ■ His grandmother has CYBER forever stamped upon him the values and traditions of YLatin America, and for that, he is in her debt. ■ He believes in God, likes Mustangs and lowriders, and WINDOW struggles with academic life. He thinks often of his “homies,” referring to his buddies back in San Fran- cisco, where his mother, he confesses in his remark- ON ably personal home page on the Web, continues to make sacrifices so he can attend Stanford. Like thousands of other Stanford students who THE have embraced the Internet, Acevedo has no idea who it is who might be dropping in to gaze at his home page, a document that, in his case, amounts to an elec- STUDENT tronic window into his soul. It could be a relative. It could be a classmate. A potential employer. Or a complete stranger. For the world of the Web portion of the SOUL The Web Internet, an ever-widening global network of computers, is as anonymous as it is vast and chaotic. empowers students to In short order, having a cyber sign-on and a home page have become practically de rigueur at Stanford, stand up and tell the where computers are nearly as indispensable as blue- books and No. 2 pencils were to earlier generations of world who they are. Could it students. But as the lure of the Web and computer technology grow at breakneck pace, so do some emerging be they’re saying concerns: Should students be so quick to sacrifice their privacy, given the unknown universe on the other side too much? of the keyboard? Are there things they shouldn’t reveal? Does the university have a responsibility to tem- per students’ zeal for their tell-all Web pages? ...... MID-AFTERNOON ON A SPARKLING SPRING DAY: A smat- tering of students have made encampments among the tables at Tresidder Memorial Union. Books and papers are intermingled with coffee and soft drinks. And at tables throughout the student union complex students by Jeff Brazil are typing away on their laptop computers. PHOTOGRAPHY BY Welcome to Stanford after the revolution. WILLIAM MERCER MCCLOUD The latest campus survey indicates that 70 percent of Stanford undergrads have their own computers. The comparable number for graduate students is presumed

JONATHAN BAILEY “It’s a powerful tool for expressing yourself. If somebody decides I’m some sort of hooligan or something, that’s fine.”

40 STANFORD TODAY September/October 1996

famous for – also can produce some thorny philosoph- ical questions when those students start to produce their own Web pages. Stanford Professor Terry Winograd, an expert in human-computer interaction, put it this way: “You put it up there thinking that the people you want to see it are going to see it. But you have to assume that when you put something on the Web, it’s like hanging a sign on your door.” But in many ways it’s more signal than sign, a signal that gets beamed continuously to the cosmos, an irre- trievable message the sender loses control of the moment the “send” command is launched. Even if a stu-

LAURA SEWELL “It’s an ego thing. You can build a shrine to yourself. It’s fair game for anyone to look at and draw their opinions about you.”

to be even higher, though no formal survey has been dent has a change of heart and decides to remove done. material from the home page, it may be too late. There are roughly 7,000 network connections in Terry L. Shepard, director of Stanford University dorms, giving students the ability to log onto the Web communications, says it’s an issue the school’s Web gu- from the comfort of home. By fall, there will be 9,000, rus have been grappling with. according to the Residential Computing office. “There’s a certain amount of naivete and trust in Even students who don’t own computers have ac- the world on the part of our students that they may put cess to one. There are public clusters of computers in information out there that may not be in their best in- every dorm as well as larger clusters around campus. terest,” he says. “We need to find some way to tell the The wired campus is a natural setting for what Glen students, ‘Look, just think about the implications that C. Mueller, Stanford’s chief information officer, calls an anyone around the world can access this information, “explosive growth” in the number of home pages at the copy it, save it and use it. And you may want to think university. About 4,800 graduate and undergraduate twice about putting it out there.’ ” students – nearly one-third of the total student popula- tion – have them, he estimates. HILE STUDENTS MAY HAVE a cer- “There are some pretty innovative things going tain audience in mind when they on,” Mueller says. create their home pages – family, The university-at-large also has embraced the friends, classmates – Shepard says Web. Stanford has assumed a pioneering role in using they should recognize that anyone it for “distance learning” – an increasingly popular could be lurking in that unseen au- means for anyone with a computer and modem to dience, perusing their family pictures or peeking into take university classes from wherever they can plug in Wdiary-like entries. and log on. It is one of the enigmas of the cyber-environment. In addition, the Web is now used in more than 90 “You’re sitting there at your computer, you’re all classes. Although students in these classes still meet in a alone and you’re very private,” Shepard says. “I assume traditional classroom, they can get their syllabi, pose that they’d want somebody to look at it or they wouldn’t questions to teaching assistants, tap into reference mate- put it up there. But you don’t know who is doing the rials and transmit their own classwork – all via the Web. looking in this case.” In part because of its proximity to the birthplace of It’s something graduate student Michelle Q. Wang modern computing, the university prides itself on being Baldonado mulled over. Her home page offers little per- at cyber-space’s cutting edge. sonal information and just a thumbnail self-portrait. “It’s not only important but imperative – and not “I actually was fairly careful,” Baldonado says of her because of the pressure of being in the Silicon Valley, page, which lists mostly resume-type material. “I didn’t but simply because of the power of the technology,” want to reveal a lot to other people. I think people aren’t says Christine Quinn, the university’s newly appointed quite aware of how far their message can travel, not only World Wide Web architecture coordinator. distance-wise, but in time. Even if you decide to get rid of That power – commingled with a liberal supply of something on your page, someone else could have copied the boundless, sleep-deprived zeal college students are it and produce it years down the road.”

