printable versionFaculty Senate minutes - January 26, 2006 meeting
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At its meeting on Thursday, January 26, 2006, the Thirty-eighth Senate of the Academic Council took the following action:
1. By unanimous voice vote, the Senate conferred baccalaureate degrees on the Fall Quarter candidates listed in Senate Document #5788.
2. By unanimous voice vote, the Senate also conferred the various advanced degrees on the Fall Quarter candidates listed in Senate Document #5789, as recommended by the Committee on Graduate Studies.
3. The Thirty-eighth Senate by unanimous voice vote, renews the authority of the Executive Committee of the Interdisciplinary Program in Archaeology to nominate candidates for the Bachelor of Arts degree for a period of five years, from September 1, 2006 through August 31, 2011.
EDWARD D. HARRISAcademic Secretary to the UniversityMinutes, JAN. 26I. Call to OrderChairman Roberts, at 3:15 pm, acknowledged that we were a few senators short of a quorum, but as he spoke, senators straggled in, and the meeting was called to order. At that point he could say, "I'd like to call the first winter quarter meeting of the 38th Senate to order. First, I'd like to welcome Vice Provost for Student Affairs, Greg Boardman, who's joining us now as the permanent holder of that office, and congratulate him."
II. Approval of Minutes - SenD#5784The minutes of the December 1st meeting in 2005 (SenD#5786), prepared without the help of Laura Brewer, the real time recorder, were approved as written without modifications.
III. Action CalendarThe list of candidates for B.A. degrees (SenD#5788) and for Graduate Degrees (SenD#5789) were approved without modification. It was noted that although the Committee on Graduate Studies presented the latter group after moving and seconding the list of SenD#5789, C-USP had not reviewed the list of undergraduate degree recipients. Chairman Roberts reassured the senators that the Steering Committee will vet the undergraduate degree lists in the future.
IV. Standing ReportsA. Memorial Resolutions
There were two memorial statements prepared for today.
1. Chairman Roberts introduced Professor emeritus Theodore Geballe to come forward to present a statement in honor of his colleague, Marvin Chodorow, Professor emeritus of Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering.
Professor Geballe began, "Professor Marvin Chodorow died at his campus home on October 17, 2005. Marvin's academic leadership led to the founding of the Department of Applied Physics. He played a leading role in developing the multiple disciplinary laboratory known as the Edward L. Ginzton Laboratory. His theoretical contributions to the design of high-powered klystrons enabled the construction of the linear accelerators used for Nobel-prize-winning experiments at Stanford and SLAC and for the X-ray sources that marked the birth of modern radiation therapy.
During the almost four decades of his active Stanford career, Marvin served as chair of the Committee on Committees in the Faculty Senate, and on many other committees, including Undergraduate Writing, Athletics, Publications, advisory functions for the drama department, and H & S policy. He was a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and served on numerous national and international advisory parties.
Mr. Chairman, I have the honor on behalf of a committee consisting of Calvin Quate, Anthony Siegman, and myself to lay before the Senate of the Academic Council a resolution in memory to the late Marvin Chodorow, the emeritus Barbara Kimball Browning Professor of Applied Physics in the School of Humanities & Sciences, and Professor of Electrical Engineering in the School of Engineering.
Chairman Roberts thanked Professor Geballe, and the Senate stood for a moment of silence.
Roberts then invited Professor Harold Levine to present a memorial statement in honor of his colleague, Mary Virginia Sunseri, Professor emeritus of Mathematics. The full text of this resolution was included in the Senate packet, as was the earlier one, and will be published in the Stanford Report.
Professor Levine began. The adult life of Mary Virginia Sunseri, (born 1916, died 2003), was largely focused on diverse Stanford matters. She served for many years in a teaching role and as a member of numerous committees, and her generous financial support of both scholastic and athletic pursuits is notable.
Both Professor Sunseri and a longtime departmental colleague, Professor Harold Maile Bacon, earned an everlasting gratitude from generations of students who were taught by them. Their pedagogical style lessened the anxiety of students through frequent personal contacts and served to highlight the broad usefulness of the mathematical approach.
Ms. Sunseri joined the Stanford faculty in 1943, after studies at San Jose State college, and advanced to a full professorship in due course. An endowed Stanford professorship of recent date, 1987, which bears her name was funded by Mr. and Mrs. John T. Packard of Los Altos to express their joint admiration for the type of instruction in mathematics they both received while undergraduates.
