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 kn ...
in
Stanford, California
Stanford is a census-designated place (CDP) in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States. It is the home of Stanford University. The population was 21,150 at the 2020 census.
Stanford is an unincorporated area of ...
. 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 ...
in memory of their only child,
Leland Stanford Jr., 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 and former
governor of California 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 (video game), Railroad Tycoon'' (1990), ''Railroad Tycoon Deluxe'' (1993), ''Railroad Tycoon II'' (1998), ''Railroad Ty ...
. 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 ...
and
non-denominational 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. 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 opposing ...
,
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 wid ...
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 Coun ...
.
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, an ...
. 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. 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, 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 comput ...
laureates, and 8
Fields Medalists 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.
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
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people o ...
,
Marshall Scholars
The Marshall Scholarship is a postgraduate scholarship for "intellectually distinguished young Americans ndtheir country's future leaders" to study at any university in the United Kingdom. It is widely considered one of the most prestigious sc ...
,
Rhodes Scholars, 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 tea ...
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 ...
. 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, and second president,
. 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; most of the damage was repaired, but a new library and gymnasium were demolished, and some original features of
Memorial Church and the
Quad were never restored.
During the early 20th century, the university added four professional graduate schools.
Stanford University School of Medicine was established in 1908 when the university acquired
Cooper Medical College 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 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 aca ...
in 1923. The
Stanford Graduate School of Education 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 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
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center,
is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S. Departme ...
(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 wid ...
encouraged Stanford engineering graduates to invent products and start their own companies.
During the 1950s, he established
Stanford Industrial Park, 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 jointl ...
, co-inventor of the silicon transistor, recipient of the 1956
Nobel Prize for 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 " ...
, and later professor of physics at Stanford, moved to the Palo Alto area and founded a company,
Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory
Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory was a pioneering semiconductor developer founded by William Shockley, and funded by Beckman Instruments, Inc., in 1955. It was the first high technology company in what came to be known as Silicon Valley to w ...
. The next year
eight of his employees resigned and formed a competing company,
Fairchild Semiconductor. The presence of so many high-tech and semiconductor firms helped to establish Stanford and the mid-
Peninsula 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 Coun ...
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 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
Donald Kennedy (August 18, 1931 – April 21, 2020) was an American scientist, public administrator, and academic. He served as Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (1977–1979), President of Stanford University (1980– ...
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
The San Francisco Peninsula is a peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area that separates San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. On its northern tip is the City and County of San Francisco. Its southern base is Mountain View, south of Palo Alt ...
, in the northwest part of the
Santa Clara Valley
The Santa Clara Valley is a geologic trough in Northern California that extends 90 miles (145 km) south–southeast from San Francisco to Hollister. The longitudinal valley is bordered on the west by the Santa Cruz Mountains and on the east ...
(
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 Coun ...
) approximately southeast of
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " 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 fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
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 Place (United States Census Bureau), 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 count ...
within
unincorporated Unincorporated may refer to:
* Unincorporated area, land not governed by a local municipality
* Unincorporated entity, a type of organization
* Unincorporated territories of the United States, territories under U.S. jurisdiction, to which Congress ...
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 census. Santa Clara County and neighboring San Benito County together f ...
, although some of the university land (such as the
Stanford Shopping Center
Stanford Shopping Center is an upscale open air shopping mall located on Route 82 ( El Camino Real) at Sand Hill Road in Palo Alto, California. It is on the campus of Stanford University although the university only owns the land and not the ac ...
and the
Stanford Research Park) is within the city limits of
Palo Alto
Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
The city was es ...
. 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
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center,
is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S. Departme ...
and the
Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve), as well as in the city limits of
Menlo Park (Stanford Hills neighborhood),
Woodside, 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
The California tiger salamander (''Ambystoma californiense'') is a vulnerable amphibian native to California. It is a mole salamander. Previously considered to be a subspecies of the tiger salamander (''A. tigrinum)'', the California tiger sal ...
. 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 on
San Francisquito Creek
San Francisquito Creek (Spanish for "Little San Francisco" - the "little" referring to size of the settlement compared to Mission San Francisco de Asís) is a creek that flows into southwest San Francisco Bay in California, United States. Histo ...
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.
Non-central campus
Stanford currently operates in various locations outside of its central campus.
On the founding grant:
*
Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve 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
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center,
is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S. Departme ...
is a facility west of the central campus operated by the university for the Department of Energy. It contains the longest
linear particle accelerator
A linear particle accelerator (often shortened to linac) is a type of particle accelerator that accelerates charged subatomic particles or ions to a high speed by subjecting them to a series of oscillating electric potentials along a linear b ...
in the world, on of land.
Off the founding grant:
*
Hopkins Marine Station Hopkins Marine Station is the marine laboratory of Stanford University. It is located ninety miles south of the university's main campus, in Pacific Grove, California (United States) on the Monterey Peninsula, adjacent to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. ...
