2007 Stanford University TANFORD STANFORD S STANFORD UNIVERSITY 2007 d.edu Fax (650) 725-2846 I Stanford, CA 94305-3020 I (650) 723-2091 355 Galvez Street Office of Undergraduate Admission Office of Undergraduate http://admission.stanfor Stanford University admits students of either sex and any race, color, religion, sexual orientation, or national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the university. It does not discriminate against students on the basis of sex, race, color, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, or national and ethnic origin in the administration of its educational policies, scholarships and loan programs, and athletic and other university-administered programs. Stanford University complies with the Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act. For a copy of Stanford’s policies and statistics under this Act, please contact the Stanford University Department of Public Safety at (650) 723-9633. Stanford University O ffice of Undergraduate Admission 355 Galvez Street I Stanford, CA 94305-3020 Phone: (650) 723–2091 Fax: (650) 725–2846 Website: http://admission.stanford.edu Email: [email protected] International email: [email protected] Creative Direction and Design: Plainspoke/Portsmouth, NH Production: Stanford Design Group Editorial Direction: Andrea Jarrell Photography: Steve Marsel (portraits), Dan Dry (including front cover) and Linda A. Cicero (inside front cover) The Stanford viewbook is published annually by the Office of Undergraduate Admission. Special thanks go to our faculty contributors and the students and staff members whose thoughtfulness and support made this collaborative project possible. “Coming here was like seeing the entire world all at once.” Emily Livadary, C lass of 20 0 4 S tanford University 1 Stanford University: Exploration and Excellence The world all at once: Limitless possibilities are at the heart of Stanford University. Global positioning systems and gene splicing, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Grapes of Wrath, the football huddle and the T-formation, Yahoo! and Google — all bear the mark of a Stanford individual. At Stanford, you will find the entire universe of what humankind knows and is endeavoring to know. From your first days on campus, this universe will be yours to explore, yours to discover. Stanford will ask that intellectual curiosity be your compass, that excellence be your true north. Along the way, you will have the guidance of extraordinary faculty mentors who are at the forefront of advancing the world’s understanding of subjects ranging from geo- physics to history to bioscience to musical composition. You will also have the friend- ship of fellow students who will awe and inspire you as much for their humanity as for their talents. As you pursue the questions that interest you most, your mentors and friends will give you the freedom to risk temporary failure as you push yourself both intellectually and personally— along with the freedom and encouragement to pursue what you love. Your reward will be the exhilaration of discovery— the exhilaration of true excellence. S tanford University 3 English Professor Paula Moya directs the undergraduate pro- work historically. In my Introduction to Chicana/o Literature gram at Stanford’s Center for Comparative Studies in Race and class, many students, even Mexican-American students, don’t Ethnicity, which is a national force in promoting the study of race know Chicana/o history. So I give history and economic lessons and ethnicity. Moya’s fields are 20th-century American fiction, along the way, sometimes team teaching courses with faculty Chicana/o cultural studies and feminist theory, with special who specialize in other disciplines.” Moya adds that Stanford interests in writing by women of color and U.S. Latina/o litera- humanists are among the world’s foremost scholars in their ture. Nearly 100 affiliated faculty in disciplines ranging from fields. “In the area of literature alone, students are often taught archaeology, business, drama, education and history to human by the people who write the works they might only have the biology, law and music explore questions of race and ethnicity at opportunity to read at another university—writers and poets like the center. “I’m a humanist,” says Moya. “When I teach a work of Tobias Wolff, Eavan Boland and J.M. Coetzee. It’s a tremendously literature, I approach it with all the usual lenses — narrative vital intellectual life.” structure, language, thematic analysis — but I also situate that THE HUMANIST THE STUDENT AND THE MENTOR “Knowing what one is passionate about is not always self-evident. Good mentoring draws from the student a spark of self-recognition,” says Linguistics Professor John Rickford, who first met Devin Griffin in his African-American Vernacular English class. Later, Griffin was one of the students who accompanied Rickford on a South Carolina and Georgia Sea Islands learning expedition. “I’ve