Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a
private
Private or privates may refer to:
Music
* " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation''
* Private (band), a Denmark-based band
* "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...
research university
A research university or a research-intensive university is a university that is committed to research as a central part of its mission. They are the most important sites at which knowledge production occurs, along with "intergenerational kno ...
in
Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considered among the most prestigious universities in the world.
Stanford was founded in 1885 by
Leland and
Jane Stanford
Jane Elizabeth Lathrop Stanford (August 25, 1828 – February 28, 1905) was an American philanthropist, co-founder of Stanford University in 1885 (opened 1891) along with her husband, Leland Stanford, as a memorial to their only child, Leland St ...
in memory of their only child,
Leland Stanford Jr.
Leland Stanford Jr. (May 14, 1868 – March 13, 1884), known as Leland DeWitt Stanford until he was nine, was the only son of American industrialist and politician Leland Stanford and his wife Jane. Following his death from typhoid at age 15, h ...
, who had died of
typhoid fever
Typhoid fever, also known as typhoid, is a disease caused by '' Salmonella'' serotype Typhi bacteria. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often there is a gradual onset of a high fever over several ...
at age 15 the previous year.
Leland Stanford was a
U.S. senator
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and powe ...
and former
governor of California
The governor of California is the head of government of the U.S. state of California. The governor is the commander-in-chief of the California National Guard and the California State Guard.
Established in the Constitution of California, the g ...
who made his fortune as a
railroad tycoon
''Railroad Tycoon'' is a business simulation game series. There are five games in the series; the original ''Railroad Tycoon'' (1990), ''Railroad Tycoon Deluxe'' (1993), ''Railroad Tycoon II'' (1998), ''Railroad Tycoon 3'' (2003), and ''Sid Mei ...
. The school admitted its first students on October 1, 1891,
as a
coeducational
Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...
and
non-denominational
A non-denominational person or organization is one that does not follow (or is not restricted to) any particular or specific religious denomination.
Overview
The term has been used in the context of various faiths including Jainism, Baháʼí Fait ...
institution. Stanford University struggled financially after the death of Leland Stanford in 1893 and again after much of the campus was damaged by the
1906 San Francisco earthquake
At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensity sha ...
. Following
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
,
provost of Stanford
Frederick Terman
Frederick Emmons Terman (; June 7, 1900 – December 19, 1982) was an American professor and academic administrator. He was the dean of the school of engineering from 1944 to 1958 and provost from 1955 to 1965 at Stanford University. He is widely ...
inspired and supported faculty and graduates' entrepreneurialism to build a self-sufficient local industry, which would later be known as the
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...
.
The university is organized around seven schools on the same campus: three schools consisting of 40 academic departments at the undergraduate level as well as four professional schools that focus on
graduate programs
Postgraduate or graduate education refers to academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate ( bachelor's) degree.
The organization and stru ...
in law, medicine, education, and business. The university also houses the public policy think tank, the
Hoover Institution
The Hoover Institution (officially The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace; abbreviated as Hoover) is an American public policy think tank and research institution that promotes personal and economic liberty, free enterprise, and ...
. Students compete in 36 varsity sports, and the university is one of two private institutions in the
Division I FBS
The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the highest level of college football in the United States. The FBS consists of the largest schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). A ...
Pac-12 Conference
The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its College football, football teams compete in the NCAA D ...
. As of May 26, 2022, Stanford has won 131
NCAA
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...
team championships,
more than any other university, and was awarded the
NACDA Directors' Cup
The NACDA Directors' Cup, known for sponsorship reasons as the NACDA Learfield Directors' Cup or simply as the Directors' Cup, is an award given annually by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics to the colleges and univers ...
for 25 consecutive years, beginning in 1994–1995. In addition, by 2021, Stanford students and alumni had won at least
296 Olympic medals including 150 gold and 79 silver medals.
As of April 2021, 85
Nobel laureates
The Nobel Prizes ( sv, Nobelpriset, no, Nobelprisen) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make ou ...
, 29
Turing Award
The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in compu ...
laureates, and 8
Fields Medal
The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age at the International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place every four years. The name of the award ho ...
ists have been affiliated with Stanford as students, alumni, faculty, or staff. In addition, Stanford is particularly noted for its entrepreneurship and is one of the most successful universities in attracting funding for
start-ups
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...
.
Stanford alumni have founded
numerous companies, which combined produce more than $2.7 trillion in annual revenue and have created 5.4 million jobs as of 2011, roughly equivalent to the seventh largest economy in the world ().
Stanford is the
alma mater of
U.S. President
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gr ...
, 74 living billionaires, and 17 astronauts. In academia, its alumni include the current presidents of Yale and MIT and the provosts of Harvard and Princeton. It is also one of the leading producers of
Fulbright Scholars,
Marshall Scholars,
Rhodes Scholars
The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom.
Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...
, and members of the
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
.
History
![Portrait of David Starr Jordan](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Portrait_of_David_Starr_Jordan.jpg)
Stanford University was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford, dedicated to the memory of Leland Stanford Jr, their only child. The institution opened in 1891 on Stanford's previous Palo Alto farm.
Jane and Leland Stanford modeled their university after the great eastern universities, most specifically
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
in
Ithaca, New York
Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca is the seat of Tompkins County and the largest community in the Ithaca metropolitan statistical area. It is named a ...
. Stanford was referred to as the "Cornell of the West" in 1891 due to a majority of its faculty being former Cornell affiliates (professors, alumni, or both), including its first president,
David Starr Jordan
David Starr Jordan (January 19, 1851 – September 19, 1931) was the founding president of Stanford University, serving from 1891 to 1913. He was an ichthyologist during his research career. Prior to serving as president of Stanford Univer ...
, and second president,
John Casper Branner. Both Cornell and Stanford were among the first to make higher education accessible, non-sectarian, and open to women as well as men. Cornell is credited as one of the first American universities to adopt that radical departure from traditional education, and Stanford became an early adopter as well.
From an architectural point of view, the Stanfords, particularly Jane, wanted their university to look different from the eastern ones, which had often sought to emulate the style of English university buildings. They specified in the founding grant that the buildings should "be like the old adobe houses of the early Spanish days; they will be one-storied; they will have deep window seats and open fireplaces, and the roofs will be covered with the familiar dark red tiles". This guides the campus buildings to this day. The Stanfords also hired renowned landscape architect
Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the USA. Olmsted was famous for co- ...
, who previously designed the Cornell campus, to design the Stanford campus.
When Leland Stanford died in 1893, the continued existence of the university was in jeopardy due to a federal lawsuit against his estate, but Jane Stanford insisted the university remain in operation throughout the financial crisis. The university suffered major damage from the
1906 San Francisco earthquake
At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensity sha ...
; most of the damage was repaired, but a new library and gymnasium were demolished, and some original features of
Memorial Church and the
Quad
Quad as a word or prefix usually means 'four'. It may refer to:
Government
* Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, a strategic security dialogue between Australia, India, Japan, and the United States
* Quadrilateral group, an informal group which inc ...
were never restored.
During the early 20th century, the university added four professional graduate schools.
Stanford University School of Medicine
Stanford University School of Medicine is the medical school of Stanford University and is located in Stanford, California. It traces its roots to the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific, founded in San Francisco in 1858. This ...
was established in 1908 when the university acquired
Cooper Medical College
Stanford University School of Medicine is the medical school of Stanford University and is located in Stanford, California. It traces its roots to the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific, founded in San Francisco in 1858. This ...
in San Francisco; it moved to the Stanford campus in 1959. The university's law department, established as an undergraduate curriculum in 1893, was transitioned into a professional
law school
A law school (also known as a law centre or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for becoming a lawyer within a given jurisdiction.
Law degrees Argentina
In Argentina, ...
starting in 1908 and received accreditation from the
American Bar Association
The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of acad ...
in 1923. The
Stanford Graduate School of Education
The Stanford Graduate School of Education (also known as Stanford GSE, or GSE) is one of the seven schools of Stanford University, and is one of the top education schools in the United States. It was founded in 1891 and offers master's and doc ...
grew out of the Department of the History and Art of Education, one of the original 21 departments at Stanford, and became a professional graduate school in 1917. The
Stanford Graduate School of Business
The Stanford Graduate School of Business (also known as Stanford GSB) is the graduate business school of Stanford University, a private research university in Stanford, California. For several years it has been the most selective business schoo ...
was founded in 1925 at the urging of then-trustee
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gr ...
. In 1919,
The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace was started by
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gr ...
to preserve artifacts related to
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. The
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center), established in 1962, performs research in particle physics.
![William Shockley, Stanford University](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/William_Shockley%2C_Stanford_University.jpg)
In the 1940s and 1950s, an engineering professor and later provost
Frederick Terman
Frederick Emmons Terman (; June 7, 1900 – December 19, 1982) was an American professor and academic administrator. He was the dean of the school of engineering from 1944 to 1958 and provost from 1955 to 1965 at Stanford University. He is widely ...
encouraged Stanford engineering graduates to invent products and start their own companies.
During the 1950s, he established
Stanford Industrial Park
Stanford Research Park (SRP) is a technology park established in 1951 as a joint initiative between Stanford University and the Palo Alto, California, City of Palo Alto. It has more than 150 companies, including Hewlett-Packard, Tesla Motors, TIB ...
, a high-tech commercial campus on university land.
Also in the 1950s
William Shockley
William Bradford Shockley Jr. (February 13, 1910 – August 12, 1989) was an American physicist and inventor. He was the manager of a research group at Bell Labs that included John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. The three scientists were jointly ...
