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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 tu- ition 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.

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