42 STANFORD TODAY September/October 1996 Stanford students’ home pages run the gamut from the Internet is very seductive. It makes people feel like the very personal, like Acevedo’s – some students they can say and do things they wouldn’t normally do. openly discuss sexual orientation, for instance – to the It’s kind of like a high, a rush.” zany and whimsical; from the no-nonsense resume ap- Stanford sophomore Laura Sewell couldn’t resist proach of Baldonado to ill-conceived or crude attempts the rush of posting her own home page on the World at humor. Wide Web, and, yes, she spends more time on the Net One student’s home page features pictures of two than she cares to admit. Porsches and this caption: “The only thing better than “It’s an ego thing,” Sewell says. “You can put what- a fast woman is a fast car.” What if his potential em- ever you want on it. You can build a shrine to yourself, ployer were to visit the page as part of a background basically. There are no limitations.” check and took offense at the seemingly sexist quip? “You want to be out there on the Web, because it’s And what of the student page that has numerous such a big thing now,” she says. links to “patriot” sites and discusses a “Unabomber for President” campaign? How would that look to a fed- IKE MOST STANFORD STUDENTS with home eral agency performing a security check? pages, Sewell relied on university-supplied A Faculty Senate committee has drafted a univer- directions for using Hypertext Markup sity-wide policy on computer usage intended to help Language (HTML) to build her page. While staff, faculty and students negotiate the still-uncharted the university’s directions spelled out the waters of the virtual world. process, it provided little guidance on what But what is Stanford’s responsibility, if any, to pro- to say and what not to say, except to prohibit commer- tect students from making ill-advised revelations on Lcial uses. “I was totally on my own,” Sewell says. their home pages? With the exceptions of harassment Now, anyone with a PC and a modem can discover or obscenity, which are regulated, should the University that Sewell loves the works of John Steinbeck, dresses limit students’ rights to express themselves in the way lousy, craves Cadbury Creme Eggs, lives in Toyon Hall they see fit? and enjoys taking joyrides to no place in particular. Winograd, an active member of Computer Scien- On her page, she also confesses to possessing what tists for Social Responsibility (the group’s slogan: she calls “somewhat fanatic beliefs and rituals regard- “Technology is driving the future . . . Who’s steer- ing dental floss.” To drive home the point, she includes ing?”), says you can’t foresee all the ramifications of in her home page a “Tribute to Floss,” whereby she technological advances. rates dental floss using a star system, one star being “It’s hard to imagine what’s going to happen with “pretty sorry” and five being “blissful.” technology,” he says. “The good surprises, you are “I think it’s really cool that somebody out there can pleased with. The bad ones, you think back and wish just kind of happen across my page,” Sewell says. “It you had thought of them earlier.” shows my sense of humor, a few of my interests. But I While some experts are sounding alarms, especially don’t think it gives a whole picture of who I am.” about privacy and security issues, most downplay those Sewell considered the fact that strangers would be concerns, saying new technologies always have bugs reading her page. In fact, she thought twice about the

EMILIO ACEVEDO “I have no shame about it. It’s deep stuff but I just wanted people to know where I was coming from.” that need to be identified and then worked out. “The car was developed and we all started driving and pretty soon we realized we needed stop signs,” says Quinn. “That’s the way it works with all technology.” On the other hand, some experts say there is something extraordinarily beguiling and empowering about the Internet and the World Wide Web, where all the world can be a person’s stage. “We’re so busy promoting technology, we haven’t looked at whether it’s harmful,” says Kimberly S. Young, an assistant professor of psychology at the Uni- versity of Pittsburgh at Bradford, who has studied ha- bitual Internet users. “Electronic communication on herself by saying or displaying something indiscreet. “There are things that people do in their lives that are young and foolish,” Quinn says. “This is just a new way to do young and foolish things.” While it is worth mulling over, Quinn wonders what sort of dos and don’ts the university could provide about posting on the Internet even if it chose to do so. Outside of material that is fraudulent, harassing, obscene or threatening – all of which would constitute a violation of university policy – how would you decide what is OK and what isn’t? Would students even listen? “Stanford has a long history of being a free-speech proponent,” Quinn says. “I don’t think we want to re-

MICHELLE Q. WANG BALDONADO “I think people are not quite aware of how far their message can travel.”