, co-inventor of the silicon transistor, recipient of the 1956
Nobel Prize for Physics, and later professor of physics at Stanford, moved to the Palo Alto area and founded a company,
Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory. The next year
eight of his employees resigned and formed a competing company,
Fairchild Semiconductor
Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. was an American semiconductor company based in San Jose, California. Founded in 1957 as a division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument, it became a pioneer in the manufacturing of transistors and of int ...
. The presence of so many high-tech and semiconductor firms helped to establish Stanford and the mid-
Peninsula
A peninsula (; ) is a landform that extends from a mainland and is surrounded by water on most, but not all of its borders. A peninsula is also sometimes defined as a piece of land bordered by water on three of its sides. Peninsulas exist on all ...
as a hotbed of innovation, eventually named
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...
after the key ingredient in transistors. Shockley and Terman are often described, separately or jointly, as the "fathers of Silicon Valley".
Stanford limited Jewish student admissions during the 1950s.
Stanford in the 1960s rose from a regional university to one of the most prestigious in the United States, "when it appeared on lists of the "top ten" universities in America... This swift rise to performance
asunderstood at the time as related directly to the university's defense contracts..."
In the following decades, however, controversies would damage the reputation of the school. The 1971
Stanford prison experiment
The Stanford prison experiment (SPE) was a psychological experiment conducted in the summer of 1971. It was a two-week simulation
A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulati ...
was criticized as unethical, and the misuse of government funds from 1981 resulted in severe penalties to the school's research funding
and the resignation of Stanford President
Donald Kennedy in 1992.
Land
![View Stanford](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/View_Stanford.jpg)
Most of Stanford is on an
campus, one of the largest in the United States. It is on the
San Francisco Peninsula, in the northwest part of the
Santa Clara Valley (
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...
) approximately southeast of
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
and approximately northwest of
San Jose. $4.5 billion was received by Stanford in 2006 and spent more than $2.1 billion in 2 counties named Santa Clara, and San Mateo. In 2008, 60% of this land remained undeveloped.
Stanford's main campus includes a
census-designated place
A census-designated place (CDP) is a concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only.
CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counterparts of incorporated places, such ...
within
unincorporated Santa Clara County
Santa Clara County, officially the County of Santa Clara, is the sixth-most populous county in the U.S. state of California, with a population of 1,936,259, as of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. Santa Clara County and neighboring Sa ...
, although some of the university land (such as the
Stanford Shopping Center and the
Stanford Research Park
Stanford Research Park (SRP) is a technology park established in 1951 as a joint initiative between Stanford University and the City of Palo Alto. It has more than 150 companies, including Hewlett-Packard, Tesla Motors, TIBCO and VMware; previous ...
) is within the city limits of
Palo Alto. The campus also includes much land in unincorporated
San Mateo County
San Mateo County ( ), officially the County of San Mateo, is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 764,442. Redwood City is the county seat, and the third most populated city following Daly ...
(including the
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the
Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve
The Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve is a nature preserve and biological field station formally established as a reserve in 1973. The biological preserve is owned by Stanford University, and is located at south of Sand Hill Road and west of Int ...
), as well as in the city limits of
Menlo Park (Stanford Hills neighborhood),
Woodside
Woodside may refer to:
Places and buildings Australia
*Woodside, South Australia, a town
*Woodside, Victoria, a town
Canada
*Woodside National Historic Site, the boyhood home of William Lyon Mackenzie King
*Woodside, Nova Scotia, a neighborho ...
, and
Portola Valley
Portola Valley is a town in San Mateo County, California. Located on the San Francisco Peninsula in the Bay Area, Portola Valley is a small, wealthy community nestled on the eastern slopes of the Santa Cruz Mountains.
History
Portola Val ...
.
The central campus includes a seasonal lake (
Lake Lagunita
Lake Lagunita, informally referred to as Lake Lag, is an artificial dry lake in Stanford University, California, located on the western side of the Stanford campus near the Lagunita residences. It was created in to provide irrigation for Palo A ...
, actually an irrigation reservoir), home to the vulnerable
California tiger salamander. As of 2012
Lake Lagunita
Lake Lagunita, informally referred to as Lake Lag, is an artificial dry lake in Stanford University, California, located on the western side of the Stanford campus near the Lagunita residences. It was created in to provide irrigation for Palo A ...
was often dry and the university had no plans to artificially fill it. Two other reservoirs,
Searsville Lake
Searsville Dam is a masonry dam in San Mateo County, California that was completed in 1892, one year after the founding of Stanford University, and impounds Corte Madera Creek (San Mateo County, California), Corte Madera Creek (in the San Francisq ...
on
San Francisquito Creek and Felt Lake, are on more remote sections of the founding grant.
Central campus
The central academic campus is adjacent to Palo Alto, bounded by
El Camino Real, Stanford Avenue, Jane Stanford Way, and
Sand Hill Road
Sand Hill Road, often shortened to just "Sand Hill" or "SHR", is an arterial road in western Silicon Valley, California, running through Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Woodside, notable for its concentration of venture capital companies. The road h ...
. The
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the U ...
has assigned it two
ZIP Codes: 94305 for campus mail and 94309 for
P.O. box
A post office box (commonly abbreviated as P.O. box, or also known as a postal box) is a uniquely addressable lockable box located on the premises of a post office.
In some regions, particularly in Africa, there is no door to door delivery ...
mail. It lies within
area code 650
Area code 650 is a telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It was split from area code 415 on August 2, 1997, and includes most of San Mateo County (except t ...
.
Non-central campus
Stanford currently operates in various locations outside of its central campus.
On the founding grant:
*
Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve
The Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve is a nature preserve and biological field station formally established as a reserve in 1973. The biological preserve is owned by Stanford University, and is located at south of Sand Hill Road and west of Int ...
is a natural reserve south of the central campus owned by the university and used by wildlife biologists for research. Researchers and students are involved in biological research. Professors can teach the importance of biological research to the biological community. The primary goal is to understand the system of the natural Earth.
*
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is a facility west of the central campus operated by the university for the Department of Energy. It contains the longest
linear particle accelerator in the world, on of land.
Off the founding grant:
*
Hopkins Marine Station, in
Pacific Grove, California, is a
marine biology
Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms in the sea. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies s ...
research center owned by the university since 1892. Based on US Pacific Coast, it is one of the oldest marine laboratories. It includes 10 research laboratories and is also used for archaeological exploration purposes. A graduate student of the anthropology department discover some broken elements, which leads to proof that 100 years before it was home to a Chinese American fishing village.
* Study abroad locations: unlike typical
study abroad
International students, or foreign students, are students who undertake all or part of their tertiary education in a country other than their own and move to that country for the purpose of studying.
In 2019, there were over 6 million internati ...
programs, Stanford itself operates in several locations around the world; thus, each location has Stanford faculty-in-residence and staff in addition to students, creating a "mini-Stanford."
* Redwood City campus for many of the university's administrative offices in
Redwood City, California
Redwood City is a city on the San Francisco Peninsula in Northern California's Bay Area, approximately south of San Francisco, and northwest of San Jose. Redwood City's history spans its earliest inhabitation by the Ohlone people to being a ...
, a few miles north of the main campus. In 2005, the university purchased a small, campus in Midpoint Technology Park intended for staff offices; development was delayed by
The Great Recession
The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At t ...
. In 2015 the university announced a development plan
and the Redwood City campus opened in March 2019.
* The Bass Center in
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
provides a base, including housing, for the Stanford in Washington program for undergraduates. It includes a small art gallery open to the public.
* China: Stanford Center at Peking University, housed in the Lee Jung Sen Building, is a small center for researchers and students in collaboration with
Peking University
Peking University (PKU; ) is a public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education.
Peking University was established as the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 when it received its royal charter ...
.
Faculty residences
Many Stanford faculty members live in the "Faculty Ghetto," within walking or biking distance of campus. The Faculty Ghetto is composed of land owned by Stanford. Similar to a
condominium
A condominium (or condo for short) is an ownership structure whereby a building is divided into several units that are each separately owned, surrounded by common areas that are jointly owned. The term can be applied to the building or complex ...
, the houses can be bought and sold but the land under the houses is rented on a 99-year lease. Houses in the "Ghetto" appreciate and depreciate, but not as rapidly as overall
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...
values. For faculty housing there are some changes that come from the date February 1, 2022.
Other uses
Some of the land is managed to provide revenue for the university such as the
Stanford Shopping Center and the
Stanford Research Park
Stanford Research Park (SRP) is a technology park established in 1951 as a joint initiative between Stanford University and the City of Palo Alto. It has more than 150 companies, including Hewlett-Packard, Tesla Motors, TIBCO and VMware; previous ...
. Stanford land is also leased for a token rent by the
Palo Alto Unified School District for several schools including
Palo Alto High School
Palo Alto Senior High School, commonly referred to locally as "Paly", is a comprehensive public high school in Palo Alto, California. Operated by the Palo Alto Unified School District, the school is one of two schools in the district, the other b ...
and
Gunn High School. El Camino Park, the oldest Palo Alto city park (established 1914), is also on Stanford land.
Stanford also has the Stanford Golf Course and Stanford Red Barn Equestrian Center used by Stanford athletics though the golf course can also be used by the general public.
