Issue of
June 16, 1999
 
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Faculty Senate minutes
TO THE
MEMBERS OF THE ACADEMIC COUNCIL THIRTY-FIRST SENATE
Report No. 13
SUMMARY OF
ACTIONS, JUNE 10
At its meeting of
Thursday, June 10, 1999, the Senate of the Academic
Council heard reports and took the following actions:
1. By unanimous voice
vote, conferred baccalaureate degrees on the Spring
Quarter candidates listed in Senate Document #4973, as
recommended by the Committee on Academic Appraisal and
Achievement. Also by unanimous voice vote, conferred the
various advanced degrees on the Spring Quarter candidates
listed in Senate Document #4974, as recommended by the
Committee on Graduate Studies.
2. By unanimous voice
vote, authorized the Steering Committee of the Applied
Linguistics Ph.D. Minor to nominate candidates for the
Ph.D. minor in Applied Linguistics for an initial term of
five years, from September 1, 1999 through August 31,
2004.
SUSAN W.
SCHOFIELD
Academic
Secretary to the University
MINUTES,
JUNE 10
Call to Order
Chair Brad Efron called
the Senate to order at 3:21 p.m. There were 41 voting
members, 12 ex-officio members, and several guests
in attendance.
Approval of Minutes
The minutes of the May 27,
1999 meeting of Senate XXXI of the Academic Council
(SenD#4971) were approved, with minor corrections noted
by the Academic Secretary.
Action Calendar:
Conferral of Degrees
The Senate, by unanimous
voice vote, conferred baccalaureate degrees on the Spring
Quarter candidates listed in Senate Document #4973, as
recommended by the Committee on Academic Appraisal and
Achievement. Also by unanimous voice vote, the Senate
conferred the various advanced degrees on the Spring
Quarter candidates listed in Senate Document #4974, as
recommended by the Committee on Graduate Studies. The
Registrar acknowledged that the candidates for the Master
of Liberal Arts degree had been inadvertently omitted and
would be added to the list.
Memorial Resolutions
The Chair recognized
Professor Charles Prescott to present a memorial
statement in honor of Joseph Ballam, on behalf of a committee
consisting of Professors Wolfgang Panofsky, Sidney Drell,
and David Leith. [The full text of the resolution was
included in Senate packets and will be published in the Stanford
Report.] Following the memorial statement, members of
the Senate stood for the traditional moment of silence.
Joseph Ballam, Emeritus
Professor at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and
the founding Associate Director of SLAC's Research
Division, died December 14, 1997 at the age of 80. He
served Stanford for 26 years until his retirement in
1987. He received his B.S. in Physics in 1935 from the
University of Michigan and worked during World War II on
naval problems such as underwater mine sweeping and
infrared signaling devices. He did his Ph.D. work in
cosmic rays at U. C. Berkeley and then held professorial
positions at Princeton University and Michigan State
University. When SLAC was authorized in 1961, Ballam was
persuaded to join the senior technical staff as an
associate professor and he participated in the early
planning of the experimental program. Ballam executed
brilliantly the multiple roles of directing the
construction of a wide variety of advanced particle
detectors, developing the SLAC laboratory research
program, and leading his own research. In the latter
role, he initiated a vigorous double-headed hydrogen
bubble chamber program. With the advent of colliding beam
physics at SLAC, Ballam joined the MARK II detector
group. Even after retirement, he continued to participate
personally in several aspects of SLAC's research. He had
the rare gift of gaining the respect, admiration, and
warm affection of his colleagues even as he made the
necessary tough decisions as SLAC's founding Associate
Director for Research. He retained his patience and
understanding under the greatest pressures, never
sacrificing his sense of justice and fairness. Joseph
Ballam's contributions will be long remembered and his
many friends and associates deeply miss him.
Report from the Senate
Steering Committee
Chair Efron reminded
everyone that the meeting would be a short one, followed
by the President's reception for the outgoing and
incoming Senates and honoring Provost Condoleezza Rice.
