The following remarks were delivered by Stanford President Jonathan Levin at the Faculty Senate on Oct. 22, 2026.

Thank you to all the senators and student representatives for participating in this year’s senate. I have a few remarks to share.

I want to echo Dusty in congratulating Stanford’s most recent Nobel laureates: Karl Deisseroth for his pioneering work in optogenetics and Robert Hall for his magisterial contributions to macroeconomics. I got to be part of celebrating both of them on the day, and truly, they represent the creativity and vision and pursuit of knowledge that I think all of us aspire to as scholars. It’s really an honor to get to be their colleague. I’m also delighted to share that as of a week or two ago, Stanford now has more faculty who have won Nobel Prizes in the 21st century than any other university.

I also want to share three priorities that Provost Martinez and I plan to focus on in the coming year.

First, we want Stanford to remain at the frontier of discovery and innovation at a time of very rapid advances in technology, especially artificial intelligence. We’re going to need to be forward-looking in adapting to changes in knowledge creation that are already starting to take place across many disciplines. We want to see the university serve as a home for serious discussion about the implications of artificial intelligence, both for higher education and more broadly for society and humanity. Later this quarter, we plan to launch AI@Stanford as an umbrella for the myriad efforts across campus.

Second, we want to ensure that at a time of advancing technology, humanistic and civic thought remain central to the university. The Faculty Senate voted last spring to expand the first-year COLLEGE program, a wonderful step in that direction. Stanford civics programming and the Stanford Arts are flourishing. We would like this year to find more ways to energize and invest in humanistic scholarship and teaching, and the enduring questions that motivate those disciplines.

Third, we believe that in a world of abundant intelligence, the relational parts of campus and the student experience will be even more important, and we applaud the senate’s intent this year to focus on the intellectual vibrancy of campus. It’s been very gratifying to see students renew many Stanford traditions since the pandemic and create new ones, and to bring to life spaces like CoDA and Meyer Green that feel terrifically vibrant. Now, Stanford students have a great deal of freedom, and we want to support their autonomy to create these types of experiences. That’ll be a third focus for the year.

In addition to those priorities, we’re also looking ahead to the future of the campus. You will hear today from Whitney McNair, who is the lead on StanfordNext, the plan we submitted last month to Santa Clara County. The goals of that plan are to revitalize and build new student residences, to develop cutting-edge research and teaching facilities, and to create spaces that foster connection and collaboration. It’s also a very important opportunity to engage with the surrounding communities in the county on issues that affect Stanford as well as the entire region, including housing, transportation, and so forth. You’ll get to hear a little more about it.

On behalf of the provost, I also want to say that we’re very grateful to be in a place that’s so committed to excellence and open to new ideas, and we look forward to a productive and vibrant year.