profanity before deciding to leave it in. “It is a calcu- strict what people can say. Obviously, if there’s some lated risk. When you put something up on the Web, danger imposed to someone by what’s said, we want to you do so with the knowledge that it can – and will – be wary. But that’s a tough question.” be read,” she says. “It’s fair game for anyone to look at Winograd suggests the university address privacy and draw their opinions about you.” and security in its primer on building home pages. For safety’s sake, she also thought twice about in- “The university is bending over backward to cluding her dorm name, but finally decided it was OK. [avoid] censorship, but I think it would be a good thing Sewell also has at least one cyberfriend, someone to have a paragraph that says, ‘Here are some things to she meet while Web-surfing. And while she initiated think about.’ It’s really for [students’] own protection.” that relationship, she says she is wary of meeting people In the long run, technology may aid students who in virtual space. “There are definitely weird people out are rethinking the nature of the information they vol- there,” she says. “You have to be a little bit suspicious unteer and are concerned about who’s sitting at the about meeting people in that context.” monitor on the other end. Winograd says in the not Stanford freshman Jonathan Bailey, on the other too distant future, technology will be available for hand, lives to meet people on the Web. He sees the Web students and other computer users to block strangers as a powerful spiritually and socially unifying force. from tapping into their home pages. “When you put “It’s so fascinating to me to think that I can get on something up on the Web, one of the questions you’ll my computer and talk to somebody in Thailand,” Bai- ask yourself is, ‘Who should see this?’ Whereas to- ley says. “We’re connected by this electronic tool. I see day, what you put up on the Web, it’s out there for it as something that can be really positive.” the world.” Bailey views home pages of strangers as an endlessly In the meantime, a new crop of freshmen will enter long art gallery, a corridor with doors to all sorts of in- Stanford’s brave new Web world this fall and start to teresting rooms and personalities. He regards it as a wrestle with some of the questions Emilio Acevedo and personal favor when people risk revealing themselves others are already grappling with. via a home page. From his own, you can find out that “I have no shame about it,” Acevedo says, when he is a vegetarian, a registered Democrat, a skateboard asked about the candid nature of his home page. “It’s addict and a self-described “smooth operator.” deep stuff, but I just wanted people to know where I’m “It’s a powerful tool for expressing yourself, and it’s coming from.” But then he acknowledges it’s not the different than a resume because it’s so visual,” Bailey kind of thing he would tell a stranger in person: “Not says. “Personally, I don’t think anything on my home right off. Maybe after I’d gotten to know you.” page is incriminating. But if somebody sees some sort Hearing the irony, he says, “The Web is different, of art, some skateboarding and decides I’m some sort but I’m not sure why. I wouldn’t want someone tapping of hooligan or something, that’s fine. That’s probably into my extreme personal life.” not a relationship I’d like to develop anyway.” He pauses. “It’s a good question, something I need While university web coordinator Quinn believes to think about.” ST students might want to think twice about some of the information they put on their home pages, she doesn’t JEFF BRAZIL is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. He won believe a student could permanently harm himself or the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting.

44 STANFORD TODAY September/October 1996 Essay Ancestor Worship WHY OUR SEARCH FOR THE CONSTITUTION’S ORIGINAL MEANING IS SO PERPLEXING

hough Americans are not an espe- amendments). So, too, few critics of originalism would cially patriarchal people, one really dismiss evidence of the intentions underlying a form of ancestor worship still particular provision as an irrelevant element in its inter- flourishes: the homage we pay to pretation. But the weight this evidence should receive re- the wisdom of “the Founding Fa- mains a source of dispute. thers.” The most notable form of this homage is the belief that in Historians have contributed relatively little to the lawyers’ on- interpreting the Constitution our going debate about original intent. Many are skeptical true goal should be to recover its about the capacity of jurists and lawyers to do justice “original meaning” or the “original intentions” of its to the complexities and ambiguities of the historical adopters. Originalism, as it is called, assumes that a fixed record. Those who have served as expert witnesses (as Tset of meanings was locked into the Constitution at the I did some years ago in litigation relating to Oneida moment of its adoption, and that these meanings enjoy a Indian land claims) realize that the adversarial system supreme legal authority is more likely to produce that should guide and con- conflicting accounts than strain the course of inter- balanced judgments. We pretation. tend to read the ensuing Nothing in the Consti- briefs and decisions as so tution literally directs us to much “law office history” prefer its original meaning – a pastiche of quotations over all other modes of in- assembled to support the terpretation; originalism is causes lawyers are plead- always our choice, not a ing or the decisions judges mandate of the past. To its are reaching. advocates, originalism pro- Consider, for example, mises to prevent politically Justice Clarence Thomas’s unaccountable judges from dissent from the Supreme imposing their own values Court’s recent 5-4 deci- and preferences on the text sion (U. S. Term Limits v. of the Constitution. To its Thornton) to strike down critics, originalism often sounds like a retrograde effort an Arkansas law requiring incumbent members of Con- to subordinate pressing claims for present justice or gress to run as write-in candidates. With Chief Justice adaptations in governance to flawed and obsolete under- William Rehnquist and Justice Antonin Scalia, Thomas standings of the past. is usually considered sympathetic to originalism; his dis- In practice, of course, few originalists really argue sent relied on the presumed original meaning of the that we should turn the clock of government back to Tenth Amendment. Since the Constitution doesn’t specif- 1787 (or the state of race relations back to the 1860s, ically prohibit states from adopting term limits, Thomas