He advised that several members of the next Senate were
present as guests, including its chair, Professor John
Bravman. Efron also announced the membership of the
Senate XXXII Committee on Committees: Professor Ewart
Thomas (Psychology) as Chair, who he said had asked if
anyone knew the etymology of the word "re-up",
and Professors Alice Gast (Chemical Engineering), Stephan
Graham (Geological and Environmental Sciences), Stephen
Hinton (Music), Joe Lipsick (Pathology), Joanne Martin
(GSB), Francisco Ramirez (Education).
Chair Efron was
interrupted by Professor Pate-Cornell, Steering Committee
Vice Chair, rising to a point of personal privilege:
It is a pleasure and an
honor for me to recognize your leadership in the
Thirty-first Senate and your political skills in
addressing some of the burning issues of Stanford life.
But of course, you had
already solved most of these problems as the editor of
the Chaparral in the early 1960s. So we decided to go
right back to the source to check what we had missed. For
those of you who have never seen the Hammer and Coffin,
the Chaparral was a Stanford campus humor magazine that
liked to think of itself as the black sheep of the
Stanford family.
Just as he kept the
Senate in line, Brad managed to "lead the good taste
parade and ensure that the Chaparral could be read to
your mom, your kid sister, your minister, and your ASSU
representative". Indeed, Brad, also known as the Old
Boy, also known as Mad Dog, had already contributed at
that time to:
* engineering, with his
famous work on how to make a bookmark out of a beer can;
* biology - the fetal
development of a fraternity man, in which a beer can
appears around the eighth month (seems to be a recurring
theme); and
* the classical,
time-honored field of questionable literature with an
immortal rendition of "Lady Chatterley's
Likes".
But the Chaparral under
Brad's leadership had also tackled some of the perennial
issues of the Farm. For example, parking. Ah parking,
this one will always be with us! In an incisive policy
study, the Chappies contemplated some innovative
solutions and wondered in print whether the best place to
park on campus could possibly be: the cactus garden, the
President's driveway, or under Memorial Arch. And you, my
esteemed colleagues of the Senate, probably thought that
we had exhausted all possibilities!
And now for something
entirely different. The Old Boy and his friends kept a
file of letters to the Student Admission Office in which
I found this intriguing request: "Sirs: I told my
mother I did not want to go to college. My mother told me
I had to go to college. I told my mother I did not want
to go to Stanford. My mother told me I had to go to
Stanford. Will you accept my mother?" (Good thing my
kids were not born yet.)
In conclusion, ladies
and gentlemen, if you think that this year in the Senate
was hilarious, it's because (I quote the Chaparral at
that time): "'Tis better to have thought about
Stanford philosophy of education than never to have
laughed at all". That was page 8. I think I will
censor page 9.
But now Brad, talking
seriously: you were great at that time, you have done
great things since then, and you have done a great job as
leader of the Senate. What I have enjoyed the most in
working with you, is the sense of humor that you had then
and that you have now, and the sense of independence that
allows you to think out of the box, joking or not. Thank
you again and have a great summer.
During lengthy applause,
Pate-Cornell presented Efron with the traditional gift of
an engraved gavel. Efron thanked her and joked that
"the last time I heard some of those words I was
saying goodbye to Stanford for a while." He admitted
that he had actually enjoyed chairing the Senate, and
especially working with Steering Committee members
Pate-Cornell, Elam, Harris, Noll, Andersen, Parker, and
Provost Rice. Efron also thanked Susan Schofield and
Trish del Pozzo, "who do nine-tenths of the
work." The Chair indicated that there was no report
from the Committee on Committees, which had given its
final report at the prior meeting.
Reports from the
President and the Provost
President Casper expressed
his thanks to Chair Efron and the Senate for a very
productive year. Casper also obtained the Senate's
consent to include in the minutes the text of the remarks
he had delivered in honor of Provost Rice at a reception
two days earlier. (See appended remarks.)
Provost Rice reported
briefly on two issues of continuing interest to the
Senate. Concerning faculty housing, she said that over
the summer Carolyn Sargent would be looking at changes in
the handling of down payments and in the Lathrop loan
program, which was "very useful in the high interest
rate environment of the 1980s but something of a problem
in the 1990s." Rice also reported that in the fall
the University would offer a new emergency and backup
child care program to all faculty and staff. A consultant
would be helping the WorkLife Office over the summer, she
said, to review current campus child care programs, and
options were being explored to facilitate the development
of an additional child care facility somewhere on campus.
