Faculty Senate minutes - March 9, 2006 meeting

It was a cold and blustery day. "How can it be so cold when we are paying all this money to live in an ideal climate?" one senator mumbled. He had forgotten to wear a jacket. Chairman Eric Roberts called "…this last meeting of the Senate for winter quarter to order and thanked each of you who were able to get here. There are relatively few of us, but we have crossed the quorum threshold. It's always hard at the end of a quarter. We're always racing towards the end. It's been a tiring time."

"Those minutes were distributed via E-mail," said Roberts. "And even though it's been a month since that day, I hope that you've had a chance to not only think about the minutes, but to remember the discussions as well. Are there any additions or corrections to the minutes?" There were none, and by unanimous acclaim, the minutes were approved.

A. Memorial Resolutions

There were two memorial statements prepared for today.

Jan F. Triska (1922-2003) The Chair welcomed "…Professor David Holloway to come forward and present a brief memorial statement in honor of his colleague, Jan Triska, Professor emeritus of History." Professor Holloway came to the front and began. "Jan Triska, Professor emeritus of Political Science, died on February the 20th, 2003, at the age of 81. Jan Triska left Czechoslovakia in his mid-20s after the communist seizure of power in 1948. He earned his JSD at Yale Law School and his Ph.D. in government at Harvard. He taught at Stanford in the Department of Political Science from 1960 until his retirement in 1989. He was a devoted teacher and a serious and innovative scholar. His work dealt with international law, international relations, the politics of communism, and Soviet foreign policy.

After the Velvet Revolution of 1989, he played a role in the restructuring of higher education and legal institutions in Czechoslovakia. In 2002, he received the Czech Republic's Medal of Merit First Class from Professor Vakslav Havel for his services to the state.

Mr. Chairman, I have the honor on behalf of a committee consisting of Michael McFaul and myself to lay before the Senate of the Academic Council a resolution in memory of the late Jan Triska, Professor of Political Science in the School of Humanities & Sciences."

After the Senate stood for twenty seconds of silence, Chairman Roberts said, "…the Senate wants to thank both Professor Holloway and the committee for that resolution. Next, we have Professor Myra Strober, who will present a brief memorial statement in honor of her colleague, Elizabeth Cohen, Professor emerita of Education. Again, the full text of this resolution was included in the Senate packets and will be published in the Stanford Report on March 15th."

Elizabeth G. Cohen (1932-2005) Professor Strober began. "Elizabeth G. Cohen, emerita, of Education, died of cancer on March 12, 2005, at her campus home. Cohen joined the Stanford faculty in 1966 and became full professor in 1975. In 1979, she became the founding director of the Program in Complex Instruction, a ground-breaking pedagogy that applies sociological theory to promote racial, gender, and ethnic equity in the classroom. She directed that program until her retirement in 1999. From the start of her career, Cohen had the conviction that theories of sociology had meaning for education. One of her most important professional contributions has been the application of sociological theories, expectation states theory, and organization theory to the social organization of classrooms and schools. Cohen used sociological theories to champion academic success for all children. Her view was that success for all learners can be achieved only by teachers who maintain an academically rigorous, grade-appropriate curriculum and know how to work with ethnically, racially, and socially diverse classrooms. Cohen cared deeply about gender equity. She faced discrimination when she sought to enter Harvard for a doctoral degree and again when she applied for faculty position at Stanford. But she prevailed at both institutions.

Cohen was one of the first women to become a full professor at the School of Education. As she herself put it in a 1977 interview, 'I had to prove a woman could raise kids and do a full share.'

Although Cohen's work was internationally known and she traveled widely, she always made time for family, students, colleagues, yoga, and her garden. She was an untiring mentor and greatly beloved by her doctoral students. At a time when few women had succeeded in academia, the way she lived her life demonstrated clearly that a woman could thrive in a high-powered job and simultaneously retain her humanity and her generosity.

Mr. Chairman, it is an honor on behalf of a committee consisting of Rachel Lotan, David B. Tyack, and myself, to lay before the Senate of the Academic Council a statement in memory of the late Elizabeth G. Cohen, Professor of Education in the School of Education."

Chairman Roberts thanked Professor Strober and asked the senators to stand for a period of silence.

B. Steering Committee

"First of all," said Roberts, "this is the final meeting of the winter quarter of the Senate. Moreover, as has been the case for many years, the first meeting in Spring Quarter will be canceled. [Senators were pleased] We may, however, need an additional meeting later in the spring, and it will be scheduled on the intervening Thursday afternoon. [Senators were less than pleased] The first meeting of Spring Quarter, therefore, is April 20th. And at that meeting we have the new Dean of Admissions, Rick Shaw, [that, really, is his name] who will presumably have been able to climb out a little bit of his overwhelming task with the number of students applying to Stanford so much increased this year. We will receive a report not only on the admissions process for this year, but hear of the vision that he has for moving the Admissions Office forward in the future. That meeting will adjourn early to the annual meeting of the Academic Council, over which John Hennessy will preside.

