space for research thinking globally new pedagogy Graduate studies Planners and faculty Area studies, one of The Center for The university’s first look to ensure that the first interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning vice provost for the intersection of fields, has a new helps professors and graduate education architecture and research life in the Division graduate students pledges to promote is a productive one, of International, design interdisciplinary cross-school pages 2 and 3 Comparative and Area classes, page 8 opportunities for Studies, page 6 graduate students, page 12 inter action ISSUE 6 • SPRING 2007 • STANFORD UNIVERSITY • MULTIDISCIPLINARY NEWS UPDATED AT http://multi.stanford.edu
The genius of Leland Stanford’s plan for his new university was its expandability. The structure of the Main Quad, with its east-west axis, lent itself to coherent growth that could elaborate upon the original vision while respecting it. But the university lost its architectural way soon after its founders died. Today, the university community is working hard to recover the old vision and adapt it to a new world of exciting research.
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“It’s about vision, not space”
he genius of Le- where they shouldn’t. There were dis- president in 1992, he also was wor- the Paul Allen Center is the very op- land Stanford’s putes over modern versus traditional ried. So he took a more active role posite of the Gates building; it picks plan for his new architecture. There was no flow. in campus architecture and began up on traditional themes but in very u n ive r s it y wa s There was little consultation with presiding over open competitions for different ways.” its expandability. faculty or other users. “There are ar- new buildings. The SEQ1 buildings, except the The structure of eas with no ‘there there,’ no anchors,” “SEQ is more accepted now, but Hewlett Teaching Center, are de- the Main Quad, campus architect David Lenox said, at first it was controversial,” Casper partmental. Today, as Stanford em- with its east-west gesturing at a campus map. said, referring to the Packard, Se- braces multidisciplinary approaches axis, lent itself to coherent growth His predecessor, David Neuman, quoia, Moore and Hewlett build- to research and teaching, campus Tthat could elaborate upon the origi- also was concerned at how the uni- ings in the Science and Engineering architects’ tasks include ensuring not nal vision while respecting it. versity had gone astray. Quad, which went up on his watch. only that buildings make aesthetic But the university seemed to lose “A disorderly campus affects ev- “The landscape architect worked sense but that they properly house its architectural way soon after its eryone, if only subliminally,” he told with the architect to create an infi- and encourage new types of scientific founders died. So did many other Stanford Today in 1996. “Without nitely lighter, more Mediterranean and intellectual journeys. Flexible great universities in the 20th century; order, you’ve lost the physical oppor- quad,” he said. “The new buildings classrooms and break spaces, central Harvard, for instance, was once de- tunity for chance encounters and the picked up on the themes of the Main workshops, open office space, mov- scribed as “a loose confederation of collegial atmosphere that encourages Quad even though [the Hewlett and able equipment and furniture, op- departments held together by alle- collaboration and creativity.” Packard buildings] are point and portunities for spontaneous meetings giance to the central heating plant.” Gerhard Casper recalled recently counterpoint. Some people said, or huddles—these are all elements of At Stanford, buildings went up that when he became the university’s what is this atrium doing there? And the new university.
The faculty has a School of Engineering Center: pen with this building.” The SoEC will house the Management Science and much greater role in Engineering Department (MS&E), the Institute for From the Ground Up Computational and Mathematical Engineering (ICME) architectural planning and the dean’s office. The adjacent rotunda, which the Talking about building academic buildings can take architects call “the signature building of the quad,” today than in the past. as long as building them—longer, in fact. There are ar- will house the library and a host of common areas, in- duous conversations about research collaborations, links cluding exhibition space, classrooms, an auditorium among disciplines, proximity to shared facilities such as (used principally by the Stanford Center for Profes- workshops and libraries, likely areas of growth and the sional Development), a research gym, breakout rooms image of their field that scholars want to project. and a café. The second building to go up in the second Science This spring, planning entered the schematic phase. and Engineering Quad (SEQ2) will be the School of En- Members of the Portland, Ore., architectural firm gineering Center (SoEC), whose planners are involved BOORA met with users and faculty members to figure in precisely those sorts of conversations with faculty out how they operate and move, where their research members. and teaching takes them in a building, how much space The building has a hard act to follow: the Environ- they need and how it should be distributed. ment and Energy Building (E+E), which will open its Beyond the needs of the individual units, planners doors in October. grappled with the peculiar structure of the School of “We’re interested in the experience of a building,” Engineering and SEQ2. The new building will contain said Sandy Meyer, director of facilities and planning just one of the school’s nine departments; some of the for the School of Engineering and program representa- rest will be in other SEQ2 buildings (which will all be tive for SEQ2. “Instantly when you arrive at E+E, you connected through their basements), but others will be understand what it’s about. We need the same to hap- See FROM THE GROUND UP, page 4 SPRING 2007 MULTIDISCIPLINARY NEWS UPDATED AT http://multi.stanford.edu
L. A. CiCERO
Innovation can be expensive or What’s different now is that the what works where you are now; what the building is important. Being able inexpensive, cumbersome or un- process for working out these chal- doesn’t? We talk about access, prox- to work both alone and with col- complicated. “It’s about vision, not lenges includes faculty and staff to a imity, interaction, social engineering. leagues is important. Above all, flex- space,” said Margaret Dyer-Cham- far greater degree than before. Now, “Often people say everything ibility is important. berlain, director of the university’s not only are the buildings better, the should be exactly the same in the “There’s no reason to bolt down Department of Capital Planning. excitement is shared. new building. It’s really hard to en- lab equipment; we don’t do that in The Stanford Challenge fund- “I’ve made three lab moves since vision anything different. So we say, our own homes,” Robertson said. raising campaign includes new or I’ve been at Stanford, and each time what do you love about your current “Technology changes so rapidly, redesigned buildings in the schools I was told, you’re moving there,” said space? What don’t you like? And then we can’t possibly project science 50 of Medicine, Engineering, Law and Channing Robertson, senior associ- they say, well, now that you mention years down the line.” Business, as well as new dorms, an ate dean in the School of Engineering. it, there’s no space for… So where This issue of Interaction takes Arts Path and an expansion of the “The change has come because of should that be? we ask. Closer? Far- a look at how the schools of Medi- social science complex, including the more enlightened planners and also ther? We try to get them to think dif- cine and Engineering are balancing Hoover Institution, the Stanford In- because of resistance from faculty.” ferently about their space.” technology, function, aesthetics and stitute for Economic Policy Research Dyer-Chamberlain calls what she Visibility today is more important finances, among other things, to cre- and Encina Hall. All the projects does “space therapy.” than it was. Running into people is ate spaces for teaching and research share common issues: space, park- “We sit with departments to figure important. The ability to simultane- that will adapt themselves to the ing, mission, linkages, sustainability, out how all the components trans- ously participate in more than one requirements of future decades. If flexibility for an unknown future, late into what they’ll need in the new scientific undertaking and to convey these walls ever talk, they will have architectural intelligibility. building,” she said. “We ask people, that simultaneity to visitors entering a lot to say.