Turning to more personal
remarks, Rice said that it had been a joy to be part of
the Senate, commenting that she particularly valued the
tradition of having the President, the Provost, and the
deans sit as faculty members in that body. In this way
"we remember that the administration is us . . .and
we are all members of this faculty." She expressed
appreciation for the superb leadership of the six Senate
chairs with whom she had served and for the opportunity
to sit with the Senate Steering Committee every two weeks
to prepare the work of the Senate. Provost Rice also
voiced her thanks to the remarkable people who make up
the Stanford staff, mentioning Susan Schofield and Trish
del Pozzo in the Academic Secretary's Office, and in the
Provost's Office Ann Fletcher, Kathy Gillam, Jane
Volk-Brew, Liz Ross, and especially Marilyn Banwell
"without whom I wouldn't be organized enough to get
anything done." Voicing her pleasure at having the
opportunity each year to present the Amy Blue Awards, the
Provost stressed that the Stanford staff is every bit as
stellar as the faculty and the students. Following a
round of applause, Rice quipped that she was looking
forward to returning to the faculty "where I can
cause headaches for John Hennessy."
Proposal to Initiate a
Ph.D. Minor in Applied Linguistics (SenD#4969)
The Chair recognized
Registrar Roger Printup, ex officio member of the
Committee on Graduate Studies, to present the C-GS
recommendation, which he said required Senate approval
because the proposed minor would not reside within a
Ph.D.-granting department. Printup explained that the
Applied Linguistics minor would involve faculty from the
Department of Linguistics and the Language Center, both
within H & S, and the School of Education. Professors
Bernhardt (German Studies and Language Center Director)
and Baugh (Education) expressed enthusiasm for this new
interdisciplinary effort, which was also strongly
endorsed by cognizant H & S Associate Dean Ian
Morris. There was no discussion.
The following resolution,
moved and seconded by the Committee on Graduate Studies,
was approved by unanimous voice vote:
The Senate authorizes
the Steering Committee of the Applied Linguistics Ph.D.
Minor to nominate candidates for the Ph.D. minor in
Applied Linguistics for an initial term of five years,
from September 1, 1999 through August 31, 2004.
Report by Dean Hennessy
on the School of Engineering
Dean John Hennessy thanked
the Senate for offering him the opportunity to speak
about the state of the School of Engineering. Using a
"high tech" visual presentation, he first
provided a summary description of the school:
* 217 faculty members
(about 15% of the Stanford faculty)
* Nine diverse
departments, ranging in size from eight to 50 faculty
members: Electrical Engineering, Computer Science,
Mechanical Engineering, Aeronautics and Astronautics,
Civil and Environmental Engineering, Chemical
Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Materials Science,
Engineering Economic Systems & Operations Research
* Reputation: five
departments ranked in the top three nationally; largest
fraction of faculty with membership in the National
Academy of Engineering; significant impact on industry
* $80 million in annual
research (more than 25% of the Stanford total); over half
of the consolidated budget from external research funds
* Degrees: 1,325 (about
30% of the Stanford total) 20% Bachelors, 65% Masters,
15% Ph.D.; the largest grantor of graduate engineering
degrees in the U. S.
* Student units: 115,000
(about 23% of the Stanford total); including the largest
distance education program among research universities;
six of the nine Engineering departments among Stanford's
top 20 in terms of units taught, with Computer Science
and Electrical Engineering numbers two and three (behind
English).
Following his summary of
the school, Hennessy laid out the school's informal
mission statement. He stated that their three goals are,
first, to possess one of the top programs in engineering
research and graduate education to educate Ph.D.
students who will be leaders in academia, industry, and
government; to lead in the development of new research
areas, including interdisciplinary areas; and to achieve
high impact through both scientific importance and
technical innovation relevant, and transferred, to
industry. Second, the school strives to provide a
world-class undergraduate engineering education, in the
context of a great liberal arts university, making use of
unique Stanford assets. And third, the School of
Engineering seeks to supply the leading professional
education program for masters students and lifelong
learning, Hennessy said.