"We are working on the agenda for the remaining spring quarter meetings. Several items have been scheduled including the report on the status of women faculty and faculty gains and losses, the Provost's annual budget report, and a report from the Diversity Action Committee.

"I also wanted to say that just as a report from the activities that I, as Senate Chair, have taken up in the last month since we had our last meeting, I was invited to, and was able to attend, the presentation by the ASSU President on the state of the ASSU. One of the things that I've been interested in doing is working closely with the students to try to see whether we could find common ground as much as possible to work together. I was excited and am happy to report that the state of the ASSU seems to be strong, that we have a group of committed students working very hard on both the undergraduate side of the ASSU and the Graduate Student Council. There does not seem to be any of the issues that sometimes plague faculties when students and faculty don't have the opportunity to get together. I think we've worked together and the communications that we've established this year have worked well. I thank Jenny Allen for being here to represent the students.

"Another item. The Academic Secretary, Ted Harris, reports that with the support of the Provost and the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, the long-awaited online election for the Senate and Advisory Board has arrived. Voting online began on Monday, February 27th, and to date, 538 votes have been cast in the Senate election, 42% of the Academic Council. We need more of the faculty to vote. Please urge your colleagues to get on line and do it! Since so many of them are spending most of their time on their computers anyway, it should be no problem.

Professor Boyd wisely interrupted. "Eric, are you suggesting that we should vote again?"

"Early and often!" muttered the Academic Secretary.

Chairman Roberts added, "And, if you are able to vote again, then there's, indeed, something wrong with the process and we would like to know that. I will note that the last item in my notes for today on this subject is to ask you for feedback about the new online elections. As welcomed by the Academic Secretary, if multiple votes are one of those pieces of feedback, by all means, let us know. We think that the election has been well-publicized, and certainly Ted has been vigilant in sending out reminders and providing the link for submitting votes. The phase of the election for Senate 39 and faculty in two groups include H & S Natural Sciences and the group that combines the Graduate School of Business, School of Education, and the Law School. Those groups are also nominating candidates for the Advisory Board. As always, the Advisory Board election takes place in two rounds. The first-round elections are followed later by the second round, in which all of the faculty may vote, and by the election of a Chair and Steering Committee for which the members of Senate 39 will vote.

"So, I certainly add my comments to Ted's. I urge all of the members of the faculty to vote… once. Our participation strengthens Stanford's faculty governance system. And I know that Ted also took the trouble to circulate among the faculty the article from the Boston Globe noting that in the wake of Harvard's rather traumatic couple of recent weeks, that university is considering the adoption of a faculty senate, and the model that seems to be the most appropriate for their consideration is, indeed, the one at Stanford. We have to show them that we can continue to do a good job and that maybe we can avoid some of those rather horrible problems on our side. [President Hennessy smiled wryly at that comment.] I'll have a little bit more to say about that as the meeting goes on.

"There is one piece of reporting business that needs to come from our meeting at the Steering Committee that does not require Senate action. The Dean of the Earth Sciences has asked not to renew the individually designed majors program in the School of Earth Sciences. The School has realized that the students can be covered by the range of departmental offerings that they have already."

C. Committee on Committees

Sheri Sheppard, Chair of CoC was quick to answer, "We're busy populating committees. So stay tuned. That's it." She seemed very confident that the committee's actions would be completed soon.

D. Provost and President

The Chair noted, "The Provost is away today. President Hennessy, do you have a report or an announcement?" Hennessy said, "I have no reports, no announcements. But I'd be happy to answer any questions." A strange silence settled over the Senate. No questions? Is everything at Stanford just perfect? A missed opportunity!

Chairman Roberts said, "Hearing none, we then can move on to the business of today."

A. Committee on Graduate Studies: A recommendation to convert Interdisciplinary Programs in Epidemiology and Health Services Research to departmental programs within Health Research and Policy (SenD#5806 and SenD#5807)

Chairman Roberts introduced this proposal. "The first report in the items for general business is from the Committee on Graduate Studies. There are two recommendations which the Steering Committee has chosen to combine into a single presentation here at the Senate because the questions that come up in response to each of them were so similar that we thought it was better to offer a single block of time for the discussion of the two resolutions together and then to vote on them individually."

Chairman Roberts welcomed Professor Sylvia Yanagisako, the chair of C-GS, to present the committee's recommendations.

"As Eric pointed out," said Professor Yanagisako, "these are two recommendations from the Committee on Graduate Studies to convert two existing interdepart-mental programs in the School of Medicine that are departmental degree programs within the Department of Health Research and Policy in the School of Medicine. Both of those are masters of science programs; the first, as you said, is in epidemiology; the second is in health services research. Both are for masters degrees.

