Thousands gather to explore the many sides of Stanford

BY BARBARA PALMER

The century-old tradition of celebrating Founders' Day in the spring grew exponentially this year when thousands of residents from neighboring communities came to campus Sunday, April 7, for Community Day and a Founders' Celebration.

Spectacular weather and a schedule brimming with activities drew between 6,000 and 8,000 people to Community Day, held for the first time this year. Twenty-three university offices and departments and 31 student groups helped stage activities that ranged from musical performances and kid-friendly arts projects to faculty lectures and research-oriented exhibits, athletic events, a carnival and health fair. The late afternoon Founders' Celebration drew 800 people, the largest crowd ever, to a wreath-laying ceremony at the Mausoleum, where an 1898 time capsule buried by Jane Stanford was opened.

Many of Sunday's visitors already knew their way around campus. "Stanford is like a second home," said Debbie Gerow of Menlo Park, who was trying on an embroidered Afghani scarf while her daughter Caitlin Crawford, an eighth-grader, wrapped a red-spangled scarf around her head at a booth hosted by the Muslim Students Awareness Network at a "Stanford Cultures" area at Serra Mall. "The kids like to come here and rollerblade," Gerow said. By early afternoon, more than 100 individuals and groups had dressed up for photographs taken in Afghani, Pakistani and Egyptian clothing loaned by students and others.

David Shafer and Bruce Schena of Menlo Park were trying to keep up with 5-year-old Nick Shafer and his 3-year-old brother, Scott, who were headed -- at a trot -- to a slime-making booth attended by members of the undergraduate chemistry club and graduate students from the Center on Polymer Interfaces and Macromolecular Assemblies. Kathy Riscke watched while the boys mixed borax and polyvinyl alcohol with food coloring to make black slime to carry home in a plastic bag. The group, which included three parents and four children, also planned to visit the student-operated Stanford Cultures area to make piñatas and Thai paper kites. The children would have fun and "maybe learn something," Riscke predicted.

Greg Ball of Palo Alto and his 7-year-old son David were working their way around the tables set up in the Science and Engineering Quad by groups including the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), the Stanford Astronomical Society and the Stanford Society of Women Engineers. Thomas Weber, a physicist at SLAC, helped David freeze a red-and-white carnation in liquid nitrogen. When he struck the carnation against the table, the petals shattered like glass.

"This is a nice idea," said Don Chin of Palo Alto. His 3-year-old son Tony, whose head just cleared the table, stared in rapt attention at a robot with six legs as student Emily Ma explained how the Biomimetic Robotics Laboratory patterned the movement of robotic devices after bugs. "One of the best things about research is being able to share it," said Ma.

Near the Science and Engineering Quad, President John Hennessy, wearing a Stanford tie and an "Ask Me!" nametag with his first name written on it, stood with Provost John Etchemendy and Board of Trustees Chair Isaac Stein, shaking hands and chatting with people about whatever was on visitors' minds.

"It's been very positive," said Etchemendy, midway through the hour-long chat session. One visitor, a Cornell University alumnus, marveled at how open and accessible Stanford is to the public, the provost said. That openness isn't reserved for special occasions like Community Day, Etchemendy said. "Come on any weekend and you'll see hundreds and hundreds of people enjoying the campus."

Although many visitors stopped just to say hello and to thank Hennessy and others for Sunday's open house, others came to talk about issues including the banning of dogs in the Dish area, the proposed widening of Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park and the demise of Stanford's Channel 51.

Channel 51 "was producing incredible content," said Seth Fearey, the president of the board of directors for the Midpeninsula Community Media Center, which provides television programming for local cable viewers. Fearey rode his bike to Community Day and stopped to talk when he spotted Hennessy.

Trustees Chair Stein said he welcomed the opportunity to answer questions and provide information to the public about the issues faced by Stanford administrators.

"I have never met anybody in this community who is not proud of Stanford and did not want Stanford to be a successful institution," said Stein. "People recognize how big a part of everything it is in the community, from the tax base to the intellectual capital that has built most of the businesses that we call Silicon Valley. What people worry about is the effect it has on their lives, their community, their traffic, and they want to be sure their voices and concerns are heard."

At approximately 2:30 p.m., hundreds of protesters organized by the Stanford Coalition for Labor Justice marched down Serra Street and through the Oval. Carrying banners and balloons and chanting slogans, they included students, workers from local chapters of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and community members.

In February, Hennessy announced that Stanford would require subcontractors to pay a minimum wage of $10.10 per hour to employees with health benefits and $11.35 to employees without health benefits. In March, the coalition presented a proposal to Hennessy for a Code of Conduct that would increase the minimum wage standards, ensure health benefits for all employees and reduce the number of jobs that are subcontracted.

The demonstration delayed the procession to the Mausoleum by about 25 minutes, said Elaine Enos, director of public events. However, there were no major glitches in the day's events, not even when one of the two horses pulling the Stanford carriage in the procession to the Mausoleum slipped and fell on the asphalt around the Oval, she said. The horse quickly recovered and stayed in the parade to the Mausoleum, which included administrators and deans of the schools, as well as Palo Alto Mayor Vic Ojakian and Mountain View Mayor Sally Lieber. Students Sarah Shaw Middleton, a doctoral student in civil and environmental engineering, and Cody Page, an undergraduate majoring in humanities, spoke at the Founders' Celebration.

Alan Acosta, director of University Communications, which organized the event, said he considered the day a major success and noted that the event drew the number of participants that university officials had hoped for.

Any onlooker could see the crowds at the carnival, the cultural booths on Serra Mall and the athletics area and tell that people were having a great time, he said.

But there was more to the day's success than the crowds, he said. "There were amazing things going on in more intimate settings, like at the Science and Engineering Quad and at faculty lectures," he said. "It's not just the number of people but the quality of interactions that people had."