, in
Pacific Grove, California, is a
marine biology 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 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.
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, 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 Coun ...
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
Stanford Shopping Center is an upscale open air shopping mall located on Route 82 ( El Camino Real) at Sand Hill Road in Palo Alto, California. It is on the campus of Stanford University although the university only owns the land and not the ac ...
and the
Stanford Research Park. Stanford land is also leased for a token rent by the
Palo Alto Unified School District
The Palo Alto Unified School District is a public school district located near Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. It consists of twelve primary schools, three middle schools, two high schools, and an adult school.
History
The distri ...
for several schools including
Palo Alto High School and
Gunn High School
Henry M. Gunn Senior High School is one of two public high schools in Palo Alto, California, the other being Palo Alto High School.
Established in , Gunn High School was named after Henry Martin Gunn, who served as the Palo Alto superintendent fr ...
. 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 and the
Bing Concert Hall, the
Stanford Mausoleum 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
Hoover Tower is a structure on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California. The tower houses the Hoover Institution Library and Archives, an archive collection founded by Herbert Hoover before he became President of the United Stat ...
, 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, the
Arizona Cactus Garden, the
Stanford University Arboretum,
Green Library 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
The Hanna–Honeycomb House, also known as simply the Hanna House, located on the Stanford University campus in Stanford, California, United States, was Frank Lloyd Wright's first work in the Bay Area and his first work with non-rectangular struc ...
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 ...
.
White Memorial Fountain (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
Stanford Memorial Church (also referred to informally as MemChu) is located on the Main Quad at the center of the Stanford University campus in Stanford, California, United States. It was built during the American RenaissanceGregg, p. 34 by ...
at the center of the Main Quad
File:Stanford University Hoover Tower.JPG, Hoover Tower
Hoover Tower is a structure on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California. The tower houses the Hoover Institution Library and Archives, an archive collection founded by Herbert Hoover before he became President of the United Stat ...
, at , the tallest building on campus
File:Stanstadium view.jpg, The new (2006) Stanford Stadium
Stanford Stadium is an outdoor college football stadium on the west coast of the United States, located on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California. It is the home of the Stanford Cardinal and hosts the university's commencemen ...
, 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 (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 fiducia ...
governed by a privately appointed
board of trustees 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, the
Stanford Shopping Center
Stanford Shopping Center is an upscale open air shopping mall located on Route 82 ( El Camino Real) at Sand Hill Road in Palo Alto, California. It is on the campus of Stanford University although the university only owns the land and not the ac ...
, the
Cantor Center for Visual Arts,
Stanford University Medical Center, and many associated medical facilities (including the
Lucile Packard Children's Hospital
Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford (LPCH) is a nationally ranked women's and children's hospital which is part of the Stanford University Health system. The hospital is located adjacent to the campus at 725 Welch Road, Palo Alto, Cal ...
).
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, a Canadian-born
neuroscientist
A neuroscientist (or neurobiologist) is a scientist who has specialised knowledge in neuroscience, a branch of biology that deals with the physiology, biochemistry, psychology, anatomy and molecular biology of neurons, neural circuits, and glial ...
.
The provost is the chief academic and budget officer, to whom the deans of each of the seven schools report.
Persis Drell
Persis S. Drell is an American physicist best known for her expertise in the field of particle physics. She was the director of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory from 2007 to 2012. She was dean of the Stanford University School of Engin ...
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 principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...
(nine departments),
and
Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (four departments)
have both graduate and undergraduate programs while the Schools of
Law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
,
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 pr ...
,
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 ...
, and
Business, 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, which explicitly exempts Stanford property from taxation so long as the property is used for educational purposes.
Endowment and donations
The university's
endowment, 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 high ...
, 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 university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
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
''U.S. News & World Report'' (USNWR) is an American media company that publishes news, consumer advice, rankings, and analysis. It was launched in 1948 as the merger of domestic-focused weekly newspaper ''U.S. News'' and international-focused ...
'' 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 Schol ...
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 accreditation of public and private universities, colleges, secondary and elementary schools in California and Hawaii, the territories of Guam, American Sam ...
.
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 Grant
A Pell Grant is a subsidy the U.S. federal government provides for students who need it to pay for college. Federal Pell Grants are limited to students with financial need, who have not earned their first bachelor's degree, or who are enrolled i ...
s, 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
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center,
is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S. Departme ...
(originally the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center), the Stanford Research Institute
SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic ...
(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, an ...
(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.scho ...
(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 institute and faculty of the University of Potsdam located in Potsdam near Berlin. The teaching and ...
of University of Potsdam
The University of Potsdam is a public university in Potsdam, capital of the state of Brandenburg, Germany. It is mainly situated across three campuses in the city. Some faculty buildings are part of the New Palace of Sanssouci which is known ...
that integrates product design, engineering, and business management education).