Vlad Guzner when Congress proposed the critical Reconstruction reasoned, such a power must be reserved to the states.

by Jack Rakove

September/October 1996 STANFORD TODAY 45 Essay

“In the words of Justice Black,” Thomas writes, regulate commerce, or the president’s authority to commit ‘[t]he United States is entirely a creature of the Constitu- troops to low-intensity conflicts. tion. Its power and Even so, the debates of the 1780s were the cul- authority have no mination of long-standing and richly docu- other name’ . . . As mented arguments about the nature of consti- far as the Federal tutional government, some extending to the Constitution is con- turbulent political history of 17th-century Eng- cerned, then, the land, others drawing more immediately on the States can exercise experience of the American Revolution. If his- all powers that the torians cannot provide coherent accounts of Constitution does how the Constitution was adopted, we might not withhold from as well call it a day and look for a new line of them.” work. To a historian, The challenge that originalism poses to histori- however, Justice ans is to provide the best possible account of Thomas’s account of why the Constitution and its particular clauses the founding ap- took the form they did. Such an account has to pears rather strange. be open-minded about the range of sources we The idea that states use, and it has to weigh the evidence by the could impose term same rules that historians always use to assay limits on their dele- documents. We can’t simply look up the most gates would never relevant statement from, say, The Federalist, have occurred to the and assume that Madison or Alexander Hamil- framers of the Con- jack rakove ALL THE RATIFIERS REALLY ton naturally captured the true meaning of the stitution and its rati- DECIDED WAS WHETHER OR NOT “TO FORM A provision in question. That text, or any text, fiers. Since their un- MORE PERFECT UNION” has to be set in its context, its probative value derlying intention was to free the national government weighed against other statements (or even what we from its dependence on the state legislatures, it is hard to know of the privately voiced concerns of its author). imagine why they would have allowed the same bodies Historians, then, can indeed lay an evidentiary founda- to restrict access to Congress – the more so when we re- tion on which originalist interpretations of the Constitu- call that the framers also hoped to inspire qualified can- tion can proceed. didates to pursue national office. But in several ways, such historically grounded accounts of how the Constitution was written challenge basic As this example suggests, legal appeals to the original meaning premises on which the legal theory of originalism rests. We of the Constitution should give historians an opportunity should never forget that it is a debate we are interpreting. – and perhaps an obligation – to contribute to discussions Historians can usually narrow the range of meanings that about issues of contemporary concern. All such appeals can be assigned to any given provision, but in nearly all the are necessarily claims about the evidence of the past, and interesting cases, we are left with an unstable compound of as such they should be examined with some sensitivity to predictions, expectations, hopes, fears, miscalculations and the rules of historical inquiry and the historians’ concern agreements to disagree. This historical approach won’t sat- for getting the context right. They present a set of puzzles isfy everyone. Judges seek answers, not ambiguities; about why particular actions were taken in the past, what lawyers write briefs, not dissertations; politicians are ad- the actors thought they were doing, and what the conse- versaries, not analysts – and their activities are dedicated to quences of their decisions were. The evidence needed to reaching decisions, not recapturing uncertainties. solve these puzzles is by no means paltry. True, some cru- Recent historical accounts of the revolutionary cial clauses of the Constitution were adopted with little origins of the American republic have emphasized the discussion, or in near silence, or without the scrutiny we experimental quality of its forays in constitutionalism. now know they deserved. The framers would have done They describe a process of innovation, implementation, us all a great favor by taking a day or two away from reconsideration and reform that began in the separate what James Madison called their “tedious and reiterated states in the mid-1770s, was reviewed at the national discussions” of the electoral college to tell us more about level in the late 1780s and quickly gave way to fresh and

Linda Cicero judicial review, or the extent of the congressional power to bitter disputes in the 1790s. This process was creative,