"We have some guests here that I should point to who will be very useful in helping me to answer questions. They are, Philip Lavori, who is the chair of the Department of Health Research and Policy, in which the two programs will exist. We also have Dr. Ariagno the head of the review committee, Ellen Porzig, associate dean at the School of Medicine, and Dean Philip Pizzo.

"In the three years since Epidemiology was last reviewed, it has solidified its strengths as a small program focused on clinical aspects of epidemiology. I think it's clear from the documents that this is a program that has a primary goal of training medical students and physicians in research methodologies to strengthen their clinical research. Following the recommendation of the review committee, headed by Dr. Ariagno, Dean Pizzo requested that the IDP in Epidemiology be converted into a departmental program to be housed in this Department of Health Research and Policy.

"As most of you know, of course, the conversion of an IDP into a departmental program means that it will be approved without limit of time. C-GS looked at this very seriously and concluded that this was a positive move for the training of the Master of Science students in Epidemiology, because we felt that this would provide it with a better administrative structure. The department will take ownership of the program and will be responsible for providing it with adequate resources.

"I should point out that the core faculty who teach in the Epidemiology program have always been in the Department of Health Research and Policy. There is also already a division of Epidemiology within that department. I want also to make it clear that up until now, the Department of Health Research and Policy has not been the degree-granting entity. So it would not have been possible to simply fold the Epidemiology degree program into an existing degree program in that department.

"The second recommendation parallels the first. It is the Masters of Sciences Interdisciplinary program in Health Services Research. And, again, we have the same people who are relevant to that. But we also have Dr. Mark Hlatky, who is the director of the IDP in Health Services Research. As in the previous case, this degree program has focused in recent years on training physicians and medical students in research methodologies that support clinical decision-making. Dean Pizzo requested that the IDP program in Health Services Research be converted into a departmental program, also to be housed in the Department of Health Research and Policy. Again, C-GS concluded that this was a positive move for the training of the Masters of Science students. This is for the same reasons: to strengthen the administrative support for these programs, and to assure them greater curricular and faculty resources. C-GS recommends that the IDP in Health Services Research be converted into a departmental program to exist without limit of time within the Department of Health Research and Policy, which will have the authority to nominate candidates for the Masters of Science degree in Health Services Research.

Chairman Roberts asked for additional comments from the guests present. Professor Porzig congratulated C-GS for its thorough review. Professor Ariagno thanked her for that and re-echoed some of the same important points. "The committee," he said, "had the independence to review all of the materials. The report is quite robust and really describes two very important programs that have been part of our curriculum for some time. We recognized the importance of them to the medical school and how both are part of the underpinning of our commitment to translational clinical research. We felt that this is a very important charge and took it very seriously. And our report comes to you with that robustness."

Professor Lavori could say, "Thank you. I just want to add my thanks to the committee and to Dean Porzig for the thoroughness of this review. It was very helpful to me as the new chair coming in."

Professor Hlatky added, "…one small thing. The program in Health Services Research actually predates the department formation by some 20 years. And I must say that we've had a solid departmental home in the School of Medicine. I think it's an excellent home for us."

Dean Pizzo added, "Again, thank you all for the comments. Over the last two to three years, since the last review, we have been putting resources into the department to further build the faculty excellence in Epidemiology, and will be doing similarly for Health Services Research as well."

Before opening the discussion to general comments, Chairman Roberts, said, "I'd like to reprise some of the discussion that went on in the Steering Committee about this, because I think it may be helpful to senators just to get a sense of what we've already covered and the way that we've come to think about this. For most of us in the University, the idea of degree 'programs' within departments is a little unusual. Moreover, we're trying very hard in the University in these days to make more interdisciplinary connections across school boundaries whenever that's possible. And so we were wondering in the Steering Committee to what extent this recommendation might seem to be moving in a different direction.

"The way that we looked at this — and we had the chance to talk with Sylvia and to look very carefully at the materials — is that there are several things that are going on here. One, as Sylvia pointed out, is that this has not been a department that has had degree-granting authority. This is normal operating procedure for the School of Medicine, and for those of us who came from other parts of the University, it was very important to know that.

"I think the more interesting idea, the more important thought to bring forward, the idea that one needs to be able to move medicine in an interdisciplinary direction to make connections to many other sciences, to expand on the basis that science is now driving so many more capabilities in medicine than heretofore, and that this expansiveness has created space within the departments for things that formerly might have had to be interdisciplinary programs.

"One of the thoughts that came out of the Steering Committee was that, in fact, this is probably a good thing, and that it would be nice if more of our inter-disciplinary programs eventually found that the world had changed. We came away from the Steering Committee thinking of this as an indication of success in that changed climate that the Medical School now finds itself in."

Questions and Discussion

Professor Lunsford asked for a clarification, wondering if the decision not to offer a Ph.D. degree nomination was appropriate. Dean Pizzo and others agreed that for now, this masters program was needed and essential. Pizzo said, "It's also a timing issue. We felt that we were not ready to have a request for a Ph.D. program." This was not to say it could not be developed in the future.