Stanford is home to the Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
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 land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...
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 Franci ...
, a new medical science research center founded in 2016 by a $600 million commitment from Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg and pediatrician Priscilla Chan
Priscilla Chan (born February 24, 1985) is an American philanthropist and a former pediatrician. She and her husband, Mark Zuckerberg, a co-founder and CEO of Meta Platforms, established the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative in December 2015, with a p ...
. This medical research center is working for designing advanced-level health care units.
Libraries and digital resources
As of 2014, Stanford University Libraries (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 (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, 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
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximat ...
(previously Meyer Library
The J. Henry Meyer Memorial Library was a library at Stanford University in California. It was dedicated on December 2, 1966. In 2007, a seismic assessment identified $45 million in required retrofits, more than the cost of a new library elsewhe ...
, 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 Geography, geographical and culture, ethno-cultural terms. The modern State (polity), states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. ...
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, 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
Thomas Welton Stanford (1832–1918), also known as Welton Stanford, was an American-born Australian businessman, spiritualist and philanthropist, most notably toward Stanford University, which was founded by his older brother Leland Stanford. A ...
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 pole
Totem poles ( hai, gyáaʼaang) are monumental carvings found in western Canada and the northwestern United States. They are a type of Northwest Coast art, consisting of poles, posts or pillars, carved with symbols or figures. They are usually ...
s."
The Stanford music department sponsors many ensembles including five choirs, the Stanford Symphony Orchestra, Stanford Taiko, 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. 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 ins ...
(Stanford's first), Counterpoint (the first all-female group on the West Coast), the Harmonics, the Stanford Fleet Street Singers
The Stanford Fleet Street Singers (Fleet Street) is a comedy a cappella group from Stanford University. The group performs original songs and sketch comedy, and wears a uniform of black vests and red bow ties. Fleet Street is perhaps best known ...
, Talisman
A talisman is any object ascribed with religious or magical powers intended to protect, heal, or harm individuals for whom they are made. Talismans are often portable objects carried on someone in a variety of ways, but can also be installed perm ...
, Everyday People
"Everyday People" is a 1968 song composed by Sly Stone and first recorded by his band, Sly and the Family Stone. It was the first single by the band to go to number one on the Soul singles chart and the U.S. ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart. It held ...
, and Raagapella.
Reputation and rankings
'' Slate'' 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 d ...
'' 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 d ...
'' 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 alterna ...
'' 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 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 (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 College town, 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. Cam ...
, Harvard, MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
, 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 of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) – Arthur Kornberg
Arthur Kornberg (March 3, 1918 – October 26, 2007) was an American biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1959 for the discovery of "the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of ribonucleic acid and deoxyribonucleic ac ...
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 and hepatitis B vaccine
Hepatitis B vaccine is a vaccine that prevents hepatitis B. The first dose is recommended within 24 hours of birth with either two or three more doses given after that. This includes those with poor immune function such as from HIV/AIDS and t ...
.
* 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 fi ...
– 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 ac ...
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
Kai Manne Börje Siegbahn (20 April 1918 – 20 July 2007) was a Swedish physicist who was awarded the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Biography
Siegbahn was born in Lund, Sweden, son of Manne Siegbahn the 1924 physics Nobel Prize winner. Siegb ...
for his work on lasers.
* Nuclear magnetic resonance
Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a physical phenomenon in which nuclei in a strong constant magnetic field are perturbed by a weak oscillating magnetic field (in the near field) and respond by producing an electromagnetic signal with a ...
– Felix Bloch
Felix Bloch (23 October 1905 – 10 September 1983) was a Swiss-American physicist and Nobel physics laureate who worked mainly in the U.S. He and Edward Mills Purcell were awarded the 1952 Nobel Prize for Physics for "their development of new ...
developed new methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements, which are the underlying principles of the MRI
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to form pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes of the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and radio waves ...
.
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
SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic ...
, 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
Vinton Gray Cerf (; born June 23, 1943) is an American Internet pioneer and is recognized as one of " the fathers of the Internet", sharing this title with TCP/IP co-developer Bob Kahn. He has received honorary degrees and awards that include ...
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
Robert Elliot Kahn (born December 23, 1938) is an American electrical engineer who, along with Vint Cerf, first proposed the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP), the fundamental communication protocols at the hea ...
) in 1973 and which formed the basis for the architecture of the Internet.
* Frequency modulation synthesis – John Chowning
John M. Chowning (; born August 22, 1934 in Salem, New Jersey) is an American composer, musician, discoverer, and professor best known for his work at Stanford University, the founding of CCRMA - Center for Computer Research in Music and Acou ...
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 divi ...
.
* Google
Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
– Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page
Lawrence Edward Page (born March 26, 1973) is an American business magnate, computer scientist and internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-founding Google with Sergey Brin.
