Integrity, opportunity and community matter to Stanford President John Hennessy

Stanford President John Hennessy said that integrity, opportunity and community were the touchstones of his tenure as the university’s top leader.

Hennessy spoke on Wednesday at the latest installment of “What Matters to Me and Why,” a series of discussions featuring faculty and administrators addressing life questions. In conversation with Jane Shaw, the dean for religious life, Hennessy reflected on his values and what Stanford means to him.

“Integrity and honesty are fundamental to a leadership position,” Hennessy said. But this core value, he added, requires delivering the truth in difficult circumstances and sometimes saying “no” to people with whom one is close.

The discussion took place at Stanford Memorial Church before a crowd of hundreds and included a question-and-answer period for the audience. Hennessy will step down later this year as Stanford University’s 10th president after more than 15 years leading the transformation of one of the world’s foremost research institutions.

On the importance of having strong principles, Hennessy quoted Socrates, who once said that people should regard their good name as the finest jewel they could ever own.

“People need to think about whether they are doing the right thing,” he said.

Hennessy also pointed to Abraham Lincoln as one of his favorite thinkers. Even when many people opposed him within his own circle, Lincoln never wavered from his moral courage to abolish slavery.

Education and opportunity

Opportunity is another dynamic that matters greatly to Hennessy. “I believe very much in creating opportunity,” he said, noting that for him, joining Stanford’s faculty in 1977 was such an opportunity.

Higher education, he said, is a remarkable engine of opportunity for faculty, students and scholars alike. Such an example is the recently announced Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program, which will prepare a new generation of global leaders with the skills to address the increasingly complex challenges facing the world, he said. Hennessy will lead the program as its inaugural faculty director after stepping down as president.

Community is likewise an important leadership theme for Hennessy. Stanford must always remain engaged with the world and always strive to make it a better place through teaching, research and service.

After all, “merit and accomplishment,” not the ability to pay, should define a Stanford education, Hennessy said.

Education used to be about the public good, he said, but increasingly it has become more of a private good, with the burden falling on students and their families.

“That’s something we have to worry about as a country,” Hennessy said.

He said the most difficult days of his presidency involved campus budget cuts during the 2008-09 economic downturn. The leadership decided to stand by the university’s commitment to student financial aid; yet, that meant employee layoffs and other painful financial cutbacks.

Diversity, inequality, racism

He emphasized the university’s commitment to better understanding the problems of racism in the criminal justice and policing systems throughout the country. Such issues have become glaringly apparent in recent years, he suggested, and Stanford can contribute through its research, teaching and service.

He has seen the impact of these issues on students, and acknowledged that perhaps the university should have launched more events and discussions sooner. While the election of President Obama seemed to signal progress on the issue of race back in 2008, Hennessy said it is clear as a nation that “we’ve made less progress than we thought.”

He noted, “Change has come slowly.”

Research by Stanford scholars like economist Raj Chetty show that where you grow up has a great influence on one’s well-being and longevity, Hennessy said.

Education and knowledge will offer solutions and data on a wide range of issues, he said. And so, Stanford must prepare “students for more leadership positions in all fields.”

Arts, looking ahead

Expanding the arts at Stanford was another source of pride for Hennessy. Many new facilities and collections – Bing Concert Hall, the McMurtry Building, the Anderson Collection – have opened during his tenure as president. He also emphasized his deep support for the liberal arts tradition as a way to teach critical thinking skills.

“The arts have a way of allowing us to engage with deep human values,” such as exploring ambiguity and the range of cultural diversity, he said.

Hennessy warned against “hubris” and “complacency” in the Stanford community, noting that the institution is in a “fortunate place” and must always strive to do better.

That’s why his administration routinely envisioned what Stanford would be like for students and scholars 50 to 100 years down the road when making long-term plans for the institution.

Hennessy came to Stanford in 1977 as an assistant professor of electrical engineering. He rose through the academic ranks to full professorship in 1986. In 2000, he was selected as Stanford’s president. He earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Villanova University and his master’s and doctoral degrees in computer science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

When Shaw asked him what he might do upon retiring as Stanford’s president and launching the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program, Hennessy said he’d like to slow down and perhaps teach more.

“But my wife is fond of saying that the last time I took a sabbatical,” he chuckled, “I failed.”

The next speakers in the “What Matters to Me and Why” series are Sidney Drell, professor emeritus at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, and Persis Drell, dean of the School of Engineering. The father/daughter presentation will take place at noon Wednesday, May 4, in the Common Room in the Center for Inter-Religious Community, Learning and Experiences (CIRCLE) on the third floor of Old Union. The Office for Religious Life at Stanford sponsors the speaker series.