Professor Noll said, amidst laughter, "I would never, ever, ever vote against a broad majority, so I'm not against it. I'm not against the proposal. But there were some things about the report that I didn't fully understand and perhaps it can be explained to me.

One was the statement under both of these proposals that the programs were now going to be aimed at either medical students or physicians who are postdocs in certain programs. I know that, on some occasions, people from other places have either done co-terms or straight masters in these programs in the past, and, in particular, in Epidemiology. I can't see any reasons why a statistics Ph.D. student should be denied entry into this program. Health Research and Policy is a similar case. People who are getting MBAs, who think their future is going to be in managing health care institutions, might want co-degrees. And I know Mark has had some undergraduates, basically, go on and do masters. In addition, in recent Senate meetings we approved this new Masters in Medicine program, a sort of 'baby M.D.' program for those who wanted to learn about what clinical medicine was all about without training to be a physician. Why in the world wouldn't they be candidates for either one of these masters programs?

Professor Hlatky responded. "HRP has always been a very small program, and we have in the past taken highly qualified students who are neither physicians nor physicians in training in the med school, and they've actually done quite well. We are not foreclosing that possibility. It happens to be that most of the people who are in the program are M.D.s or medical students. But that's not to say that we wouldn't welcome applicants from other areas."

Dean Pizzo agreed, and said, "I think we should be proactive about this, and should state that positively for the right reasons you just reported. I agree with those reasons."

Dean Long emphasized that this concept of moving a mature program into a department could be a very good idea. "You can sometimes make something interdisciplinary even more interdisciplinary by putting it in a department, because departments evolve, just as the intersections of fields evolve. I also really appreciated the way in which the review committee talked about how the evolution of the faculty in the program, looking at where the faculty are now, who the faculty who are teaching in the program, and what is the most appropriate fit for the interdisciplinary of today. I think that was a great strength of the report."

Dean Pizzo came back to the comment of Roger Noll. "One important thing for the Senate to know is that as a consequence of the approval that took place in tandem with the application that Professor Barres put forward several months ago, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute has awarded funding for that Masters in Medicine program, which was one of our goals as we developed it."

In response to a query by Professor Feldman about how much specialty training (e.g., genetics or infectious diseases) participants in the epidemiology program would have, Professors Lavori and Hlatky pointed out that, depending on specific interests of students, they would take electives in one or more fields to give them more depth of knowledge.

Chairman Roberts called for the vote, and the motion that was moved and seconded by the Committee on Graduate Studies to convert the interdisciplinary program in Epidemiology to a program within the department of Health Policy and Research, and to authorize it to nominate candidates for the Masters of Science effective September 1, 2006, without limit of time, was approved unanimously. Similarly, the C-GS recommendation to convert the interdisciplinary program in Health Services Research to a program within the department of Health Policy and Research and authorize it to nominate candidates for the Masters of Science degree effective September 1, 2006, without limit of time was approved unanimously.

Chairman Roberts added, "I'd very much like to thank Sylvia for bringing this to the Steering Committee and to the Senate with so much background, and thanks to everyone on the review committee who worked on it. Thank you!"

B. Discussion of Public Affairs - David Demarest, Vice President for Public Affairs

Chairman Roberts noted that the Senate does hears reports periodically from the person who has occupied David's position, and that now was a particularly appropriate time, having seen very recently the case of a university dealing rather discordantly with a very serious public relations issue. Roberts said, "It has been a public relations disaster on both ends of the position that Larry Summers took to resign, both because it mobilized the institution and focused energy in the press and everywhere else on something that was tangential to the educational mission. In addition, we've seen in the aftermath an enormous assault, often partisan, on the University and on its faculty. And that has had a very negative coloration. When-ever a university is put into that kind of position, I think it's very important that we be able to understand how we can respond more effectively, both how we can insulate ourselves against some of the dangers that can arise from a too hastily prepared public relations response, and as we discussed at the Steering Committee meeting, so that we can move proactively and positively to insure that the kind of message that Stanford ought to be generating for the public these days gets out there.

"I did want to share with you, as I shared with the President just before the meeting, that yesterday, I received a fax from an alumnus who wants me, the Senate chair, '…to do something about this general disenchantment of alums…' of this person's vintage [we inferred older] '…with the flagrant left-wing bias of Stanford's faculty and administrators, and all of the anti-free market, anti-capitalism, and anti-America policies that are currently going on at Stanford!' He enclosed the review of David Horowitz's book, The Professors. This is the kind of thing that seems to be part of that increasingly politicized partisan battle that's afoot in our nation. I realized that I had no idea how to respond to this. But the President told me that there's a standard form that goes out to alumni like this. That's useful to know."

