Free-wheelin' good time had at university-wide open house
Masa Hokari and his son Harumi, 5, of San Jose, felt resistance when tilting a spinning bicycle wheel and used it to take themselves for a spin on a swiveling chair. In the background, "Einsteins" look on -- from left, graduate students Josh Thompson, Michael Mazur of UC-Santa Barbara and Stephanie Majewski.
Cyclists Mike Sutton in the foreground, and Greg Barron in the back practice on a slalom course before the highwheeler races at Community Day.
Kalista Frazier, 3, took a firm grip of the saddle as Sierra Stiles of Pony Parties led her around Memorial Court.
Burton McMurtry, chairman of the Board of Trustees, performed a wreath laying ceremony at the Mausoleum with undergraduate Seth Cairo.
BY MICHAEL PEÑA
Thousands of visitors stepped onto campus Sunday to enjoy the sunshine and Community Day festivities, which included everything from Frisbee tossing in the Oval to pony rides by the Burghers. But the sculptures' anguished expressions stood in stark contrast to the children painting each other's faces and pulling their parents into the various booths in Memorial Court.
The day started with university public worship in Memorial Church, led by the Rev. Scotty McLennan, dean for religious life, and Rabbi Patricia Karlin-Neumann, senior associate dean for religious life. In her sermon, Karlin-Neumann spoke of faculty and alumni who embodied the vision of the university's founders to educate individuals so that they might make great contributions in the community.
When the service ended, members of San Francisco's Green Street Mortuary Band gathered at the top of the Oval, the starting point for the traditional procession that kicks off Founders' Celebration. Leading the march was the 120-year-old black carriage originally owned by Leland and Jane Stanford, followed by university trustees and other luminaries of the campus community, locally elected officials, Talisman A Capella and a bevy of high-wheel bicyclists.
The procession made its way down Palm Drive and ended at the Stanford Family Mausoleum, where an audience gathered to watch the wreath-laying ceremony and hear speeches that honored the natural beauty of the university and the legacy of its founders.
"We gather today to commemorate and celebrate the founding of a special American university," President John Hennessy said. "They built a university to last, and they charged us to carry on that mission."
This year's celebration also marked the centennial of Jane Stanford's death, and several speakers remarked on the immense burden she took on in financially supporting the university in the years following her husband's death.
"Her determination to keep the university running cost Jane Stanford the material comfort to which she was accustomed," said I-Chant Chiang, who is pursuing a doctorate in cognitive psychology and was one of two student speakers during the ceremony. "Because of her fortitude, Stanford University survived—and to this day supports students like me."
Chiang echoed Hennessy's comments praising the tranquility of the tree-shrouded campus. Speaking in more tempered tones was Famia Nkansa, a native of Ghana, a junior in the Psychology Department and a budding poet. She described the immense allure of studying at Stanford—while conceding that at times she feels out of place as an international student, a black woman and an African writer.
"This is not my comfort zone," Nkansa said. "I walk that fine line between being a part of this university and letting it be a part of me."
Over the past 114 years, the Founders' Celebration has included such speakers as William James in 1906 and Wallace Stegner in 1991. Community Day, the open-house portion of the day's activities, has been put on annually by the Office of Public Affairs since 2002. An estimated 10,000 to 12,000 visitors came out on Sunday.
Back by the arches, student athletes gave children miniature footballs, high-wheel bike riders weaved between strollers, and lap dogs and young Indian dancers charmed visitors at the Health Fair. The fair included representatives from Environmental Health and Safety, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, Stanford Hospital and Clinics, the American Red Cross and other health advocacy groups.
Around Hoover Tower and in Dohrmann Grove, nascent techies enjoyed a variety of science and engineering demonstrations. Kids slipped on a glove that played music when they made a fist, while nimble-fingered students of the Rubik's Cube Association of Stanford solved the popular puzzle in under a minute.
"Basically, it's the memorizing of four algorithms," said one student as he nonchalantly cranked his cube into solid-colored sides without looking. "It took me a little less than a day."
Members of the Music Department performed for visitors at the Cantor Arts Center, and guests squeezed into faculty lectures featuring Jeffrey Koseff and Buzz Thompson, directors of the Stanford Institute for the Environment; Dr. Thomas Robinson, associate professor of pediatrics and general internal medicine; and physicists Robert Byer, Andrei Linde, Doug Osheroff and Helen Quinn.
"There's so much to be proud of," said Patricia Ryan, a senior lecturer in the Drama Department who sat in the black carriage on Sunday and played the part of Jane Stanford during the Founders' Celebration procession. "We sit here in the hub of Silicon Valley, a beacon of knowledge and light."
