(Courtesy of Star Black)

Poet Dana Gioia ’73 MBA ’77 was appointed Poet Laureate of California by Governor Jerry Brown on Dec. 5. During his two-year term, Gioia will serve as an advocate for the education and practice of poetry by giving public readings, educating civic and state leaders and bringing poetry to students less acquainted with the arts through a cultural project.

Gioia intends to focus his efforts on small- to mid-sized communities and on civic institutions such as high schools and public libraries.

“We need to cultivate the things we share in common as citizens,” he said.

In an interview with The Daily, Gioia recalled childhood afternoons spent at Hawthorne Public Library, which he said was the only cultural institution in his hometown of Hawthorne, Calif. during his youth. He acknowledged the library for establishing the foundation of an education that he continued at Stanford University and Harvard University, making him the first in the family to attend college.

As a Stanford undergrad, Gioia was editor-in-chief of now-defunct literary magazine Sequoia. He served as poetry editor at Sequoia, and book editor for The Stanford Daily while a student at the Graduate School of Business (GSB). After graduating from the GSB, he spent the next 15 years at General Foods Corporation, where he eventually became vice president of marketing.

From 2003 to 2009, he served two terms as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts and fronted initiatives including Operation Homecoming, a writing workshop hosting and anthologizing the writings of the military community, and Poetry Out Loud: The National Poetry Recitation Contest.

Gioia currently teaches at the University of Southern California as the Judge Widney Professor of Poetry and Public Culture.

“The one real constant in my career has been that I tried to create a life in which it was possible for me to write poetry,” Gioia said.

He credits his mother, a working class Mexican woman who recited poetry to Gioia during his childhood, for the establishment of verse in his life. He described his early impressions of poetry as “spell-like” — akin to the effect of music and song.

“A poem creates a spell of heightened attention that allows us to relax our defenses and imaginatively enter a new idea or experience,” he said.

Gioia has published four books of poetry, among other books, translations and essays. He was a 1992 National Book Critics Circle Award finalist for his book of criticism “Can Poetry Matter?” and a recipient of the 2002 American Book Award for his book “Interrogations at Noon.”

“My whole career as a poet, a critic and a public advocate of poetry has been based on the notion that people will respond to a good poem well-presented,” Gioia said, referencing Poetry Out Loud, which has reached nearly three million students nationally over the past decade.

“I’ve seen how encounters with art and creativity can change the lives of students,” he added. “Poetry awakens and enhances and enlarges people’s humanity — and that means something different for each person.”

Contact Irene Hsu at ihsu5595 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

(NINA ZUBRILLINA/The Stanford Daily)

Stanford student athletes have a lot to manage with 20 hours per week of practice, weight training, conditioning and games — plus the normal academic requirements of any other student. Many wake up as early as 5 a.m. and practice for three to four hours, six days a week. Though student athletes are supported through their academic advisors, coaches and teachers, along with the numerous programs and policies Stanford has implemented, there is still room for improvement.

Academic assistance

The University has implemented a number of policies and programs to help athletes balance their different commitments.

Stanford’s assistant athletic director Austin Lee said Stanford strives to create a supportive environment that prevents students from being deterred from difficult classes because of their challenging schedules or fear of being barred from sports competitions because of NCAA academic requirements.

Academic programs for athletes include regular group tutorial sessions, intentionally scheduled to be convenient for athletes’ schedules, as well as drop-in hours for athletes. Group tutorials are usually offered twice a week for two hours in several popular subjects such as economics and computer science.

Hideki Nakada, assistant coach of the women’s soccer team, explained that coaches, athletic academic advisors and professors also work together to aid student athletes.

“Some players cannot make certain practices because school is the first priority,” Nakada said. “We have one player who misses every Wednesday.”

When Sameer Kumar ’19, a member of the men’s tennis team, traveled to Seattle for a tournament, he missed classes from Wednesday through Friday.

“[Professors] do a very good job of helping you make up your work if you miss class,” Kumar said.

Professors and coaches have even figured out a system for when student athletes have to miss midterms — coaches often proctor the exams for the athletes.

Academic conflicts

A major conflict that occurs for student athletes is finding classes that do not conflict with practice schedules.

“When scheduling for the fall, we didn’t get our practice schedule until after we signed up for classes,” Kumar said. “So we had to go back and change our schedules accordingly.”