L. A. CiCERO the school buildings past the Clark Center to the biol- Learning & Knowledge Center: ogy and chemistry buildings. The paths will formally integrate the off-campus community with the schools of Gained in Translation Medicine, Engineering, and Humanities and Sciences. At the heart of all this—the nexus of research The School of Medicine gets awards and honors for and education and health care—is the Learning and just about everything. But not architectural planning. Knowledge Center (LKC), which will occupy the site At least not yet. of Fairchild Auditorium. Construction will start in late “Right now, over there, there’s one of everything,” spring 2008. The project was designed by the architec- said campus architect David Lenox, including build- tural firm NBBJ. (The building’s website is http://lkc. ings that date back to the school’s move from San Fran- stanford.edu/). cisco to the Farm nearly 50 years ago. “The Discovery Walk underlies our mission of trans- School and university officials had been talking lational medicine,” said the School of Medicine’s LKC about a redesign for years, but it was the arrival of project manager, Maggie Saunders. “This building is Dean Philip Pizzo in 2001 that kicked the plans into both the first and last step in the translation process, gear. Many of the building projects on campus are at- because without dialogue there is seldom innovation, tempts to revitalize Stanford’s original east-west quad and without teaching, there is no translation.” arrangement. But given the potpourri of buildings at the medical school, another scheme had to be devised. ‘A human process’ So the school will be at the intersection of two coher- The planning process for the LKC began with meet- ent walkways. The clinical, or “Discovery,” walk will ings among all the players, including faculty members. link the school in one direction to the hospitals; in the One faculty member who from the start assumed a Maggie Saunders is project manager of other to the two science and engineering quads, SEQ1 leading role was Dr. David Gaba, associate dean for and SEQ2. The research walk will run east-west from See GAINED IN TRANSLATION, page 5 the Learning and Knowledge Center. SPRING 2007 inter action MULTIDISCIPLINARY NEWS UPDATED AT http://multi.stanford.edu
rendering of the new building. “It doesn’t feel obvious From the Ground Up to me. Is there an obvious front door?” continued from page 2 And once you go through that front door, what do elsewhere. Yet SoEC must be the hub for them all. So you find? How do you interact with librarians? Does the planners’ task is to create a home for MS&E and checkout have to be where it always is? ICME and a symbolic center for the whole school. The follow-up meeting in April was attended by Their top priority is to “create an interdisciplinary University Librarian Michael Keller, whose enthusiasm community” that is sustainable, transparent and visu- must be every innovative architect’s dream. ally descriptive of the history of innovation associated By that time, Sinz had worked up a fairly detailed with the school. sketch of the library. Aided by Adobe Illustrator and And it has to be flexible. “When the Main Quad an agile mouse, the architect dropped seating, shelves, was built, they didn’t know what the university would couches, tables and offices in and out of the projected be like in 100 years,” architect Jamie Sinz pointed image and scooted the objects to one side or another out during a meeting with faculty. “When we say the depending on light, noise and use, all with the goal of SoEC is a 100-year building, it means it will adapt, but saving space and maximizing functionality. it will survive.” “That’s terrific!” Keller mur- mured. Tomorrow’s libraries ‘Windows on “But do we really need a desk Possibly no component of any creativity’ is one of at the entrance?” he asked. “We’re university is undergoing more ad- in a new age now. Don’t we want The architectural rendering, top, shows aptations these days than its librar- a more collaborative feeling about the building’s themes. how we treat our patrons? It’s the the eastern approach toward the hexago- ies. While ICME and MS&E must factor in space to grow, libraries fence I’m objecting to. We need to nal rotunda of the School of Engineering expect negative growth in terms get out of the fence mode. We need of space dedicated to stacks and to be as flexible as possible.” Center, which will contain the new Engi- less activity on the loading dock. The new engineer- He was preaching to the choir. “We’d certainly be interested in thinking about that neering Library, a cafe and many shared ing library will occupy around 6,000 square feet in the rotunda. in another way,” Campbell said. “Our goal is for the facilities. “It’s open, glassy, transparent, the iconic center of library to be as open as possible.” the building,” said architect Isaac Campbell, “analo- The librarians at the meeting reported that the new gous to the church in the Main Quad.” With a nod San Mateo Public Library is experimenting with por- toward the Clark Center, planners also want people table reference pods that can be locked up in the eve- outside to be able to see inside. “Windows on creativ- ning. Maybe, Keller said, the tabletop machinery also ity,” in fact, is one of the building’s themes. could be removed at night, leaving empty tables for all- One issue raised at a meeting in early March was night study sessions. how to create a sense of flow from the quad to the li- “Why not?” he asked. “Just think about it!” brary. Visibility from the outside is one thing; leading A new community people inside is another. There were several potential entrances to the library, and the group discussed which ICME director Peter Glynn, meanwhile, was think- was the most logical. ing about community. His institute’s graduate students Michael Keller “I can’t envision the natural flow,” said Bob Street, and directors are in the Durand Building, but faculty professor emeritus in the Department of Civil and En- offices are scattered widely in around a dozen depart- vironmental Engineering, pointing to the computerized See FROM THE GROUND UP, page 10
set aside a large piece of the footprint, and ultimately There will be three levels of food in the LKC: a Food and Thought people bought into the idea.” downstairs café along the Discovery Walk, open during Robertson, senior associate dean, the Ruth G. and regular hours; an area with vending machines containing When the Clark Center was being planned, some William K. Bowes Professor in the School of Engineering packaged food; and several kitchens (including one just people were skeptical about the space given to the and a former member of the Bio-X executive committee, for students) so people can cook 24/7. cafeteria. It was too big, they said. Better to give the said then he wanted “a full-service restaurant to serve Over in the future School of Engineering Center, space over to labs. as a social magnet to enable the serendipity that often meanwhile, the director of the Institute for Computation- No way, others said. Channing Robertson, in particu- is associated with discovery.” al and Mathematical Engineering, Peter Glynn, envisions lar, was adamant. Fast forward to today: Food is still linked to thought. a kitchen “with a large table” right next to the lounge. “I taught in Switzerland, where it was very common School of Medicine Dean Philip Pizzo has made it clear That will be the hub, he said. to have a large eating space,” he said recently. “People he wants food—lots of it—at the school’s new Learning And at a meeting to discuss the future Arts Path, one would leave their labs and socialize there. The same and Knowledge Center (LKC). participant suggested, only half in jest, that maybe 10 was true in Cambridge. In the United States, though, “Food and drink will be everywhere,” said Maggie cafés along the way would create artistic buzz. eating places often come after the fact. They’re not Saunders, the LKC project manager. “The classrooms Although it’s hard to object to sharing ideas over planned right, they don’t fit well, they’re in the worst pos- will accommodate this. People are more willing to par- food and drink, the mere presence of food and drink sible space and there’s no place to sit properly. So we ticipate, they’re more open, if they can eat and drink.” in no way guarantees the ideas, or even the fellowship,
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Courtesy of BOORA Courtesy of david gaba