Ms. Sunseri personally sponsored a men's basketball scholarship to honor her brother and followed with a women's graduate fellowship in mathematical studies at Stanford. Professor Sunseri played a significant role over the years through membership in committees with different agendas and concerns such as undergraduate affairs, academic appraisal and achievement, Faculty Club events, advanced placement, and emeriti status.
Her involvement with the community of mathematicians was not exclusively confine to the Stanford campus. She participated actively in the Northern California section of the Mathematical Association of America and also served on the national board of governors of the association. Other affiliations reinforced the impression of an exceptionally dedicated and well-rounded individual who merits a secure place in the Stanford annals.
Mr. Chairman, this resolution was prepared by myself, and it is my privilege to lay it before the Senate.
After the Senate had stood for a moment of silence, Chairman Roberts thanked Professor Levine and added, "As I think all of you know, the memorial resolutions are now collected by Susan Schofield and others on the Stanford Senate web site and you can see remembrances of some of the people who have made Stanford so great in the past."
B. Steering Committee
Roberts pointed out that "We've been working to create the agendas for this quarter. Interestingly and somewhat frustratingly, we've been more successful at filling the agendas for spring quarter because of the time that people have available. There have been a number of meetings that we thought were all scheduled, and we had to do some running around as some of those changed. It's been quite an exciting time. On February 9th, we will vote on a renewal for the IDP in American Studies. There also will be a very interesting discussion, brought by C-ACIS, about research administration software, and more generally, the process of how decisions about such software are made.
"I urge you to talk with colleagues and senior administrators about the issues, not just about software, but about communication and planning and how people participate in those processes.
"On the 23rd of February, we will have a report from the Provost on the change in the Infrastructure Charge and the reasons behind that. Also on that day, we will have a second executive session to talk about some issues of importance that we feel are more easily discussed in an environment in which the Senate can speak more freely. And then on March 3rd, we'll have a report from Vice President for Public Affairs, David Demarest on Community Relations.
"Some of you may remember that in our first meeting, I talked a little about some of the challenges facing this community and our colleagues at other institutions about the assault on scientific evidence. My predecessor, Rob Polhemus, talked about these issues last year. I would like to explore the question of what universities can do to be a part of the policy-making process, to take the role of being the intellectual compass in society seriously, and have an impact on the crucial questions facing our nation and the world. I thought about convening the Planning and Policy Board to look at these questions. But after talking to my two immediate predecessors, one of whom is in England, we decided that this idea would not work. As an excellent alternative, I am inviting this community at large to talk about that question, and to see if there are any faculty who, at the beginning of spring quarter, would be interested in being part of a panel in which we would share ideas and brainstorm about ways to restore the role of institutions such as Stanford and its peer institutions in helping to set a policy agenda and helping to find a way to reestablish the rules of evidence and logic and all those other things that we would hope would be a part of that public policy-making process. I urge those who might be interested in participating in that panel to contact me or anyone on the Steering Committee so that we can try to get that set up for the spring."
Chairman Roberts noted that at 2:15 on February 9th, there would be an Administrative Session for the Steering Committee in which annual reports that need not be reviewed by the entire Senate would be discussed. Any and all senators are invited to these.
C. Committee on Committees
Professor Sheppard is off campus, so there was no report today.
D. President and Provost Report
The Provost spoke first…despite the objection of Senator Noll, an elegant traditionalist. The Provost knew that Noll would say that…and spoke anyway.
"I have three announcements. First of all, you have heard by now that I have decided to promote Greg Boardman to the position of Vice Provost for Student Affairs. Greg came from Tulane almost two years ago to serve as Dean of Students. When Gene Awakuni left the position of Vice Provost for Student Affairs, I asked Greg to take over the operation on an interim basis as Dean of Student Affairs. During the last year, he's really shown his capacity for leadership, his ability to understand Stanford, and his leadership of the Student Affairs organization…and so to the great delight of the people that report to Greg, I asked him to take over the job. So as has been announced, Greg is our new Vice Provost for Student Affairs." There was abundant applause for Greg Boardman.
"Now," said the Provost, becoming somber, "I have a second and little more bittersweet announcement. Artie Bienenstock, my Vice Provost and Dean of Research and Graduate Policy, was the ideal candidate three years ago for the position that he agreed to accept. He now has decided that it's time for him to step down from the position. Artie has done a wonderful job. He has worked to strengthen the infrastructure of the independent labs. He's tackled the huge number of increasing compliance demands, that we've had to deal with. He's developed closer ties between campus and SLAC, and has accomplished many, many other things.
