Stanford Report, March 15, 2006

Cardinal Chronicle

BY MICHAEL PEÑA

The Office of Public Affairs is lining up organizations that faculty, staff and alumni can volunteer for on Stanford's first Community Partnership Day, to be held Friday, April 28. Under the new program's "release time" policy, staffers will be for eligible for up to four hours of their regular salary if the time is spent volunteering, based on supervisor approval. In order to receive the benefit, employees must volunteer with one of the many recognized organizations. A few of them are Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic, the Ecumenical Hunger Program, the City of Mountain View, Urban Ministry, Second Harvest Food Bank, Re-Building Together, Magic and the Community Breast Health Project. A website for signing up is expected to go live this month at http://communityday.stanford.edu/.

The historic Gold Spike, which was tapped into place by Leland Stanford during a ceremony in 1869 for the connecting of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific rails, was recently escorted by campus police to the airport. The spike was flown to Texas, where it is now on loan at the George (H. W.) Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station. The webpage for its exhibit, "Trains: Tracks of the Iron Horse," prominently mentions the shining spike, which symbolized the final link in the nation's first transcontinental railroad. Made of 17.6 carat gold alloyed with copper, the spike is 5.6 inches long and weighs about 15 ounces. It is permanently housed at the Cantor Arts Center and will be back on display in early April.

For those who commute from the East Bay, here's one way to save time and money: the Berkeley/Palo Alto Van Pool. It departs from Berkeley's Ashby Avenue BART station at 6:20 a.m. and arrives on campus at 7:15 a.m., and then heads home at 4 p.m. LINDA HENEGHAN, a pediatrics facilities manager in the School of Medicine, has been in the vanpool for five years and claims it is one of Stanford's longest running rideshares. A few of the van's 10 seats are vacant. But when all are filled, riders pay $180 a month, which Heneghan figures is still hundreds of dollars less than a solo driver would spend monthly on gas, bridge tolls, parking and car maintenance. She said another benefit is that using the carpool lane helps shave about an hour off a roundtrip commute. Their website is http://berkeleyvan.stanford.edu/.