may also be hybrids between VR and physical simu- Gained in Translation lation, along with high-resolution power-wall displays continued from page 3 and telepresence capability. immersive and simulation-based learning. “In a one-dimensional simulation—like an actor “The most important part of the process is bringing portraying someone in pain—students can’t very well together faculty from different parts of medical educa- practice treatment,” said Dr. Clarence Braddock, Ga- tion,” Gaba said. “That was the secret.” ba’s colleague in the planning process. “But in a mul- Gaba, an anesthesiologist, was on a similar build- tidimensional situation, students can experience more ing committee at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health complex scenarios. The simulations will be much more Care System after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. rich.” Technology has changed since then; designers can por- The basement also will contain a large project class- tray things graphically far better than before. “But room (the “wet-dry” room), with sinks and benches frankly,” he said, “the process is a human process, and for messy exercises. Faculty members will be able to that hasn’t changed.” observe many of the activities with monitors or one- Gaba explains his interest in simulation-based learn- way mirrors. Actors will have an area for lockers and ing: “Anesthesia has always been at the forefront of a break room. mannequin-based simulation because it is dangerous The mannequins won’t have a break room, but they and it is not therapeutic in and of itself,” he said. “An- will have names. One of Gaba’s many virtues is that esthesiologists are very worried about safety, very risk- of being an unrepentant Deadhead, so the simulated averse, so they were the leaders of the patient-safety patients have been honored with names from the song- movement.” list including Jack Straw, John B. Goode and August Those concerns led him 20 years ago to adapt tech- West. niques used in cockpits by aviators, who also have to “The exact design of the basement is still under con- make split-second decisions that involve the safety of sideration,” Gaba said. “We need space with flexibil- others. ity for the future. We know there will be new devel- Simulation-based learning will be one of the most opments out there, but nobody knows yet what they outstanding pedagogical features of the LKC, accord- are.” ing to the medical school. One common feature of all He envisions a role for Stanford University Medical building planning processes is the fight over window Media and Information Technologies (SUMMIT), led space. Happily, that is not the case here, as virtual real- by Parvati Dev, who holds a PhD in electrical engineer- ity (VR) and simulation labs, along with operating and ing from Stanford. SUMMIT develops and shares med- Top, medical residents “treat” a manne- exam rooms, need controlled lighting. So the simula- ical informatics, be they simulation devices for teach- tion component, the largest in the building, will be in ing surgical techniques, anatomical images broadcast quin in one of the simulation laboratories; the basement. around the world or virtual environments for teaching medical emergency management. middle, Dr. David Gaba, associate dean All in one place The group originally was focused on anatomy and for immersion and simulation-based learn- The simulation area will comprise several parts. The curricular development, and many of its projects en- school and hospitals today have three such labs, incor- able medical students in distant places to follow along. ing; bottom, pediatric nurses at Lucile But increasingly it has turned its attention to surgery porating all modalities of simulation: clinic rooms with Packard Children’s Hospital engage in standardized-patient actors or mannequins; VR labs; and gaming, changing its emphasis as the imaging and rooms for task-trainer machines and what amount technology has advanced. an exercise using a mannequin-based “What’s refreshing about Stanford is that every- to movie sets, where clinical sites such as operating simulator. rooms or roadside accidents can be recreated. There See GAINED IN TRANSLATION, page 11
one campus planner cautions. new managers recently reconfigured them. arts building, a de facto student center,” she said. “A bit “Food can serve the purpose, but it’s not just about “It looks less like Lompoc Prison than before,” he funky, near open studio space, so people could watch food,” said Margaret Dyer-Chamberlain, director of said. artists at work, good food, near the student mailboxes Stanford’s Department of Capital Planning. “You have to The fortunes of eating establishments are somewhat and the central campus. It was a place where faculty think about linkages, seating, the surroundings.” mysterious. Dyer-Chamberlain said one of the most suc- and students would run into each other.” There’s no way Seating was a particularly important issue at Clark. cessful eating gatherings on campus is at the Ginzton you can deliberately create that mix. The original plan called for lots of outdoor tables, both Laboratory, where faculty and students have coffee So food would seem to be an essential but insuf- on the lawn and on the sky bridges. The long tables in and donuts in a courtyard on a regular basis. Everyone ficient ingredient for good chemistry. It—and a craving the cafeteria were inspired, again, by European eating comes. It won’t put Stanford on any culinary map, but for caffeine—also draws people from a distance. customs. it works. “Peet’s is on the third floor of the Clark Center for a “The problem with round tables is that one person She also noted that The 750, the pub in the Gradu- good reason,” said Clark Center project director Mag- sits down and no one sits down with them,” Robertson ate Community Center, has grown more popular with its gie Burgett. You’ve got to go a ways to get that cup of said. “With the long tables, there’s no ownership of the themed events and musical performances. coffee. On the one hand, that might be a disincentive; table.” At her previous job at Dartmouth, she and colleagues on the other, you’ll run into more people. And you’ve
But they can make it difficult to talk in a small group, noticed there was one café that seemed to work better worked up an appetite by the time you arrive. he admitted, adding that he was pleased the restaurant’s than the others. “It was a very interactive space in the
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L.A. CICERO
The New World of Area Studies
Judith Goldstein, director of the Division of fter World War II, U.S. scholars, The oldest of the area studies programs at Stanford lawmakers and diplomats agreed are the Center for East Asian Studies and the Center International, Comparative and Area Stud- that knowledge about the rest for Latin American Studies, formed in the early 1960s, ies, in Encina Commons, which she hopes of the world was essential if an- and the Center for Russian, East European and Eur- other such conflagration were to asian Studies, founded in 1969. can be the new home for all her division’s be avoided. Within a few years, Today those three plus a collection of other regional programs and centers. the postwar desire for peace was and religious concentrations are grouped together in overtaken by the Cold War, whose the Division of International, Comparative and Area premise also called for Americans to take seriously Studies (ICA) of the School of Humanities and Sci- Athe challenge of understanding the rest of the world. ences. Depending on the center or program, they of- “We” needed to learn about “them.” fer master’s and undergraduate degrees, undergradu- As a result, in 1958, Title VI of the National De- ate honors and minor programs, postdoctoral research fense Education Act (renamed the Higher Education opportunities, speaker series, and a physical and in- Act in 1965) provided funding for research and train- tellectual space for an array of Stanford and visiting ing in international and foreign language studies, and scholars who share an interest in and love for a specific it has done so ever since. geographic area, however defined. In the private sector, meanwhile, after the death of For, what is an area, anyway? If the commonality Henry Ford in 1947, the Ford Foundation also under- between, say, Argentina and Honduras appeared ob- went a dramatic shift toward international concerns, vious to Latin Americanists in the 1960s, the same is and in the following decades it plowed hundreds of not true today. Scholars are far more critical than they millions of dollars into block grants for international were about terms such as “culture” or “development.” research at leading universities, Stanford among them. Explaining why a region should be studied as such is The Ford Foundation played a critical role in the devel- no longer easy. Lines on a map are not the most signifi- opment of what would become known as area studies. cant way of defining a region; where, exactly, does the “When I was an undergraduate [at Swarthmore],” Middle East begin or end? Which region does Central David Laitin said Stanford political scientist David Laitin, “the only Asia belong to? Is a Texas county whose population is course on Africa was The British Empire.” 