"Artie has spent a great deal of time on national research issues, such as export control, funding for sensitive but not classified research, intellectual property, and so forth. Since he has spent a fair amount of time in Washington as the ideal person to represent Stanford in that role, he has also become a national leader who is looked up to by all of his colleagues around the country. He recently has been elected President of the American Physical Society, a job that will create some additional work for him. John Hennessy and I have asked Artie if he would agree to stay on in a new role as Special Assistant to the President for Federal Research Policy and continue the external part of his job in Washington. Artie has agreed to do that."
"We couldn't think of a better person to represent us, and I hope you will join me in thanking Artie both for what he's going to do and for what he has done in the last few years."
There was applause, and more applause. Professor Bienenstock smiled that generous, gracious smile of his, and accepted the accolade with humility.
Provost Etchemendy continued. "I'm going to ask Sheri Sheppard, chair of the Committee on Committees, to suggest names of people to do a search for his replacement. Now, as John Hennessy will tell you, we have decided to accept the recommendation of the Commission on Graduate Studies to create the position of a Vice Provost for Graduate Education and separate that off from the Vice Provost for Research job. I think that it will be appropriate and logical for a single search committee to find internal candidates for both positions. The candidates that would be high on our list for one position should also be excellent candidates for the other position. It will be more work for the search committee, but I would like them to suggest names for both jobs."
The Provost turned his third announcement over to Professor Gail Mahood. He said, "The University has adopted a new childbirth policy for graduate students. I want to thank Gail for her hard and excellent work in devising this policy. Thank you, Gail!"
Professor Mahood acknowledged the tribute, and said, "It's my pleasure. I'm delighted to be able to announce this new policy, effective today. It is intended to recognize the simple fact that a woman's prime child bearing years overlap with the same years during which she's likely to be in graduate school and establishing her career. Our main goal in designing this policy was to make sure that we retain in the academic pipeline women graduate students who become pregnant and give birth.
"The provisions of the policy are as follows. All women graduate students, including those in the professional schools, who are registered and matriculated, are eligible. There are four components to the policy. First, there is an academic accommodation period for up to a period of two quarters before and after the birth during which the student may postpone course assignments, examinations, and other academic requirements. The second is that the woman will remain eligible for full-time registration during this period. Third, she will be granted an automatic one-quarter extension of University departmental requirements, and 'academic milestones'. And, finally, those women graduate students who are supported by fellowships, teaching assistantships and research assistantships will be excused from their regular TA or RA duties for a period of six weeks during which they will continue to receive support.
"This policy will be administered through the Office of the Dean of Research through a petition process. If the rules of a funding agency won't allow a woman to be funded during a period of reduced activity, the University will provide replacement funding, courtesy of the Provost's office. Thank you very much, John, for that.
"Let me now make just a couple of very general remarks about what we're trying to do with this policy. One purpose is to make it possible for women to maintain their full-time status so that they continue accumulating units towards their residency requirements, but, more important, to avoid triggering any interruptions in on-campus housing, insurance coverage, eligibility for student loans, deferment of student loan repayment, and so forth.
In addition, by remaining full-time students, the visa status of foreign students is not affected. I want to emphasize that this academic accommodation period is not a leave of absence. We are expecting that the woman, to the extent that her health and the health of the infant will allow, will be in residence, and will participate to the extent that she can in coursework and research, even if it is at a somewhat lower level than prior to the birth.
"This standard, we also recognize, is a minimum one that we're setting for the accommodation for women graduate students that give birth. And it's expected that advisors, academic staff, and departmental leaders will work with sensitivity and imagination to provide more than this minimum, as some parts of the University (e.g., Dick Zare in Chemistry) are already doing.
"Finally, there's nothing in this policy that replaces the communication and cooperation between student and advisor and the good faith efforts of both of them to accommodate the birth of a child. It's our intention in establishing this policy to reinforce the importance of that cooperation and to have the University provide the support that makes that accommodation possible."
This was one of those happy announcements that generated no comments or questions, and then…all eyes then turned to President Hennessy.
The President began, "As the Provost mentioned in reviewing the recommendations of the Commission on Graduate Education, we rapidly determined that the recommendation to create the position of Vice Provost of Graduate Education was going to be crucial in launching many of the other efforts and initiatives that have been proposed in the report. Simply stated, there's enough work to do that we will require someone who leads an office focused on graduate students and their lives and welfare.
