Thank you, Anna, for your report, and for leading the senate with skill and good humor.

I would like to start with a few reflections, and then turn to my report.

We are at a pivotal and important time for universities. At such a moment, I am proud of what we are accomplishing in renewing Stanford’s focus on our essential mission of research and education, and in opening up new frontiers across the campus.

As the provost and I wrote recently to our admitted students, Stanford is unapologetically committed to excellence, to the freedom of its faculty and students, and to being a home of curiosity, inquiry, and innovation.

I am optimistic about our future. I believe that a great liberal arts education will have enduring value, whatever happens with machine intelligence. I believe that university research is irreplaceable in illuminating the world, and providing a foundation for longer lives, stronger institutions, and increased standards of living. Stanford is uniquely positioned to demonstrate both.

The provost and I are grateful for the goodwill and partnership of Stanford’s faculty. We feel fortunate to work with Stanford’s academic and staff leadership, and with a Faculty Senate that has modeled thoughtful debate and accomplished a great deal this year.

Nearly every week, I host a small faculty discussion group. Over the last two years, I’ve talked to around 400 faculty … I plan to get to everyone! Recent conversations have covered interdisciplinary arts collaborations, how AI is changing research, and faculty leadership development. The discussions are a joy. They remind me of the breadth of interests at Stanford, and how little I know. However, what stands out is the pride that faculty feel in Stanford, and the forward-looking approach to solving problems. It gives me confidence that we will continue to meet the future with purpose and creativity.

Now, let me turn to my report.

The university is large, so rather than a laundry list, I want to focus on two questions. First, how can we lead the way in undergraduate education? Second, how can we sustain a vibrant research ecosystem?

These questions are fundamental given the rapid changes in technology and in public support. I cannot hope to answer either question fully, but I want to outline ideas, highlight what we are doing, and hopefully spark discussion.

Undergraduate education at Stanford

My exposure to undergraduate education at Stanford began as a 17-year-old freshman. I had no idea what I wanted to study. I took a Chinese philosophy class, and then a graduate seminar on Dostoyevsky. I wandered into an honors math class and fell in love with its rigor and precision. I ended up majoring in English and math.

The combination has served me well. Early in my career, as I pursued research in economics, I relied on analytical skills from my math classes. Later, I became increasingly grateful that I had studied literature. The ability to synthesize nuanced ideas, to empathize, to communicate clearly, to appreciate what is distinctively human – these skills are essential for leadership and life.

When I reflect back, I see that the Stanford education my classmates and I received embodies the best qualities of a liberal education. We were able to explore freely. We had the opportunity to study with exceptional faculty. We were challenged to think rigorously. We were immersed in an environment of discussion and friendship.

On Stanford’s senior exit survey, recent graduates report similar appreciation. Ninety-four percent report positively on intellectual excitement; 93% on the quality of instruction; 91% on faculty availability; 86% on research opportunities; 86% on opportunities to explore. Ninety percent report positively on the community they’ve found with friends.

Criticisms of universities today do not reflect these statistics. They focus on flawed admissions, the demise of standards, politicized campuses, AI shortcuts, careerism, and an anxious future of loneliness and job displacement. These concerns also demand our attention.

So charting a future requires clarity of purpose and priorities. We can start with the elements of a Stanford education that are truly distinctive.

• An unmatched breadth of excellence: world-class science and engineering, humanities, arts, and social sciences, elite athletics, and professional schools.
• An unparalleled freedom to explore: the flexibility of the quarter system, expansive opportunities for research, overseas study, clubs, and communities.
• A culture of openness and optimism: At Stanford, we are curious and ask questions; we are forward-looking, and we work together to solve problems.

I shared these characteristics with our admitted students a few weeks ago. Our yield rose four points to its highest level in years. I felt great, although I also learned that Andrew Luck gave the closing talk in Maples Pavilion.

Renewing and elevating our distinctive strengths is a good start. They set us apart and provide direction. But we can do more.

Stanford was founded with a vision that it would prepare students for “personal success, and direct usefulness in life.” And it would also “teach the blessings of liberty regulated by law” and inculcate “love and reverence for the great principles of government.” That is, Stanford would imbue students with a sense of civic responsibility, and better prepare them to be leaders.

For the last two years, Jenny and I have made constructive dialogue and civic education a major priority. We started the ePluribus initiative and it is thriving, providing summer discussions for incoming students, a Builders Forum, and community grants. The senate acted this spring to expand the COLLEGE program, praising its success in helping students develop the confidence to disagree constructively. The Stanford Civics initiative is offering dozens of courses – this spring, Pam Karlan and Jonathan Gienapp offered a wonderful class on America at 250. Next year, we will launch a new Kennedy Scholars capstone program. The Hoover Institution is drawing dozens of students as policy interns, as are SIEPR, FSI, HAI, complementing opportunities at the Haas Center for Public Service.

We would like to expand these efforts. Our students pursue a vast range of careers, and however they embark, we want them to be ethical and civic-minded, and to aspire over their careers to significant civic and public contributions.

We are also adapting to the effects of AI.

AI is a powerful technology and evolving rapidly. No one can perfectly predict its trajectory. It is tempting to jump to strong conclusions, but we should resist that impulse. Universities do best when we explore, discuss, and figure things out. Stanford is uniquely positioned to do that. We have an innovative and creative faculty. We mix scholars, students, and practitioners. We bring people together across disciplines – that’s a primary focus of Stanford HAI, and the Stanford Accelerator for Learning.