Landmarks
Contemporary campus landmarks include the
Main Quad and
Memorial Church, the
Cantor Center for Visual Arts
The Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, formerly the Stanford University Museum of Art, and commonly known as the Cantor Arts Center, is an art museum on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California. ...
and the
Bing Concert Hall
Bing Concert Hall is a performing arts facility at Stanford University that opened in January 2013. The heart of the building is the oval-shaped concert hall, which has 842 seats arranged in a vineyard style surrounding the stage in terraces. ...
, the
Stanford Mausoleum
The Stanford Mausoleum, located in the Northwest of the Stanford University campus in the Stanford University Arboretum, holds the remains of the university's namesake Leland Stanford, Jr. and his parents Leland and Jane Stanford.
Once per yea ...
with the nearby
Angel of Grief
''Angel of Grief'' or the ''Weeping Angel'' is an 1894 sculpture by William Wetmore Story for the grave of his wife Emelyn Story at the Protestant Cemetery in Rome. Its full title bestowed by the creator was ''The Angel of Grief Weeping Over th ...
,
Hoover Tower, the
Rodin
François Auguste René Rodin (12 November 184017 November 1917) was a French sculptor, generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a uniqu ...
Sculpture Garden, the
Papua New Guinea Sculpture Garden
In 1994, Jim Mason, a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University, arranged for two groups of men from the Sepik River region of Papua New Guinea to carve the New Guinea Sculpture Garden at Stanford University. ...
, the
Arizona Cactus Garden
The Arizona Cactus Garden, or, officially, Arizona Garden, also known as the Cactus Garden, is a small botanical garden specializing in cactus and succulents. It is located on the campus of Stanford University (within the Stanford University A ...
, the
Stanford University Arboretum
The Stanford University Arboretum is an arboretum located on the grounds of Stanford University in Stanford, California. It is open to the public daily without charge.
Background
The arboretum began with the indigenous live oaks on Leland Sta ...
,
Green Library
The Cecil H. Green Library (commonly known as Green Library) is the main library on the Stanford University campus and is part of the SUL system. It is named for Cecil H. Green.
Green Library houses 4 million volumes, most of which are relate ...
and
the Dish
''The Dish'' is a 2000 Australian historical comedy-drama film that tells the story of the Parkes Observatory's role in relaying live television of humanity's first steps on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. It was the top-grossing ...
.
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...
's 1937
Hanna–Honeycomb House and the 1919
Lou Henry Hoover House
The Hoover House, formally known as the Lou Henry Hoover House or the Lou Henry and Herbert Hoover House, is a historic house located on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California, United States. Completed in 1920, it is the form ...
are both listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
.
White Memorial Fountain
White Memorial Fountain, also known as ''The Claw'', is a fountain by Aristides Demetrios on the Stanford University campus in Stanford, California, United States. It was installed in 1964, and Demetrios returned to restore the fountain in 2011. I ...
(also known as "The Claw") between the Stanford Bookstore and the Old Union is a popular place to meet and to engage in the Stanford custom of "fountain hopping"; it was installed in 1964 and designed by
Aristides Demetrios
Aristides Burton Demetrios (born 1932) is an American sculptor.
Life
Aristides Burton Demetrios, also known as "Aris," was born in 1932 and raised in Massachusetts, where he lived during childhood in Gloucester. His father George Demetrios was a ...
after a national competition as a memorial for two brothers in the class of 1949, William N. White and John B. White II, one of whom died before graduating and one shortly after in 1952.
[ Has information on the White brothers that slightly corrects some of the facts in other articles.]
File:Stanford Memorial Church Interior 2.jpg, Interior of the Stanford Memorial Church at the center of the Main Quad
File:Stanford University Hoover Tower.JPG, Hoover Tower, at , the tallest building on campus
File:Stanstadium view.jpg, The new (2006) Stanford Stadium, site of home football games
File:Stanford University Arches with Memorial Church in the background.jpg, Stanford Quad with Memorial Church in the background
File:The Dish, Stanford University.jpg, The Dish
''The Dish'' is a 2000 Australian historical comedy-drama film that tells the story of the Parkes Observatory's role in relaying live television of humanity's first steps on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. It was the top-grossing ...
, a diameter radio telescope on the Stanford foothills overlooking the main campus
File:Claw Fountain at Stanford Univerisity.JPG, White Memorial Fountain
White Memorial Fountain, also known as ''The Claw'', is a fountain by Aristides Demetrios on the Stanford University campus in Stanford, California, United States. It was installed in 1964, and Demetrios returned to restore the fountain in 2011. I ...
(The Claw)
Administration and organization
![Marc Tessier-Lavigne at Rally for Medical Research](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/Marc_Tessier-Lavigne_at_Rally_for_Medical_Research.jpg)
Stanford is a private, non-profit university administered as a
corporate trust
In the most basic sense of the term, A corporate trust is a trust created by a corporation.
The term in the United States is most often used to describe the business activities of many financial services companies and banks that act in a fiduciar ...
governed by a privately appointed
board of trustees
A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...
with a maximum membership of 38.
Trustees serve five-year terms (not more than two consecutive terms) and meet five times annually. A new trustee is chosen by the current trustees by ballot.
The Stanford trustees also oversee the
Stanford Research Park
Stanford Research Park (SRP) is a technology park established in 1951 as a joint initiative between Stanford University and the City of Palo Alto. It has more than 150 companies, including Hewlett-Packard, Tesla Motors, TIBCO and VMware; previous ...
, the
Stanford Shopping Center, the
Cantor Center for Visual Arts
The Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, formerly the Stanford University Museum of Art, and commonly known as the Cantor Arts Center, is an art museum on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California. ...
,
Stanford University Medical Center
Stanford University Medical Center is a medical complex which includes Stanford Health Care and Stanford Children's Health. It is consistently ranked as one of the best hospitals in the United States and serves as a teaching hospital for the ...
, and many associated medical facilities (including the
Lucile Packard Children's Hospital).
The board appoints a president to serve as the chief executive officer of the university, to prescribe the duties of professors and course of study, to manage financial and business affairs, and to appoint nine vice presidents. The 11th and current president of Stanford University is
Marc Trevor Tessier-Lavigne
Marc Trevor Tessier-Lavigne (born December 18, 1959) is a Canadian-American neuroscientist who is the 11th and current president of Stanford University.
Previously, he was a professor at the University of California, San Francisco and then pre ...
, a Canadian-born
neuroscientist.
The provost is the chief academic and budget officer, to whom the deans of each of the seven schools report.
Persis Drell became the 13th provost in February 2017.
As of 2018, the university was organized into seven academic schools.
The schools of
Humanities and Sciences
"The Two Cultures" is the first part of an influential 1959 Rede Lecture by British scientist and novelist C. P. Snow which were published in book form as ''The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution'' the same year. Its thesis was that sci ...
(27 departments),
Engineering
Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...
(nine departments),
and
Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (four departments)
have both graduate and undergraduate programs while the Schools of
Law,
Medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...
,
Education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
, and
Business
Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for pr ...
, have graduate programs only. A new
School of Sustainability will supersede the School of Earth, Energy, & Environmental Sciences in September 2022. The powers and authority of the faculty are vested in the Academic Council, which is made up of tenure and non-tenure line faculty, research faculty, senior fellows in some policy centers and institutes, the president of the university, and some other academic administrators. But most matters are handled by the Faculty Senate, made up of 54 elected representatives of the faculty for the year 2021–22.
The Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) is the student government for Stanford and all registered students are members. Its elected leadership consists of the Undergraduate Senate elected by the undergraduate students, the Graduate Student Council elected by the graduate students, and the President and Vice President elected as a
ticket
Ticket or tickets may refer to:
Slips of paper
* Lottery ticket
* Parking ticket, a ticket confirming that the parking fee was paid (and the time of the parking start)
* Toll ticket, a slip of paper used to indicate where vehicles entered a tol ...
by the entire student body.
Stanford is the beneficiary of a special clause in the
California Constitution
The Constitution of California ( es, Constitución de California) is the primary organizing law for the U.S. state of California, describing the duties, powers, structures and functions of the government of California. California's original co ...
, which explicitly exempts Stanford property from taxation so long as the property is used for educational purposes.
Endowment and donations
The university's
endowment
Endowment most often refers to:
*A term for human penis size
It may also refer to: Finance
*Financial endowment, pertaining to funds or property donated to institutions or individuals (e.g., college endowment)
*Endowment mortgage, a mortgage to b ...
, managed by the Stanford Management Company, was valued at $36.3 billion as of August 31, 2022.
[ Payouts from the Stanford endowment covered approximately 21% of university expenses in the 2022 fiscal year.][ In the 2018 NACUBO-]TIAA
The Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America-College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA, formerly TIAA-CREF), is a Fortune 100 financial services organization that is the leading provider of financial services in the academic, research, ...
survey of colleges and universities in the United States and Canada, only Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
, the University of Texas System
The University of Texas System (UT System) is an American government entity of the state of Texas that includes 13 higher educational institutions throughout the state including eight universities and five independent health institutions. The UT& ...
, and Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
had larger endowments than Stanford.