90 percent immigrant any less “Latin” than the state In response to that dearth, universities nationwide across the Mexican border? established centers and/or programs devoted to Africa, East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Soviet Union Disciplines and regions and Eastern Europe, and Latin America. The criteria Chief among the commonality of Argentina and for determining that these were areas, though Europe Honduras, of course, was their language, and the lan- and North America apparently were not, was problem- guage and literature scholars (along with anthropolo- atic, as was the question of where to draw boundaries gists) early on took the lead role in area studies. and why. “The social scientists ignored area studies,” remem- Nonetheless, social scientists and humanists at these bered historian Herb Klein, director of Stanford’s Cen- centers studied cultures, languages, economic devel- ter for Latin American Studies. “People complained Stephen Haber opment, social movements and state formation. They that they didn’t speak foreign languages; they just were, veterans say, the first interdisciplinarians. As crunched numbers.” the former president of the Social Science Research According to Stephen Haber, professor of political Council (SSRC), Kenneth Prewitt, wrote in 1996, the science and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, development of area studies was “the most success- “at the extreme ends you had people who had models ful, large-scale interdisciplinary project ever in the hu- and data sets but who had never been to Mexico. Or, manities and the social sciences.” (The SSRC, created you had area studies people who didn’t know which in 1923 by the Rockefeller Foundation, together with way a demand curve sloped. People who know both the American Council of Learned Societies ended up are rare. They can solve models and they know about managing many of the Ford Foundation grants until Thailand. That’s not easy.” the mid-1990s.) One Stanford scholar who does both (though not on SPRING 2007 MULTIDISCIPLINARY NEWS UPDATED AT http://multi.stanford.edu
Thailand) is sociologist Andrew Walder, an expert on between those devoted to just one region or country and the Chinese Cultural Revolution, who is also a senior those who are more theory-driven and comparative. Programs fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International “Some people are so defensive about disciplinary Studies (FSI). In his opinion, it might take more time to standards they don’t want to look carefully at people find people who work at both ends, but it’s worth it. who have the name of a country in their book title,” and Centers “The problem with some scholars, both in the hu- said Walder. in the Division of International, manities and the social sciences, is that they’re not in- terested in anything other than their country. That’s a All in one place Comparative & Area Studies boring intellectual attitude, if you ask me. If you think Today, there are few universities that have not once your country is important, then you want nonspecial- again identified the international arena as a priority, • Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies ists to know about it. You have to figure out how to which might seem to make this the moment for bridg- talk to people who aren’t specialists, who are theorists, ing divides. The need for “global literacy,” which the • Asian Religions and Cultures and talk to them in their language.” humanities naturally have a stake in, has become a In the years since area studies programs were estab- commonplace as economies and markets become more • Center for African Studies lished, universities have witnessed a transformation interdependent and immigration patterns shift. Uni- • Center for East Asian Studies of the world economy, the so-called culture wars and versities are also aware that their peers are investing fierce government cutbacks for research. When there heavily in the global game, and no one wants to be left • Center for Latin American Studies was enough money to go around, there was room for behind. • Center for Russian, East European differences. Today, after some 20 years of debate, the Goldstein thinks all the regional and religious pro- social scientists (many of whom broadened out and grams under the ICA umbrella should co-locate, ideally and Eurasian Studies learned languages) have become central to area studies. in Encina Commons. Though the connection among Social scientists at Stanford are eager to occupy that the groups may not be apparent, Goldstein says there • Center for South Asia difficult place Haber pointed to, expert in both their is great potential for collaboration among them and for • France-Stanford Center for discipline and a region. Judith Goldstein, a political stressing breadth rather than depth. scientist and the director of ICA, says area studies was As an example of seizing opportunities, ICA is plan- Interdisciplinary Studies neglected for years. ning to launch a series of multidisciplinary projects “The deep knowledge lost out,” she said, what with next year focusing on the Silk Road in ancient and • International Policy Studies the social scientists crunching numbers and the human- modern times, in which students will study the transfer • International Relations ists studying languages and cultures. “Now we need to of goods, ideas, languages and people along the 5,000- use ICA as a resource to help departments hire people mile route linking East Asia and Europe. • Mediterranean Studies Forum who can do both area studies and their discipline. We But here, too, the regional specificity may get lost. • Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies need to reintegrate area studies back into the social sci- “Globalization” cannot adequately address the past ences.” and present of, say, just Indonesia or just Kenya. Japa- • Stanford Center for Buddhist Studies Laitin, Goldstein’s departmental colleague, shares nese historian Karen Wigen recalled the old Japanese that view. studies center at the University of Michigan, where she • Taube Center for Jewish Studies. “When I got here, research based on fieldwork was earned her undergraduate degree. “You entered that re-emerging,” he said. “Up until then, we had no idea building, filled with tatami mats, and you’d say, this if our research models were working; we couldn’t ex- is about Japan,” she said. But Michigan, Duke, Princ- pand our theories. I said, this is the moment to rebuild eton, Chicago, Columbia and many other leading uni- area studies on a somewhat different foundation.” versities over the past 20 years have grouped their area But, he added, Stanford needed “to restock the so- studies programs together. cial sciences” with people skilled in both their disci- In a friendly disagreement with Goldstein, Klein pline and in regional studies. said, “Judy says us all being together would engender synergy. I don’t buy it.” Faculty billets Sitting in his office on the second story of Bolívar So ICA was given a small number of billets that, House, he remembered back to his long-time home in instead of going to departments, would be regional in New York. “I spent lots of time in that building at Co- nature and open to one of a series of competing depart- lumbia. Across the hall you can see the Chinese, and ments. History, Sociology, Political Science, Economics you see each other in the coffee room, but there’s no and Anthropology would be asked if they were inter- joint anything.” ested in hiring, say, a Middle Eastern scholar. If they But, he added, there is an enormous benefit for the were, each would announce an opening in their respec- students, because they can meet lots more people and tive discipline, and the ICA standing committee on hir- find out about so many more activities. ing reviewed all the candidates. “That makes for a lively intellectual center,” he said. Their dossiers, said Laitin, the committee chairman, “But faculty will go their own way. We work with fac- ‘I’ve learned a great deal “are a joy to read.” ulty in other universities anyway.” “I’ve learned a great deal,” he said, “seeing how Wigen, who has a pronounced dedication to area seeing how different different scholars are all asking, how do we know if studies—she teaches a graduate seminar called Direc- things are typical or not? We all deal with the same tions in Asian Studies—came to Stanford with her hus- scholars are all asking, how sort of problems. It’s really spectacular work.” band, historical geographer Martin Lewis, precisely Goldstein says ICA is “a resource to help depart- because of Stanford’s traditional support for language do we know if things are ments hire people who can do both area studies and and area training. disciplines.” It is not a hub-and-spokes arrangement, At Duke, the two were part of a pathbreaking proj- typical or not?,’ she insisted; “it’s more like the grease that keeps the ect launched in response to the Ford Foundation’s faculty going.” Klein, too, part of the ICA leadership “Crossing Borders” initiative, which set as a goal Laitin said. (he is in Santiago de Chile this quarter), sees the cen- “stimulating communication across a pair of formi- ters as “providing services to departments.” dable boundaries: the geographic borders of traditional The hiring method, however, has its challenges. For area studies and the disciplinary borders between the one thing, it’s very complicated, with money coming social sciences and the humanities.” The Duke project, from private sources, FSI and the School of Humanities called Oceans Connect, reconceptualized ocean basins and Sciences. Klein himself pointed out that “there’s no as areas. Wigen