Kumar has learned to accept the fact that sometimes his first choice for a class is simply not feasible.

Helen Stroheker ’18, a sophomore on the rowing team, has had to meet with her professors multiple times to figure out timelines for her work and to discuss pushing back deadlines whenever she’s in season. Last year, her course CEE 31Q: “Accessing Architecture Through Drawing,” which had 16 students, was moved up by one hour so that she would be able to attend.

Lee explained that the athletics department tries to help students organize their schedules.

“Very often we [the academic advisors] meet with students to see what their options are in terms of taking this class in another quarter or taking it at a different time with a different instructor. And if there is a more of a discussion that needs to happen with the coaching staff, we help facilitate those discussions,” Lee said.

But according to Lee, advising athletes academically is more than just talking to students about class schedules.

“There’s a whole set of NCAA rules and regulations that the varsity athletes have to follow, and how we track that is different from other students,” Lee said.

Lee said the NCAA rule that six units a quarter must be “degree-applicable” creates a burden for certain athletes. For example, pre-med students must take many required classes that are considered optional electives courses and not degree-applicable. Thus, pre-med students could find themselves in a situation in which they are not meeting the NCAA requirements while still taking a full course load.

Academic performance: stigma, stats and reality

According to Kumar, athletes can also sometimes feel as though there are lower academic expectations for them.

“[Professors] definitely try to help you a lot and want you to do well,” Kumar said. “But they might think, ‘You didn’t get into this school completely off academics.’”

Kumar also got a similar sense from his peers. In his first quarter here, he has heard non-athletes say things like, “If a class is full of athletes, it’s probably going to be an easy class,” or “There’s an athlete in my class who got a B, which means I can get an A.”

Despite these stigmas, evidence suggests that Stanford student athletes are some of the most academically high-performing college athletes in the country.

The most recent Graduation Success Rate (GSR) report released by the NCAA revealed that Stanford student athletes had an overall graduation rate of 98 percent. Eleven women’s programs and eight men’s programs achieved GSR scores of 100 percent, and Stanford football’s GSR of 99 percent, is significantly higher than the next best Pac-12 school, UCLA, with a score of 89 percent.

According to Lee, student athletes are not overrepresented in the population of students on academic probation either.

Behind these positive statistics, however, many student athletes still find themselves struggling.

Stroheker, who is taking 19 units this quarter and spends about 24 hours a week rowing — including traveling back and forth to the boathouse — is generally working during all of her free time between classes.

“You do have to choose to prioritize athletics and academics over your social life and other extracurriculars,” Stroheker said.

“I think that Stanford does a great job of helping academically balance school with sports without giving athletes too much help,” she added. “Where I see the biggest need for improvement is helping people find balance in their lives and achieve mental health.”

Areas for potential improvements

One of the actions Stanford has taken to help athlete mental health in the last year is hiring a dedicated nutritionist and a sports psychologist to work with student athletes.

Kumar suggested that tutoring could meet more often and be available for more classes. The only tutoring relevant to his classes this quarter was economics tutoring, which met only once a week from 6-8 p.m.

“If you miss a class or have midterms coming up, it can get pretty tough because it’s only once a week,” Kumar said.

Although student athletes see areas where academic support could be improved for athletes, quitting or regretting their participation in a sport seems to be rare.

Nakada has been a college coach for nine years, and during his three years at Stanford, there have been no cases in which a women’s soccer player has quit. In Lee’s seven years at Stanford, he reported that only about four or five recruited students decided to quit early in their freshman fall quarters.  

Evidence suggests the passion athletes feel for their sport, combined with the resources Stanford provides, is enough to preclude student athletes from quitting.

“I love tennis; it’s my passion so I wouldn’t give it up,” Kumar said. “I made a lot of sacrifices for it, but it’s also given me a lot of rewards.”

Contact Pascale Elisabeth Eenkema van Dijk at pevd ‘at’ stanford.edu. 

(Courtesy of Madeleine Lippey)

A group of fraternity brothers from Yale University found their seats at the back of the room, slouching in their chairs as they lazily perused their phones. Owing to their limited knowledge of sexual assault, they waited in reluctant anticipation of the morning’s speaker, until Ted Bunch, a bulky former college football player, walked on stage and addressed the crowd.

“Men, we need to start crying more,” he said.