seen Devin grow from a freshman quite uncertain about what he wanted to do, but wildly excited about the experiences he had on the expedition, to a senior with a solid degree in economics who had the honor of being a finalist for a Rhodes Scholarship and a win- ner of a Mellon Undergraduate Minority Fellowship. The fact that he was able to organize a quarter of overseas study in Ghana on his own and do groundbreaking research on the slave castles there impresses me to no end. What the future holds for him, intellectu- ally and in other respects, is still an open book, but his four years at Stanford have convinced me that it will make exciting and high- quality reading.” S tanford University 5 For many students and faculty, Stanford is special because of the issues of sustainability. Faculty from engineering, economics, close collaboration among undergraduates, graduate students geology and biology are also involved. All members of her and faculty. That collaboration creates a seamless educational research team, including undergraduates, present their research. continuum at the university. Sitting around a table with graduate Says Matson, “It is wonderful to meet a freshman and, through students and faculty, undergraduates hold their own. At the working with him or her, watch that person become engaged and Center for Environmental Science and Policy, Dean of Earth able to contribute original research that truly enriches the Sciences Pamela Matson works with researchers to address overall project.” THE CONTINUUM From left: Karen Carney, Shannah Metz, Pam Matson, John Harrison and Becky Chaplin at the Science and Engineering Quad Teaching Center 6 S tanford University Stephen Fried backstage at Memorial Auditorium THE DIRECTOR AND THE ACTRESS Annie Abrams sees similarities in the challenges she encounters as an artist at Stanford and those faced by friends majoring in engineering, English or the sciences. “We’re all willing to go after questions that may never be answered definitively,” she says. Stephen Fried believes Stanford’s environment compels him to examine the ways in which theater matters. “Stanford forces you to justify the significance of what you’re doing.” A double major in drama and history, Fried researched avant-garde Russian theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold via an Undergraduate Research Opportunity grant, then wrote and directed Habeas Corpus: Meyerhold, the Final Chapter. Abrams and Fried agree that the integration of scholarship and performance characterizes Stanford’s drama program, as does the department’s close-knit community of undergraduates, graduate students and faculty. Abrams appeared with one of her professors in a production of Max Frisch’s The Firebugs. Fried took his play on Meyerhold to Moscow, where it ran for four performances. Annie Abrams on the stage at Memorial Auditorium Freshman and Sophomore Seminars “Seminars make you comfortable enough to go and talk to professors. You feel that there is no ivory-tower distance between you. My freshman year, there was a sophomore seminar I desperately wanted to take on South Africa, which is my area of research. The class was already full, but I stayed, talked to the professor and was able to take the class.” Chris Maloney, Class of 2002 Intimacy Within a World-Class University Stanford’s tradition of faculty mentorship begins with small-group learning experiences in freshman and sophomore seminars. It continues through faculty-student research collabora- tions and culminates in the launching of a student’s own research pursuits. These collaborations are complemented by the university’s emphasis on residential learning. As a result, you’ll find a “knowable” campus with a challenging, yet friendly and supportive environment. Exceptional Research A Continuum of Scholars Opportunities “There is less status consciousness here “I chose to work with Professor Anthony Oro about what level a student is at. I’ve taught after interviewing with him in his lab at the Ph.D. seminars with undergraduates and medical school. By the time I graduate, I undergraduate courses with Ph.D. students will have worked with Dr. Oro for three in them. If a bright undergraduate student years, which is significant because he really wants to do a Ph.D. seminar, the reaction is: understands how I think. More important, ‘Give it a shot.’ There is an attitude about I have the opportunity to understand how facilitating someone’s education and he thinks. The most surprising aspect of research. Rather than setting up roadblocks, working with Dr. Oro, or any professor at it’s ‘What can we do to make this work?’” Stanford, is the incredible responsibility Theodore L. Glasser, Professor of entrusted to students. Sometimes I ask Communication myself, why would my mentor ever trust me to perform all these significant experiments that are at the forefront of science? I realize this trust comes from the respect Stanford professors have for their students.