Dean Hennessy next
described the Stanford Center for Professional
Development (SCPD) and the school's distance education
program. He noted that SCPD includes the Stanford
Instructional Television Network (SITN) which transmits
250 credit and 50 non-credit courses annually, and has
allowed 5,000 Masters degrees to be earned over its
history. SCPD also comprises a Multimedia/Video
Production service used broadly within the university, he
said, and a new group called Stanford Online that is
converting distance education from videotape and closed
circuit broadcast to Internet delivery, with the goal of
having all courses on the Internet by 2000. Hennessy
pointed out that the number of units taught through SCPD
would make it the fourth largest department in the school
and the thirteenth largest in the University. Answering
the rhetorical question "Why does SITN work?"
Hennessy emphasized three factors: they have maintained
high quality, with admissions and course standards the
same as for on-campus students; the burden on the faculty
has been minimized through provision of additional TAs
and professional staff support; and most of the financial
benefits accrue to the departments, not to faculty
members individually.
Hennessy identified
several challenges facing the School of Engineering. He
said they must grow the faculty in information
technology, broadly within every department and
specifically in newer areas such as networking and
communications. A world-class bioengineering program also
needs to be built, he said, founded on a diverse set of
faculty interests across the school, and through the
development of new resources including faculty
appointments, student support, and wet lab facilities.
Other challenges identified by the dean were strategic
investments and directions for their three smallest
departments, continued replacement or renovation of
facilities, start-up and housing solutions to ensure
future successes in faculty recruiting, and continued
leadership in distance education. Speaking about an
additional challenge, Hennessy identified a small drop in
undergraduate engineering enrollments (less than those
experienced nationally, he said) as well as a significant
shift of interest toward computer science. The school
will work to enhance its undergraduate programs, he said,
focusing on a better introductory experience involving
more "real engineering earlier" and expanding
undergraduate research opportunities along the lines of
interesting experiments under way in Civil and
Environmental Engineering and in Electrical Engineering.
Following the Senate
Steering Committee's suggestion, Dean Hennessy concluded
with some reflections on things he believes have worked
particularly well in the school. First, he said that they
have made joint appointments between departments work
very well, even at the assistant professor level, and
that structures such as a joint laboratory between
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science encourage
interdisciplinary initiatives. Second, he expressed pride
in the school's successes in faculty searches, hiring,
and promotion. He said that they are willing to take
"area" risks, not quality risks, in junior
hiring and that they have a good track record for
developing and supporting young faculty members. He also
advised that he found great strengths in the school's
somewhat unusual structure where the department chairs
and the academic associate deans serve as the
"appointments and promotions committee",
contributing a tremendous wealth of experience regarding
faculty hiring and development. A third thing that has
worked well, Hennessy stated, is that the school's
department chairs are recruited and hired as leaders,
encouraged to serve for somewhat longer terms and to take
initiative in setting the direction for their department.
Finally, he said, the school's research program has been
very Ph.D.-intensive, allowing them to compete
successfully with other universities that have more
staff, post-docs, and research associates. Stanford
produces more Ph.D.s per faculty member than any other
major engineering school, he noted.
Dean Hennessy closed by
expressing his thanks to outgoing Provost Rice on behalf
of the faculty in Engineering. He recalled a school
retreat six years earlier where he had questioned whether
she "had the guts to do what was necessary about the
budget." In retrospect they need not have worried,
he remarked, expressing his admiration for Rice's
willingness not only to tackle the university's toughest
problems but more importantly to find ways to support
Engineering's most creative and innovative proposals.
"Her support has helped us to be successful. And so
we not only thank her, but we hope that she takes as much
pride in our success as we do," he concluded.
Responding to a request
from Professor White (Mathematics), Hennessy explained
that they have made assistant professor joint
appointments work by allowing the faculty member to
choose a lead department. All appointment and promotion
processes are then handled by that lead department, he
said, with the other department asked only to decide, for
a successful case, whether or not they want the faculty
member to continue as a joint appointment in their
department.