In 2006, President John L. Hennessy
John Leroy Hennessy (born September 22, 1952) is an American computer scientist, academician and businessman who serves as Chairman of Alphabet Inc. Hennessy is one of the founders of MIPS Computer Systems Inc. as well as Atheros and served as t ...
launched a five-year campaign called the Stanford Challenge, which reached its $4.3 billion fundraising goal in 2009, two years ahead of time, but continued fundraising for the duration of the campaign. It concluded on December 31, 2011, having raised $6.23 billion and breaking the previous campaign fundraising record of $3.88 billion held by Yale. Specifically, the campaign raised $253.7 million for undergraduate financial aid, as well as $2.33 billion for its initiative in "Seeking Solutions" to global problems, $1.61 billion for "Educating Leaders" by improving K-12 education, and $2.11 billion for "Foundation of Excellence" aimed at providing academic support for Stanford students and faculty. Funds supported 366 new fellowships for graduate students, 139 new endowed chairs for faculty, and 38 new or renovated buildings. The new funding also enabled the construction of a facility for stem cell research; a new campus for the business school; an expansion of the law school; a new Engineering Quad; a new art and art history building; an on-campus concert hall; the new Cantor Arts Center; and a planned expansion of the medical school, among other things. In 2012, the university raised $1.035 billion, becoming the first school to raise more than a billion dollars in a year.
In April 2022, Stanford University announced a $75 million donation, in support of a multidisciplinary neurodegenerative brain disease research initiative at the university's Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. The donation came from Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife Penny; hence The Phil and Penny Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience will explore cognitive declines from diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
Academics
Admissions
Stanford is considered by '' US News'' to be 'most selective', with an acceptance rate of 4%. Half of the applicants accepted to Stanford have an SAT
The SAT ( ) is a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the United States. Since its debut in 1926, its name and scoring have changed several times; originally called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, it was later called the Schola ...
score between 1440 and 1570 or an ACT score of 32 and 35. Admissions officials consider a student's GPA to be an important academic factor, with emphasis on an applicant's high school class rank and letters of recommendation. In terms of non-academic materials as of 2019, Stanford ranks extracurricular activities, talent/ability and character/personal qualities as 'very important' in making first-time, first-year admission decisions, while ranking the interview, whether the applicant is a first-generation university applicant, legacy preferences
Legacy preference or legacy admission is a preference given by an institution or organization to certain applicants on the basis of their familial relationship to alumni of that institution. It is most controversial in college admissions, where st ...
, volunteer work and work experience as 'considered'.
Teaching and learning
Stanford follows a quarter system with the autumn quarter usually beginning in late September and the spring quarter ending in mid-June. The full-time, four-year undergraduate program has arts and sciences focus with high graduate student coexistence. Stanford is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges
The Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) was an organization providing School accreditation, accreditation of public and private universities, colleges, secondary school, secondary and elementary schools in California and Hawaii, ...
.
Stanford's admission process is need-blind for U.S. citizens and permanent residents; while it is not need-blind for international students, 64% are on need-based aid, with an average aid package of $31,411. In 2012–13, the university awarded $126 million in need-based financial aid to 3,485 students, with an average aid package of $40,460. Eighty percent of students receive some form of financial aid. Stanford has a no-loan policy. For undergraduates admitted starting in 2015, Stanford waives tuition, room, and board for most families with incomes below $65,000, and most families with incomes below $125,000 are not required to pay tuition; those with incomes up to $150,000 may have tuition significantly reduced. Seventeen percent of students receive Pell Grants, a common measure of low-income students at a college. In 2022, Stanford started its first dual-enrollment computer science program for high school students from low-income communities as a pilot project which then inspired the founding of the Qualia Global Scholars Program. Stanford plans to expand the program to include courses in Structured Liberal Education and writing.
The Cantonese language had classes at Stanford until 2020, when the remaining Cantonese instructor was laid off.
Research centers and institutes
Stanford is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity." The university's research expenditure in fiscal year 2021 was $1.69 billion and total sponsored projects was 7,900+. As of 2016 the Office of the Vice Provost and Dean of Research oversaw eighteen independent laboratories, centers, and institutes. Dr. Kathryn Ann Moler is the key person for leading those research centers for choosing problems, faculty members, and students. Funding is also provided for undergraduate and graduate students by those labs, centers, and institutes for collaborative research.
Other Stanford-affiliated institutions include the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (originally the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center), the Stanford Research Institute (an independent institution which originated at the university), the Hoover Institution
The Hoover Institution (officially The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace; abbreviated as Hoover) is an American public policy think tank and research institution that promotes personal and economic liberty, free enterprise, and ...
(a conservative think tank
A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmenta ...
) and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design
The Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, commonly known as the d.school, is a design thinking institute based at Stanford University. David M. Kelley and Bernard Roth founded the program. According to the ''New York Times'', the d.school ...
(a multidisciplinary design school in cooperation with the Hasso Plattner Institute
The Hasso Plattner Institute (Hasso-Plattner-Institut für Digital Engineering gGmbH), abbreviated HPI, is a German information technology
Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, an ...
of University of Potsdam that integrates product design, engineering, and business management education).
Stanford is home to the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute which grew out of and still contains the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project, a collaboration with the King Center to publish the King papers held by the King Center. It also runs the John S. Knight Fellowship for Professional Journalists and the Center for Ocean Solutions, which brings together marine science and policy to address challenges facing the ocean. It focuses mainly 5 points, such as climate change, overfishing, coastal development, pollution and plastics.
Together with UC Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...
and UC San Francisco
The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It condu ...
, Stanford is part of the Biohub
Chan Zuckerberg Biohub (CZ Biohub), or simply Biohub, is a nonprofit research organization. In addition to supporting and conducting original research, CZ Biohub acts as a hub and fosters science collaboration between UC Berkeley, UC San Francis ...
, a new medical science research center founded in 2016 by a $600 million commitment from Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (; born ) is an American business magnate, internet entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is known for co-founding the social media website Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook, Inc.), o ...
and pediatrician Priscilla Chan. This medical research center is working for designing advanced-level health care units.
Libraries and digital resources
As of 2014, Stanford University Libraries
The Stanford University Libraries (SUL), formerly known as "Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources" ("SULAIR"), is the library system of Stanford University in California. It encompasses more than 24 libraries in all. Sev ...
(SUL) has 24 libraries in total. The Hoover Institution Library and Archives
The Hoover Institution Library and Archives is a research center and archival repository located at Stanford University, near Palo Alto, California in the United States. Built around a collection amassed by Stanford graduate Herbert Hoover prio ...
is a research center based on history of 20th century. Stanford University Libraries
The Stanford University Libraries (SUL), formerly known as "Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources" ("SULAIR"), is the library system of Stanford University in California. It encompasses more than 24 libraries in all. Sev ...
(SUL) held a collection of more than 9.3 million volumes, nearly 300,000 rare or special books, 1.5 million e-books, 2.5 million audiovisual materials, 77,000 serials, nearly 6 million microform holdings, thousands of other digital resources. and 516,620 journal, 526,414 images, 11,000 software collection, 1,00,000 videos etc. .
The main library in the SU library system is the Green Library
The Cecil H. Green Library (commonly known as Green Library) is the main library on the Stanford University campus and is part of the SUL system. It is named for Cecil H. Green.
Green Library houses 4 million volumes, most of which are relate ...
, which also contains various meeting and conference rooms, study spaces, and reading rooms. Lathrop Library
The Lathrop Library is one of several libraries at Stanford University in California. It is the current undergraduate library and houses the East Asia Library. Part of the Stanford University Libraries system, it opened on September 15, 2014 and h ...
(previously Meyer Library, demolished in 2015), holds various student-accessible media resources and houses one of the largest East Asia
East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea and ...
collections with 540,000 volumes.
Stanford University Press was founded in 1892. It published about 130 books per year has printed more than 3,000 books. It also has fifteen subject areas.
Arts
Stanford is home to the Cantor Center for Visual Arts
The Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, formerly the Stanford University Museum of Art, and commonly known as the Cantor Arts Center, is an art museum on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California. ...
, a museum with 24 galleries, sculpture gardens, terraces, and a courtyard first established in 1891 by Jane and Leland Stanford as a memorial to their only child. The center's collection of works by Rodin
François Auguste René Rodin (12 November 184017 November 1917) was a French sculptor, generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a uniqu ...
is among the largest in the world. The Thomas Welton Stanford Gallery, which was built in 1917, serves as a teaching resource for the Department of Art & Art History as well as an exhibition venue. In 2014, Stanford opened the Anderson Collection, a new museum focused on postwar American art and founded by the donation of 121 works by food service moguls Mary and Harry Anderson
Harry Laverne Anderson (October 14, 1952 – April 16, 2018) was an American actor, comedian and magician. He is best known for his role of Judge Harry Stone on the 1984–1992 television series '' Night Court''. He later starred in the ...
. There are outdoor art installations throughout the campus, primarily sculptures, but some murals as well. The Papua New Guinea Sculpture Garden near Roble Hall features includes wood carvings and " totem poles."
The Stanford music department sponsors many ensembles including five choirs, the Stanford Symphony Orchestra, Stanford Taiko
Stanford Taiko is a collegiate taiko group based at Stanford University. One of the first collegiate taiko groups to form in North America, it was founded in the winter of 1992 by students Ann Ishimaru and Valerie Mih as a way to share taiko with ...
, and the Stanford Wind Ensemble. Extracurricular activities include theater groups such as Ram's Head Theatrical Society, the Stanford Improvisors, the Stanford Shakespeare Company, and the Stanford Savoyards, a group dedicated to performing the works of Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan was a Victorian era, Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900), who jointly created fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which ...
. Stanford is also host to ten ''a cappella'' groups, including the Mendicants
A mendicant (from la, mendicans, "begging") is one who practices mendicancy, relying chiefly or exclusively on alms to survive. In principle, mendicant religious orders own little property, either individually or collectively, and in many inst ...
(Stanford's first), Counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tradi ...