46 STANFORD TODAY September/October 1996 dynamic, often divisive and an ongoing source of reap- lar voice could speak in only one way: by voting the praisals (some agonizing, others more pragmatic). To say Constitution in its entirety up or down, not article-by-ar- that it reached decisive closure the moment that New ticle, or clause-by-clause, and not by allowing each state Hampshire provided the decisive ninth vote needed for convention to make its ratification somehow contingent ratification seems absurd. upon attaining the amendments it sought. This binary, yes-or-no character of the ratification decision makes it N ITS STRONGEST FORM, THE THEORY OF origi- impossible to disaggregate the final vote of each state nalism holds that original meanings should convention into distinct understandings of the individual prevail because the authority of the Constitu- clauses that are invariably at issue in our own disputes. tion as supreme law rests on its having re- All the ratifiers really decided was whether or not they ceived an extraordinary expression of the sov- wished “to form a more perfect union.” ereign will of the people, through the special These formidable objections indicate why the theory procedures and supermajorities required for of originalism has proved vulnerable to criticism. Attain- its ratification and amendment. In this view, ing a sound historical understanding of how and why the intentions of the literal authors of the Con- the Constitution and its clauses took their original form stitution – the framers – are ultimately irrelevant to the may have the ironic result of explaining why the quest task of interpretation, because when they presented the for the grail of original intent is so maddening. Far from IConstitution to the American people, they were merely providing judges with a reliable guide to the true mean- making a proposal. According to this argument, what ing of the Constitution – and thus to constrain their im- really counts is the understandings of its ratifiers, be- pulse to impose their own values on the sacred text – cause only their sovereign voice could turn the Constitu- originalist forays will often yield only fresh sources of tion into supreme law. ambiguity, no more determinate than the other modes of As a legal theory, this robust form of originalism has interpretation that legal scholars repeatedly critique. considerable force because it rests on a powerful argu- Yet for all its flaws, the continuing appeal of origi- ment about popular sovereignty. To its critics, this argu- nalism illuminates an overlooked aspect of our political ment suffers from two telling defects. If the task of inter- culture. Though “the Founders” have often been faulted pretation is to assign precise meaning to the words of the for their failure to abolish chattel slavery, the fact re- Constitution, common sense suggests that the intentions mains that the era of the American Revolution, culmi- of the authors should matter more. All interpretations of nating in the Constitution, provides Americans with the the allocation of the war powers, for example, have to one set of political symbols that come closest to consen- make sense of the framers’ decision to substitute “de- sual acceptance. By contrast, the symbols and images clare” for “make” in the clause authorizing Congress to that we associate with the Civil War, though more grip- decide when the nation shall go to war. That change may ping and compelling, still remain sadly divisive, as con- have lacked legal force when first “proposed,” but it had temporary controversies about the display of the Con- substantial consequences with which we still wrestle. federate “stars and bars” flag remind us. A second objection to this strong form of originalism Originalism may or may not offer a useful, persua- lies in the nature of the decision that the ratifiers of the sive mode of constitutional interpretation. But the fact Constitution were allowed to make. One of the great in- that a society as skeptical of ancestral wisdom as ours novations of American constitutionalism was to convert preserves this one version of patriarchalism is a revealing the vague notion that government originated in a social comment about our law, our politics and our history. compact into a doctrine and a set of procedures for the Reverence for ancestors (admittedly an un-American popular ratification of written constitutions. The key attitude) cannot itself solve political problems, of course, precedent was set in Massachusetts in 1780, and the but it still has some value in preserving what Madison framers at Philadelphia built upon it quite carefully. called “that veneration which time bestows on every They did so because they sought to develop a mechanism thing, and without which perhaps the wisest and freest to give those constitutions new authority as supreme governments would not possess the requisite stability.”ST law, superior to all ordinary acts of government. Popular sovereignty was considered a volatile, dan- JACK RAKOVE, Coe Professor of History and American Studies gerous idea during the drafting of the Constitution, and at Stanford, is the author of the just published Original the framers were careful to make sure that it would flow Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Con- in a deep but narrow channel. They proposed, and the stitution (Knopf) and James Madison and the Creation state legislatures and conventions agreed, that the popu- of the American Republic (HarperCollins).

September/October 1996 STANFORD TODAY 47 n May 14, 1887, Leland Stanford O laid the corner- stone at his Palo Alto estate for a university built in his son’s memory. Pulleys low- ered the waist-high block into place, and an encircling throng of workers and dig- nitaries watched him trowel the mortar that sealed it. His wife, Jane, stood nearby in a black Victorian dress. Stanford had devoted his life to building the Cen- tral Pacific Railroad. When his 15-year-old son died of typhoid fever during a Eu- ropean tour, he shifted his energies to the design of Le- land Stanford Junior Uni- versity. In collaboration with the preeminent landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted, he built a lowslung compound of courtyards in imitation of the rustic local missions. It was the genesis of a distinct Stanford style characterized by terra cotta roofs, carved sandstone arcades that shade scholars from the California sun and palm trees hovering like ver- dant clouds over the courtyards – a composition Olm- sted called “gloria in excelsis.” More than a century later, campus officials are trying to restore the spirit of the original plan. Like other universities that suffered decades of unchecked development, Stanford is searching its institutional soul for the appropriate way to graft new architecture onto old. Provosts and deans every- where face the same dilemma: Should they freeze their architectural heritage