believes the spatial framework itself, free money,” and that despite the line coming to them not just what goes on within it, must be an object of from above, departments might worry that it could be analysis because it is so obviously a construction. “The counted against their billet pool in the future. Some Pacific,” after all, has not always been a logical unit of L.A. CICERO people have questioned its transparency. Members of analysis. Neither, for that matter, has “Asia.” the History Department worried aloud that the compli- cated origin of the billets (among the dean, the donor, A resilient corner ICA and the department) could compromise the jobs The problems facing area studies today are not new in the long run. And not every area studies program ones: a permanent shortage of funds, tension between wants a social scientist or a scholar of the contempo- the social sciences and the humanities, inadequate rary world. knowledge of languages, disagreement over the adop- “I don’t need a sociologist who does East Asia,” re- tion of multidisciplinary approaches and a struggle to marked Carl Bielefeldt, a professor of religious studies make academic structures respond to international, and director of Stanford’s Center for Buddhist Stud- political and demographic ones. Universities also must ies, which belongs to ICA. “I need a traditional China identify priorities in their global coverage. scholar who reads old books.” But it appears to be a resilient corner of academia. It What some people in ICA have been heard to refer survived the fall of the Berlin Wall and harsh criticism to as “esoteric” is, to many people in the humanities, from conservatives in the 1990s for not being suffi- the essence of the matter, which is culture. Not all ciently “balanced.” While Title VI funding has plunged scholars, disciplinarians though they may be, share the and major foundation support has ebbed, new donors same definition of “tools” or “area.” appear at the university’s doorstep interested in fund- “The relevant divisions are not only geographic, ing centers. they’re cultural,” said Bielefeldt. “East Asian studies, “Area studies has been engaged in a long conversa- for example, covers the Chinese cultural sphere, an tion, and it has undergone many permutations,” Wigen area with shared traditions. There is significant resis- said. “It has its own journals, its own intellectual net- tance today to globalization based on multiple cultural works and institutions—a precious legacy that we need traditions that need to be understood. Cultures are to pass on.” part of human resources. We must know how to in- “Maybe area studies marginalizes some things,” Carl Bielefeldt, director of the Center for corporate the genius of cultures into our larger human Bielefeldt said. “But until cultures are equally repre- Buddhist Studies, was on a panel in 2005 understanding.” sented in the university, we need to foster these stud- There also are differences within the social sciences, ies.” with the Dalai Lama. SPRING 2007 inter action MULTIDISCIPLINARY NEWS UPDATED AT http://multi.stanford.edu
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Connections in the classroom
esearch across disciplinary bound- ing (CTL), “in part because many instructors do not aries comes naturally to many aca- know what the final product should look like.” demics, regardless of their field. So the CTL helps them design courses by starting at The rewards are obvious. It’s chal- the end. In workshops led by Robyn Wright Dunbar, lenging, it’s fun and, increasingly, the CTL’s senior associate director for sciences and en- it’s necessary. gineering, and Mariatte Denman, associate director for But interdisciplinary teaching, the humanities, they start not with what the instructors at least at first, is another matter. will teach or assign, but with what they hope students The Center for Teaching It might entail team-teaching, which has all sorts of will learn. Radministrative, disciplinary and stylistic challenges. Team-teaching involves different methodological ap- It might involve retraining oneself and writing new proaches and skill sets, Dunbar and Marincovich said, and Learning helps textbooks. It might entail dealing with teaching as- which means the journey might have unexpected turns. sistants from various fields who, in turn, have to com- So keeping the destination in mind is especially useful. faculty members design municate to undergraduates that much of what they As an example, they pointed to a triple-listed course, thought about the classification of knowledge needs The California Coast, taught by Ali Boehm of the De- collaborative and adjustment. partment of Civil and Environmental Engineering and There are examples throughout Stanford of profes- Meg Caldwell and Debbie Sivas, both from the School innovative courses. sors who are willing to go the extra mile; the team- of Law. The course was designed around outcomes. In taught autumn quarter of the Introduction to the their early meetings with the CTL team, the instructors Humanities (IHUM) program is one of the most prom- wondered what level of technical expertise to expect inent cases, though there are others. (IHUM courses in of the students, who were likely to come from many the autumn quarter must be co-taught by two faculty disciplines. Each had different assumptions. Once they members from different disciplines.) settled on what they could reasonably expect from stu- “Interdisciplinary teaching can be even harder than dents and what the end point should be, they were able interdisciplinary research,” said Michele Marincovich, to develop exam criteria and reading and fieldwork re- director of Stanford’s Center for Teaching and Learn- continued on next page
One such ATS is Claudia Engel, who works with dialogues. Engel is collaborating with Lynn Meskell, a Interdisciplinary linkages anthropologists, most recently on collaborative learning professor of cultural and social anthropology, to set up spaces and the use of spatial technologies a wiki devoted to Turkish figurines, and she Stanford’s Academic Technology Specialists are like geographic information systems. She taught John Rick, an associate professor of scholars, often PhDs, who lead double lives as techies. has degrees in anthropology, biology and anthropological sciences, to use advanced Employees of the library system, they reside within aca- education. digital imaging to display his archaeological demic departments or centers, where their job is to help “Some of us work with programs where data. faculty and staff innovate in their research and teaching scholars come together, like Human Biology, “There are faculty members who have through the creative use of technology. As members but we also collaborate across disciplines, never crossed the mountain, who never of both the academic and the information technology bringing departments together,” Engel said. even consider what the person across the Claudia Engel communities, the dozen or so specialists are uniquely “We look for opportunities to do that.” hall is doing,” said Carlos Seligo, a former positioned to bridge different cultures and to facilitate a They also can create possibilities for teaching fellow in the Introduction to the creative and mutual exchange. scholars to interact with people elsewhere, opening up Humanities program who is now an ATS with Human
SPRING 2007 MULTIDISCIPLINARY NEWS UPDATED AT http://multi.stanford.edu
L.A. CICERO continued from previous page ciplinary graduate programs. Or, in large classes, TAs quirements. may be from different fields. Team-teaching may be the most obvious way of get- To ensure that everybody gets what they need, the ting interdisciplinary instruction into the classroom. CTL sponsors teaching workshops and has graduate But team-teaching has sometimes been compared to student liaisons in most departments and in programs parallel play, by which toddlers play nicely side-by-side that have TAs. in the sandbox but don’t exactly interact. Others refer One of those liaisons is Jill Bible, a co-terminal mas- to “tag-teaching”: First, you lecture; then me. ter’s student in Earth Systems, a program that shows Real team-teaching, advocates say, is about engage- there are more ways to be interdisciplinary than just ment. team-teaching. Earth systems students are trained to “Students like to hear faculty bring multiple per- look at particular cases from a multitude of angles, the spectives,” said the current director of IHUM, Rus- idea being that one cannot effectively think about or sell Berman. “We should demonstrate to students that act upon the environment from a simple disciplinary there is room for dispute around knowledge.” perspective. The experts at CTL are all in favor, but they point As Denman said, “You make the methodologies out that freshmen might not be. Fresh out of high apparent to the students. You put on a sociologist’s school, they want clear answers. glasses, a classicist’s glasses.” “Faculty love to deconstruct arguments, while In the case of Bible and her colleagues, the glasses Opposite page, Robyn Wright Dunbar, students want to build,” Denman said. The trick is belong to