Madeleine Lippey ’18 recalled that the men in the back of the room straightened up and began to pay close attention to Bunch’s engaging workshop on healthy definitions of masculinity and consent at the New York FEARLESS conference on Sept. 18.

“Ted Bunch runs sports camps for guys ages 12-18 and talks to them about masculinity and consent while they are literally throwing around a football,” Lippey said, recollecting Bunch’s workshop at the New York conference. “This is just one example, but that energy sustained itself throughout the day.”

Lippey organized the first FEARLESS symposium on sexual assault as a model to bring diverse groups of people, from fraternity brothers to parents, into a single space. She hopes to bring the conference to Stanford in the spring.

“The overall goal of the conference was to figure out a way to take this conversation that was being had in so many places and in so many separate strands and really unify it in one place, make it as inclusive and intersectional as possible,” she said.

The FEARLESS conference is one of the many recent student-led initiatives for sexual assault education. Since the Stand with Leah movement in 2014 and the Brock Turner incident last winter, students have used various tools including workshops, theater programs and academic seminars to educate each other about sexual assault prevention.

“There have been a lot of conversations about administrative response, which is super important, but I think that we wouldn’t even have to worry about administrative response if [sexual assault] didn’t happen in the first place,” Lippey said.

The FEARLESS conference

Lippey came up with the idea for the conference during her summer internship at the Joyful Heart Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering and healing survivors of sexual assault.

However, her work with sexual assault began in high school when she founded the Do Write Campaign, a nonprofit organization that encourages dialogue through the online exchange of creative writing and expression. As part of her foundation, Lippey held mini conferences in countries such as South Africa, India and Myanmar to empower women with diverse experiences ranging from domestic violence to sex trafficking.

“I felt very strongly about anti-sexual assault activism because most of the girls who did these conferences with me had experienced some form of sexual abuse,” she said.

Working closely with two individuals at Yale involved in their school’s anti-sexual assault coalition, Lippey reached out to colleges in New York, where the Joyful Heart Foundation is based, to hold the conference in the area. She also networked with students at these universities to create “deliberately diverse” delegations of interested student representatives who attended the event.

“It felt like there was a real camaraderie around this issue between really different groups of people that I had never seen before,” she said. “My 60-year-old dad, who is very conservative and doesn’t really know that much about this, was there. And literally, after watching ‘The Hunting Ground’ [a documentary about sexual assault on college campuses], there were tears in his eyes.”

The conference featured four workshops, including the call to men to become involved, a demystification of university sexual assault, the role of parents in teaching consent and an examination of the rhetoric of rape culture through creative expression.

According to Lippey, the FEARLESS conference is expanding this year to the Yale and Stanford campuses. Lippey is currently looking for co-sponsorships and recruiting students to become involved in an organizing committee that will be responsible for putting on the event in April 2016, which is Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

In order to make the content more community-specific, she plans on substituting the parent workshop in New York with an academic perspective on sexual assault. Instead, she would like to hold the parenting workshop during Parents’ Weekend to “build momentum” for the conference.

“We are trying to figure out a way to emulate the spirit of this conference that we thought was really successful and really moving in New York and bring it here,” Lippey said.

Tanvi Jayaraman ’16, co-chair of the ASSU sexual assault prevention committee, learned about FEARLESS through her friendship with Lippey. She said the conference is a great model to approach this issue by providing both education and action items for attendees.

“It comes at a really good time near the end of the year, when people can reflect on what they want to do or change for the next year, and it’s after recruitment for Greek life,” Jayaraman said. “You leave the conference with this impetus to do something, and I think that’s really, really key.”

Leading up to the FEARLESS conference, Lippey is launching a campaign for comprehensive sex education at Stanford, which she feels is integral to sexual assault prevention.

Sex education

Having attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Lippey laments the lack of sex education at her high school. In fact, seniors from her class put condoms on bananas in the front of the dining hall as part of a senior prank to spoof their school’s substandard quality of sex education.

Her failed attempts to bring sex education to her high school reflect similar experiences among other Stanford students. According to a preliminary survey that Lippey emailed out to Stanford students in October, 68 percent of the 135 respondents did not feel they had comprehensive, medically accurate sex education.

One such student, Tashrima Hossain ’19, said that her only exposure to sex education was through a middle school class in Texas taught by a teacher who felt “uncomfortable” with the material. With no direction from her parents, Hossain found herself relying on information from social interactions.