"We also decided to begin the process by doing some pilot programs that would examine some of the other recommendations. Therefore, I have asked Mark Horowitz, one of the co-chairs of the Commission on Graduate Education, to lead that effort on an interim basis while we do the new search. Mark is devising a set of pilot programs to respond specifically to three general areas that are in the commission report. The first is some pilot programs to work on the critical issue of graduate student diversity. Second, we want to explore the feasibility of a Summer Institute, a parallel opportunity to what Sophomore College does for undergraduates, and an opportunity to provide our graduate students with an experience to see an area outside of their normal school or discipline. Mark has already been working with the deans to solicit a set of proposals from the schools about some interim programs that we can launch as early as this summer.
"Third, we want to initiate some pilot programs to address the issue of strengthening the mentorship of graduate students, so that our graduate students feel like they are getting the right kind of accurate feedback and sufficient guidance, whether or not that comes just from their advisor or, more broadly, from another group of faculty, as is explored in the commission report.
"Some of you may be contacted by Mark or by your deans as they work through some of these ideas or propose some new directions for a school or department. Thank you, Mr. Chair."
Chairman Roberts thanked President Hennessy, and then added, "I know that the issue of the Commission on Graduate Education report will come back for some additional discussion later on in the Senate with particular reference to the question of graduate student diversity. Look and listen for additional discussion of that topic this quarter.
V. Other ReportsA. Committee on Undergraduate Majors (C-RUM): Renewal of degree nominating authority for the Interdisciplinary Program in Archaeology (SenD#5781)
Chairman Roberts was pleased to introduce his Senate colleague and Chair of C-RUM, Brad Osgood, to present this recommendation.
Professor Osgood pointed out that "…this is the first review of the program in Archaeology. It was launched five years ago and has been flourishing. I'm pleased to report that both the dean's office in the School of Humanities & Sciences and the Committee for Review of Undergraduate Majors were enthusiastic in recommending that program be renewed for a period of five years. It fills a niche at Stanford. It's not a large program, but it's a flourishing one, an IDP that makes the University a very interesting place for undergraduates. There were some questions about leadership, but they have been resolved. The leadership is passing seamlessly from one 'Ian' to another person named "Ian," a policy my we have might want to implement more broadly across IDPs!"
At this, Dean Long noted, "We're doing it in the Dean's office, too."
Chairman Roberts said, "Thank you, Brad. We also have here the first 'Ian', Professor Ian Morris, director of the program, and Susan Stephens, the Senior Associate Dean and cognizant dean in Humanities & Sciences."
Dean Stephens allotted her time to Professor Morris, who said, "We were granted degree authority in 2001. We had our first major graduate in 2002. Typically, we graduate about five majors each year. We think of it as being both a liberal arts degree and as professional training for people who want to go on to careers in archaeology. We've had students go in both of these directions. We'd like to think that it's a classic liberal arts degree in the sense that it really does cover a very wide range of fields and topics. For example, it is impossible to get this degree without taking quantitative classes and interpretative, qualitative type classes. It's also a program that requires students to do archaeological field work, and in some ways that's been the most successful part of it. The students tend to like that best and they do a great job. We've had wonderful support from the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education by helping to ship them off to foreign parts…and then, nearly always, bring them back again!
"There's always are things we think we can do better, but we're happy now with the way things are going. There were three recommendations that C-RUM produced for us. One was that we increase the number of units in the major from 65 to 75; we're happy to do that. Next is the leadership issue…and, yes, I'm handing over the leadership, as soon as possible, to Ian Hodder, the former chair of the Cultural Anthropology department. Third, C-RUM suggested that we increase our outreach activities to get in touch with more potential majors. Those have been very helpful suggestions and we've already started doing some of these things."
Questions and Discussion
Professor Feldman asked whether there are any other students who have actually done honors program in this major other than the one that's expecting to graduate in this coming year? "And," he added, "to what extent are the students in this major actually required to write some kind of a thesis or research written project?"
Professor Morris responded. We have had a number of students who have done honors, but nearly all of them have been students who have been involved in double majors. Why is this? There are very few Archaeology graduate programs. If a student is planning to go on to do a Ph.D. in Archaeology he or she would apply to an Anthropology Department or a Classics Department, or Near Eastern Studies, etcetera. And a lot of the students who do that will want to double-major with the more traditional departmental major because they feel, rightly or not, that this background is going to look more attractive to a Department of Anthropology. So far, only one student has chosen to do her honors thesis within the Archaeology department. But that's all worked out wonderfully. Gail Mahood has worked very closely with her, mucking about with mud bricks and lumps of mud…and what could be more exciting than that?" Professor Mahood smiled grimly at that comment.