(the first all-female group on the West Coast West Coast or west coast may refer to:
Geography Australia
* Western Australia
*Regions of South Australia#Weather forecasting, West Coast of South Australia
* West Coast, Tasmania
**West Coast Range, mountain range in the region
Canada
* Britis ...
), the Harmonics, the Stanford Fleet Street Singers, Talisman, Everyday People, and Raagapella.
Reputation and rankings
''Slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...
'' in 2014 dubbed Stanford as "the Harvard of the 21st century".
In the same year ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' dubbed Harvard as the "Stanford of the East". In that article titled ''To Young Minds of Today, Harvard Is the Stanford of the East'' ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' concluded that "Stanford University has become America's 'it' school, by measures that Harvard once dominated." In 2019, Stanford University took 1st place on Reuters' list of the ''World's Most Innovative Universities'' for the fifth consecutive year. In 2022, ''Washington Monthly
''Washington Monthly'' is a bimonthly, nonprofit magazine of United States politics and government that is based in Washington, D.C. The magazine is known for its annual ranking of American colleges and universities, which serves as an alternat ...
'' ranked Stanford at 1st position in their annual list of top universities in USA. In a 2022 survey by ''The Princeton Review
The Princeton Review is an education services company providing tutoring, test preparation and admission resources for students. It was founded in 1981. and since that time has worked with over 400 million students. Services are delivered by 4,0 ...
'', Stanford was ranked 1st among the top ten "dream colleges" of America, and was considered to be the ultimate "dream college" of both students and parents. Stanford Graduate School of Business
The Stanford Graduate School of Business (also known as Stanford GSB) is the graduate business school of Stanford University, a private research university in Stanford, California. For several years it has been the most selective business schoo ...
was ranked 1st in the list of America's best business schools by ''Bloomberg'' for 2022-23.
From polls of college applicants done by The Princeton Review
The Princeton Review is an education services company providing tutoring, test preparation and admission resources for students. It was founded in 1981. and since that time has worked with over 400 million students. Services are delivered by 4,0 ...
, every year from 2013 to 2020 the most commonly named "dream college" for students was Stanford; separately, parents, too, most frequently named Stanford their ultimate "dream college."
Globally Stanford is also ranked among the top universities in the world (see infoboxes above). The ''Academic Ranking of World Universities
The ''Academic Ranking of World Universities'' (''ARWU''), also known as the Shanghai Ranking, is one of the annual publications of world university rankings. The league table was originally compiled and issued by Shanghai Jiao Tong University ...
(ARWU)'' ranked Stanford second in the world (after Harvard) most years from 2003 to 2020. ''Times Higher Education
''Times Higher Education'' (''THE''), formerly ''The Times Higher Education Supplement'' (''The Thes''), is a British magazine reporting specifically on news and issues related to higher education.
Ownership
TPG Capital acquired TSL Education ...
'' recognizes Stanford as one of the world's "six super brands" on its ''World Reputation Rankings'', along with Berkeley
Berkeley most often refers to:
*Berkeley, California, a city in the United States
**University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California
* George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher
Berkeley may also refer ...
, Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
, Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
, MIT, and Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
.
Discoveries and innovation
Natural sciences
* Biological synthesis
Biosynthesis is a multi-step, enzyme-catalyzed process where substrates are converted into more complex products in living organisms. In biosynthesis, simple compounds are modified, converted into other compounds, or joined to form macromolecules. ...
of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) – Arthur Kornberg discovered the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of ribonucleic acid (RNA) and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), and won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, accord ...
1959 for his work at Stanford. By studying bacteria, Kornberg succeeded in isolating DNA polymerase in 1956–an enzyme that is active in the formation of DNA.
* First Transgenic organism
A transgene is a gene that has been transferred naturally, or by any of a number of genetic engineering techniques, from one organism to another. The introduction of a transgene, in a process known as transgenesis, has the potential to change the ...
– Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer
Herbert Wayne "Herb" Boyer (born July 10, 1936) is an American biotechnologist, researcher and entrepreneur in biotechnology. Along with Stanley N. Cohen and Paul Berg he discovered a method to coax bacteria into producing foreign proteins, ther ...
were the first scientists to transplant genes from one living organism to another, a fundamental discovery for genetic engineering. Thousands of products have been developed on the basis of their work, including human growth hormone
Growth hormone (GH) or somatotropin, also known as human growth hormone (hGH or HGH) in its human form, is a peptide hormone that stimulates growth, cell reproduction, and cell regeneration in humans and other animals. It is thus important in h ...
and hepatitis B vaccine.
* Laser
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The fir ...
– Arthur Leonard Schawlow
Arthur Leonard Schawlow (May 5, 1921 – April 28, 1999) was an American physicist and co-inventor of the laser with Charles Townes. His central insight, which Townes overlooked, was the use of two mirrors as the resonant cavity to take maser act ...
shared the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physics
)
, image = Nobel Prize.png
, alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...
with Nicolaas Bloembergen
Nicolaas Bloembergen (March 11, 1920 – September 5, 2017) was a Dutch-American physicist and Nobel laureate, recognized for his work in developing driving principles behind nonlinear optics for laser spectroscopy. During his career, he was a p ...
and Kai Siegbahn for his work on lasers.
* Nuclear magnetic resonance – Felix Bloch developed new methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements, which are the underlying principles of the MRI.
Computer and applied sciences
* ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical fou ...
– Stanford Research Institute, formerly part of Stanford but on a separate campus, was the site of one of the four original ARPANET nodes. In the early 1970s, Bob Kahn & Vint Cerf's research project about Internetworking, later DARPA formulated it to the TCP(Transmission Control Program).
* Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
—Stanford was the site where the original design of the Internet was undertaken. Vint Cerf led a research group to elaborate the design of the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP/IP
The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...
) that he originally co-created with Robert E. Kahn ( Bob Kahn) in 1973 and which formed the basis for the architecture of the Internet.
* Frequency modulation synthesis
Frequency modulation synthesis (or FM synthesis) is a form of sound synthesis whereby the frequency of a waveform is changed by modulating its frequency with a modulator. The frequency of an oscillator is altered "in accordance with the amplitude ...
– John Chowning of the Music department invented the FM music synthesis algorithm in 1967, and Stanford later licensed it to Yamaha Corporation
is a Japanese multinational corporation and conglomerate with a very wide range of products and services. It is one of the constituents of Nikkei 225 and is the world's largest musical instrument manufacturing company. The former motorcycle div ...
.
* Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
– Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were both PhD students at Stanford. They were working on the Stanford Digital Library Project
The Stanford Digital Library Project (SDLP) (also called The Stanford Integrated Digital Library Project and The Stanford Digital Library Technologies Project) was a research program run by Hector Garcia-Molina, Terry Winograd, Dan Boneh, and Andr ...
(SDLP) which is started in 1999. The SDLP's goal was "to develop the enabling technologies for a single, integrated and universal digital library" and it was funded through the National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...
, among other federal agencies.
* Klystron tube
A klystron is a specialized linear-beam vacuum tube, invented in 1937 by American electrical engineers Russell and Sigurd Varian,Pond, Norman H. "The Tube Guys". Russ Cochran, 2008 p.31-40 which is used as an amplifier for high radio frequenci ...
– invented by the brothers Russell and Sigurd Varian
Russell Harrison Varian (April 24, 1898 – July 28, 1959) and Sigurd Fergus Varian (May 4, 1901 – October 18, 1961) were American brothers who founded one of the earliest high-tech companies ...
at Stanford. Their prototype was completed and demonstrated successfully on August 30, 1937. Upon publication in 1939, news of the klystron immediately influenced the work of U.S. and UK researchers working on radar
Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...
equipment.
* RISC
In computer engineering, a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) is a computer designed to simplify the individual instructions given to the computer to accomplish tasks. Compared to the instructions given to a complex instruction set comput ...
– ARPA funded VLSI project
The VLSI Project was a DARPA-program initiated by Robert Kahn in 1978 that provided research funding to a wide variety of university-based teams in an effort to improve the state of the art in microprocessor design, then known as Very Large Scale ...
of microprocessor
A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circu ...
design. Stanford and UC Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...
are most associated with the popularization of this concept. The Stanford MIPS
MIPS, an acronym for Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipeline Stages, was a research project conducted by John L. Hennessy at Stanford University between 1981 and 1984. MIPS investigated a type of instruction set architecture (ISA) now called ...
would go on to be commercialized as the successful MIPS architecture, while Berkeley RISC gave its name to the entire concept, commercialized as the SPARC
SPARC (Scalable Processor Architecture) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture originally developed by Sun Microsystems. Its design was strongly influenced by the experimental Berkeley RISC system developed ...
. Another success from this era were IBM's efforts that eventually led to the IBM POWER instruction set architecture
IBM POWER is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by IBM. The name is an acronym for ''Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC''.
The ISA is used as base for high end microprocessors from ...
, PowerPC
PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...
, and Power ISA
Power ISA is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) currently developed by the OpenPOWER Foundation, led by IBM. It was originally developed by IBM and the now-defunct Power.org industry group. Power IS ...
. As these projects matured, a wide variety of similar designs flourished in the late 1980s and especially the early 1990s, representing a major force in the Unix workstation
A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''workstat ...
market as well as embedded processors in laser printers, routers and similar products.
* SUN workstation – Andy Bechtolsheim
Andreas Maria Maximilian Freiherr von Mauchenheim genannt Bechtolsheim (born 30 September 1955) is a German electrical engineer, entrepreneur and investor. He co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 and was its chief hardware designer. His net worth ...
designed the SUN workstation, for the Stanford University Network The Stanford University Network, also known as SUN, SUNet or SU-Net is the campus computer network for Stanford University.