Professor Parker (Graduate
School of Business) asked if the "distance" in
distance education went much beyond Santa Clara County.
Hennessy replied that while the majority of students were
close by, and many still spend one quarter on campus,
they also have students on the East Coast and are running
a few international experiments. President Casper asked
for clarification of SCPD's plans to move to the
Internet, to which Hennessy replied that they would first
phase out videotape instruction, and eventually
television broadcast courses as well, due in part to the
high costs anticipated to upgrade the equipment. Vice
Provost Kruger said he had received a recent e-mail
message from an elite East Coast university suggesting
that they wanted to get into distance education to make
money. This led him, he said, to pose a tough question,
"Why are we in distance education?" Hennessy's
response was historical, noting that the school started
the program because former dean and provost Fred Terman
believed that engineers in local companies would need
master's degrees. Distance education has now evolved, he
said, to the point where "lifelong education for
Stanford alums will be the number one reason we stay in
the program. The money is not the issue."
President Casper asked
about the regulatory environment for undergraduate
education in engineering and the difficulty of receiving
accreditation in a university that has as many liberal
arts requirements as Stanford does. Professor Bravman
(Materials Science and Engineering) responded that he had
been supervising the school's accreditation process and
that under current rules a student without advanced
placement or transfer units who wanted to graduate with
the minimum of 180 units could barely do it. He advised
that the accrediting agency was moving to a less
bureaucratic scheme that would offer more flexibility.
The new approach places an emphasis on "outcomes
assessment", he said, which will be the next problem
area, that is, proving that students after graduation
have achieved the education goals set out by the
university. Chair Efron thanked Hennessy for an
interesting presentation, commenting, "I think we
all got a little view of the future today."
There was no new business.
The Chair encouraged everyone to proceed to the Faculty
Club for the President's reception honoring Provost Rice.
At 4:28 p.m., following a motion and a second, the Chair
used his new, inscribed gavel to adjourn the Senate sine
die.
SUSAN W.
SCHOFIELD
Academic
Secretary to the University
With gratitude to Trish
del Pozzo, Priscilla Johnson, and Susie Engi for their
support and contributions throughout the year.
Condoleezza Rice Farewell
June 8, 1999
Gerhard Casper
When Condi announced that
she was stepping down as Stanford's provost, she was
quoted in the Daily as saying: "It was time to get
back to my real passion: international relations and
politics." I trust that nobody gave much credence to
that since we all know her real, real passion and the
fact that NFL training camps open in only a few weeks.
When I came to America
from Germany in the 1960s, a renegade Lutheran, who would
have thought that, in the 1990s, I would end up choosing
a Presbyterian minister's daughter for helping in the
fight for truth and against sin.
And I assure you, the
provost has a Calvinist dislike for idleness, especially
slothful and nonrigorous thinking -- the ultimate sin
against the Holy Spirit within the university.
As you may know,
Presbyterians approve of art, music, literature, and
recreation only if edifying. Thank God, Condi's concept
of edification, on the whole, is fairly catholic, as is
mine. That has made it easier for us to work together.
Though there have been disagreements. For instance, when
it comes to composers, she considers one from my hometown
of Hamburg, Brahms, the most edifying a judgment that
has caused some tense theological moments between us.
Also, Presbyterians are
much more insistent than Lutherans, especially renegade
ones, on observing Sunday as a quiet day. Under Condi's
influence, I have, for instance, learned not to schedule
meetings on Easter Sunday. Just as characters in opera
often have a leitmotif, when the provost comes on stage,
I hear "Onward Christian Soldiers" in my head.
I am ashamed of that, because politically and
theologically, alas, this is quite incorrect: The General
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church has outlawed this
particular hymn as too "warlike." Amazingly,
according to Condi, the Lutheran anthem, "A Mighty
Fortress Is Our God," is still acceptable but so
is having a Defense Department but no War Department.
I am indebted to Condi for
so many things, I could never name them all. Let me list
just a few:
* I thank her for
instructing me sufficiently that I, too, can cry from the
press box, "What are we doing, going to a nickel
defense in a short-yardage situation with this field
position?"
