Stanford Report, May 17, 2006

Cardinal Chronicle

BY MICHAEL PEÑA

The equestrian team finished second in the International Horse Show Association's national competition, held earlier this month in Harrisburg, Pa. Stanford's riders competed against the top 18 teams in the country and finished just one point behind Mt. Holyoke. It's the first time a Stanford team has placed nationally or has qualified in a decade, said VANESSA BARTSCH, the team's coach and general manager of the Red Barn. Senior SARAH WILLEMAN won the Cacchione Cup for being the highest-pointed rider in the country. "This is the first time a team from the West Coast has ever placed in the top two, and the first time a rider from the West has won," Bartsch said.

Congrats also go out to GINA WEIN, who received the 2006 Staff Member of the Year Award at the Chicano/Latino Community Awards Banquet on May 4. Currently administrative manager at the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, Wein has been a member of La Raza Staff Association since its inception in the early eighties. She also serves as a core planner for the annual banquet and its ERNESTO GALARZA Commemorative Lecture—given this year by author SANDRA CISNEROS. "Many of us felt it was one of the best awards banquets we've had," said Wein, who was given a crystal cube, an engraved silver plate and an elegant orchid.

In the courtyard at the entrance to the Keck Science Building is a shrub with small flowers that smell like bananas, and if you put one or two of them in your shirt pocket, the body heat should trigger the release of the sweet smell, according to HERB FONG, Stanford's head gardener. Those who attended last week's "What Matters to Me and Why" talk learned other interesting tidbits from Fong, who first came to Stanford in 1973. Since that time, more than 2,000 seedlings have been planted in the nearby foothills and on the main campus—including about a dozen Chilean wine palms along Campus Drive West, as it curves around the Clark Center. When they mature, the trees will have smooth, grayish trunks that are about 4 feet in diameter and about 90 feet high. "You're going to have to be patient," Fong said. "You probably won't ever see them at this stage, but your grandkids will."