biologists, policymakers, lawyers, econo- to show that those are not mutually exclusive prop- mists and oceanographers, to name a few. Earth Sys- left, and Jill Bible, a co-terminal student ositions. tems 10, Introduction to Earth Systems, has 22 schol- ars lecturing to undergraduate students. The TAs then in Earth Systems, worked together on a Building blocks sort it out in section. workshop to help train graduate students Some faculty members argue that the disciplines “The TAs’ core responsibility is to make the con- must be the foundation of interdisciplinary research nections,” she said. “The professors try, but it’s not in interdisciplinary teaching; above, CTL and teaching. always easy. So we use case studies, like incandescent director Michele Marincovich acknowledg- Penny Eckert, a linguist who is also director of the light bulbs, for example. We look at energy issues, Program in Feminist Studies, spoke forcefully in favor economic issues, recycling. We show the linkages. We es that interdisciplinary teaching can be a of disciplinary training at a CTL panel last year on in- teach different approaches to environmental problems, terdisciplinary teaching. The heart of her work is at gathering all the different contexts. So the students real challenge. the intersection of the psychological and cognitive sci- learn a methodology of problem-solving.” ences, she said. Devoted to the teaching of science, Bible last year “But interdisciplinary work is built on disciplines, took Dunbar’s class in science course design. When it which is where theory and methods and skills lie,” she was over, she told Dunbar she wanted to keep working said. She learned that the hard way, while a resident at with her, and the two launched a study project that a research institute with colleagues from many fields. culminated in a workshop for graduate students inter- Together, they fought their way through texts, each ested in interdisciplinary teaching. Participants came bringing their own analytical criteria. from Earth Systems, Management Science and Engi- “Good interdisciplinary education has to begin with neering, Psychology, Statistics, Geological and Envi- good disciplinary education. Students are unclear on ronmental Sciences, and Biological Sciences. what disciplines even are; in feminist studies, students They discussed their learning and teaching styles in have to design majors, and they don’t know what the the context of interdisciplinary education, good and building blocks are. What is sociology? What is liter- bad experiences, tools and barriers. Workshop par- ature? They know you read literature, but they don’t ticipants were given “connection journals,” supplied know what that practice means.” (To hear the panel by CTL, in which they were asked to jot down con- discussion, go to http://ctl.stanford.edu/Faculty/work- nections they made throughout their day, whether in shop/celebration_s06.html.) their research, in class or with acquaintances. Later, Other faculty members are more doubtful about they had meetings to discuss how connections happen. those building blocks. “There are trade-offs with in- At the end of it all, Bible put together a lengthy, anno- tated bibliography about interdisciplinary teaching. terdisciplinary team-teaching,” said Berman, a profes- Russell Berman sor of German studies (itself a far broader enterprise than just literature). ‘It should be a mission’ “If we are going to teach in a new way, maybe we A recent self-study of IHUM identifies some areas have to ask ourselves if we still have to keep teaching where the program can be improved, but the directors ‘If we are going to teach in the old way,” Berman said. “What we think of as the are absolutely committed to continuing the interdis- core of departments might turn out to be expendable, ciplinary nature of the team-taught autumn course. a new way, maybe we have and we could take it out, like an appendectomy. So In fact, they want more people from outside the core let’s do the new stuff, which is where the excitement is. humanities to join in. to ask ourselves if we still Maybe we don’t need departments, or maybe we need “In area studies you always had the social sciences a different sort of organization.” and the humanities interacting, but what’s new now have to keep teaching the Such pedagogical debates are naturally of great in- is that the humanities and the sciences—including terest to graduate students. When they leave Stanford, medicine—are working together,” Marincovich said. old way,’ Berman said. they may well go on to be the founders of Berman’s Dunbar, herself a scientist, noted however that the new sort of organization. They, who have been trained “critical apparatus is completely different between the by the best disciplinary scholars, may be the first gen- humanities and the sciences, and faculty have to sort eration of interdisciplinary scholars. But while they are that out through their reading assignments.” They here, they have the task of translating different disci- probably also will find that there are no appropriate plinary languages for undergraduates. textbooks—leading to the inevitable course readers. The CTL therefore, in addition to working with fac- For Berman, however, these are not serious obstacles. ulty members, works with teaching assistants (TAs). “It should be a mission” for the faculty, he said, adding that he plans to make a formal appeal to the Graduate liaisons Academic Council for more participants. “I’d like to “Graduate students like interdisciplinary teaching,” see courses on law, education, business, culture. … said Denman. “But there’s a lot more pressure on TAs I want a humanistic Introduction to the Humanities if a team-taught class isn’t well integrated, because stu- in the spirit of Da Vinci. This is a pedagogical chal- dents complain to them.” lenge we can meet, turning the transition from high TAs may not be from the same field as the instruc- school to college into a multiperspectival approach to tor. Or, TAs themselves may be drawn from interdis- knowledge.”
Biology. “We are interpreters, and interpreters hear both bringing another side to the table, like media or com- geographic divides. She also has organized a series of sides. Sometimes you’re translating, other times you’re puter science,” Jockers said. “Sometimes we are the events over the past three years called “New Directions convincing or selling.” outside discipline.” And, he said, “We have to in Humanities Research” that explores the use of cyber- In the English Department, ATS Matthew teach some of them how to use a mouse.” infrastructure in the humanities. Jockers developed a deep timeline of Shake- Jockers is currently a digital humanities “Sometimes interdisciplinary people don’t have the speariana to assist Professor David Riggs, research scholar at the Stanford Humanities infrastructure they need, so they can’t get to the next who is writing a biography of the playwright. Center, which has its own ATS, Nicole Cole- step,” Seligo said, discussing how he and his colleagues Rather than develop a simple concordance, man, and which in recent years has shown can contribute to new research. “Sometimes there are which in any case exists, Jockers developed particular interest in encouraging the digital bureaucratic obstacles; sometimes there are technical a sort of simultaneous concordance that humanities. Coleman has helped establish ones. You need better tools, but it’s not painless. Matthew Jockers delves into Shakespeare’s works as well as three “network projects” that form part “And working on one thing, you solve problems you’d
into a host of contextual texts. of the center’s Humanities Research Network, allow- never have looked at otherwise. That’s the gravy.” “I have background in literature, but sometimes I’m ing humanists to work together over disciplinary and
SPRING 2007 inter action MULTIDISCIPLINARY NEWS UPDATED AT http://multi.stanford.edu
