STANFORD A PUBLICATION OF THE STANFORD ALUMNI ASSOCIATION May 2021 MAY 2021 SCIENCE, POLITICS & ACADEMIC FREEDOM Pandemic Patrol • Academic Freedom • Powwow at 50 • Remembering George Shultz POWWOW TURNS, 50 ITS OUR MOVE As viruses jump from bats to camels and pigs to people, stanfordmag.org there are ways we can keep the next pandemic in check. Seeking leaders who want to change the world. Sally Geisler Bagshaw AB, Stanford ALI, Harvard The Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative aims to unleash the potential of experienced leaders to help solve society’s most pressing challenges. Learn more at advancedleadership.harvard.edu or by calling 617-496-5479. 2020.10.19_ALI_Ivy_Ad_Stanford.indd 1 10/19/20 2:59 PM 210101_ALI_Stanford.indd 1 10/21/20 10:57 AM Contents 38 50 Years of Powwow On May 1, 1971, the first Stanford Powwow was held to highlight Native culture. Five decades later, it is the university’s largest annual multicultural event and a homecoming for 30 Indigenous students, Says Who Bay Area residents and These days, truth seems performers from across to be a slippery topic. the country. Universities can help us sort it out—but only with a full commitment to academic freedom, 44 the principle that enables Of Viruses us to pressure-test and Vectors our ideas. Zoonotic transmission, in which a disease jumps from animals to humans, brought us MERS, swine flu and the novel coronavirus. Scientists discuss their fears about the next outbreak—Disease X— and their hopes that our evolving understanding of the natural world, from people to pathogens, might keep it at bay. ON THE COVER: ILLUSTRATION BY CATRIN WELZ-STEIN CANTOR ARTS CENTER COLLECTION; IRIS AND B. GERALD CANTOR FOUNDATION, PROMISED GIFT TO THE THE PROMISED GIFT TO FOUNDATION, CENTER COLLECTION; IRIS AND B. GERALD CANTOR ARTS CANTOR UNIVERSITY (ORIGINAL PHOTO) STANFORD AT ARTS CENTER FOR VISUAL IRIS & B. GERALD CANTOR STANFORD 1 Contents 13 22 24 Meet The Statesman Open-Door Policy Luciana Frazao Four-time Cabinet member A former dean of freshmen A mechanical engineering George Shultz helped end the offers reflections and wisdom master’s student takes robots Cold War. Then, in 32 years with to people emerging into adulthood— to their limits. the Hoover Institution, he tackled and anyone else wanting help with topics from democratic governance that continual act of becoming. to climate change. Digital STUDENT VOICE A letter to halmoni NEW PAGE 28 AT STANFORDMAG.ORG ALL RIGHT NOW DEPARTMENTS The history and future 16 Novels by young writers, 4 Dialogue of the USPS for young readers 6 Editor’s Note: 17 New dorm norms Why the camel Advice for new grads in our 18 Quelling your reentry anxiety 8 President’s Column: After the Farm collection 19 Friends for food banks The creative arts 20 Basketball, victorious 10 1,000 Words: A video interview and more about The Zoom room robotics researcher Luciana Frazao Biblio File: at alu.ms/lucianafrazao 54 Laws of fashion 57 Farewells 63 Classifieds 64 Postscript: STANFORDALUMNI @STANFORDMAG @STANFORDALUMNI Driving Dad CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: TONI BIRD; LINDA A. CICERO/STANFORD NEWS SERVICE; PRAISE SANTOS/COMEPLUM PHOTO; PHOTO; PRAISE SANTOS/COMEPLUM NEWS SERVICE; A. CICERO/STANFORD BIRD; LINDA TONI FROM TOP: CLOCKWISE ’22 (INSET) ANDREW TAN, COURTESY (ILLUSTRATION); DAVIDRO 2 MAY 2021 Special discount for Switching to GEICO is a bright idea. 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GEICO Gecko image © 1999-2021. © 2021 GEICO 21_601596095 20_601596095_SPN_ROP_BrightIdea_Stanford.indd 1 1/8/21 4:31 PM Getting Schooled Our March cover story focused on K–12 education during the pandemic, including aspects of distance learning we might want to keep. @STANFORDMAG We’ve been given this unique How do we engage students in opportunity to redesign learning. virtual classrooms? Acknowledge To think outside the box, to every student by name in class, move away from a century-old include community-building archaic assembly-line education activities that motivate students to system. Many are mourning turn cameras on and more good academic loss. But is that all ideas in this article. #education we’ve lost this year? Amy Gillett, ’91, MA ’92 #remotelearning @AmyonEducation Monica Bhattacharya, MA ’11 @MonicaMoveEd I find your article magnificent and worthy of national distribution. It carries such a produc- Food for Thought tive and positive and