“A lot of what we know about sex comes from friends, and sometimes that’s dangerous, because there are myths and things that are not actually true,” Hossain said.

According to a mentor who works at a research center at Stanford and who previously worked at Planned Parenthood, Lippey added that insufficient levels of sex education could be attributed to a gap in the early 2000s during which California was the only state in the nation to offer federally-mandated sex education in public schools.

In addition, she said many high schools assume that colleges will provide formalized sex education for students, while colleges assume the opposite.

“There’s this assumption that when you get to college, you’re supposed to know everything there is to know about sex, and you’re supposed to go to the fraternity party and just have at it — and that’s the problem,” Lippey said.

She said that bridging this gap for freshmen should be a priority in order to address the sexual assault epidemic.

“With my work on sexual assault, I am really of the belief that the two are so inexplicably intertwined,” Lippey said. “If you are a freshman going into New Student Orientation [NSO], and so much information is being thrown at you about sexual assault, and you don’t even know what sex is, you’re not going to fully understand it.”

To remedy this issue, Lippey believes that formalized sex education should be a mandatory part of the freshman curriculum, whether through NSO or through a class taught by the Peer Health Educator in the dorms. In either case, she said conversations about anatomy, safe and consensual sex and hookup culture should be held in tandem with those surrounding sexual assault.

Based on her experience at NSO, Hossain said she supports Lippey’s ideas and forwarded Lippey’s survey on sex education to her freshman dorm, Donner. She added that incoming freshmen all have very different levels of experience with sex education and would benefit from mandatory instruction.

“Because we come from so many different backgrounds, I think it’s good for Stanford to find a way to reconcile those differences,” Hossain said. “In the same way that we have PWR to ensure all of us are brought to the same level of essay-writing skills, having a formalized class would bring us to a certain threshold for our knowledge of sexual education.”

Currently, freshmen are required to take an online course on sexual assault called “Haven,” as well as participate in mandatory activities during NSO such as “The Real World: Stanford,” a bystander intervention theatre program.

Although she feels these programs are beneficial, Lippey said they can seem “foreign” or “overwhelming.” Hossain added that many of her peers skimmed online materials and did not take all of the information seriously.

“A lot of teenagers and incoming freshmen lack formalized experience and are ignorant about their lack of experience,” Hossain said. “And that leads to issues on campus where people don’t really understand what’s okay and what’s not okay.”

However, Hossain said that the small-group discussions held in her freshman dorm following NSO events did resonate with her. During these discussions, students worked through how to act in specific scenarios while also sharing their own concerns and questions about these issues.

“It was cool to hear other people’s insights and to have a safe space to talk about it,” Hossain said. “If we have more things that are less formalized and more focused on just talking about sexual assault, it creates a less condoning culture and a more aware campus.”

Another program to encourage this kind of open dialogue is the Peer Health Educators program, led by Jayaraman. The program will consist of training student educators who can provide information on topics such as healthy sexuality, the gender spectrum, communication and respect.

“We are envisioning this as a brand new program where students can use these peer educators as touchpoints for resources and education on these topics of gender-based violence,” Jayaraman said.

She said the peer educators would serve as the student outreach force for the office of Sexual Assault & Relationship Abuse Education and Response (SARA). They would begin the program with a fundamental workshop or presentation on these topics followed by a “potluck” of more specific workshops from which students could choose.

Jayaraman is currently talking to students and staff, community centers, SARA, Residential Education, Vaden and the Stanford Sexual Health Peer Resource Center to firm up the curriculum. She envisions that peer educators could present to freshman dorms, community centers and student groups.

“Primary prevention targets the culture behind the community or society that eventually leads to a sexual assault happening,” Jayaraman said. “Students, in the end, learn best from other students and their peers, and especially as freshmen, that’s a really powerful tool to utilize.”

Approaching prevention

As a staff member for the Clayman Institute of Gender Studies, Jayaraman has worked closely with sexual assault programming since her sophomore year. During that year, she said she came to realize that the majority of her peers had been impacted in some way by gender-based violence, motivating her to get involved.

Through her years of experience, she said that a multi-pronged, community-specific approach to sexual assault is the most effective way to spur cultural change.

“As I’ve become more and more involved, I’ve realized the need and the urgency for this education to be given through every outlet,” Jayaraman said. “If students can get it from various channels and they hear about it all the time, that’s how we create a campus culture of respect.”