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L.A. CICERO The Energy and Environment Building, From the Ground Up which should be up and running in Octo- continued from page 4 ber, is the product of many months of ments. SoEC must become a home for them all. Because ICME faculty will still be dispersed, Glynn meetings among planners, architects, fac- said, the top priority is to have a lounge “to build com- ulty members and researchers to ensure munity spirit”—a place where they can all gather for colloquia and meetings. There has to be an adjacent that the building’s physical design meshes kitchen with plenty of space for cooking, and—a nice with its scientific objectives. touch—lots of whiteboards on wheels. Mathemati- cians need to show their ideas right away, he said, and if they’re standing around having muffins and coffee, they don’t want to wait. In March, Glynn told the architects he’d prefer that his allotted 6,000 square feet be all on one floor. “The split floors in Terman are a disaster,” he said. “You can go weeks without seeing people.” True, facilities director Meyer acknowledged, but if ICME occupied the entire basement (the only whole- floor option), the institute would lose access to a first- floor terrace. And, she pointed out, there are huge ad- vantages to being on adjacent floors. “We could make two floors visible to each other by using a mezzanine, creating vertical connections with opened-up spaces. You could look up from downstairs and see colleagues above,” she suggested. Glynn kept an open mind, and that was exactly the plan that was presented to ICME a month later. As in the E+E Building, BOORA is organizing academic units around vertical light towers, the result of atria that allow natural ventilation, visual communication and a more open feeling. Departments don’t have to huddle together on one floor; in fact, members will probably see more of each other if they are stacked. At the second ICME meeting, the conversation dwelt mainly on how to ensure that first- and second- Stephen Barley year graduate students could be in an open area with big tables allowing them to bond, while more advanced proposals to the rest of the faculty and continue the students could have privacy and quiet. Faculty mem- dialogue. bers must be near their students, Glynn insisted, which A month later, the decision had been made about ‘We have to involve all the led the conversation back to the creation of good verti- which blocks of space MS&E would occupy, but the cal linkages and community. distribution of that space internally was still wide faculty in these decisions open. Once again, the conversation returned to the How to occupy space department’s organization. It comprises some eight or it’s going to blow up in MS&E was created in 2000 by fusing two depart- focus groups, whose members often overlap, making ments that were themselves fusions: Industrial Engi- a hypothetical physical arrangement of offices also an our face,’ Barley said. neering and Engineering Management, and Engineer- academic one. It is also, clearly, a political one. ing-Economic Systems and Operations Research. As a “There’s an important social engineering issue here,” result, MS&E has unique and challenging concerns. said Barley, the department’s deputy chair. “This is the At an early meeting, Professor Steve Barley and his last hurdle in the merger that began seven years ago. colleagues were perplexed with the space assigned to The last thing we want is for this building to take us them—on three floors. back in time. “We need to coalesce,” Barley told the architects and “We have to involve all the faculty in these decisions Meyer. “We’re the result of a merger, so we’re already or it’s going to blow up in our face,” he said. interdisciplinary. We have to build our department.” Shachter agreed: “We need to give faculty a chance Various suggestions for how they could divide up to choose up teams.” But the architects insisted they their allocated 21,000 square feet were projected onto needed to get some sense right then of what the distri- the wall. None was perfect. bution might be. So the group tried, listing the mem- “These are options like which of your kids do you bers of the focus groups and the number of graduate want to hurt?” said Ross Shachter, an associate profes- students each has, working out logical affinities, won- sor. But he and his colleagues said they would take the dering if it made more sense to divide people by cor- 10 SPRING 2007 MULTIDISCIPLINARY NEWS UPDATED AT http://multi.stanford.edu
there were researchers on the adjacent treadmills. So Gained in Translation they will have a small place to themselves—a secure, continued from page 5 clinical work space—and the recreation and study ar- eas, along with the kitchen, will be mixed. one has a keen curiosity and willingness to learn,” said Pat Youngblood, SUMMIT’s director for evaluation. Inspiration from the top Youngblood, who has PhD in education and has worked Scientific and pedagogical breakthroughs often have for two decades in educational technology, makes sure a considerable price tag, of course. The estimated cost the technology actually helps medical students learn. of the initial LKC building (there will be a second one) “People don’t wear blinders” at Stanford, she said. is around $90 million. Philip Pizzo “They don’t say, no, that’s not my field. I work with sur- But in the minds of the school’s leaders, there is no geons, and we share a common commitment to teach- other way, no better way, of training physicians and ing and learning. Surgeons want to learn from me.” medical researchers. As Pizzo likes to say, the school The notion that medical education must be grounded must teach students not just what to think, but how to ‘The dean has never in practice is fundamental to Pizzo’s vision for the think. school, Saunders said. “He knows that innovation hap- “Looking ahead,” Gaba said, “immersive learning wavered,’ Saunders said. pens by doing.” will be embedded in the fabric of what we do in pro- Flexible classrooms fessional education at every stage, in individual and ‘He gives us inspired group learning, throughout one’s whole career.” If that is true in the basement, it will be true on the As the project moves closer to groundbreaking day, leadership.’ LKC’s other floors as well. For instance, designers and the school is looking ahead with excitement and trepi- faculty spent many months developing a prototype of dation. “Controlled chaos” is on the agenda, the dean the classroom of the future. warned the school in a recent open letter, addressing “Because the faculty are fundamentally supported a prospect that makes deans everywhere shudder in by clinical and research dollars,” Saunders said, “there fear: fewer parking spaces. But innovation never comes might be little incentive to innovate with teaching. So easy. we have to supply spaces and opportunities so they can “I’m not aware of any school that has gone as far see the advantages. The building will be a step ahead in promoting team-based learning,” Braddock said. of where the faculty are; it will support them to move “Our whole second-year curriculum is based on teams. forward in their teaching.” We’re doing research on the method to see how it af- Prototypes are “expensive but essential,” Saunders fects learner ratings and educational outcomes.” said. With a relatively small faculty, the medical school “It starts at the top,” he added, asked to explain aims for a highly flexible studio classroom that can ac- Stanford’s efforts. “Dean Pizzo has created an environ- commodate several small groups at a time. Renderings ment where there’s more support for trying to enhance look a bit like a second-grade classroom at a Montes- and seek excellence in education.” sori school, with groups of students clustered around “The dean has never wavered,” Saunders agreed. various large tables. Furniture and whiteboards will be “He gives us inspired leadership.” on casters. Projection technology will be adaptable. It’s been a long process, Braddock said. “I’ve accu- Braddock, who teaches general internal medicine and mulated lots of frequent flyer miles,” he said, referring has won a long list of teaching awards, worked with to the planners’ road trips to leading medical schools architects and other faculty members in developing the Below, the Learning and Knowledge Cen- around the country to see what works and how. “But space with team-based learning in mind. this is a very important building for Stanford, and for ter, seen here in an artist’s rendering, will “In health care, people are calling for interdisciplin- it to work we need to have faculty input. So I felt the ary teamwork among physicians, nurses, pharmacists, form part of the School of Medicine’s new obligation to provide that. It’s really exciting now, etc. As an instructional method, this lets learners apply looking at how it’s turning out.” knowledge to real-life case studies and work effectively “front door.” in high-performance teams,” he said. “The instructor’s role is to prepare students to enter into very active ap- COURTESY OF SCHOOL OF MEDICINE plication exercises and work collaboratively.” A second-floor conference center will enable the medical school to host important national and interna- tional gatherings and, Saunders said, “maintain a better conversation with the rest of the university.” Bereft of an adequate conference center, the school and hospitals today hold many of their major meetings off campus. Like the classroom space and lecture halls, the center will be highly flexible, allowing for tiered or flat seat- ing, small or large groups. The dean’s office will be on the third floor. So, too, will a suite of classrooms, to ensure that the school’s administration, faculty and students have opportunities to bump into one another, as they do in the neighboring Clark Center, the pathbreaker in enlightened design on campus. But you won’t bump into students on the fourth floor of the LKC, because you probably won’t be there. With the best view in the house, the top floor is dedicated to students only. Medical students, PhD students and postdocs will have a study area, fitness center, computer labs and kitchen all to themselves. During the planning meetings, it became clear that medical students were not entirely happy with this mix, fearing they would not be able to have frank conversations about medical conditions if
