Founders' Celebration set for April 10
The university's annual Founders' Celebration will be held on Monday, April 10, beginning at noon at the Stanford family mausoleum. The event is open to campus community members and will include several speeches, a traditional wreath-laying ceremony, the singing of student a cappella group Talisman and a special opening of the mausoleum afterward to attendees.
The event, which commemorates the founding of the university and the legacy of Jane and Leland Stanford, will begin with a remembrance delivered by the Rev. Scotty McLennan, followed by the laying of a wreath in front of the mausoleum by Burt McMurtry, chair of the university's Board of Trustees. President John Hennessy will share words of welcome and closing remarks.
Also speaking will be two students who won a speech-writing contest that traditionally is held in conjunction with Founders' Celebration. Clayton Brown and Dana Craig each won a $1,000 cash award; their speeches were judged by students who served on a subcommittee formed by the Founders' Celebration Planning Committee. That committee included staff from Stanford Events and senior administrators in the offices of Student Affairs, Graduate Student Life and Religious Life, as well as University Archivist Maggie Kimball.
Over the last few years, activities honoring the university's founding had been combined with a festive open house that Stanford hosted for neighboring communities. That event, called Community Day, will now be held every two years, with the next one tentatively set for April 2007. Leland Stanford instated Founder's Day in 1891, then called "Memorial Day."
More information on the history of Founders' Celebration and a schedule for this year's program is available at http://founders.stanford.edu/.