She also said that her ASSU committee is planning on being able to fund student initiatives for community-based education programs. For example, she partnered with the Spoken Word Collective to put on a spoken word event during the first week of November in Xanadu’s backyard in order to provide a healing space for survivors of gender-based violence.

“The issue of sexual assault manifests itself in very intersectional and nuanced ways with people of varying identities, and the best education for people in those communities comes from within,” Jayaraman said.

Lippey also became passionate about this issue when she worked as ASSU Executive Fellow during her freshman year. Her past work inspires her to become a victims’ rights lawyer in the future.

“In freshman year, I fell into what I feel like I’m supposed to be doing for the rest of my life, which is an awesome feeling,” Lippey said. “And now, I’m just trying to sustain that and really make that a big part of my experience here at Stanford and the experiences of other people too.”

Jayaraman agreed with Lippey’s conviction to make an impact on the Stanford community.

“If there’s something that I can dedicate these four years of my undergraduate time to, it is to make a dent in changing the campus culture that results in the violation of someone else’s dignity,” Jayaraman said. “That’s something I feel that no one should stand for and I think that if everyone works together on ending this issue, it will happen.”

Contact Deepti Kannan at dkannan ‘at’ stanford.edu.

(UDIT GOYAL/The Stanford Daily)

This quarter, LaIR hours, or office hours for the introductory CS 106 classes, were relocated from Tresidder to the second floor of Old Union. Students feel that the relocation to Old Union has compromised the efficiency of the LaIR.

At the LaIR, CS 106 students put their names into a queue and wait for help from section leaders, who are undergraduate and graduate students that teach smaller discussion sections for the CS 106 classes through the CS 198: “Teaching Computer Science” program. In addition to teaching and grading assignments for their designated groups of students, section leaders also hold weekly office hours in the LaIR. The LaIR is open Sundays through Thursdays from 6 p.m. until midnight.

Before it closed on June 11, the Tresidder LaIR computer cluster had rows of desks with computers. Each computer was labeled with a number so that students could let section leaders know where they were sitting. In contrast, the LaIR at Old Union is in an open common space with few computers.

Each quarter, the LaIR is organized by the current CS 198 coordinators, and last winter, director of learning environment integration Beth McCullough informed the coordinators of the relocation plans. 

“We were told the LaIR could stay in Tresidder with a significantly reduced amount of square footage or it could move to the second floor of Old Union,” McCullough said in an email to The Daily. “Moving to Old Union seemed the better option given those two choices. I believe the motivation had to do with a need to create more office space.”

The decision to relocate the LaIR was made by the office of the vice provost for student affairs, which manages Tresidder and Old Union. According to Jeanette Smith-Laws, the director of operations and student unions for the vice provost for student affairs, the move was intended to create a more student-friendly environment for academic computing.

“Old Union is where students are. It is the place,” Smith-Laws said. “We wanted to have it feel like you could sit in other spaces and do that work and then interact with other people and not be so isolated.”

The new LaIR is located adjacent to the Tech Zone, which occupies Old Union Room 200 and contains computers and printers that are available to students. The Tech Zone is open 24 hours and is an asset to the new situation that, according to Smith-Laws, is an improvement from the resources in the old LaIR.

“[The Tresidder LaIR] hadn’t been upgraded in a long time,” Smith-Laws said. “The furniture, the equipment was in bad shape. It wasn’t the most inviting environment, and I think [Old Union] is a much better environment.”

The LaIR relocation to Old Union is a part of a greater initiative to create better spaces in Old Union for students.

“As part of that pilot, we are going to open Old Union up 24 hours, see how that works out and collect data from there,” Smith-Laws said.

Old Union currently operates from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m., and the Tech Zone is open 24/7.

Student response to the new location has been varied. Some students find Old Union to be a welcoming environment, praising the access to comfortable couches and food options.

“I personally like it at the Old Union because it is dangerously close to Axe and Palm and a plate full of chicken fingers,” said Matt Anderson ’19, a current student in CS 106A: “Programming Methodology.” “I always try to avoid getting them late at night but I seldom succeed in resisting.”

However, other students find the new location to be disorganized and inefficient, reporting longer wait times and confusion about the queue.

“The space is very long and narrow, with many different seating areas, so it is often the case that section leaders take a long time to find the student they are trying to help,” said Sinclair Cook ’18, a current CS 106B: “Programming Abstractions” student, in an email to The Daily. “I have been skipped multiple times because a section leader couldn’t find me.”