Page was the chief executive officer of Google from 1997 unti ...
and Sergey Brin
Sergey Mikhailovich Brin (russian: link=no, Сергей Михайлович Брин; born August 21, 1973) is an American business magnate, computer scientist, and internet entrepreneur, who co-founded Google with Larry Page. Brin was th ...
when they were both PhD students at Stanford. They were working on the Stanford Digital Library Project (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 ...
, 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 companie ...
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, we ...
equipment.
* RISC – 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 circ ...
design. Stanford and UC Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...
are most associated with the popularization of this concept. The Stanford MIPS would go on to be commercialized as the successful MIPS architecture
MIPS (Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipelined Stages) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures (ISA)Price, Charles (September 1995). ''MIPS IV Instruction Set'' (Revision 3.2), MIPS Technologies, ...
, while Berkeley RISC
Berkeley RISC is one of two seminal research projects into reduced instruction set computer (RISC) based microprocessor design taking place under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency '' Very Large Scale Integration'' (VLSI) VLSI Project. ...
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 develope ...
. 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 IB ...
, PowerPC, and Power ISA. 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 market as well as embedded processor
An embedded system is a computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is ''embedded'' ...
s in laser printer
Laser printing is an electrostatic digital printing process. It produces high-quality text and graphics (and moderate-quality photographs) by repeatedly passing a laser beam back and forth over a negatively-charged cylinder called a "drum" to ...
s, routers and similar products.
* SUN workstation
The SUN workstation was a modular computer system designed at Stanford University in the early 1980s. It became the seed technology for many commercial products, including the original workstations from Sun Microsystems.
History
In 1979 Xerox do ...
– Andy Bechtolsheim designed the SUN workstation, for the Stanford University Network 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.
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, 1939: co-founders William R. Hewlett (B.S, PhD) and David Packard
David Packard ( ; September 7, 1912 – March 26, 1996) was an American electrical engineer and co-founder, with Bill Hewlett, of Hewlett-Packard (1939), serving as president (1947–64), CEO (1964–68), and chairman of the board (1964–68 ...
(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 sof ...
, 1981: co-founders James H. Clark
James Henry Clark (born March 23, 1944) is an American entrepreneur and computer scientist. He founded several notable Silicon Valley technology companies, including Silicon Graphics, Netscape, myCFO, and Healtheon. His research work in comput ...
(Associate Professor) and several of his graduate students
* Sun Microsystems, 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 suc ...
(M.B.A), Andy Bechtolsheim (PhD) and Scott McNealy
Scott McNealy (born November 13, 1954) is an American businessman. He is most famous for co-founding the computer technology company Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Vinod Khosla, Bill Joy, and Andy Bechtolsheim. In 2004, while still at Sun, ...
(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 E ...
(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 Manage ...
, 1994: co-founders Jerry Yang (B.S, M.S) and David Filo (M.S)
* Google
Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
, 1998: co-founders Larry Page
Lawrence Edward Page (born March 26, 1973) is an American business magnate, computer scientist and internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-founding Google with Sergey Brin.
Page was the chief executive officer of Google from 1997 unti ...
(M.S) and Sergey Brin
Sergey Mikhailovich Brin (russian: link=no, Сергей Михайлович Брин; born August 21, 1973) is an American business magnate, computer scientist, and internet entrepreneur, who co-founded Google with Larry Page. Brin was th ...
(M.S)
* LinkedIn
LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented online service that operates via websites and mobile apps. Launched on May 5, 2003, the platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, and allows job se ...
, 2002: co-founders Reid Hoffman
Reid Garrett Hoffman (born August 5, 1967) is an American internet entrepreneur, venture capitalist, podcaster, and author. Hoffman was the co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, a business-oriented social network used primarily for prof ...
(B.S), Konstantin Guericke (B.S, M.S), Eric Lee (B.S), and Alan Liu (B.S)
* Instagram, 2010: co-founders Kevin Systrom
Kevin Systrom (born December 30, 1983) is an American computer programmer and entrepreneur. He co-founded Instagram, the world's largest photo sharing website, along with Mike Krieger.
Systrom was included on the list of America's Richest Entrep ...
(B.S) and Mike Krieger
Michel Krieger (born March 4, 1986) is a Brazilian-American entrepreneur and software engineer who co-founded Instagram along with Kevin Systrom, and served as its CTO. Instagram expanded from a few million users to 1 billion monthly active users ...
(B.S)
* Snapchat, 2011: co-founders Evan Spiegel
Evan Thomas Spiegel (born June 4, 1990) is an American businessman, co-founder and CEO of Snap Inc. Spiegel was the youngest billionaire in the world in 2015.
Early life and education
Spiegel was born in Los Angeles, California, to lawyers J ...