History
Stanford Research Institute, formerly part of Stanford but on a separate campus, was the site of one of the four or ...
communications project as a personal CAD
Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve co ...
workstation, which led to Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...
.
Businesses and entrepreneurship
Stanford is one of the most successful universities in creating companies and licensing its inventions to existing companies, and it is often considered a model for technology transfer
Technology transfer (TT), also called transfer of technology (TOT), is the process of transferring (disseminating) technology from the person or organization that owns or holds it to another person or organization, in an attempt to transform invent ...
.[Nigel Page]
The Making of a Licensing Legend: Stanford University’s Office of Technology Licensing
. Chapter 17.13 in Sharing the Art of IP Management. Globe White Page Ltd, London, U.K. 2007[Timothy Lenoir. Inventing the entrepreneurial university: Stanford and the co-evolution of Silicon Valley pp. 88–128 in Building Technology Transfer within Research Universities: An Entrepreneurial Approach Edited by Thomas J. Allen and Rory P. O'Shea. Cambridge University Press, 2014. ] Stanford's Office of Technology Licensing is responsible for commercializing university research, intellectual property, and university-developed projects.
The university is described as having a strong venture culture in which students are encouraged, and often funded, to launch their own companies.
Companies founded by Stanford alumni generate more than $2.7 trillion in annual revenue and have created some 5.4 million jobs since the 1930s. When combined, these companies would form the tenth-largest economy in the world.
Some companies closely associated with Stanford and their connections include:
* Hewlett-Packard
The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
, 1939: co-founders William R. Hewlett (B.S, PhD) and David Packard (M.S)
* Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and soft ...
, 1981: co-founders James H. Clark (Associate Professor) and several of his graduate students
* Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...
, 1982: co-founders Vinod Khosla
Vinod Khosla (born 28 January 1955) is an Indian-American businessman and venture capitalist. He is a co-founder of Sun Microsystems and the founder of Khosla Ventures. Khosla made his wealth from early venture capital investments in areas such ...
(M.B.A), Andy Bechtolsheim
Andreas Maria Maximilian Freiherr von Mauchenheim genannt Bechtolsheim (born 30 September 1955) is a German electrical engineer, entrepreneur and investor. He co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 and was its chief hardware designer. His net worth ...
(PhD) and Scott McNealy (M.B.A)
* Cisco
Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...
, 1984: co-founders Leonard Bosack
Leonard X. Bosack (born 1952) is a co-founder of Cisco Systems, an American-based multinational corporation that designs and sells consumer electronics, networking and communications technology, and services. His net worth is approximately $200 mi ...
(M.S) and Sandy Lerner
Sandy Lerner, (born 1955) is an American businesswoman and philanthropist. She co-founded Cisco Systems, and used the money from its sale to pursue interests in animal welfare and women's writing. One of her main projects, Chawton House, is in ...
(M.S) were in charge of the Stanford Computer Science and the Graduate School of Business computer operations groups, respectively, when the hardware was developed
* Yahoo!
Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...
, 1994: co-founders Jerry Yang (B.S, M.S) and David Filo (M.S)
* Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
, 1998: co-founders Larry Page (M.S) and Sergey Brin (M.S)
* LinkedIn, 2002: co-founders Reid Hoffman (B.S), Konstantin Guericke (B.S, M.S), Eric Lee (B.S), and Alan Liu (B.S)
* Instagram, 2010: co-founders Kevin Systrom (B.S) and Mike Krieger (B.S)
* Snapchat, 2011: co-founders Evan Spiegel (B.S), Reggie Brown (B.S) and Bobby Murphy (businessman), Bobby Murphy (B.S)
* Coursera, 2012: co-founders Andrew Ng (Associate Professor) and Daphne Koller (Professor, PhD)
Student life
Student body
Stanford enrolled 6,996 undergraduate and 10,253 graduate students as of the 2019–2020 school year. Women made up 50.4% of undergraduates and 41.5% of graduate students. In the same academic year, the freshman retention rate was 99%.
Stanford awarded 1,819 undergraduate degrees, 2,393 master's degrees, 770 doctoral degrees, and 3270 professional degrees in the 2018–2019 school year. The four-year graduation rate for the class of 2017 cohort was 72.9%, and the six-year rate was 94.4%. The relatively low four-year graduation rate is a function of the university's coterminal degree (or "coterm") program, which allows students to earn a master's degree as a 1-to-2-year extension of their undergraduate program.
As of 2010, fifteen percent of undergraduates were first-generation students.
Dormitories and student housing
As of 2013, 89% of undergraduate students lived in on-campus university housing. First-year undergraduates are required to live on campus, and all undergraduates are guaranteed housing for all four undergraduate years. Undergraduates live in 80 different houses, including dormitories, co-ops, Stanford Row House Program, row houses, and #Greek life, fraternities and sororities. At Manzanita Park, 118 mobile homes were installed as "temporary" housing from 1969 to 1991, but as of 2015 was the site of newer dorms Castano, Kimball, Lantana, and the Humanities House, completed in 2015.
Most student residences are just outside the campus core, within ten minutes (on foot or bike) of most classrooms and libraries. Some are reserved for freshmen, sophomores, or upper-class students and some are open to all four classes. Most residences are co-ed; seven are all-male fraternity, fraternities, three are all-female sorority, sororities, and there is also one all-female non-sorority house, Roth House. In most residences, men and women live on the same floor, but a few dorms are configured for men and women to live on separate floors (single-gender floors).
Several residences are considered theme houses. The Academic, Language, and Culture Houses include EAST (Education and Society Themed House), Hammarskjöld (International Themed House), Haus Mitteleuropa (Central European Themed House), La Casa Italiana (Italian Language and Culture), La Maison Française (French Language and Culture House), Slavianskii Dom (Slavic/East European Themed House), Storey (Human Biology Themed House), and Yost (Spanish Language and Culture). Cross-Cultural Themed Houses include Casa Zapata (Chicano/Latino Theme in Stern Hall), Muwekma-tah-ruk (American Indian/Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian Themed House), Okada (Asian-American Themed House in Wilbur Hall), and Ujamaa (Black/African-American Themed House in Lagunita Court). Focus Houses include Freshman-Sophomore College (Academic Focus), Branner Hall (Community Service), Kimball (Arts & Performing Arts), Crothers (Global Citizenship), and Toyon Hall, Toyon (Sophomore Priority). Theme houses predating the current "theme" classification system are Columbae (Social Change Through Nonviolence, since 1970), and Synergy (Exploring Alternatives, since 1972).
housing cooperative, Co-ops or "Self-Ops" are another housing option. These houses feature cooperative living, where residents and eating associates each contribute work to keep the house running, such as cooking meals or cleaning shared spaces. These houses have unique themes around which their community is centered. Many co-ops are hubs of music, art and philosophy. The co-ops on campus are 576 Alvarado Row (formerly Chi Theta Chi), Columbae, Enchanted Broccoli Forest (EBF), Hammarskjöld, Kairos, Terra (the unofficial LGBT house), and Synergy. Phi Sigma, at 1018 Campus Drive was formerly Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity, but in 1973 became a Self-Op.
As of 2015 around 55 percent of the graduate student population lived on campus. First-year graduate students are guaranteed on-campus housing. Stanford also subsidizes off-campus apartments in nearby Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Mountain View, California, Mountain View for graduate students who are guaranteed on-campus housing but are unable to live on campus due to a lack of space.
Athletics
As of 2016 Stanford had 16 male varsity sports and 20 female varsity sports, 19 club sports and about 27 intramural sports In 1930, following a unanimous vote by the executive committee for the Associated Students, the athletic department adopted the mascot "Indian." The Indian symbol and name were dropped by President Richard Wall Lyman, Richard Lyman in 1972, after objections from Native Americans in the United States, Native American students and a vote by the student senate. The sports teams are now officially referred to as the "Stanford Cardinal," referring to the cardinal (color), deep red color, not the cardinal (bird), cardinal bird. Stanford is a member of the Pac-12 Conference
The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its College football, football teams compete in the NCAA D ...
in most sports, the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation in several other sports, and the America East Conference in field hockey with the participation in the inter-collegiate National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA's NCAA Division I, Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, FBS.
Its traditional sports rival is the University of California, Berkeley, the neighbor to the north in the East Bay. The winner of the annual "Big Game (American football), Big Game" between the California Golden Bears football, Cal and Stanford Cardinal football, Cardinal football teams gains custody of the Stanford Axe.
As of May 9, 2022, Stanford has won 130 NCAA team championships, more than any other school. Stanford has won at least one NCAA team championship each academic year for 46 consecutive years, starting in 1976–77 and continuing through 2021–22. The second-longest NCAA championship streak was 19 years, achieved by USC from 1959 to 1960 through 1977–78. As of January 1, 2022, Stanford athletes have won 529 NCAA individual championships. No other Division I school is within 100 of Stanford's total. Stanford won 25 consecutive NACDA Directors' Cups, from 1994 to 1995 through 2018–19, awarded annually to the most successful overall college sports program in the nation.[
177 Stanford-affiliated athletes have won a total of 296 Summer Olympic medals (150 gold, 79 silver, 67 bronze), including 26 medals at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and 27 medals at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.][ In the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, Stanford-affiliated athletes won 26 medals, more than any other university. Stanford athletes have won medals in every Summer Olympic Games since 1912.