In contrast, the LaIR at Tresidder was a more contained space, which allowed section leaders to easily find students and move through the queue.

“I used the LaIR at Tresidder a few times last year,” Cook said. “I liked it because it was a dedicated space used solely for the purpose of CS 106. Also, because it was a single large, square room, it seemed like section leaders more efficiently found the students they were trying to help, which caused the queue to move faster.”

The current CS 198 coordinators, Nhien Tran BS ’15 MS ’16, Aaron Broder BS ’15 MS ’16 and Danielle Kain BS ’16 MS ’16 responded to complaints about inefficiency in an email to The Daily.

“We have not yet reviewed wait time data from this quarter, but wait times in the LaIR are typically longer in fall than in spring due to higher enrollments,” they wrote.

As of now, the LaIR will remain in Old Union for the foreseeable future. But if the data from this quarter shows unusually high wait times, another relocation may be possible, though no space is currently identified, McCullough explained.

“If a suitable, larger location were made available, we would be happy to explore that option,” McCullough said in an email to The Daily.

Contact Blanca Andrei at bandrei ‘at’ stanford.edu.

(Courtesy of Amr Hamzawy)

Amr Hamzawy is a visiting scholar at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and an associate professor of political science at Cairo University. Before arriving at Stanford, Hamzawy played critical roles in the Egyptian political scene, both during and after the Arab Spring — including a term in the first parliament elected after Egypt’s 2011 revolution.

The Daily sat down with Hamzawy to discuss his work at Stanford and the state of Egyptian politics today.

The Stanford Daily (TSD): Why did you choose to spend time here at Stanford, and what’s the focus of your research here?

Amr Hamzawy (AH): Well, I had to leave Egypt. The background is I took a clear position against the military coup. I was in fact banned from travel for a year in Egypt in 2014, which was basically one of the tools the repressive government uses to intimidate opponents. In 2015 my ban was lifted. I was, however, banned from teaching at my home university, Cairo University. The environment was becoming increasingly fascist, increasingly repressive for anyone who expresses a different point of view opposed to the one narrative coming from the ruling establishment. There were increased pressures as far as I [was] concerned, as far as my family [was] concerned. My wife is an actress so she [had] been banned from working as well, and she has been pressured in different ways. So we decided, in fact against our initial wish, to leave Egypt.

What happened was I basically wrote to several colleagues and friends, and my first choice was CDDRL, where [Stanford professor of political science and sociology] Larry Diamond is a very good friend of mine and [Stanford professor of political science and former U.S. Ambassador] Mike McFaul is a very good friend of mine.

Stanford was a choice based on the reputation of CDDRL, my friendship with Mike and Larry and the excellent reputation of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy, where [research associate] Hesham Sallam is at CDDRL. That’s basically what brought me to Stanford, and I wanted to be as far away as possible from Egypt. I keep saying it’s pretty far, and one of the greatest assets of the time difference is that you wake up and the day in Egypt has passed — so you take bad news in one shot, which is a big difference than following by the minute what is happening and unfolding all day.

In terms of my focus at Stanford, I am writing a book — it’s a research assignment so far — I’m working on a book where the working title is “Egypt’s Illiberal Liberals.” It’s an attempt to look at why the Egyptian middle class, which basically took out to the streets in 2011 to demand political freedom and democracy, decided to to give up on democratization and to once again move in the direction of calling on the military establishment to interfere and freeze pluralist politics.

One of the key issues which I am working on is how liberal, intellectual elites have been able to market the army interference and the military coup as a step to protect the nation state, to save society and to save the Egyptian identity.

TSD: You have studied and worked around the world. You completed a Ph.D. in Berlin, and you were also working with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Beirut. How does Stanford compare?

AH: It’s more of a vibrant intellectual environment. Of course I am not undermining the positive assets of my university in Berlin or of Carnegie in D.C. or in Beirut, where in different ways the environment has been inspiring as well.

But as of now, it relates to my role in the last four years because I went through two phases: the first phase where I was part of an attempt to make Egypt a democratic place — prior to 2011, [through] writing primarily, but post 2011… after I was elected to parliament — and a second phase where I [was] basically classified as a state enemy [in] July 2013. In a way, Stanford is an excellent place to reflect on the experience personally and to reflect in more of an objective manner — looking at what went wrong.