* I thank her for standing
shoulder-to-shoulder with me in protecting the university
from being put to political purposes -- even Republican
ones. Indeed, the real reason I want her to spend time at
the Hoover Institution is to eliminate Republicanism
there.
* I thank her for being
perhaps the only living Notre Dame graduate not to write
me an angry letter about the Stanford Band.
* I thank her for ensuring
that the Chevron oil tanker The Condoleezza Rice never
ran aground while she was provost. If it does so after
July 1, it will be a problem for the Governor of Texas,
not the President of Stanford.
* I thank her for
investing as much talent and energy into consolidating
the Stanford budget as into unifying Germany. The former
may have been a tougher task than the latter and ended up
taking more time.
* I thank her for, at an
early age, choosing an academic career, rather than
following her early passions of music and ice skating.
Had she not done so, she might have become the first
Olympic figure skater to accompany herself on the piano.
* I thank her for bending
over backward not to compare Stanford politics to those
of the former Soviet Union, at least not that often, and,
indeed, for helping me say "former Soviet
Union" with a straight face.
More seriously, Condi
tells of having been taught by her parents to "blast
through the barriers" and she has shown throughout
her life that she learned that lesson well. Starting in
segregated Birmingham, she has blasted through the
barriers of race. At the White House, she blasted through
barriers between civilians and the military. In capitals,
foreign and domestic, she blasted through barriers of
gender. And from the University of Denver, where she
earned her bachelor's degree when only 19, to Stanford,
where she became provost when 38, she has blasted through
the barriers of age.
Condi has drawn other
strengths from her family. At Founders' Day, she told a
moving story of her paternal grandfather, a poor farmer's
son in Ewtah, Alabama, who somehow decided to get
"book learning" and made his way to Stillman
College, a black Presbyterian school. He saved enough
cotton to pay for the first year; when seeking how to
afford a second year, he was told he could get a
scholarship if he would become a Presbyterian minister.
"That," he replied, "is just what I had in
mind." He went on to found schools across the
segregated South, usually in churches that he had built,
so that others could undergo the transforming experience
of education.
Throughout your career --
and most especially in your six years as provost --
Condi, you, too have shown a deep love of learning and
have helped the university to build structures to help
others undergo the transforming experience of education.
Your grandfather would be extraordinarily proud of you.
And all of us are extraordinarily grateful to you.
As you go on to your next
public service, we congratulate you on having been a
great provost.
And I thank you for having
become one of my closest friends.
Now, as to your future, I
thought hard about a useful gift that would capture much
of you: learning, the Russian language, an understanding
of the role of serendipity in human affairs, military
affairs especially. The choice was a book that Henry
James called a "baggy monster" and that in my
mere lawyer's judgment is one of the greatest
novels of all time. In my Chicago days, I reread it every
other winter. Thus I went to work and was able privately
to persuade a few people to help in the acquisition of a
first Russian edition of Tolstoy's War and Peace as a
farewell gift with meaning for your future.
The first Russian edition,
18681869, in six volumes with a seventh supplementary
volume of analysis by E. Liskin from1870, is a great
rarity. This particular copy has the personal library
stamps of one Petr Aleksandrovich Avenarius.
The book is full of
passages relevant to this sad passing today. For
instance, in vol. 5, p. 140, a character says to Pierre:
"Well now, we are sad" and then goes on:
"Honestly, without speaking of what I owe you, I
feel friendship for you. Can I do anything for you?
Dispose of me. It is for life and death. I say it with my
hand on my heart."
You may ask how do I know
since I do not speak Russian. Thank God there are
passages in French and German that make reading Russian
so much easier. For instance, this one from vol. 4, p.
169, with particular relevance to Kosovo and other wars.
Napoleon asks a Russian prisoner of war, a Cossack,
whether the Russians thought they would beat him or not.
"It's like this," the Cossack answered:
"If there is a battle within three days, the French
will win. But if the battle is later, God knows what will
happen."
Condi, the dedication
reads:
TO
CONDOLEEZZA RICE
May War
be the fiction,
And
Peace the reality
With the
greatest appreciation and deep gratitude for
Her service
as Stanford's 9th Provost SR
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