December 2020

2020 December A PUBLICATION OF THE STANFORD ALUMNI ASSOCIATION ALUMNI OF THE STANFORD A PUBLICATION STANFORD DECEMBER 2020 21 Predictions About 2021 • John McWhorter • El Tecolote at 50 • The NBA Bubble’s MD stanfordmag.org 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 34 The Foreseeable Future Not even the savviest soothsayers could have predicted everything that happened in 2020. That didn’t stop us from asking Stanford experts on everything from pet ownership to privacy about how our lives will change next. 36 Whether for essential workers who want to live so close to their jobs that they don’t even have to hop on public transit or for desk jockeys who no longer have to be in the same time zone as their employers, the geographic link between work and home has been irrevocably transformed. 40 What we lose when we can’t dance, sing or watch theater together—and the kinds of creativity that artists are unleashing instead. 48 Word Nerd John McWhorter, PhD ’93, receives kudos and criticisms from left and right alike for his social commentary. But he, like, literally would rather talk and think about linguistics. ON THE COVER: ILLUSTRATION BY MARK MATCHO JAMES YANG JAMES STANFORD 1 Contents 19 26 30 Meet Inside the Basketbubble By the People, Elora López-Nandam Leroy Sims, ’01, MS ’02, MD ’07, for the People Cataloging coral’s was tasked with keeping COVID-19 El Tecolote, a bilingual newspaper cellular changes away from NBA players, staff and in San Francisco’s Mission District, families for three months. The result: has watched over its community nothing but net. for 50 years. POSTSCRIPT Digital My sea cucumber teacher PAGE 64 NEW AT STANFORDMAG.ORG ALL RIGHT NOW Alumni teachers on distance learning 22 Under the sea DEPARTMENTS 23 Up a tree 4 Dialogue Black, pregnant and grieving 24 A very Stanford set of species 8 Editor’s Note: A collection of Stanford secrets What’s around the bend 10 President’s Column: My complicated feelings about Thinking globally race and the police 12 1,000 Words: ARCHIVES; AURELIA FRONTY FRONTY ARCHIVES; AURELIA Frisbee with friends 54 Biblio File: Adoption and aftermath EL TECOLOTE 57 Farewells STANFORDALUMNI @STANFORDMAG @STANFORDALUMNI 63 Classifieds CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: TONI BIRD; COURTESY LEROY SIMS; SIMS; LEROY BIRD; COURTESY TONI LEFT: FROM TOP CLOCKWISE COURTESY 2 DECEMBER 2020 Once, it was all about growing a business. Here, I grow more Spend your days doing the things you enjoy in colorful gorgeous surroundings. Carmel Valley Manor is things. the only Life Care community for people age 65+ in Monterey County, and only one of six in all of Northern California. That means there are three levels of health care on site, should you need them, at no additional cost. For information, call Angie Machado, (800) 544-5546 or visit cvmanor.com 8545 Carmel Valley Rd, Carmel, CA 93923 License #270700110 COA #082 CVM-251 2020 Stanford_Bonzai_Ad_ME01 Date: 10/16/20 Publication: Stanford Magazine Due at pub: 10/23/20 Issue date: 12/01/20 Ad Size: Full Page Bleed: 9.3333 in x 11.2083 in Trim: 9 in x 10.875 in Live: 7.5833 x 9.6667 in Sign Off: AD: IL Proofer: AE: LM Painful Cuts An article in the September issue discussed Stanford’s decision to eliminate 11 varsity sports. STANFORDALUMNI As an alum field hockey player, with an incoming freshman field hockey player and a sophomore tennis player, I am furious that the definition of successful student-athlete at Stanford is only an NCAA title! Stanford provided me with an opportunity of a lifetime, and I’m sad that one of my girls will not get that opportunity! Maree Chung, ’87 We are 36 Sports Strong, a group of alumni wins—an honor that recognizes the breadth of representing all 36 of Stanford’s varsity teams. our athletics programs. Our members have won collegiate, national, We wish the university had reached out to world and Olympic championships. We have us in advance of the announcement to discuss @STANFORDALUMNI played professionally in the NFL, MLB, NBA, its financial challenges and to explore possible WNBA, MLS, NWLS and LPGA. Many of us are solutions. We could have helped. We still can. What’s in a Name Stanford Hall-of-Famers. We’ve been proud Jennifer Azzi, ’90 to represent Stanford throughout our careers. Mill Valley, California Happy to hear my former dept bldg We were stunned by this decision because Adam Keefe, ’92 will no longer be named after a we love Stanford and this changes how we Pacific Palisades, California man who played a HUGE role in view Stanford. We are asking the