"One of the nice things about being a relatively small program is that it gives us a great deal of flexibility in setting these things up in ways that seem to benefit the students most."
Professor Noll had "…just two little questions. One of the really attractive things about this program that I recall from when we authorized it initially was, in addition to the presence of Gail Mahood, the scientific involvement, which was unusual for archaeology programs." Professor Noll wanted reassurance that the science offerings were still strong and emphasized. He also expressed concern with the small enrollment in most courses, as few as two, three or four students.
Professor Morris answered. "Nearly all of the Archaeology undergraduate majors across the country have some kind of requirement that students do at least something in natural sciences. Ours has a stronger required component in natural sciences than just about any of the others. All of the students must take at least one course in quantitative methods, as well as a core course in archaeological methods and archaeological skills.
"We also have a requirement that they need at least ten units in archaeological methods, which, again, means natural science technology. Gail Mahood has started just this quarter teaching a course on 'geoarchaeology'. We're hoping that every time this is offered it will be a requirement for the archaeology students." Professor Mahood was pleased to insert, for the record, that there are 12 students in this course this year. Professor Noll was pleased, saying, "Put more science in… you get more students!"
"As for the second question," continued Professor Morris, "our core courses are aimed primarily at the students who are majoring in the field. Thus, the numbers we get in these courses are about what you would expect from the number of majors".
Hearing no more questions, Chairman Roberts called for the vote. "It comes moved and seconded from the Committee on the Review of Undergraduate Majors to renew the authority of the Executive Committee of the Interdisciplinary Program in Archaeology to nominate candidates for the Bachelor of Arts degree for a period of five years, from September 1st, 2006, to August 31st, 2011. All in favor say 'aye.' " The motion passed unanimously.
Before moving to the next agenda item, Roberts said, "I wanted to tell you from the Steering Committee how we plan to bring motions on IDP reviews. We felt that the first review of any program should come to the full Senate, because it's our first chance to look at it. We will be handling many of the renewals/extensions through the administrative sessions such as we're having on February 9th. You will receive the materials, and we urge you to join the Steering Committee at that session and others like it.
"One concern was that if we brought only programs that were tenuous or likely to generate controversy, that would lead to the false assumption that all of our interdisciplinary programs were shaky. One of the reason that we brought in this first review of the archaeology program that was reviewed so positively to the full senate was that we could show that there are really good stories in the IDPs."
Professor Noll added that bringing in good IDPs for review helps set the standards that the Senate should be using to evaluate all IDPs.
B. Emergency Preparedness (SenD#5790)
Chairman Roberts introduced this topic with a rhetorical question. "What happens when we are faced with a natural or man-made disaster, either a terrorist attack, or floods such as we saw in Katrina, or, particularly in this centennial year of 1906, a 7.5 earthquake?
We invited the Associate Vice Provost for Environmental Health and Safety, Larry Gibbs, to make a presentation on the status of emergency preparedness here at Stanford. Other guests who are participating in this as well include Dr. Ira Friedman, the director of the Vaden Student Health Services, and Laura Wilson, Director of Public Safety. Also contributing will be Greg Boardman, our Senate colleague who's the Vice Provost for Student Affairs, and Keith Perry, the EH & S preparedness planning, training, and communications czar.
Larry Gibbs (that same Larry Gibbs whose name is posted within every Stanford elevator) began. "First of all, thank you for having us here to discuss this. I also wanted to acknowledge Jean Barnes, the Associate Director of Lands and Buildings, and also Stephanie Kalfayan, who's been very active in representing the Provost's office in all of the emergency management programs that we developed. This gives us a good opportunity to communicate with the faculty, a most important constituent of our plan. We will give you information and in return want your feedback.
"Just the sheer size of Stanford itself is a risk factor in disasters. In addition, we have our own electrical power systems, heating and cooling plants on campus. In emergency management we must look at the risks we have and then figure out how to manage them, as well as determine what we do after a disaster or other emergency strikes us."
He then showed photographs of the main entrance of the campus on April 17th, 1906 and contrasted it with a photo taken on April 18th. During that one day interval the stone structures had completely collapsed in the earthquake.
In the 1906 earthquake, one-third of the Stanford buildings were damaged significantly. Many of those were buildings built after 1900 because of the change in construction at the time. One staff member and one student were killed that day. After the quake, student enrollment decreased, and it took almost ten years for applications to Stanford to get to the pre-quake levels again.