The Green Library

48 STANFORD TODAY September/October 1996 Recapturing the Pride of Place AMID A BILLION-DOLLAR BUILDING BOOM, THE STRUGGLE TO DISTILL AN ARCHITECTURAL VISION By Michael Cannell photographs by richard barnes under glass, like a campus version of Williamsburg, Vir- ginia? Or solicit the best current design ideas? There are no easy answers. Harvard provoked an uproar early this year by slicing the Freshman Union, with its oaken dining hall designed in 1902 by McKim Mead & White, into a warren of offices in part because some faculty members considered it too elitist. For David Neuman, Stanford’s resident architect, the graceful solution is to add discreet contemporary architecture that helps to restore Stanford’s original plan. It is a strategy not based on aesthetics alone, but rooted in a belief that the 19th-century plan best serves 21st- century scholarship by enhancing its sense of place. “A disorderly campus affects everyone, if only sub- liminally,” says Neuman. “Without order, you’ve lost the physical opportunity for chance encounters and the collegial atmosphere that encourages collaboration and creativity. You’ve lost the sense of the university as a Hoover Tower shows how departments, like warring whole moving in a coherent way.” fiefdoms, were all too free to build self-serving monu- ments that upstage their neighbors. “Inevitably, as uni- he conventional 19th-century design – the one versities expand and balkanize, the plan grows less uni- initially proposed by Olmsted – would have fied,” says art history Professor Paul Turner, author of a T been a picturesque, park-like campus in the study on the history of American campus planning. leafy style of Yale or Princeton. Stanford demurred. He The violation of Stanford’s vision continued in the invoked the formal Beaux-Arts layout he had seen in years following the Second World War, when an upstart Paris, its geometric arrangement of enclosed courtyards generation of modern architects rejected Beaux-Arts and broad vistas extending by suggestion to the horizon. planning as the tired remains of a bygone era. Isolated The genius of Stanford’s plan lay in its expandability. buildings – and groups of buildings – sprang up without Stanford was a builder by bent, and he expected linked any relation to the main quad, or to one another. Their courtyards to proliferate outward over the years in strict red-tile roofs paid superficial deference to old Stanford observance of the east-west axis established by the main but, like most modern buildings, they claimed the right quadrangle – not unlike his railroad’s lateral advance to stand in splendid isolation. across the Western landscape. The final blow came in 1988, when the business The first person to muddle his orderly pattern of school’s annex, Littlefield Center, intruded on the grassy manicured paths and arcades was his wife, Jane, who vi- loop at the campus end of Palm Drive – Stanford’s ver- olated its spirit almost immediately after his death in sion of the Champs Élysées. It was one violation too 1893 by adding four detached, freestanding buildings many, and the trustees began looking for a resident ar- along Palm Drive. (The library and gymnasium col- chitect capable of restoring order.

THE SEISMICALLY STRENGTHENED LIBRARY WILL OFFER CUTTING-EDGE EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY Green Library

lapsed in the 1906 In 1989, they hired Neuman, who, at 43, had proven earthquake; the chem- himself a commanding planner. In the mid-80s, he trans- istry building and mu- formed a drab UC-Irvine campus by launching a con- seum still stand.) The struction spree designed by some of postmodernism’s new main library in- most flamboyant practitioners, including Frank Gehry flicted further damage and Robert Venturi. Like them or not, Neuman showed in 1919 by obstructing considerable political skill handling the superstars of ar- the east-west axis – chitecture while navigating the minefields of academia. Stanford’s organizing Although he came of age with postmodernism – a spine. What’s more, movement that treated pediments and porticos as play- it injected a whiff of things plundered from history’s attic – Neuman has New England colle- launched a thoughtful campaign to update Stanford giate Gothic into the without degrading its pride of place. Surrounded by Romanesque surround- models and renderings in his Serra Street office, Neuman ings. Even venerable periodically covers his blue eyes with his palms as he ANTOINE PREDOCK’S CIS EXTENSION IS THE BOLDEST NEW BUILDING ON CAMPUS Center for Integrated Systems BILL LEDDY’S ENGINEERING BUILDING FEATURES A NEW SPIN ON THE TRADITIONAL CAMPUS GATEWAY Thornton Center for Engineering Management