President Hennessy laughed, and assured the Senate, "It's not a form, exactly…"

Roberts accepted that and continued. "The point is that there are resources upon which I can draw so that I'm not entirely alone in phrasing a response from the Senate. I bet that most of us are in the position of having an obligation and a responsibility to make comments upon what we do as public intellectuals. Those of us who are in the sciences, for example, must take a stand against some of the anti-science bias that we're seeing in the culture. In order to be armed with the tools that we need to do that it's really important for us to understand how public relations work. The Steering Committee has asked David to make a particularly short presentation in order to leave as much possible time for questions. And I certainly encourage you to have the same kind of wonderful dialogue that we did in the Steering Committee."

Vice President Demarest took the floor, his PowerPoint remote in hand. "Thank you so much for that lead-in. I think some of the issues that you described at Harvard will at some point be written about in a case study format in terms of how that whole issue evolved in the public relations context. At my first Board of Trustees meeting a little over a year ago I was at the Board committee that oversees public relations and public affairs, the Alumni and External Affairs Committee. I really knew so little about Stanford at that point, being only three weeks on the job. But the first question to me was, "What would you be doing if you were handling this responsibility for a president that was in the news on the East Coast?" I thought for a while, and then said, "Updating my resumé!"

After the laughter settled, he continued. "I'm going to breeze through this really quite quickly and then get to a little bit more of an exchange about how our office, the Office of Public Affairs, can help in what you do. Our mission is to advance and defend the University's reputation…and in so doing, assist in whatever way we can to help the University achieve its objectives of teaching, learning, and research. Please remember that a reputation is a living, breathing notion. And reputations that don't move forward can't stand still. They tend to slip back. There's a lot of noise in the environment. And the thing to remember about a reputation is that it is not what we think of ourselves; it is what others think of us."

He outlined the structure of the Public Affairs offices.

University Communications includes media relations, the News Service, the Stanford Report and the Stanford home web page.

Government and Community Relations that is involved with interactions with federal and state offices and local town-gown relationships as well as large organizations such as the AAU.

University Events handles Commencement, visits of dignitaries such as that of the Dalai Lama, organization of the Aurora Forum, and so forth.

Lively Arts. He had not expected to have this under his wing, but has enjoyed it very much.

One little-appreciated function is the research that his office does to inform public affairs strategies about key constituencies, and includes surveys of alumni, admissions, Stanford parents, and the surrounding communities.

Risks Management is an important function of Public Affairs. "All organizations have risks," he emphasized, "and they can come in lots of different shapes and sizes. They can be financial, reputation, or legal risks. Smart organizations do not try to eliminate risks; instead, they manage risks. The ways you manage risks are by identifying them, prioritizing them, and then putting in place ways to mitigate those risks." He outlined a number of hypothetical "What ifs….", pointing out that although each seemed quite different from the others, the "storyline factors" are often similar and include:

Drama and conflict

Third party stakeholders with agendas

Human interest dimension

Donor, alumni, student, faculty, and community effects

Media champion - one particular reporter can have a positive or negative influence for Stanford

"Pedestal phenomenon." When you are good, you are put on a pedestal, and everyone notices when you fall off. He pointed to Bode Miller's literal and figurative falls from his pedestal after his failures at the Turin Olympics.

The interactive website for University-wide communications professionals provides them with up-to-date tools such as:

Risk assessment tools to help rank priorities of issues

A roster of key contacts

Issue-by-issue background information and FAQs about them

Links - to provide additional knowledge and context

As an example of Public Affairs role in government relations he referred to the declining federal budget for non-DoD research for NSF, DoE, EPA, USDA, Commerce, Interior, and NIH over the next three years. Demarest noted, "I think it's safe to say that there was a fair amount of pessimism as to how we could reverse this particular trend because of the big budget deficits. How are you going to fight for that money in the face of those budget deficits and competing budget priorities? There really wasn't a coordinated and comprehensive advocacy approach to making this a central issue either for the administration or the Congress." At this point he asked Ryan Adesnik, the federal relations person in Public Affairs to chime in with some history. Mr. Adesnik said, "…it was kind of the perfect storm for advocacy when the Tom Friedman book (The World is Flat) caught hold and people starting work on new metrics on how competing economies were reinvigorating their investment in the science accounts." Demarest came back online. "We set this as a priority. In any kind of federal relations effort, you've got to know what you want. And we knew that this was an important priority for this university. In the context of Washington relations, there are three pieces to manage. How do you present the case? What coalitions are you going to be involved with? How are you going to advocate the case? It's really about messaging, coalitions, and advocacy." He emphasized the coalitions that the University set up, with other university groups, professional societies, and industry that, acting in unison, created a formidable effect in Washington. "Third parties," such as Governor Schwarzenegger, were used, and the internal constituencies were informed through the Stanford Report and Stanford Magazine. The result has been positive. Competitiveness was a significant element in the President's State of the Union address, and, he said, "There are some promising signs that the decline in federal research commitment can be reversed. The budget for defense research and physical sciences, will double over the next ten years. There's legislation pending in both houses to authorize those increases. Yes, challenges are still out there. NIH budget is flat… we've still got a lot of work to do regarding the NIH. There's the earmarking issue, achieving Congressional implementation of science proposals, still in the face of massive competing priorities. That's still going to be a challenge. And we've just got to keep on it. The key has been developing thoughtful strategic planning in the context of solid understanding of the political landscape. This has been a two-year process, if not more. And it's probably going to go on for another several years. It really has to do with building relationships, and having long-term strategies that help you develop credibility with the people that are important, in this case, the legislators and administrators in Washington, D.C. In Washington, facts really do mean something. I think the way we presented the facts was important."

