Cardinal Chronicle / weekly campus column
BY MICHAEL PEÑA
The university's Quake '06 Centennial Alliance is working with movers and shakers throughout Northern California to coordinate activities commemorating the Big One. Faculty and staff belong to the larger 1906 Earthquake Centennial Alliance, which also aims to highlight a century of progress in understanding and reducing earthquake dangers, as well as tout the advances of scientists and seismologists. Stanford's group-online at http://quake06.stanford.edu-is led by Professor Greg Deierlein, director of the John A. Blume Earthquake Engineering Center. University Archivist Maggie Kimball is the committee's coordinator, and so far, plans call for a library exhibit, lectures and a walking tour-but nowhere near the walk that students on April 18, 1906, made to assist victims off campus. "Some students walked to San Francisco," Kimball said. "Many of them just walked up the train line."
While universities throughout the nation are closing their faculty clubs, Stanford's is sitting pretty-largely because of $500,000 in renovations that adorned the 24,000-square-foot facility with new carpeting, patio tiles and furniture. At an open house on Sept. 22, the club also debuted an intimate library where catering offices used to be, as well as walk-in refrigerator units. Once catering exclusively to the university, the Faculty Club raised revenues significantly several years back by renting itself out for weddings, winery dinners and other events originating from the outside community. (Currently, 10 percent of staff and 50 percent of faculty are dues-paying members.) "Faculty clubs around the country are shutting down," said Chuck Perry, manager of Stanford's club. "Most of them aren't self-sufficient."
The Office for Religious Life presents a lecture tonight titled "Islam: A Short History-and Contemporary Issues," featuring noted religious affairs author Karen Armstrong. The event represents the return of the Roger W. Heyns Lectureship in Religion and Community at Memorial Church after a five-year hiatus. The Heyns Lecture Series features major speakers or symposia focused on challenges of religion and community, on an annual or semiannual basis. Armstrong, a nun for seven years, went on to follow a more all-encompassing, inclusive religious journey. For the lecture, she is coming all the way from London, where she teaches Christianity at the Leo Baeck College for the Study of Judaism. She is both well respected and considered controversial because of her open-minded theology. The lecture begins at 7:30 p.m. in Memorial Church and is free and open to the public.
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