significant line of In March, we profiled soul food scholar Adrian thinking, so desperately needed in these days Miller, ’91, whose latest book is about barbecue. @STANFORDMAG of annihilating history, etc. Two key pieces of your message are “Everything about educa- Nicely done, but . as an ethical vegan, I A Good Ribbing tion has been disrupted. This is a moment for found this article very difficult to read. I’ve been teased about @stanfordmag reinventing school as we restart it” and “We Amy Halpern-Laff, JD ’85 calling me the “Bard of #Barbecue,” are giving them a solution that will work right Palo Alto, California but I think they are on to something. I now through remote learning, but we abso- need cool intros when I start my next lutely want them to continue this solution book tour. Here’s what I’ve come up when everybody is back.” Past and Present with so far: Sara B. Nerlove, MA ’63, PhD ’69 The March issue included a letter that The Ruler of Rib Tips The Sultan of Sauce Safety Harbor, Florida characterized the magazine as “lightweight” The Potentate of Potato Salad and an article with tips on empathy from Adrian Miller, ’91 The primary lesson learned from the pandemic psychology professor Jamil Zaki. @soulfoodscholar is that nothing happens with regard to our educational system unless the teachers unions I write to express full support for the critical Grade A suggestions included: dictate it. The important lesson learned should letter you published in the latest issue of The Baron of Babyback be that we fund students, not schools. All the Stanford. The Bishop of Brisket harmful issues raised in the article were felt to Your magazine used to inform me about The Crown Prince of Coleslaw a much greater extent by students confined to much fascinating work, study and advances Director of Dry Rub public schools, run by unions, that chose to going on at the university, plus some news The Head Hog remain closed (and continue to do so!). Private, of alumni. The Lord of the Greens parochial and charter schools continue to Now, for some unfathomable reason, your The Mac Daddy of Mac ’n’ Cheese teach and support their students in spite of the focus is on emotions, student feelings and Maestro of Maillard pandemic crisis. The power of the unions lightweight articles on serious topics with a Sauce Boss needs to be challenged by real school choice. Stanford slant such as the Mars rover. Steven Johnson, Parent ’19 In the March issue, to give some examples, Read them all at adrianemiller.com. Incline Village, Nevada we have two pages devoted to an unknown MILLER PAUL 4 MAY 2021 senior who plays a guitar in a band, two pages to an “empathy scholar” telling me to be kind, Post Haste four pages given over to “frosh” describing An online article put the much-ballyhooed student emotions (sample: “I’m dead all the USPS into historical context. time because I’m sleep-deprived” and “I definitely cried weeks one through four”), four As Professor David M. Kennedy, ’63, has pages on LGBTQ health, and an entirely noted, before the New Deal, the postal service speculative and overlong eight pages on was almost the only regular contact the average [education and] the COVID pandemic that citizen had with the federal government. And includes the amazing revelation “by definition, in the days before radio, TV and the internet, everyone is affected by a pandemic.” Yet delivery of newspapers by the postal service was STANFORDALUMNI exactly how Stanford University has coped in vital to the many people who lived in rural areas, the past 12 months remains a mystery. far from where the newspapers were published. Knifely Done You can do much better than this— Merlin Dorfman, PhD ’69 A March story marked Ana Ziadeh’s because you used to! San Jose, California 50 years with Stanford Dining. Robin Knight, MA ’68 London, England Oh, my! I was a hasher at Wilbur Allergy Angel for all four of my years at Stanford, As a retired theater teacher, I was delighted by Our March feature on professor of medicine and I remember working in the your article’s confirmation of my long-held Kari Nadeau’s treatment of children with kitchen with Ana! conviction that theater training is training for severe food allergies resonated with families. Anastasia Cronin McNabb, ’87 life—life as a more empathic, sensitive human. Stanford is more than the students I took as a mantra the phrase “Nothing human Your article made me cry with hope! God and faculty.