ridor or by floor. ence,” BOORA Senior Principal Architect Stan Boles Collaboration can take And who’s on first? That was easier to figure out. told an audience at a public lecture in April, because The architects were gratified when department repre- the occupants were willing to do just that. place as well from floor sentatives drew up a list of the administrative personnel Boles’ junior colleagues were as inspired as he. Point- and offices that will greet people upon entering. ing to the example of the E+E building, architect Tom to floor as it can if It’s a struggle, no doubt, to make reason- Bauer told the MS&E group in April, “We’d able organizational concerns and physical like to look for opportunities to break the everyone is on the same exigencies line up with academic aspirations. model.” But when it works, it’s a model for progress. The Civil and Environmental Engineering floor, planners say. Department and the various environmental Reinvention units occupying the E+E building “took it as MS&E and ICME leaders are communi- an opportunity to reinvent themselves,” Bauer cating in two directions, bringing the plans said, to the extent that they formed entirely to their colleagues as they also explain their new affinity groups whose areas in the build- needs to the architects. There is a delicate ing are color-coded. balance at this stage regarding the specificity Stanley Boles “They made the leap,” architect Campbell of a given space’s purpose. said. “Once we give people a floor plan, we lose them, The schematic phase of the process for the SoEC and they start seeing themselves in a particular office,” should end in June, when the plans will be signed off. Meyer said. Better to keep options open and make them That’s when the stone and the steel have to be ordered, think, as it were, outside the box. Designing the E+E project manager Wayne Kelly said: “This train has left Building, in that regard, was “an inspirational experi- the station.” SPRING 2007 11 inter action Boosting graduate education
L.A. Cicero what we could do differently to achieve our goals. The VPGE staff opened our office in January, bol- stered by encouragement from colleagues around the university. In just a few short months, we are well on our way, identifying short-term priorities against the backdrop of this long-term vision for graduate education. A key arena of activity I’d like to highlight in this article is our interest in expanding initiatives to facili- tate cross-school interactions for graduate students. Working collaboratively with colleagues in depart- ments across the university, we are piloting a number of programs. In 2006 the Stanford Graduate Summer Institute (http://sgsi.stanford.edu/) began offering intensive, team-taught interdisciplinary courses free to gradu- ate students. Most classes are scheduled between the end of summer quarter and the beginning of fall. En- thusiastic feedback from faculty and students who participated in the 2006 courses—Frontiers in Ge- netics, Adventures in Design Thinking and Intro- duction to Entrepreneurship—suggests that SGSI is an effective model for facilitating networking across the university. Five classes, plus the very successful entrepre- neurship program (http://multi.stanford.edu/inter- action/1106/biz.html), will be offered in September 2007:
Vice Provost for Graduate Education and B y Patricia G umport • Adventures in Design Thinking Professor of Education Patricia Gumport • Global Warming: Good Science or Bad Politics? • Managing Groups and Teams says she is looking forward to ensuring utstanding graduate programs • Music and Human Behavior are the hallmark of a great uni- • Solving Complex Problems: that the Commission on Graduate Educa- versity. Stanford has reached in- Responding to Pandemics tion’s proposals are made reality. ternational prominence in large measure because of the strength We also aim to expand opportunities that cultivate of its graduate programs at the leadership skills—another form of cross-school learn- master’s, professional, doctoral ing—in pedagogy, communication and entrepreneur- and postdoctoral levels, which ship. In this regard, my office is collaborating with Graduate students will contribute to making Stanford a recognized center of offices across the university such as the Center for Ointellectual innovation. Teaching and Learning, the Graduate Life Office and have an easier time taking How should graduate education at Stanford be en- the Writing Center. hanced in light of emerging opportunities and needs in Taking courses outside one’s home department classes in other schools the 21st century? In September 2004, President John broadens students’ intellectual perspectives, but it is Hennessy charged the Commission on Graduate Edu- an organizational challenge, given Stanford’s decen- and departments. cation with conducting an extensive institutional self- tralization. My office will help ensure that organiza- study to answer this question. tional structures and policies support such efforts. For The commission worked for over a year and an- example, we encourage departments to create courses swered the president’s call with a bold vision: to be the aimed at nonspecialists in other fields. In 2007-08, the place that attracts the best graduate students and pro- Law School is offering several such courses, including vides them with unparalleled education in preparation Scientific Evidence and Expert Testimony, Interna- for their leadership roles in a complex, global society. tional Human Rights and Health Law and Policy. We The mission for those involved in graduate education also want to persuade faculty to team-teach and create is to foster interdisciplinary learning, educate a more courses drawing from expertise in two or more disci- diverse graduate student population and cultivate lead- plines. Stanford’s new graduate joint-degree programs ership potential so that our graduates will be able to (see the May 2006 issue of Interaction) are a more for- bring their full talent to bear in solving the most vex- mal effort in this direction. ing problems facing the world. Finally, we encourage faculty and students to form I find this vision compelling, as it encapsulates the new groups to study emerging knowledge areas. To- central teaching and research roles of the university. ward this end, we have been working with the Stanford When I was offered the opportunity to serve as the Humanities Center to expand some of its workshops. university’s first vice provost for graduate education Three were selected this year: “Global Justice,” “Law (VPGE), I saw it as a unique opportunity to help bring and History” and “Visualizing Knowledge.” One idea these ideas to reality. for expanding this kind of group work is to establish CORRECTIONS: I also saw it as a chance to put my research into an intensive seminar for a select group of graduate stu- action. I study the challenges of academic restructur- In the Winter 2007 issue of dents who would meet with me monthly. Another is to ing, as universities seek to both forge and keep pace Interaction, an article about select a cross-section of faculty, naming them as mem- with knowledge change. These are defining moments the Institute for Computa- bers of a Stanford Faculty Academy, to collaboratively that touch every dimension of teaching and research. I tional and Mathematical En- study a specific question for a quarter. have learned that it is essential for a university to build gineering stated erroneously It is a rare privilege to work with the finest young on the best of its institutional legacies and distinctive that Charbel Farhat was the minds in the country and the world; Stanford gradu- strengths when reallocating resources and reshap- institute’s first director. Parviz ate students are emerging scholars and professionals ing the structures that support intellectual activities. Moin was the first director. whose curiosity, open minds and fresh perspectives Stanford’s advantage is its depth of disciplinary exper- will launch new ways of thinking and problem-solv- In the Fall 2006 issue, an tise and demonstrated success in innovation. We must ing. If we all adopt a spirit of experimentation, col- article about the discipline of continue to support excellence and innovation in the laboration and unwavering commitment to push the geography stated that there are wide range of disciplines that are the essential intellec- frontiers of knowledge, we can help prepare them for just two members of the Stan- tual bedrock for the advancement of knowledge. I also the future. We in the Office of the Vice Provost for ford faculty with PhDs in geog- respect the highly decentralized nature of graduate Graduate Education look forward to playing a key role raphy. There are at least four. education that fosters educational experimentation. in facilitating campus-wide conversations about the fu- Moving forward together requires collaboration as we ture of graduate education and providing resources to reflect on who we are as a university, what we do and facilitate new patterns of intellectual interaction.
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12 SPRING 2007