discusses the need to remember of the trustees’ land and buildings committee. dress the design misde- “We’re more sophisticated now, in part because David meanors of recent cam- Neuman brought us along. We have a sense of responsi- pus history. bility. We know we’re building for the ages.” “There came the notion that every building tanford’s architectural degradation was a prod- has the right to set its uct of its academic success. There seemed to be own course,” he says. S no time for the niceties of architecture as Stan- “The campus became ford grew into a big-league research institute with de- like Houston.” partments Leland Stanford never could have dreamed of. Neuman arrived in Thirty years ago, at the dawn of the digital age, applied time to lead a $1 billion mathematics spawned an onrushing confederacy of com- campaign that will re- puter and engineering fields accommodated in a disper- shape much of the cam- sion of hastily erected quarters. The “temporary” bar- pus. This year and next racks endured for decades. are the busiest of a con- When Jean-Claude Latombe, director of the robot- struction boom that ics lab, arrived in 1987, he was assigned an office in started after the Loma Cedar Hall, one of many motley one-story workplaces Prieta earthquake in he likens to vacation bungalows. “They were very 1989 and will include a science and engineering quad, a friendly, but they didn’t give you any sense of working new art museum wing, a renovated library, two new within a university,” Latombe says. The isolation inhib- graduate dorms and extensive seismic strengthening. ited teamwork.“The bungalows discouraged contact “Not long ago we looked like a down-at-the-heels, among students working on complementary prob- bedraggled place,” says Ruth Halperin, an outgoing lems,” Latombe says.

52 STANFORD TODAY September/October 1996 Just a year earlier, By all accounts, Casper was more than an attending Silicon Valley pioneer functionary. In one early meeting, Casper asked Neuman Bill Hewlett had revived to have the county transit agency remove a bus shelter Leland Stanford’s long- from the head of the oval so that idling buses would no deferred expectation of longer obstruct the view up Palm Drive. “He has a Euro- a second quad aligned pean sensitivity to the importance of architecture,” says with the first by donat- James Polshek, architect of the new museum wing. ing $40 million in- In the past, top-tier architects have been reluctant to honor of the univesity’s work at Stanford because of the constraints of history. If centennial to help re- Neuman succeeds in restoring the university’s early fla- unite the sciences in vor, it will be because he shrewdly recruited people like their own courtyard. Polshek, Antoine Predock, Robert A. M. Stern and Work on four science James Ingo Freed – architects adept at gracefully weav- buildings already had ing contemporary designs into their surroundings. started when the 1989 Nonetheless, Neuman did set down basic rules. By Loma Prieta earthquake outlawing glass facades, Neuman discouraged bombas- closed some 50 campus tic departures from the campus style. Nor would he buildings and delayed new construction. permit the postmodern practice of replicating old Fortunately, Hewlett’s partner, David Packard, res- forms in unsuitably large sizes. Instead, he mandated cued the plan from what would have been 20 years of stone veneers with distinct windows and pronounced arduous incremental fundraising. After seeing the decay- rooflines to give off patterns of light and shade. “We ing electrical engineering labs during the 1993 dedica- want buildings that are of Stanford, not just at Stan- tion of the Green Earth Sciences building, Packard asked ford,” he says. President Gerhard Casper how much was needed to Neuman did not, however, ask for slavish historicism complete the quad. He and Hewlett pledged $77.4 mil- or a literal replication of the old quad. “That would be a lion to fund 70 percent of the new quad – the largest sin- falsehood,” says Thomas Seligman, director of the Stan- gle monetary gift in Stanford’s history. ford Art Museum. “We want our new building to res- But donations are frittered away if ineptly employed. onate with the old, but we made a clear and conscious Stanford too often has fueled campus sprawl by hiring decision not to recreate the old in some artificial way.” architects based solely on their portfolios. By the time On the contrary, he encouraged the architects to ex- the trustees saw problematic designs, it was often too plore personal variations on historical themes – to use late. David Neuman was determined to prevent such the old quad as a jumping off point. surprises by initiating formal competitions in which sev- The best example of Neuman’s progressive histori- eral carefully selected architects submitted models and cism lies in the new extension to the Center for Inte- renderings to a jury chaired by President Casper. grated Systems. The building was designed by Antoine

FOR THE FIRST TIME, COMPUTING’S DIVERSE FACULTY WILL RESIDE UNDER ONE ROOF William Gates Computer Science Building THE QUAKE-DAMAGED ART MUSEUM WILL REOPEN IN 1997 WITH A NEW WING DESIGNED BY JAMES POLSHEK Stanford Museum