Demarest ended with rhetorical questions, "How can we help? We have great stories to tell. Do we need more conversations between our office and faculty about legislative and communications activities? How do we distribute information? How do you get your information? What kind of information is important to you that we might be able to provide? Is it about news coverage and analysis? Is it background information? What about media training and preparation? Finally, we've got a lot of government officials who either speak here or meet with people here. How do we leverage those in the best way?"

Before moving to questions and discussion, Chairman Roberts asked Demarest to introduce his colleagues in the back row. "There's Larry Horton, who is in charge of our Government Relations operation; Alan Acosta, who runs University Communications; Ryan Adesnik, who handles Government Affairs; Jean McCown, who does our Community Relations and Local Government Relations; Elaine Ray, who's head of the News Service; and John Sanford, who is the editor of Stanford Report. And I think I saw Mark Gonnerman. Mark runs, as many of you know, the Aurora Forum, which is part of public affairs now."

Questions and Discussion

John Bender said, "Our Chair used the words 'public intellectuals.' And I notice that you mentioned that sometimes when people in media want to talk with an expert here they come to you. Is there an opportunity, particularly for those of us in humanities to have a more formal mechanism, a speakers bureau, if you will, a conduit for anyone who wants a talk or a seminar to be in touch with an office, an officer, a web site, you name it, to find voices here at Stanford who could go out into the world and explain what we do, why it's good? And it seems to me that's the best way for all of us to build the reputation of the University in the world outside our walls. We need the help of people like you."

Vice President Demarest agreed that establishment of a speakers' bureau in the humanities would be a good idea, and something that would have to be generated at the level of the Dean's office with the help of his people. "But," he added, "the other part of your comment is really more of a 'push' communications process, where you're trying to get information out. That's more complicated, from a public relations standpoint. A lot of it has to do with people like myself and others in the communications team getting out there and knowing what the stories are that we can promote. Part of that we do already through the News Service and the Stanford Report. There are some good stories, particularly about the humanities, in the last couple of issues of the Stanford Report. But there's more to it than that. You can't just send a reporter a couple of issues of the Stanford Report. That will not work. You have to be able to take something in the Stanford Report, reduce it down to a story line, and then put it out into the reporter network and see if somebody bites."

Professor Stefanick focused on the need for faculty to learn about visitors who come to the campus. "Often we do not realize that they were here. Is there a bulletin board that could be created to help with this exchange of information?"

Demarest admitted that Stanford lacked a "master calendar" that would list all events, lectures, visiting professors, etc. "…with enough lead time that our office could actually do something about it. I mean take advantage of it. If there is a conference that is going on about a particular issue and I have only two days notice, there's not a lot that any of my team can do to leverage that at the last minute. That's something that is on my list of 'to-dos', to figure out a way to capture that information and then get it to people in a way that people can actually use it. The 'visitor issue' is a little more complex. What kinds of visitors? We could categorize. You could say members of Congress. You could say key reporters. But, clearly, there are going to be so many visitors that I'm not sure how I would capture the information and then make sure that it got to the right people."

Professor Kirst "… was trying to figure out how you can help. I work both in Washington and Sacramento and have some sense of this. And when I or my col-leagues prepare grants we basically build into the budget some amount of money for a public relations firm to help us. They write the press release, and they help us write a short report, and they contact the media and people that would be interested in this. And then they route the phone calls back to us when it is released. It seems to me that in all the years since I've been here, since 1969, I've never heard from your office of any guidelines about how to do this. It seems to me you could set up templates for how to release findings, reports, academic studies, and then give faculty guidelines about how to filter it through the particular networks that they would reach, different for each project."

"Well, I think you touched on at least one area where we possibly could help." responded Demarest. "We could help to upgrade the understanding among faculty of how the media works and what kinds of things are going to be more likely to get coverage, how to take something that is complicated and deep and get it into some shape that a reporter (trade reporters, general consumption reporters, TV reporters) can actually access it." Along those lines, Demarest recalled that shortly after his arrival, the San Jose Mercury News called about having a renewed interest in setting up a good robust relationship with Stanford. David was all for it…and shortly thereafter the next Mercury News story about Stanford was in the Peninsula section, titled "Naked Ambitions" and covering in some depth the arrival of Playboy magazine reporters and photographers to uncover Stanford women. "Now, to me," he admitted, 'that's not exactly the serious news peg that I was expecting when I had that conversation!"