]
Traditions
* "Hail, Stanford, Hail!" is the Stanford hymn sometimes sung at ceremonies or adapted by the various university singing groups. It was written in 1892 by mechanical engineering professor Albert W. Smith and his wife, Mary Roberts Smith (in 1896 she earned the first Stanford doctorate in economics and later became associate professor of sociology), but was not officially adopted until after a performance on campus in March 1902 by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
* Big Game (American football), Big Game: The central football rivalry between Stanford and California Golden Bears football, UC Berkeley. First played in 1892, and for a time played by the universities' rugby teams, it is one of the oldest college rivalries in the United States.
* The Stanford Axe: A trophy earned by the winner of Big Game, exchanged only as necessary. The axe originated in 1899 when Stanford yell leader Billy Erb wielded a lumberman's axe to inspire the team. Stanford lost, and the Axe was stolen by Berkeley students following the game. In 1930, Stanford students staged an elaborate heist to recover the Axe. In 1933, the schools agreed to exchange it as a prize for winning Big Game. As of 2021, a restaurant centrally located on Stanford's campus is named "The Axe and Palm" in reference to the Axe.
* Big Game Gaieties: In the week ahead of Big Game, a 90-minute original musical (written, composed, produced, and performed by the students of Ram's Head Theatrical Society) is performed in Memorial Auditorium.
* Full Moon on the Quad: An annual event at Main Quad, where students gather to kiss one another starting at midnight. Typically organized by the junior class cabinet, the festivities include live entertainment, such as music and dance performances.
* The Stanford Marriage Pact: An annual matchmaking event where thousands of students complete a questionnaire about their values and are subsequently matched with the best person for them to make a "marriage pact" with.
* Fountain Hopping: At any time of year, students tour Stanford's main campus fountains to dip their feet or swim in some of the university's 25 fountains.
* Mausoleum Party: An annual Halloween party at the Stanford Mausoleum
The Stanford Mausoleum, located in the Northwest of the Stanford University campus in the Stanford University Arboretum, holds the remains of the university's namesake Leland Stanford, Jr. and his parents Leland and Jane Stanford.
Once per yea ...
, the final resting place of Leland Stanford Jr.
Leland Stanford Jr. (May 14, 1868 – March 13, 1884), known as Leland DeWitt Stanford until he was nine, was the only son of American industrialist and politician Leland Stanford and his wife Jane. Following his death from typhoid at age 15, h ...
and his parents. A 20-year tradition, the Mausoleum party was on hiatus from 2002 to 2005 due to a lack of funding, but was revived in 2006. In 2008, it was hosted in Old Union rather than at the actual Mausoleum, because rain prohibited generators from being rented. In 2009, after fundraising efforts by the Junior Class Presidents and the ASSU Executive, the event was able to return to the Mausoleum despite facing budget cuts earlier in the year.
* Wacky Walk: At commencement, graduates forgo a more traditional entrance and instead stride into Stanford Stadium in a large procession wearing wacky costumes.
* Steam Tunneling: Stanford has a network of underground brick-lined tunnels that conduct central heating to more than 200 buildings via steam pipes. Students sometimes navigate the corridors, rooms, and locked gates, carrying flashlights and water bottles. ''Stanford Magazine'' named steam tunneling one of the "101 things you must do" before graduating from the Farm in 2000.
* Band Run: An annual festivity at the beginning of the school year, where the band picks up freshmen from dorms across campus while stopping to perform at each location, culminating in a finale performance at Main Quad.
*Viennese Ball: a formal Ball (dance), ball with waltzes that was initially started in the 1970s by students returning from the now-closed (since 1987) Stanford in Vienna overseas program. It is now open to all students.
* The long-unofficial motto of Stanford, selected by President Jordan, is "''Die Luft der Freiheit weht.''" Translated from the German language, this quotation from Ulrich von Hutten means, "The wind of freedom blows." The motto was controversial during World War I, when anything in German was suspect; at that time the university disavowed that this motto was official. It was made official by way of incorporation into an official seal by the board of trustees in December 2002.
* Degree of Uncommon Man/Uncommon Woman: Stanford does not award honorary degrees, but in 1953 the "degree of Uncommon Man/Uncommon Woman" was created by Stanford Associates, part of the Stanford alumni organization, to recognize alumni who give rare and extraordinary service to the university. It is awarded not at prescribed intervals, but instead only when the president of the university deems it appropriate to recognize extraordinary service. Recipients include Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gr ...
, Bill Hewlett, Dave Packard, Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health#Lucile Packard, Lucile Packard, and John W. Gardner, John Gardner.
* Former campus traditions include the Big Game bonfire on Lake Lagunita
Lake Lagunita, informally referred to as Lake Lag, is an artificial dry lake in Stanford University, California, located on the western side of the Stanford campus near the Lagunita residences. It was created in to provide irrigation for Palo A ...
(a seasonal lake usually dry in the fall), which was formally ended in 1997 because of the presence of endangered salamanders in the lake bed.
Religious life
Students and staff at Stanford are of many different religions. The Stanford Office for Religious Life's mission is "to guide, nurture and enhance spiritual, religious and ethical life within the Stanford University community" by promoting enriching dialogue, meaningful ritual, and enduring friendships among people of all religious backgrounds. It is headed by a dean with the assistance of a senior associate dean and an associate dean.
Stanford Memorial Church, in the center of campus, has a Sunday University Public Worship service (UPW) usually in the "Protestant Ecumenical Christian" tradition where the Memorial Church Choir sings and a sermon is preached usually by one of the Stanford deans for Religious Life. UPW sometimes has multifaith services. In addition, the church is used by the Catholic community and by some of the other Christian denominations at Stanford. Weddings happen most Saturdays and the university has for over 20 years allowed blessings of same-gender relationships and now legal weddings.
In addition to the church, the Office for Religious Life has a Center for Inter-Religious Community, Learning, and Experiences (CIRCLE) on the third floor of Old Union. It offers a common room, an interfaith sanctuary, a seminar room, a student lounge area, and a reading room, as well as offices housing a number of Stanford Associated Religions (SAR) member groups and the Senior Associate Dean and Associate Dean for Religious Life. Most though not all religious student groups belong to SAR. The SAR directory includes organizations that serve atheist, Bahá’í, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Islam, Jewish, and Sikh groups, though these groups vary year by year.
The Windhover Contemplation Center was dedicated in October 2014, and was intended to provide spiritual sanctuary for students and staff in the midst of their course and work schedules; the center displays the "Windhover" paintings by Nathan Oliveira, the late Stanford professor and artist.
Some religions have a larger and more formal presence on campus in addition to the student groups; these include the Catholic Community at Stanford and Hillel at Stanford.
Greek life
Fraternities and sororities have been active on the Stanford campus since 1891 when the university first opened. In 1944, University President Donald Tresidder banned all Stanford sororities due to extreme competition. However, following Title IX, the Board of Trustees lifted the 33-year ban on sororities in 1977. Students are not permitted to join a fraternity or sorority until spring quarter of their freshman year.
As of 2016 Stanford had 31 Greek organizations, including 14 sororities and 16 fraternities. Nine of the Greek organizations were housed (eight in University-owned houses and one, Sigma Chi, in their own house, although the land is owned by the university). Six chapters were members of the African American Fraternal and Sororal Association, 11 chapters were members of the Interfraternity Council, seven chapters belonged to the Intersorority Council, and six chapters belonged to the Multicultural Greek Council.
* Stanford is home to three unhoused historically National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC or "Divine Nine") sororities (Alpha Kappa Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta, and Sigma Gamma Rho) and three unhoused NPHC fraternities (Alpha Phi Alpha, Kappa Alpha Psi, and Phi Beta Sigma). These fraternities and sororities operate under the African American Fraternal Sororal Association (AAFSA) at Stanford.
* Seven historically National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) sororities, four of which are unhoused (Alpha Phi, Alpha Epsilon Phi, Chi Omega, and Kappa Kappa Gamma) and three of which are housed (Delta Delta Delta, Kappa Alpha Theta, and Pi Beta Phi) call Stanford home. These sororities operate under the Stanford Inter-sorority Council (ISC).
* Eleven historically National Interfraternity Conference (NIC) fraternities are also represented at Stanford, including five unhoused fraternities (Alpha Epsilon Pi, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Delta Tau Delta, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, and Kappa Alpha Order), and four housed fraternities (Sigma Phi Epsilon, Kappa Sigma, Phi Kappa Psi, and Sigma Nu). These fraternities operate under the Stanford Inter-fraternity Council (IFC).
* There are also four unhoused Multicultural Greek Council (MGC) sororities on campus (alpha Kappa Delta Phi, Lambda Theta Nu, Sigma Psi Zeta, and Sigma Theta Psi), as well as two unhoused MGC fraternities (Gamma Zeta Alpha and Lambda Phi Epsilon). Lambda Phi Epsilon is recognized by the National Interfraternity Conference (NIC).
Student groups
As of 2020, Stanford had more than 600 student organizations. Groups are often, though not always, partially funded by the university via allocations directed by the student government organization, the ASSU. These funds include "special fees," which are decided by a Spring Quarter vote by the student body. Groups span athletics and recreation, careers/pre-professional, community service, ethnic/cultural, fraternities and sororities, health and counseling, media and publications, the arts, political and social awareness, and religious and philosophical organizations.
In contrast to many other selective universities, Stanford policy mandates that all recognized student clubs be "broadly open" for all interested students to join.
