Stanford Report, October 1, 2008

Excerpts from the ‘campus climate’ chapter of report

Student quotes from focus groups are italicized.

Some Stanford students believe there is never room at the top for everyone. Furthermore, they perceive that expectations are always increasing. Instead of learning for the sake of knowledge, many students focus on looking for the top:

As soon as you hit the expectation, the bar is raised and it goes higher—so the reward for accomplishing a benchmark is to be asked to go further.

Many students see themselves and others as promulgating the "Duck Syndrome," meaning they appear placid above the water while paddling like crazy beneath the surface. They experience this syndrome as a form of intentional competition with others:

[Friends say to each other] 'How is it going? Oh, it's going great!' Everyone [seems] happy all the time, even if it is not [going great]. If you [admit to not doing well] then you must really have a problem.

Many students expressed a desire to understand not just what success is, but also what failure is at Stanford. They want to know how they would know it when they saw it—what does failure look like and what are its implications? They want more "upfront" and "official" talk about what students "really" do and get (in terms of grades) from the beginning of their Stanford education. Without this candidness, students tend to invent definitions of failure and then spend significant time trying to avoid it:

The people who ask for help … have gotten their midterms back and know their grades. But even then people feel that [their grades] may be just a fluke. 'I will just keep doing what I'm doing.' It isn't until you are in a desperate situation that you ask for help, when you think you are going to fail. It is not always too late, but sometimes it is, and you don't really know when that is.

Many students are disappointed with the level of academic support and faculty-student engagement. More students expressed dissatisfaction than satisfaction with advising, faculty contact/involvement, tutoring, mentoring and other academic support. Twice as many respondents to the Campus Climate Survey identified advising as a weak area of the university compared to those who experienced it as a source of support. Respondents were evenly divided on whether faculty are a source of support or another frayed area of the university:

I often feel like I can't get academic support from some faculty. Some don't care about students; they don't want to hear about it. It would be better if I expected that sort of behavior, but Stanford has a reputation of being a hand-holding place, so when [the absence of support] happens, it's like you are counting on something that wasn't there. And that's a horrible source of stress in my opinion.