(B.S), Reggie Brown (B.S) and Bobby Murphy (B.S)
* Coursera
Coursera Inc. () is a U.S.-based massive open online course provider founded in 2012 by Stanford University computer science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller. Coursera works with universities and other organizations to offer online courses ...
, 2012: co-founders Andrew Ng
Andrew Yan-Tak Ng (; born 1976) is a British-born American computer scientist and technology entrepreneur focusing on machine learning and AI. Ng was a co-founder and head of Google Brain and was the former Chief Scientist at Baidu, building ...
(Associate Professor) and Daphne Koller
Daphne Koller ( he, דפנה קולר; born August 27, 1968) is an Israeli-American computer scientist. She was a professor in the department of computer science at Stanford University and a MacArthur Foundation fellowship recipient. She is one ...
(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, row houses
In architecture and city planning, a terrace or terraced house ( UK) or townhouse ( US) is a form of medium-density housing that originated in Europe in the 16th century, whereby a row of attached dwellings share side walls. In the United State ...
, and fraternities and sororities
Fraternities and sororities are social organizations at colleges and universities in North America.
Generally, membership in a fraternity or sorority is obtained as an undergraduate student, but continues thereafter for life. Some accept gradu ...
. 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 fraternities
A fraternity (from Latin ''frater'': "brother"; whence, " brotherhood") or fraternal organization is an organization, society, club or fraternal order traditionally of men associated together for various religious or secular aims. Fraternity ...
, three are all-female sororities
Fraternities and sororities are social organizations at colleges and universities in North America.
Generally, membership in a fraternity or sorority is obtained as an undergraduate student, but continues thereafter for life. Some accept gradua ...
, 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
Since the founding, Stanford University has provided on-campus housing for students. Today, all undergraduate students, most graduate students, and many graduate employees use campus housing. While not all graduate students are eligible for campus ...
(Academic Focus), Branner Hall (Community Service), Kimball (Arts & Performing Arts), Crothers (Global Citizenship), and Toyon
''Heteromeles arbutifolia'' (; more commonly by Californian botanists), commonly known as toyon, is a common perennial shrub native to extreme southwest Oregon, California, and the Baja California Peninsula. It is the sole species in the genus ...
(Sophomore Priority). Theme houses predating the current "theme" classification system are Columbae (Social Change Through Nonviolence, since 1970), and Synergy (Exploring Alternatives, since 1972).
Co-ops
A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...
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
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term ...
house), and Synergy. Phi Sigma, at 1018 Campus Drive was formerly Phi Sigma Kappa
Phi Sigma Kappa (), colloquially known as Phi Sig or PSK, is a men's social and academic Fraternities and sororities, fraternity with approximately 74 List of Phi Sigma Kappa chapters#List of Chapters, active chapters and provisional chapters in ...
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
Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
The city was es ...
, Menlo Park, and 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 Lyman in 1972, after objections from 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 deep red color, not the cardinal bird. Stanford is a member of the Pac-12 Conference in most sports, the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation
The Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) is a college athletic conference with members located mostly in the western United States, although it now has members as far east as Pennsylvania. The conference participates at the NCAA Division I ...
in several other sports, and the America East Conference
The America East Conference is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with NCAA Division I founded in 1979, whose members are located in the Northeastern United States.
The conference has nine core members including eight public research ...
in field hockey
Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ...
with the participation in the inter-collegiate NCAA's Division I FBS.
Its traditional sports rival is the University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
, the neighbor to the north in the East Bay. The winner of the annual " Big Game" between the Cal and Cardinal football teams gains custody of the Stanford Axe
The Stanford Axe is a trophy awarded to the winner of the annual Big Game, a college football match-up between the University of California Golden Bears and the Stanford University Cardinal. The trophy consists of an axe-head mounted on a lar ...
.
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
The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, formerly known as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, is an American choir, acting as part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). It has performed in the Salt Lake Tabernacle for ov ...
.
* Big Game: The central football rivalry between Stanford and UC Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...
. 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
The Stanford Axe is a trophy awarded to the winner of the annual Big Game, a college football match-up between the University of California Golden Bears and the Stanford University Cardinal. The trophy consists of an axe-head mounted on a larg ...
: 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
Matchmaking is the process of matching two or more people together, usually for the purpose of marriage, in which case the matchmaker is also known as a marriage broker. The word is also used in the context of sporting events such as boxing, in ...
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 final resting place of Leland Stanford Jr. 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 with waltzes
The waltz ( ), meaning "to roll or revolve") is a ballroom and folk dance, normally in triple ( time), performed primarily in closed position.
History
There are many references to a sliding or gliding dance that would evolve into the wal ...
that was initially started in the 1970s by students returning from the now-closed (since 1987) Stanford in Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
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
Ulrich von Hutten (21 April 1488 – 29 August 1523) was a German knight, scholar, poet and satirist, who later became a follower of Martin Luther and a Protestant reformer.
By 1519, he was an outspoken critic of the Roman Catholic Church. Hu ...