Stanford is home to a set of student journalism publications. ''The Stanford Daily'' is a student-run daily newspaper and has been published since the university was founded in 1892. The student-run radio station, KZSU Stanford 90.1 FM, features freeform music programming, sports commentary, and news segments; it started in 1947 as an AM radio station. The Stanford Review is a conservative student newspaper founded in 1987. ''The Fountain Hopper'' (''FoHo'') is a financially independent, anonymous student-run campus Tabloid journalism, rag publication, notable for having broken the People v. Turner, Brock Turner story.
Stanford hosts numerous environmental and sustainability-oriented student groups, including Students for a Sustainable Stanford, Students for Environmental and Racial Justice, and Stanford Energy Club.
Stanford is also home to a large number of pre-professional student organizations, organized around missions from startup incubation to paid consulting. The Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students (BASES) is one of the largest professional organizations in Silicon Valley, with over 5,000 members. Its goal is to support the next generation of entrepreneurs. StartX is a non-profit startup accelerator for student and faculty-led Startup company, startups. It is staffed primarily by students. Stanford Women In Business (SWIB) is an on-campus business organization, aimed at helping Stanford women find paths to success in the generally male-dominated technology industry. Stanford Marketing is a student group that provides students hands-on training through research and strategy consulting projects with Fortune 500 clients, as well as workshops led by people from industry and professors in the Stanford Graduate School of Business
The Stanford Graduate School of Business (also known as Stanford GSB) is the graduate business school of Stanford University, a private research university in Stanford, California. For several years it has been the most selective business schoo ...
. Stanford Finance provides mentoring and internships for students who want to enter a career in finance. Stanford Pre Business Association is intended to build connections among industry, alumni, and student communities.
Other groups include:
* The Stanford Axe Committee is the official guardian of the Stanford Axe and the rest of the time assists the Stanford Band as a supplementary spirit group. It has existed since 1982.
* The Stanford solar car project, in which students build a solar-powered car every 2 years and race it in either the North American Solar Challenge or the World Solar Challenge.
* Stanford American Indian Organization (SAIO) which hosts the annual Stanford Powwow started in 1971. This is the largest student-run event on campus and the largest student-run powwow in the country.
* The Stanford Improvisors (SImps for short) teach and perform improvisational theatre on campus and in the surrounding community. In 2014 the group finished second in the Golden Gate Regional College Improv tournament and they have since been invited twice to perform at the annual San Francisco Improv Festival.
* Asha for Education is a national student group founded in 1991. It focuses mainly on education in India and supporting nonprofit organizations that work mainly in the education sector. Asha's Stanford chapter organizes events like Holi as well as lectures by prominent leaders from India on the university campus.
Safety
Stanford's Department of Public Safety is responsible for law enforcement and safety on the main campus. Its deputy sheriffs are peace officers by arrangement with the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office. The department is also responsible for publishing an annual crime report covering the previous three years as required by the Clery Act. Fire protection has been provided by contract with the Palo Alto Fire Department since 1976.
Murder is rare on the campus, although a few cases have been notorious, including the 1974 murder of Arlis Perry in Stanford Memorial Church, which was not solved until 2018. Also notorius was Theodore Streleski's murder of his faculty advisor in 1978.
Campus sexual misconduct
In 2014, Stanford was the tenth highest in the nation in "total of reports of rape" on their main campus, with 26 reports of rape.
In Stanford's 2015 Campus Climate Survey, 4.7 percent of female undergraduates reported experiencing sexual assault as defined by the university, and 32.9 percent reported experiencing sexual misconduct. According to the survey, 85% of perpetrators of misconduct were Stanford students and 80% were men. Perpetrators of sexual misconduct were frequently aided by alcohol or drugs, according to the survey: "Nearly three-fourths of the students whose responses were categorized as sexual assault indicated that the act was accomplished by a person or persons taking advantage of them when they were drunk or high, according to the survey. Close to 70 percent of students who reported an experience of sexual misconduct involving nonconsensual penetration and/or oral sex indicated the same." Associated Students of Stanford and student and alumni activists with the anti-rape group Stand with Leah criticized the survey methodology for downgrading incidents involving alcohol if students did not check two separate boxes indicating they were both intoxicated and incapacity while sexually assaulted. Reporting on the Brock Turner rape case, a reporter from ''The Washington Post'' analyzed campus rape reports submitted by universities to the U.S. Department of Education, and found that Stanford was one of the top ten universities in campus rapes in 2014, with 26 reported that year, but when analyzed by rapes per 1000 students, Stanford was not among the top ten.
''People v. Turner''
On the night of January 17–18, 2015, 22-year-old Chanel Miller, who was visiting the campus to attend a party at the Kappa Alpha Order, Kappa Alpha fraternity, was sexually assaulted by Brock Turner, a nineteen-year-old freshman student-athlete from Ohio. Two Stanford graduate students witnessed the attack and intervened; when Turner attempted to flee the two held him down on the ground until police arrived.[Liam Stack for ''The New York Times''. June 6, 201]
Light Sentence for Brock Turner in Stanford Rape Case Draws Outrage
/ref> Stanford immediately referred the case to prosecutors and offered Miller counseling, and within two weeks had barred Turner from campus after conducting an investigation. Turner was convicted on three felony charges in March 2016 and in June 2016 he received a jail sentence of six months and was declared a sex offender, requiring him to register as such for the rest of his life; prosecutors had sought a six-year prison sentence out of the maximum 14 years that was possible. The case and the relatively lenient sentence drew nationwide attention. Two years later the judge in the case, Stanford graduate Aaron Persky, was recalled by the voters.
Joe Lonsdale
In February 2015, Elise Clougherty filed a sexual assault and harassment lawsuit against venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale.[Katie Benner for Bloomberg News. February 2, 201]
Benner on Tech: Parsing a Sexual Assault Suit
/ref>[Emily Bazelon for ''The New York Times''. February 11, 201]
/ref> Lonsdale and Clougherty entered into a relationship in the spring of 2012 when she was a junior and he was her mentor in a Stanford entrepreneurship course. By the spring of 2013 Clougherty had broken off the relationship and filed charges at Stanford that Lonsdale had broken the Stanford policy against consensual relationships between students and faculty and that he had sexually assaulted and harassed her, which resulted in Lonsdale being banned from Stanford for 10 years. Lonsdale challenged Stanford's finding that he had sexually assaulted and harassed her and Stanford rescinded that finding and the campus ban in the fall of 2015. Clougherty withdrew her suit that fall as well.
Notable people
As of late 2021, Stanford had 2,288 tenure-line faculty, senior fellows, center fellows, and medical center faculty.
Award laureates and scholars
Stanford's current community of scholars includes:
* 20 Nobel Prize laureates (as of October 2020, 85 affiliates in total);
* 174 members of the United States National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences;
* 113 members of National Academy of Engineering;
* 90 members of National Academy of Medicine;
* 303 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences;
* 10 recipients of the National Medal of Science;
* 3 recipients of the National Medal of Technology;
* 6 recipients of the National Humanities Medal;
* 47 members of American Philosophical Society;
* 56 fellows of the American Physics Society (since 1995);
* 4 Pulitzer Prize winners;
* 33 MacArthur Fellows;
* 6 Wolf Foundation Prize winners;
* 2 Association for Computational Linguistics, ACL Lifetime Achievement Award winners;
* 14 AAAI fellows;
* 2 Presidential Medal of Freedom winners.
Stanford's faculty and former faculty includes 48 Nobel laureates, 5 Fields Medalists, as well as 17 winners of the Turing Award, the so-called "Nobel Prize in computer science," comprising one-third of the List of Stanford University people#Computer science, awards given in its 44-year history. The university has 27 ACM fellows. It is also affiliated with 4 Gödel Prize winners, 4 Knuth Prize recipients, 10 IJCAI Computers and Thought Award winners, and about 15 Grace Murray Hopper Award winners for their work in the foundations of computer science. Stanford alumni have started many companies and, according to ''Forbes'', has produced the second highest number of billionaires of all universities.
As of 2020, 15 Stanford alumni have won the Nobel Prize. As of 2022, 128 Stanford students or alumni have been named Rhodes Scholars
The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom.
Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...
.
See also
* List of universities by number of billionaire alumni
* List of colleges and universities in California
* S*, a collaboration between seven universities and the Karolinska Institute for training in bioinformatics and genomics
* Stanford School
Explanatory notes
References
Further reading
* Lee Altenberg
''Beyond Capitalism: Leland Stanford's Forgotten Vision''
(Stanford Historical Society, 1990)
* Ronald N. Bracewell, ''Trees of Stanford and Environs'' (Stanford Historical Society, 2005)
* Ken Fenyo, ''The Stanford Daily 100 Years of Headlines'' (2003),
* Jean Fetter, ''Questions and Admissions: Reflections on 100,000 Admissions Decisions at Stanford'' (1997),
* Ricard Joncas, David Neumann, and Paul V. Turner. ''The Campus Guide: Stanford University''. Princeton Architectural Press, 2006. . (print); (online).
* Stuart W. Leslie, ''The Cold War and American Science: The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex at MIT and Stanford'', Columbia University Press, 1994
* Rebecca S. Lowen, R. S. Lowen, ''Creating the Cold War University: The Transformation of Stanford'', University of California Press, 1997
External links
*
Stanford Athletics website
*
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Stanford University,
1891 establishments in California
Educational institutions established in 1891
Private universities and colleges in California
Romanesque Revival architecture in California
Schools accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges
Universities and colleges in Santa Clara County, California