Gibbs then told the senate a little known fact. "It may be of interest to you to know that the faculty actually received a 60% pay increase to retain them at Stanford." Being pragmatic, Professor Noll asked, if that were true, "Can you all just bring on another earthquake?" (But he didn't really mean it.)
Mr. Gibbs then mentioned some basics. "What would you do if an earthquake struck right now? What's a quick response, anyone? The answer is Duck, Cover, and Hold on…. What you hold on TO is up to you. Remember… duck, cover, and hold. What do you do as faculty if you're in front of a class of students when an earthquake hits? What instructions can you give them? What is your responsibility to the students in your class?"
He then showed a video clip from a classroom taken at U.C. Santa Cruz. The professor was making a point on the blackboard when the shaking of Loma Prieta started. Some students wisely ducked for cover, others ran about the room, others stood in a doorway. The professor was no longer visible…and then the lights went out and the acoustic tile on the ceiling collapsed. Appropriately, no one left the room until the shaking had subsided.
"Put yourself in that position," asked Gibbs. "What would you be doing, both for yourself, your students, and others? And remember, there are all types of different events that have affected campuses through the years, from hurricanes to floods. In 1994 the Northridge earthquake was a major one in Southern California. The college lost the use of every building on their campus, and had to put in 450 trailers on site to resume teaching one month later the 30,000."
He went on to review other disasters, such as the two-day loss of power at Columbia University, the residential fire at Seton Hall in New Jersey that killed three students, tropical storm Alison that flooded the University of Texas medical center at Houston, and of course the destruction of the World Trade Centers and the Gulf Coast flooding. Gibbs emphasized that before this century, few institutions worried about malicious acts causing disaster. Now that danger must be confronted.
"Emergency management," said Mr. Gibbs, "is a continuous process. It starts with identification of risks and then figuring out ways to minimize or mitigate those risks.
The second part is in planning for an earthquake or other disaster and the response and the recovery as well. Those are two different things. Response is the immediate aftermath where we try to focus on the life safety issues. Recovery is getting back to business. How do we get ourselves back into the business of what we're here for, teaching and research?"
Mr. Gibbs went on to describe the seismic retrofitting that has been completed in all the campus buildings, the emergency generators installed for critical high-value research buildings, and the fact that the Board of Trustees voted to install sprinklers in all undergraduate residences. This has been done. In addition to structures, non-structural mitigation projects including business impact analyses that include identification and protection of financial records have been accomplished. This more than ten-year project has cost close to $300 million. He urged all those who run laboratories to sustain the good practices of canister strapping, hazardous fluids protection, and equipment protection that everyone bought into very well in the early 1990s.
He showed slides of the devastation created by Loma Prieta, including a massively toppled office in the old (since torn down and re-built) VA hospital, and the car that had been illegally parked behind the old chemistry building and was crushed by an enormous slab of concrete (is it still there?).
Gibbs reiterated the set of "…guiding principles that we use which are pretty simple but critical. Protecting life safety is our overall guiding principle. Second is securing our infrastructure and our facilities. And then is getting back into business, returning to the teaching and research programs. To implement these, we have written plans at three levels. The highest is the overall campus emergency plan. At each cabinet member level, we have an emergency plan template that we ask all cabinet members and their organizations to fill in and develop. And then we have templates down to the departmental level and lower.
"The command structure is as follows. We have an Emergency Operation Center and an Emergency Management Team to support that Emergency Operation Center centrally for the University. That Emergency Management Team is about 45 to 50 people. Now, that may seem like a lot. But there are two reasons to have that number of people. One is that the emergency may be prolonged, necessitating staggering people in shifts. Second is that you need people that understand the relative roles in each position, establishing essential redundancy.
"For each campus building we have Emergency Assembly Points. Every building on this campus has an EAP assigned to it that's outside the building. That's the collection point for everyone from that building. The building assessment teams are also extremely important. The building assessment teams are 650 individuals that have volunteered. They take certain types of training to be able to evaluate from the exterior of the building its status. Should it be closed or not? This is based on an exterior evaluation only. This is very important, because we have about 800 buildings on campus, and in an emergency of a severe earthquake, we don't know which, if any, of those buildings are structurally sound.
"We have three 'trigger levels' of emergencies. The first is a local and contained mishap. The second is a more serious event. If it's a hazardous material spill, Environmental Health and Safety will respond. If it's a safety issue, the police will respond. The third level is a disaster level. If you have an earthquake, it's pretty well known that we have a major emergency, and the entire campus and surrounding community is aware of it; that calls for activation of our full emergency plan.