Predock, an Albuquerque architect with a reputation for Stern, is politely wardrobed in an overhanging red-tile New Age structures that rise organically from the South- roof and old-fashioned casement windows recessed to west’s desert landscape. suggest the old quad’s hefty block walls. A three-story arch embedded in the rusticated limestone facade marks he CIS extension faithfully obeys Neuman’s the entrance with a ceremonial flourish. rules of scale and material, but it has a glower- Few campus buildings have been so eagerly antici- T ing, fortress-like presence unlike anything on pated. Computing’s diverse branches – artificial intelli- campus. A deep barrel-vaulted entrance and slit win- gence, robotics, computer graphics, database manage- dows pierce an austere facade clad in pinkish Delhi sand- ment, etc. – finally reside under one roof. Their stone pockmarked with fossils. Its reddish copper-tile proximity should foster cross-pollination. roof floats nine inches above the walls – just high “This building is too new yet to have its own special enough to admit light through a ribbon of glass. Think history and patina,” says recently retired Engineering of it as a provocative cross between Mesa Verde and Sil- Dean James Gibbons, “but it won’t take the students icon Valley. “Predock fine-tunes the building’s form and and faculty too long to rectify that. My prediction is materials, its details and proportions, to create a build- that, within the next 18 months, something will happen ing that fits in with the Stanford context while charting a here – there will be some place, some office, some corner, new course of its own,” wrote Alan Hess, a critic for the where people will point and say, ‘Yeah, that’s where they San Jose Mercury News. worked on the “blank” in 1996 and 1997.’ ” Predock’s CIS extension resides south of Serra Street, Stern shrewdly encouraged casual interaction by diagonally across from its companion piece, the new providing a spacious, sunlit central stairwell that five-story Gates Computer Science Building, a $38.5 mil- climbs to a top-floor terrace. Whiteboards posted in lion cutting-edge facility named for Microsoft founder gathering areas near elevators and bulletin boards Bill Gates, who donated $6 million. For all its high-tech darken daily with scrawled algorithms as passersby amenities, the Gates building, designed by Robert A. M. pause for spontaneous brainstorming. Faculty offices

54 STANFORD TODAY September/October 1996 don’t have to stand out,” Freed says. “They don’t have to stand up and scream. All they have to do is tie things together.” His fourth building, a lecture hall, is the en- semble’s sculptural front man. Its curved, gently can- tilevered panels of gray metal trimmed in copper beckon pedestrians like a Broadway marquee. “The whole fabric of the campus has become so loose,” Freed says. “The teaching facility signals that something special is happening here.” Happily, the quad creates more open space than it consumes. Where the Physics Tank now stands Freed will unfurl a palm-lined walkway connecting the quads much as Leland Stanford suggested in drawings from the 1880s. The debauched east-west axis, Neuman says, will “be much more prominent, much more sacred.” The new quad breaks precedent in one key respect. While the inner quad is a desert sanctuary traversed by students rushing to classes, the new quad will be a grassy oasis, a place to linger under a dappled canopy of stone pines with soaring trunks that echo an encircling arcade. For hard-wired students increasingly accustomed to con- gregating on-line, the quad will be a outdoor parlor with shaded benches and sweet-scented locust trees. “Faculty and students want a respite from labs and classrooms,” Neuman THE CAMPUS says. “They want to BECAME LIKE HOUSTON sit outside and en- David Neuman joy the California climate. Many of them came here for open onto central laboratories that invite participation. that very reason.” Within three months, the robots outside Jean-Claude No one can pre- Latombe’s door acquired from various tenants the abil- dict how Stanford’s ity to track moving targets. future inhabitants “Demonstrations used to seem confidential,” says will regard today’s Latombe. “Now people come out of their offices to additions. Every make suggestions.” generation reacts The CIS extension and Gates anchor the north side of against what pre- what will be a new quad consolidating the scattered sci- ceded it. But what- ence and engineering facilities. “It has been a 10-year ever future critics dream of ours to draw electrical engineering and com- may say, the cam- puter science – the hardware and the software – together pus is now growing in an environment surrounded by such things as the bio- with greater fidelity to the founder’s vision. After logical sciences and medicine,” Gibbons says. decades of haphazard development, the campus land- The winning entry for the new quad came from scape is once again an extension of its architecture. James Ingo Freed, I. M. Pei’s longtime partner. After As they pass among flower beds and arches, sunlit decades of anonymous service, Freed emerged from Pei’s tiles and shaded arcades, students will see that the small- shadow with recent works like the new main library in est details help to express the whole. As a place restored, San Francisco and the U.S. Holocaust Museum on the Stanford can be an example to those who would look be- Mall in Washington, D.C., one of the most ardently yond the ubiquitous influence of cars and other small- lauded public buildings of recent times. scale conveniences. The Stanford of the 21st century Freed won Stanford’s most sought-after job largely might not be perfect, but it does suggest that all the glo- because he struck a balance between current needs and ries of 19th-century landscape design can live again. And remembered grandeur. Under his scheme, three modest that is an exciting prospect. ST buildings with similar pitched roofs and subdued facades house electrical engineering, advanced materials MICHAEL CANNELL is an author living in New York City. His first research and statistics. Freed considers them less im- book, I.M. Pei: Mandarin of Modernism, a biography of portant than the space they enclose. “The buildings the noted architect, was published last fall by Crown.

September/October 1996 STANFORD TODAY 55 JAIR LYNCH, Stanford, Class of 1994. Silver Medalist, Atlanta Olympics, 1996