Holding the floor, Professor Kirst asked about the "blogosphere" and its potential and real impact for public affairs. He emphasized that within seconds, blog material circulates the globe. "Conveying how this works to faculty and describing it in detail and giving some examples from different fields would be extremely useful to us." Demarest answered that "…there are bloggers who have sort of 'cracked the code.' They've figured out how to construct their blog to attract huge numbers of visits and get their blog to pop on a Google search as number one or number two or number three. This whole arena is obviously very new, and a lot of us are trying to get our head around it. But I think there's some potential there."

Roger Noll notes some "tensions underneath the surface" in the work done to help increase funding for research. "The first tension arises from the fact that a lot of what public relations activity says for an interest group is often quite different than the kinds of things research scholars say about policy when their research has policy relevance. In other words, a lot of the arguments that are naturally made by interests in a public debate really have no basis in research. And a lot of the arguments that research scholars make about policy implications rarely gain salience in the political debate. The tension is that faculties whose research pertains to the question of federal R & D policy are often at variance in terms of policy implications with things that are not necessarily what you would say, but are what the many participants in the debate about federal research policy would say. And it strikes me that that is counter productive to the best interests of the University. And I wouldn't pose the question as how can you help us or how can we help you, more I pose it as how can we work in a manner where we're being more consistent.

"To illustrate the second tension I'd like to make a comparison across three policies. One would be the federal R & D budget. The second would be the problems in establishing the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. And the third would be the GUP.

Prioritization of Stanford resources in the Office of Public Affairs probably should in some way be related to the degree which, in the first instance, Stanford has leverage in those issues, and in the second instance, the extent to which your office is the primary conduit of information in the policy debate for Stanford. When I look across these three, I suspect that you account for a very tiny fraction of contact among people at Stanford and people in Washington, D.C. because through National Academy committees, the Institute of Medicine, and other organizations, this faculty is full of people, some of whom have even been presidential science advisors!. We have enormous numbers of conduits to that policy debate. We have fewer to the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Those are the people in biology and the Medical School. And third, the faculty probably have virtually no useful clout with regard to the GUP.

"So… it's not at all clear to me that your presentation should have been about influencing federal R & D policy when I suspect it may well be that Artie by himself has more of an influence on federal R & D policy than your whole office put together. And it's not a criticism of you at all. It's just that the nature of the problems are very different. And, once again, when we get to this question about how can we help and how can we interact, if you don't know what's going on with the faculty, you don't know who's on which National Academy committees and who's on the committees to set up the various parts of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, you have no clue how to set your priorities."

Vice President Demarest paused for some time, and admitted, "Okay. I'm not sure where to begin with that!" That broke the tension of the tensions. Noll said, "You don't have to say a thing!", and Chairman Roberts called on Dean Pizzo.

Dean Pizzo noted that sometimes out of perhaps exuberance or pique driving a comment to the media, "…we can get ourselves into very serious difficulties because of the way things are quoted out of context. What's your advice with regard to media training for faculty who will be being interviewed by sort of a high-profile reporter either print or particularly a visual media?" Demarest agreed, and called for media interview preparation with rigor. "One reason is that you need to have your content down so that you make the information that you're providing to the reporter understandable, logical, accessible. Second, you need to understand the context of where that reporter is coming from so that your answers align with the storyline properly. And third, the nature of the media today is so radically different than the nature of the media 20, 30 years ago. For example, some of you probably heard that Vice President Cheney had shot someone. And when that story broke, there was all of this conversation about how the information wasn't put out to the media, et cetera. Marlin Fitzwater, who was the press secretary for the Reagan Administration and the Bush I Administration, was called. He is in semiretirement. He was called by "Editor and Publisher Journal" to talk about this issue, which he did. He had no intention of really making a lot of news here. But he was quite conversational. And Marlin should have known better. But, he was sitting in his retirement home in Maryland and his guard was down. And he made a number of comments, including that he was 'appalled'. How wonderful for "Editor And Publisher Magazine" to have a former press secretary to one of the Bushes on the record saying that! But in Marlin's mind - and I talked with him about it -- he was still in the mindset of, 'I'm talking to a journal. I'm talking to something that comes out monthly.' Well, what happened was that the magazine put it right up on its Web site that day and that story went around the world in about a nanosecond. The whole nature of the media has changed, which creates a much higher risk profile which says to us, 'Prepare, prepare, prepare,' and know how to work with the media."

Dean Pizzo was granted a follow-up. "Although you can't do it for visual media, I think many faculty, when a reporter calls, feel like they must respond. What I have found over the years is that it's far preferable to insist that reporters send you their questions in writing so that you can respond to them in writing, giving you at least some control over the nuances that otherwise can get very confused."