"Where we would have a problem is level two, and that's a major emergency that disrupts only a portion of the campus. And in that case, we created what's called a situation triage and assessment team, or the STAT. And this is for level two emergencies. The STAT team responds fairly quickly. We are now able to quickly assess the situation, bring campus resources to it if it's needed, and bring in other units as they're needed.
The other thing that the STAT team can do is elevate to a full campus-wide emergency. After 9/11, you may remember, we had 'white powder' incidents and things on campus that actually required some level of response. The STAT team was very useful in those types of cases.
"The other element that we have is Satellite Operation Centers. There are 25 of these. They include each of the schools, the President/Provost's office, and many other centers such as the Libraries, Athletics, the Hoover Institution, and the Stanford Management Company. Each of these has well-established programs, procedures, and plans of actions for most emergencies."
Gibbs encouraged each senator to go back to his or her school and ask, "Where is our satellite operation center? What is it? What does it consist of?" That will be the resource center in emergencies. The satellite operation centers must create their own departmental preparedness plans, response, and recovery plans. Not having enough information to make decisions on where priorities for resources are going to go can be disastrous.
Gibbs noted that "The Emergency Operation Center we currently use is at the Faculty Club. This was intended to be an interim Emergency Operation Center. It was chosen at the time simply because it's central to the campus, it has no predetermined use in an emergency, so that we can throw out anyone who is there. It has sleeping rooms and it has a big wine cellar, which is nice; we can break into if we need to! (was he kidding?). We currently are establishing a site for a permanent EOC. It will probably be close to the offices of Public Safety.
"The Policy Group is the president and the provost and a number of others. It has the ultimate responsibility for setting directions, setting policies. All the important elements of response go through the Policy Group.
"As for priorities," said Gibbs, "buildings that are used by dependent populations are our first priority. These include student housing, child care centers, and other occupied special event centers, both for response and also for recovery. Buildings critical to the health, safety, and sustaining the emergency response are also important. We have to be able to support the response effort. If we can't do that, we'll have another disaster. Next come research and classroom buildings, administrative buildings, and then the myriad of other structures that don't fall into any of those other categories."
Mr. Gibbs emphasized that his office tests the full program annually, using a four-hour exercise that is very extensive. The next one will be April 6th, focusing on recovery after a disaster. An example what did not work because of inadequate planning is what has happened at Tulane University after the disastrous aftermath of Katrina. He emphasized that teams of trained volunteers are being formed to support the efforts of full time employees. Gibbs noted, "As Laura Wilson has said, she has a very limited staff in an emergency with need to guard several hundred buildings. There's just no staff to prevent people from going in. So we're trying to recruit volunteers for these different types of teams, medical assistants, and specialized skills. Faculty can bring these specialized skills.
"Another major program need we have is our medical response. If we have a regional disaster, the hospitals cannot provide priority to people from Stanford. They're a regional intake center. Their response is going to be based on need. We are trying to develop the ability to help mitigate that by providing an onsite disaster medical plan. It is still being developed. Vaden Health Center, under the direction of Dr. Friedman, is the center of the system, but we're going to need some significant support to help in developing it. A disaster plan for an infectious pandemic will be focused here. Dr. David Relman will be very much involved."
Mr. Gibbs handed out a pocket card for information for the faculty, staff, and students and their families in the event of a disaster. "One of the biggest things," he emphasized, "is to have an out-of-area contact. The first thing that crashes in an emergency is phone lines. Either they don't work or they're overwhelmed. We urge everyone to find contacts from out of the area. Call them and direct everybody ahead of time to call them for the information." He noted that the emergency assembly point symbol were on gray posts around campus. Outside every campus building there's an emergency assembly point. The students in residences know where they are from the residence. But when they're in classrooms, they may not know where the emergency assembly points are.
Mr. Gibbs pointed out the mantra for use in emergency planning. "You know, if you can't do the small stuff, you cannot do the big stuff. If you can do the small stuff, you still may not be able to do the big stuff. But, if you can do the big stuff, you can probably do the small stuff! Applied to the topic of today, if we can handle the big disasters, we can probably handle the day-to-day ones quite well as well."
Although the presentation had taken more than the allotted time, Chairman Roberts graciously allowed time for questions and discussion.
Vice Provost Bravman asked a question. "Larry, in one of those pictures of the fallen cylinders in Loma Prieta, it looked like they had been properly restrained and the wall mounts ripped out of the wall."