For nearly a decade, we have emphasized a human-centered approach to AI. Let’s pause on that. For exactly the reasons I articulated earlier, an era of AI and abundant technical skills can and should be an era of renewal for the humanities and liberal education, a golden age, especially at Stanford.

This year, our new VPUE, Jay Hamilton, launched two major initiatives to meet the current moment.

The AIMES initiative (AI Meets Education at Stanford) is intended to address the needs of campus classrooms, promote experimentation, assemble ideas from students and faculty, and share best practices. It is off to a strong start.

The PACE initiative has a broader and essential goal: to promote intellectual engagement and rigor. In the coming year, it will look at issues ranging from classroom attendance and device use, to grading and accommodations.

These are important efforts and will require the help of many faculty.

Earlier this year, a friend from an Ivy peer asked me what Stanford was doing with AI. He said, “Our strategy is to let you guys figure it out.” It’s important that we do. We have the capacity to tackle AI in distinctive ways, and others will follow our lead.

A vibrant research ecosystem

Now I would like to turn to my second topic – sustaining research.

American universities are the foundation of this country’s research ecosystem and an essential reason why the United States is the most innovative country.

We do not have a substitute for university research. Companies excel at taking ideas and driving toward products or services. They can bring enormous resources to bear. But they need to show an economic return. In contrast, universities pursue a broad range of research, usually at lower cost, including projects that may be years from application, or simply serve to illuminate the world.

The two approaches are complementary, as our former colleague and Nobel laureate Paul Romer explained. Paul likened innovation to a kitchen. Ideas are the ingredients on the shelves. Innovators are cooks who combine ingredients to generate new products and services. In Paul’s metaphor, university research stocks the shelves with ideas. In the short run, innovation is possible with the existing ingredients. But sustained innovation requires the ongoing generation of new ideas, ones that may sit on the shelf for a while.

Federal partnership is essential to this model. Federal policy enables universities to attract talented students and faculty from around the world. And the federal government provides around 74% of sponsored research funding nationally across universities.

These pillars have helped American universities excel, and the United States to lead the world, but they are wobbly. While Congress maintained the federal budget for research, some fields have been cut and the pace of grants is unpredictable. Many schools have reduced faculty hiring, and sharply cut their graduate programs. Just last week, MIT announced that their federal funding was down 20%. These are troubling signs.

We have focused our efforts at Stanford on sustaining faculty hiring and graduate programs, remaining open to the broadest range of students, supporting faculty who have lost grants, encouraging new funding opportunities and philanthropy, and working closely with other universities and friends to rebuild trust in Washington.

There are some positive outcomes to report.

• It has been a wonderful year for faculty scholarship. Dozens of Stanford faculty won major research awards, including eight new inductees to the National Academies and one to the American Philosophical Society. While we all hate rankings and think they’re nonsense, virtually every H&S department ranks in the top five, as do Medicine, Education, Sustainability, Engineering, Law, and Business, with a large number in the top one.
• Federal funding to Stanford faculty is roughly constant overall despite reductions in some areas. Nonfederal sponsored research funding is up nearly 50%, a testament to the entrepreneurial nature of Stanford faculty. Remarkably, nonfederal funding may exceed federal grants this year – that is a massive shift.
• We have largely maintained faculty hiring and the number of incoming graduate students, although the aggregate numbers mask declines in some departments.
• Philanthropic support is strong. Last year was a record for gifts to Stanford, and alumni and friends have provided notable support for the Knight Brain Resilience initiative, the Rosenkranz Professorships, and new professorships in H&S.
• We have worked closely with peer schools to rally support in Congress, leading to bipartisan backing for the federal research budget. As an indication of the support, the NIH appropriation with small budget increase passed 26-3 out of committee.

The uncertainty around federal support comes at a critical moment. Rapid improvements in AI promise to transform research across many disciplines. Unlike prior eras of advance fueled by government funding, companies are driving most of the investment.

These developments require us to be nimble and strategic, to develop partnerships, and to make investments that can support an exciting new era for research.

This spring, we took an important step by unifying two major campus efforts – the Stanford Data Science initiative and our Institute for Human-Centered AI – to create a single hub for interdisciplinary work on AI and data-driven discovery.

The unified institute retains the HAI name to reflect the importance of keeping human agency and well-being at the center of AI research and applications. The interdisciplinary aspect is crucial. What will distinguish Stanford in the coming years is not the number of GPUs and tokens – although we will invest in both. It is the ability of faculty and students to connect across the campus, to form teams to pursue applications of AI across many disciplines. It is also our ability to bring humanists and social scientists and technologists together to consider the implications of AI. Stanford should set the bar in enabling these sorts of collisions and discussions in the coming years.

Of course, the opportunities at Stanford extend far beyond AI. The Humanities Center is attracting half a million online visitors each year. The Graduate School of Education opened a beautiful new home in the center of campus. The School of Sustainability hosted a wildly successful Global Forum to conclude its fourth year. The School of Engineering and Graduate School of Business commenced their second centuries as world-leading schools. The School of Medicine continues to plan for the creation of a new comprehensive cancer center encompassing research and clinical care. And the Stanford Law School finally knocked Yale out of its top ranking.

Closing

These topics just touch part of the richness of campus. When I think back on the year, I also remember moments of community: wonderful talks and lectures, returning the Axe to Stanford, last weekend’s joyous BTS concert.

Challenges notwithstanding, the state of the university is strong. I am confident in our faculty, our students, our staff, and excited for Stanford’s future.