Stanford Report, May 23, 2007

Hennessy reviews 2006-07 highlights

New graduate fellowship program gets $25 million boost

BY KATHLEEN J. SULLIVAN

President John Hennessy announced last week that an anonymous donor has pledged $25 million to jumpstart fundraising efforts for a new $100 million program that will provide fellowships to graduate students doing interdisciplinary research at Stanford.

Speaking to faculty who gathered Thursday in Cubberley Auditorium for the president's annual address to the Academic Council, Hennessy said the Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship program will help meet the need for new sources of research funding.

The goal is to establish 100 fellowships, he said.

Hennessy said recent uncertainties in federal funding have heightened concern about funding for graduate studies, and noted that students engaged in interdisciplinary research often have trouble winning fellowships awarded by individual departments or outside agencies.

Hennessy said the new fellowships will be available to PhD students pursuing interdisciplinary research through existing university centers and programs as well as through individually crafted research programs that involve departments throughout the university.

The university will accept nominations in January for fellowships starting in fall 2008, he said.

Patricia Gumport, vice provost of graduate education, will oversee the new program.

In an e-mail message after the meeting, Gumport said fellowships will be awarded on a competitive basis to doctoral students in all seven schools. She said special attention will be given to students engaged in interdisciplinary research in several areas, including human health, the environment and sustainability, international studies, creativity and the arts, and K-12 education.

"It's expected that most of the fellowships will be awarded to continuing doctoral students, as those who will pursue interdisciplinary research are not necessarily known at the outset of their graduate careers," she wrote. "Incoming students will not, however, be excluded from nomination or an award."

Reviewing accomplishments

In a speech that lasted about 20 minutes, Hennessy reviewed some of the university's "extraordinary" accomplishments of the previous year:

Andrew Fire, professor of pathology and of genetics, received the Nobel Prize in medicine, and Roger Kornberg, professor of structural biology, received the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Four professors were elected to the National Academy of Engineering; five were elected to the National Academy of Sciences; two to the American Philosophical Society; and eight to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Alumni Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki contributed $50 million to the rapidly rising Environment and Energy Building, which is named after them, and Helen and Peter Bing, two of Stanford's "closest and best friends," have contributed $50 million to build a new concert hall.

Stanford created a $20 million loan-forgiveness program to encourage graduates of the School of Education to become public school teachers, based on a $10 million gift from alumna Judy Avery that will be matched by the university.

The Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine received a gift of more than $33 million from alumnus Lorry Lokey for a new research facility.

The Stanford Challenge, a $4.3 billion university-wide campaign, has raised $2.5 billion.

"Last year, more than 72,000 alumni and friends, including almost 40 percent of our undergraduate alumni, made a gift to Stanford," he said. "For the first time in recent history, Stanford received more total gifts over the last five years than any other university in the country."

Noting that Stanford has always valued the diversity of its community, Hennessy said the university has made "significant progress" over the last decade in increasing the percentage of female faculty—up to 24.3 percent in 2006, compared with 17.8 percent in 1996.

He said he hoped the new Junior Faculty Childcare Assistance Program, which will provide salary supplements to families with young children, will improve the university's ability to recruit and retain talented junior faculty by making childcare accessible and affordable.

"Unfortunately, our progress, like that of our peer institutions, has been much slower when it comes to increasing racial and ethnic diversity of our faculty," he said, adding that he and Provost John Etchemendy have become convinced that new approaches are needed to succeed.

Hennessy noted that the provost recently added funding to the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity to hire up to 10 faculty and to support six new graduate fellowships, with the aim of enhancing its vital research and increasing faculty and graduate student diversity.

Over the last year, Stanford has increased the number of cross-disciplinary and collaborative opportunities for students and faculty—one of the key recommendations of the 2005 Commission on Graduate Education, Hennessy said.

As an example, he cited the Summer Institute for Entrepreneurship, a four-week program in which 70 non-business graduate students worked with 14 faculty members from the Graduate School of Business to learn leadership skills about running a business.

In closing, Hennessy invoked the memory of Jane and Leland Stanford, who more than a century ago created the university to "exercise an influence on behalf of civilization and humanity" and to "qualify students for personal success and direct usefulness in life."

"Certainly we face many challenges as we embrace a wider and more demanding role for the university in the 21st century," Hennessy said. "But as Winston Churchill once reminded us, 'A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. An optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.' With your support and efforts, and the support of our alumni and friends, I choose to be an optimist."

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