Vice President Demarest agreed and pointed out that, "Not many of us can write a one-page document and never edit it. Well, it's the same thing with a reporter. If you had a transcript of your conversation with a reporter to read again and you hadn't practiced, my guess is that you'd probably want to do it a little differently the second time. Putting your thoughts on paper and doing a Q and A, as you say, is probably a pretty safe bet. The only problem with it, Phil, is that some reporters won't tolerate it…they are writing the story for the next morning's paper and don't have time to send you questions and wait for your answers. You then have to make a decision. Am I going to be in this story or am I not?"

Alan Acosta jumped in with one quick response. "If you find yourself staring down the barrel of a gun on these issues, please just say, 'I can't talk to you right now. I'll call you back.' And then call David or call me, or call Elaine, and we will be most happy to strategize with you about this. Most of us have worked for newspapers for years. We know how to do this. You don't have to say, "No." But you don't have to say, "I'll talk to you right now."

Dean Matson referred to what Pizzo was saying as "…the tricks of the trade that almost none of the faculty have been introduced to until they find out the hard way. I lead a media training program in a sense for mid-career academic scientists as part of a leadership training program. These are faculty from around the nation. It's a two-week-long training program, and the media training helps with all forms of communication. I am convinced that just a half a day on media training and how to access and interact with different kinds of media when you have something important coming out could be made available and be very useful. Would your office be willing or interested in setting up some workshops on potentially different aspects of media training?"

Vice President Demarest showed a little interest. "In a heartbeat! I think it's a real value added for faculty, particularly faculty who are interacting with the media either on a regular basis or sometimes even if it's somebody who hasn't talked to the media yet. Those in particular had better get the training before they get on the phone with a reporter. Having done a lot of media training, I know that people generally don't like doing it. They resist it." " But," interjected Matson, "once they get into it…" "That was my point." said Demarest.

Professor Fortmann had two comments and two related questions. "The comments are brief. My group, which does research on lifestyle and health, gets a lot of media attention. And we did the media training from your office before you arrived and I found it quite valuable. So I would recommend that for anyone who is able to do that.

"The second comment is that some of the scientific groups like the American Heart Association, have tried to deal with the difficulty of communicating complex scientific issues by having reporter forums, training programs, if you will, for the reporters, where they come for several days to listen to presentations and ask questions. There may be some of the issues at Stanford that could be addressed by hosting our own reporter forums in some way.

"The questions have to do with community relations, local community relations. I live off campus, and I have been disappointed in the level of hostility of some of my neighbors around the trails issue. I'm wondering how you are able to evaluate how effective you're being in addressing local community relations, and also, if you think it's a reasonable question, how do you decide when to engage these semi-hostile groups with another agenda? And when do you decide not to engage them?

Vice President Demarest was pleased not to have to address the "trails" issue, and answered Fortmann's first question. "Well, let me first compliment a practice that preceded me. For the last 12 years or so, Larry Horton has carried out an opinion research study, along with consultants, of Palo Alto and Menlo Park every two years to try to assess public attitudes towards the University, towards growth, towards traffic, all of those kinds of things. We have a longitudinal base now, so that we can really see how public opinion shifts when we're embroiled in different kinds of issues. In the most recent survey, in 2005, the standing of the University was extraordinarily positive. Measured against the survey of a few years earlier things clearly were much better in the University's interactions with the communities around us. Those good opinions do not equal, 'They don't care what we do regarding traffic.' They don't equal, 'They don't care what we do regarding growth.' Therefore we have a number of hurdles when it comes to any growth discussion we might have; we have a number of hurdles in terms of how we look at any kind of future plans for how we use land, or how much traffic is coming in and out of the campus. Those will always be serious little flash points between us and the community.

"Just how do we engage the community in a way that they feel that we are seriously interacting with them, that we're not just paying lip service to community relations, that we really understand what their concerns are, and that we are willing to meet them halfway. A lot of what we do, whether it's Community Day, bringing people from the community onto the campus, showing them the campus, things that go on here. Now we're taking the campus out into the community and having people volunteer for various community projects… all these things make this engagement with the community feel and be real. That's one of the keys to community relations.

Professor Bienenstock, referring obliquely to Professor Noll's second tension, said, "I just wanted to assure the faculty that we work closely together, my office and David's, on federal policy matters. We have complementary strengths. I'm stronger in the executive branch. I think the office is stronger in the legislative branch. Whether we truly make use of the people who are expert in federal policy or the implications of federal policy, there, I have to think about it more. Finally, I wanted to say to Steve that we are considering and looking around for support for a program that would bring journalists, science journalists in particular, to the campus two, say, one-week programs each year.

Professor Boyd queried Demarest about the use of the Stanford web site, pointing out that it is a valuable tool for our reputation, and expressed his conviction that the web will have an increasingly important role in exporting information about the University.

Chairman Roberts closed the discussion by thanking Vice President Demarest, and saying, " It's been delightful." There was enthusiastic applause for David.

VI.,VII. There was no unfinished old business nor new business.

VIII. Adjournment

This occurred by acclaim at 4:55 pm.