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
William Redington Hewlett ( ; May 20, 1913 – January 12, 2001) was an American engineer and the co-founder, with David Packard, of the Hewlett-Packard Company (HP).
Early life and education
Hewlett was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where his ...
, Dave Packard
David Packard ( ; September 7, 1912 – March 26, 1996) was an American electrical engineer and co-founder, with Bill Hewlett, of Hewlett-Packard (1939), serving as president (1947–64), CEO (1964–68), and chairman of the board (1964–68 ...
, Lucile Packard, and 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 salamander
Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by their lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All t ...
s 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
Stanford Memorial Church (also referred to informally as MemChu) is located on the Main Quad at the center of the Stanford University campus in Stanford, California, United States. It was built during the American RenaissanceGregg, p. 34 by ...
, 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
Nathan Oliveira (December 19, 1928 – November 13, 2010) was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor, born in Oakland, California to immigrant Portuguese parents. Since the late 1950s, Oliveira has been the subject of nearly one hundred ...
, 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
Donald Bertrand Tresidder (April 7, 1894 – January 28, 1948) was the fourth president of Stanford University, serving from 1943 until his sudden death in 1948. He also had a longtime association with Yosemite National Park.
Early life
Son of J ...
banned all Stanford sororities due to extreme competition. However, following Title IX
Title IX is the most commonly used name for the federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part (Title IX) of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other educat ...
, 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
Sigma Chi () International Fraternity is one of the largest North American fraternal literary societies. The fraternity has 244 active (undergraduate) chapters and 152 alumni chapters across the United States and Canada and has initiated more t ...
, 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
The National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) is a collaborative umbrella council composed of historically African American fraternities and sororities also referred to as Black Greek Letter Organizations (BGLOs). The NPHC was formed as a permanent ...
(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
Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. () is a historically African American fraternity. Since the fraternity's founding on January 5, 1911 at Indiana University Bloomington, the fraternity has never restricted membership on the basis of color, creed ...
, 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 Phi International Women's Fraternity (, also known as APhi) is an international sorority with 172 active chapters and over 250,000 initiated members.
Founded at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York on September 18, 1872, it is the fo ...
, Alpha Epsilon Phi
Alpha Epsilon Phi ( or AEPhi) is a sorority and one of the members of the National Panhellenic Conference, an umbrella organization overseeing 26 North American sororities.
It was founded on October 24, 1909, at Barnard College in Morningside ...
, Chi Omega
Chi Omega (, also known as ChiO) is a women's fraternity and a member of the National Panhellenic Conference, the umbrella organization of 26 women's fraternities.
Chi Omega has 181 active collegiate chapters and approximately 240 alumnae chap ...
, and Kappa Kappa Gamma) and three of which are housed (Delta Delta Delta
Delta Delta Delta (), also known as Tri Delta, is an international women's fraternity founded on November 27, 1888 at Boston University by Sarah Ida Shaw, Eleanor Dorcas Pond, Isabel Morgan Breed, and Florence Isabelle Stewart.
Tri Delta part ...
, Kappa Alpha Theta
Kappa Alpha Theta (), also known simply as Theta, is an international women’s fraternity founded on January 27, 1870, at DePauw University, formerly Indiana Asbury. It was the first Greek-letter fraternity established for women. The main arc ...
, and Pi Beta Phi
Pi Beta Phi (), often known simply as Pi Phi, is an international women's fraternity founded at Monmouth College, in Monmouth, Illinois on April 28, 1867 as I. C. Sorosis, the first national secret college society of women to be modeled after ...
) call Stanford home. These sororities operate under the Stanford Inter-sorority Council (ISC).
* Eleven historically National Interfraternity Conference
The North American Interfraternity Conference (or NIC; formerly known as the National Interfraternity Conference) is an association of intercollegiate men's social fraternities that was formally organized in 1910, although it began at a meeting a ...
(NIC) fraternities are also represented at Stanford, including five unhoused fraternities (Alpha Epsilon Pi
Alpha Epsilon Pi (), commonly known as AEPi, is a college fraternity founded at New York University in 1913 by Charles C. Moskowitz and ten other men. The fraternity has more than 150 active chapters across the United States, Canada, United K ...
, Delta Kappa Epsilon
Delta Kappa Epsilon (), commonly known as ''DKE'' or ''Deke'', is one of the oldest fraternities in the United States, with fifty-six active chapters and five active colonies across North America. It was founded at Yale College in 1844 by fiftee ...
, Delta Tau Delta
Delta Tau Delta () is a United States-based international Greek letter college fraternity. Delta Tau Delta was founded at Bethany College, Bethany, Virginia, (now West Virginia) in 1858. The fraternity currently has around 130 collegiate chapter ...