Mr. Gibbs said, "Yes, but those were fiber restraints. We're not sure whether they came out of the wall or whether they had the old clamps on the bench top. Now it requires a metal double restraint as well."
Bravman continued his questions. "As I recall, the bookshelves in Jackson library and the business school were earthquake-braced but nonetheless 'dominoed'. In all of the retro work, has the earlier work been upgraded?"
Gibbs answered, "Not at this point. That's part of what we're looking at. We've done some evaluation. But you should know that in surveys done by Land and Building we found that after a quake the research environment could expect an impact that could be 20% of the annual sponsored research budget, just from loss of equipment and loss of use of space for a certain length of time is at risk. One of our major initiatives over the coming year is to look much more closely at nonstructural mitigation to try to minimize some of that risk."
Professor Noll inquired, "You didn't mention anything about advanced warning systems for earthquakes. Everything was 'after the impact'. Yet as time progresses, the predictability of these things is increasing. Do you have plans for what we might call 'weak probabilistic advance information', where you know the probability of an event that's higher than historical background noise?"
Mr. Gibbs admitted that this had not been closely examined for possible use by Stanford.
Noll followed up. "The bottom line is that those who have studied this say that about 80% of the human cost of disasters can be avoided through making use of this advanced warning system."
Professor Luis Fraga asked, "What is the nature of the safety training provided to our largely Spanish-speaking personnel who clean the offices and work for American Building Maintenance in case a disaster occurs at night?"
Larry Gibbs agreed. "That's a very good question as well. I know that the management of the company does some of this. I don't know how much they do. They do training on a number of things for nonstructural and non-seismic components. But I'm not sure what they do on the seismic aspects. We'll follow up on that as well. Thank you. That's a good point."
Professor Eaton added a comment and a question. When one watches the disasters around the country, there seem to be a few things that stick out. No one has water to drink and they are pleading to the National Guard. Buildings are collapsed and everybody wishes they had a backhoe, and brave souls from somewhere load their backhoe on a truck and drive to the place. And no one can find anyone. I'm wondering if we've thought about those things and have dealt with them in our disaster plan? Is there a consistent way, for example, that we could find out where people are when we can't find them after a disaster?
Mr. Gibbs agreed that "These are dilemmas. As for the water, we have done something. We've increased our emergency water supply. We have tried to go from three days to five days of water. The last item you mentioned is a real dilemma. How do we account for people? We have no systematic process for this. I'm not sure how you do it. We are relying right now on the Satellite Operation Centers and others to develop their systems for doing some of that, then providing the information to the central system to account against the registrar's office for students, our human resources for staff and faculty. Is there an organized mechanism for this? Not that we're aware of. We don't even know who's on campus and who's away. That's usually very localized information. So we believe a lot of this has to be managed locally."
Dean Long asked, "If the phones fail, what other ways are there of communicating to the outside?"
Larry Gibbs replied. "This depends whether the whole Internet is down, which is another mode of communication. We have a few satellite phones, not many. And those are not failsafe, either, just so everyone is aware of that. The communications to the outside are very limited when there's a total systems failure, at least in the immediate aftermath."
Keith Perry chimed in. "What we attempt to put in place is redundancy. So beyond the phones, the other systems that are available are, one, the Internet; two, ham radio systems; three, satellite phone systems. What we hope is that at least one of them will work. But the idea is to have as many redundant systems as possible. We hope that they won't all fail simultaneously.
Professor Osheroff was not satisfied. "I hear what you just said. But, in fact, I don't know what has been done. And I think that's what Sharon and I are interested in. So, for instance, how many ham radios are there on campus?"
Mr. Perry said, "There are ham radios in public safety, and several of the satellite operations have invested in ham radios. There is an active ham radio club on campus that has committed to supporting the ham radio systems that do exist on campus for communicating amongst the SOC and the EOC and from the EOC to the campus."
President Hennessy helped at this point. "You probably want to mention, Larry, that you also have an inter-institutional agreement to mount a Web site in the event that any one of the universities has a disaster. This is one of the things that was not in place for Tulane, for example, that then had to be created, but it took another day or so to get it up because there was no agreement in place to do it. We have that agreement. We would be able to get a Web site up and functioning that would be able to be used as a contact point."
Chairman Roberts thanked Larry Gibbs, who received enthusiastic applause.
VI. and VII. Unfinished and New BusinessNone of either surfaced from the senators who had heard enough about disasters.
VIII. AdjournmentThis happened by acclaim at 4:46 pm.
Respectfully submitted,Edward D. Harris, Jr. M.D.Academic Secretary to the University