university the American eugenics movement. to reconsider. Editor’s note: The above letter was He deserves, as we all do, to be The impact of the cuts is being felt not signed by 56 alumni representing all 36 remembered for his whole legacy. Shantal R. Marshall, MA ’07, only by the 4,000 alumni of the 11 teams varsity sports. View the complete list of PhD ’11 but also by more than 40,000 alumni of the signatories at stanfordmag.org/contents/ greater Stanford athletic community. dialogue-december-2020. Way to judge someone that lived The decision upends the Stanford expe- over a century ago by the morality rience for 240 current student-athletes and I appreciate the straightforward approach standards of today (yes, eugenics is their coaches, who were told they were losing of this article, but it does not touch on some bad, but it was a prominent theory their teams 30 minutes before it was publicly of the root issues of how Stanford cut at that time). Terrible idea. Without announced. Like us, these athletes chose Stan- 11 varsity sports. More detail and more trans- Jordan, Stanford would not exist. ford for the unique opportunity it offered to be a parency from the athletics department would Amanda Pagon, ’97 true scholar-athlete—competing at the highest be beneficial. level while pursuing a world-class education. Craig Buell, ’05 Thank you for your leading This precipitous action was not based on Broomfield, Colorado with truth. What comes next values Stanford Athletics has demonstrated is reconciliation. over decades, including our commitment to In the article, athletics director Bernard Andrea Romero, ’09 Title IX and our 25 consecutive Director’s Cup Muir states, “Athletics has generally been FROM TOP: DAVID GONZALES, ’93/STANFORD ATHLETICS; KATE CHESLEY/STANFORD NEWS SERVICE CHESLEY/STANFORD KATE ATHLETICS; GONZALES, ’93/STANFORD DAVID FROM TOP: 4 DECEMBER 2020 STANFORDALUMNI a self-sustaining entity on our campus, and we are striving to preserve that model in a time when the university’s budget is under significant stress.” This is the same argu- ment used to support cutbacks made by the United States Postal Service. Neither Stanford Athletics nor the postal service should be obli- gated to make a profit or break even. Doug Haydel, ’65 Stockton, California It appears that Stanford sees itself primarily in competition with Big Ten and SEC schools instead of competing academically with Har- vard, Yale, Princeton and MIT. Stanford’s 25 A Blast, and the Past An August photo of lightning that hit the finial atop Hoover Tower varsity teams will compare unfavorably with sparked memories of the last time that happened, 50 years ago. Harvard’s 42, Princeton’s 37, Yale’s 35 and MIT’s 33. Money from Division I athletics mat- Kept awake by that storm in Dec ’70 and watching from my ters, but what about the experience of the Wilbur dorm room, I saw that strike on Hoover Tower. A dramatic blue students? I expect more from Stanford. light ran down the side—it was an unforgettable sight! Ron Scharlack, MS ’68 Tatiana Granoff, ’73 Newton Highlands, Massachusetts I was in Rinconada then. Missed the whole thing. I always think of rowing my freshman year as a Probably listening to Elton John. Janeen Olsen, ’74 solid part of my Stanford education. It’s a real shame the president and the trustees have My wife and I were darn near knocked out of bed in taken this step. Escondido Village when Hoover Tower was struck in ’70. Ray Arnaudo, ’69 Jack Krimmer, ’71 Mountain View, California For an institution that is currently touting its brilliance in economics with its Nobel Prize, without fear; for the power of many greatly from alumni, and references to the broader, we have failed to use our own brilliant talent outnumbers the power of one. I learned this emerging national conversation about the to genuinely look at not only the economics important life lesson from playing field hockey role of sports on college campuses. of these programs but, more important, the on the Farm and that fact makes the athletics Midori Uehara, ’10 reason varsity sports exist at all at Stanford. department’s decision feel so empty and hollow San Francisco, California Constance Wright, ’81 under the circumstances. Instead of leaning Hopkinton, Massachusetts into arguably the most incredible network of Rather than purge collegiate athletics of bias— individuals to ever walk the planet, they seem against nonrevenue sports, against female There are thousands of alumni like me, a to have made scared decisions in secret.

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