, Sigma Alpha Epsilon
Sigma Alpha Epsilon (), commonly known as SAE, is a North American Greek-letter social college fraternity. It was founded at the University of Alabama on March 9, 1856. Of all existing national social fraternities today, Sigma Alpha Epsilon is t ...
, and Kappa Alpha Order
Kappa Alpha Order (), commonly known as Kappa Alpha or simply KA, is a social fraternity and a fraternal order founded in 1865 at Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) in Lexington, Virginia. As of December 2015, the Kappa Alph ...
), and four housed fraternities (Sigma Phi Epsilon
Sigma Phi Epsilon (), commonly known as SigEp, is a social college fraternity for male college students in the United States. It was founded on November 1, 1901, at Richmond College (now the University of Richmond), and its national headquarte ...
, Kappa Sigma
Kappa Sigma (), commonly known as Kappa Sig, is an American collegiate social fraternity founded at the University of Virginia in 1869. Kappa Sigma is one of the five largest international fraternities with currently 318 active chapters and col ...
, Phi Kappa Psi
Phi Kappa Psi (), commonly known as Phi Psi, is an American collegiate social fraternity that was founded by William Henry Letterman and Charles Page Thomas Moore in Widow Letterman's home on the campus of Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pen ...
, 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
alpha Kappa Delta Phi (), also known as aKDPhi, Kappa Delta Phi, KDPhi, is an international Asian-interest sorority founded at the University of California, Berkeley. alpha Kappa Delta Phi has 63 chapters located at numerous universities acros ...
, Lambda Theta Nu
Lambda Theta Nu () is a Latina-based Greek letter intercollegiate sorority founded in 1986 at California State University, Chico.
History Formation
Eighteen Latina students at California State University, Chico banded together during what t ...
, Sigma Psi Zeta
Sigma Psi Zeta () Sorority, Inc., also known as Sigmas or SYZ, is a progressive multicultural sorority. It was founded on March 23, 1994 at the University at Albany and incorporated in New York on March 15, 1996 by the 10 Founding Mothers. The s ...
, and Sigma Theta Psi), as well as two unhoused MGC fraternities (Gamma Zeta Alpha
Gamma Zeta Alpha Fraternity, Inc. () was founded on December 3, 1987 at California State University, Chico in Chico, California. It is a Latino Interest fraternity that emphasizes Latino culture and the success of Latino males in higher education ...
and Lambda Phi Epsilon
Lambda Phi Epsilon (, also known as LPhiE and LFE) is the largest Asian-American-Interest fraternity in North America. Lambda Phi Epsilon is affiliated with the National APIDA Panhellenic Association, and is a former member of the North American ...
). 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
''The Stanford Daily'' is the student-run, independent daily newspaper serving Stanford University. ''The Daily'' is distributed throughout campus and the surrounding community of Palo Alto, California, United States. It has published since the ...
'' is a student-run daily newspaper and has been published since the university was founded in 1892. The student-run radio station, KZSU
KZSU is a freeform FM radio station broadcasting from the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California, United States.
KZSU broadcasts in stereo at 90.1 MHz FM with an effective radiated power of 500 watts. The station is owned b ...
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
''The Stanford Review'' (also known as ''The Review'') is a student-run newspaper that serves Stanford University in Stanford, California. It was founded in 1987 by Peter Thiel and Norman Book.
History
In 1987, after around 500 students particip ...
is a conservative student newspaper founded in 1987. '' The Fountain Hopper'' (''FoHo'') is a financially independent, anonymous student-run campus rag
Rag, rags, RAG or The Rag may refer to:
Common uses
* Rag, a piece of old cloth
* Rags, tattered clothes
* Rag (newspaper), a publication engaging in tabloid journalism
* Rag paper, or cotton paper
Arts and entertainment Film
* ''Rags'' (1915 ...
publication, notable for having broken the 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
The Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students (BASES) is a student group at Stanford University focusing on business and entrepreneurial activities. One of the largest student-run entrepreneurship organizations in the world, BASES ...
(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 startups
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 ...
. 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. 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
The Stanford Axe is a trophy awarded to the winner of the annual Big Game, a college football match-up between the University of California Golden Bears and the Stanford University Cardinal. The trophy consists of an axe-head mounted on a larg ...
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
The American Solar Challenge (ASC), previously known as the North American Solar Challenge and Sunrayce, is a solar car race across the United States. In the race, teams from colleges and universities throughout North America design, build, test ...
or the World Solar Challenge
The World Solar Challenge (WSC), since 2013 named Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, is an international event for solar powered cars driving 3000 kilometres through the Australian outback.
With the exception of a four-year gap between ...
.
* 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
Holi (), also known as the Festival of Colours, the Festival of Spring, and the Festival of Love,The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) p. 874 "Holi /'həʊli:/ noun a Hindu spring festival ...". is an ancient Hindu religious festival ...
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
A law enforcement officer (LEO), or peace officer in North American English, is a public-sector employee whose duties primarily involve the enforcement of laws. The phrase can include campaign disclosure specialists, local police officers, prose ...
by arrangement with the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office
The Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office is a local law enforcement agency that serves Santa Clara County, California. It provides general-service law enforcement to unincorporated areas of Santa Clara County, as well as incorporated cities withi ...
. The department is also responsible for publishing an annual crime report covering the previous three years as required by the Clery Act
The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act or Clery Act, signed in 1990, is a federal statute codified at , with implementing regulations in the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations at .
The Clery Act requ ...
. 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 Theodore Landon "Ted" Streleski (b. 1936) is an American former graduate student in mathematics at Stanford University who murdered his former faculty advisor, Professor Karel de Leeuw, with a ball-peen hammer on August 18, 1978. Shortly after the ...
'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
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' 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
Chanel Elisabeth Miller (born June 12, 1992) is an American writer and artist based in San Francisco, California and New York City. She was known anonymously after she was sexually assaulted on the campus of Stanford University in 2015 by Broc ...
, who was visiting the campus to attend a party at the 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
Michael Aaron Persky (born 1962) is an American attorney and former judge of the Santa Clara County Superior Court from 2003 to 2018. He gained attention after his ruling in the case ''People v. Turner'', in which he in June 2016 sentenced Stan ...
, 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
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
laureates (as of October 2020, 85 affiliates in total);
* 174 members of the National Academy of Sciences;
* 113 members of National Academy of Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...
;
* 90 members of National Academy of Medicine
The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), formerly called the Institute of Medicine (IoM) until 2015, is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, Eng ...
;
* 303 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
;
* 10 recipients of the National Medal of Science
The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social scienc ...
;
* 3 recipients of the National Medal of Technology
The National Medal of Technology and Innovation (formerly the National Medal of Technology) is an honor granted by the President of the United States to American inventors and innovators who have made significant contributions to the development ...
;
* 6 recipients of the National Humanities Medal
The National Humanities Medal is an American award that annually recognizes several individuals, groups, or institutions for work that has "deepened the nation's understanding of the humanities, broadened our citizens' engagement with the human ...
;
* 47 members of American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
;
* 56 fellows of the American Physics Society
The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...
(since 1995);
* 4 Pulitzer Prize winners;
* 33 MacArthur Fellow
The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...
s;
* 6 Wolf Foundation Prize winners;
* 2 ACL Lifetime Achievement Award winners;
* 14 AAAI
The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) is an international scientific society devoted to promote research in, and responsible use of, artificial intelligence. AAAI also aims to increase public understanding of artif ...
fellows;
* 2 Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, along with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made "an especially merit ...
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 awards given in its 44-year history. The university has 27 ACM fellows. It is also affiliated with 4 Gödel Prize
The Gödel Prize is an annual prize for outstanding papers in the area of theoretical computer science, given jointly by the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS) and the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interes ...
winners, 4 Knuth Prize
The Donald E. Knuth Prize is a prize for outstanding contributions to the foundations of computer science, named after the American computer scientist Donald E. Knuth.
History
The Knuth Prize has been awarded since 1996 and includes an award of U ...
recipients, 10 IJCAI Computers and Thought Award
The IJCAI Computers and Thought Award is presented every two years by the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI), recognizing outstanding young scientists in artificial intelligence. It was originally funded with royal ...
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
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...
'', has produced the second highest number of billionaires of all universities.
As of 2020, 15 Stanford alumni have won the Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
. As of 2022, 128 Stanford students or alumni have been named Rhodes Scholars.
See also
* List of universities by number of billionaire alumni
Counting all degrees, Harvard University comes in first place in terms of the total number of billionaire alumni. Harvard also comes in first if only bachelor's degrees are counted, according to a 2021 Forbes report. Harvard also ranks first in the ...
* List of colleges and universities in California
This is a list of colleges and universities in California.
Federal institutions
Graduate institutions
* Naval Postgraduate School (Monterey)
Other academic institutions
* Defense Language Institute (Monterey)
State institutions
Two-year ins ...
* S*, a collaboration between seven universities and the Karolinska Institute
The Karolinska Institute (KI; sv, Karolinska Institutet; sometimes known as the (Royal) Caroline Institute in English) is a research-led Medical school, medical university in Solna Municipality, Solna within the Stockholm urban area of Sweden. ...
for training in bioinformatics and genomics
* Stanford School
The Stanford School (humorously also called the Stanford Disunity Mafia) is a group of philosophers of science, the members of which taught at various times at Stanford University, who share an intellectual tradition of arguing against the unity of ...
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
Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City, and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by Jennifer Crewe (2014–present) and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fiel ...
, 1994
* Rebecca S. Lowen, R. S. Lowen, ''Creating the Cold War University: The Transformation of Stanford'', University of California Press
The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by facult ...
, 1997
External links
*
Stanford Athletics website
*
{{Authority control
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