The big question in the literature is: Was it doomed to fail — was Egypt going to fail no matter what, or did key actors…commit key mistakes, tactical and strategic mistakes, which led Egypt to where it is today? That is sort of the big debate in the last two years, and Stanford is an excellent place to engage that debate and to try to contribute to it.

TSD: You founded a political party in 2011. However, you withdrew from Egypt’s current, 2015 parliamentary elections. Why?

AH: We founded the Egypt Freedom Party in 2011, and our platform has always been a liberal democratic platform — where you can compare our platform to the ideas of liberal parties in Europe or the U.S. — with a clear and pronounced commitment to a market economy and social justice, based on a socially responsible market economy as it’s framed in the European experience.

We fashioned a platform that enabled us to be elected to the “true parliament” — the only true parliament Egypt had in 2011 and 2012…. The level of competition was true, between people representing different shades, old and new. No one should imagine that 2011 eradicated the Mubarak regime. No, the Mubarak elite were very much out there, and it was their right. That’s very much what I believe in: As long as they are not implicated in human rights violations, they should be part of politics. We made the mistake… of trying to ban them from participating in politics. It was a shortsighted decision, which parliament took in 2012, and it backfired. It’s one of the big mistakes which I count as one of my own mistakes within the past four years.

At any rate, the elections of 2011… had the greatest voter turnout in modern Egyptian history of around 60 percent overall.

We had transparent management of the elections. Yes, religion was used, mosques were used, churches were used; but overall, it was a real breakthrough, so we participated, and I was elected to parliament. I tried to advance a democracy-based agenda — tried to push for security sector reform, transitional justice.

Parliament was dissolved six months after it started its work. The Assembly was sent home, and a year of increased tensions between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military establishment ended in a military coup in July 2013, basically freezing pluralist politics. Since then, what we have in Egypt is by no means a democratic environment or even a semi-democratic environment which would encourage someone like me to participate.

The one challenge you face is by participating you justify and legitimate that framework, that autocratic framework. When you participate in parliamentary elections in an autocratic or semi-autocratic setting or in a fascist setting, you have to have clarity with regard to how to weigh legitimating an unjust framework and becoming effective. My calculation is that I’m not going to be effective in the fascist environment, and I will only be used as a legitimating name.

TSD: You are known for criticizing the knee-jerk support that a majority of Egyptian liberals have shown Egypt’s current military regime since the 2013 coup. As a secular, liberal Egyptian yourself, has your criticism cost you any friends?

AH: Yes, many. On a personal note, that was the most shocking development in the last four years… to wake up to see most of [your friend and colleagues] giving up on democratic ideals and siding with the military establishment interfering in governance issues and freezing pluralist politics.

You see some of your friends not only buying into fascism — not only buying into the military dictatorship, but even playing the role of legitimating the dictatorship, of… justifying the bloodshed, justifying the military dictatorship, justifying the one-man show, which is backfiring.

TSD: What do you think is the biggest misunderstanding that Americans have about Egyptian politics today?

AH: I guess the biggest misunderstanding is a conventional one, which is to place your bet on the ruling establishment no matter what the ruling establishment is doing. The Americans did place their bet on Mubarak’s ruling establishment up until the very last day of the 18 days [of the 2011 Egyptian revolution], and then they shifted course.

In regards to [former Egyptian President] Mubarak and [current Egyptian President] Sisi you are placing your bet for regional issues, for international security concerns, for terror, on dictators who are basically creating more of an environment for terrorism domestically.

TSD: On a lighter note, you are a well-known personality in Egypt and the Arab world. In fact, you are married to an Egyptian movie star. Do people recognize you around the Bay Area?

AH: Yes, they do — Egyptians and Arabs. We were recently in San Francisco, [my wife] Basma and I, and she was stopped, and I was stopped by Egyptians and Arabs recognizing me. On campus, I get recognized by Arab students frequently, and so happily most of them are on our side — they are democracy fans, and so it’s pleasant recognition.

But we are enjoying being not recognized, because the last two years being recognized in a fascist environment as someone who is classified as a state enemy has been very unpleasant. There were incidents where people were shouting at us in the street. There was no physical violence, but you ask yourself, “Why am I doing this?” There are some moments personally which get to be very difficult for you to digest.

Contact Michael May at mmay20 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

(NINA ZUBRILLINA/The Stanford Daily)

In LAW 116N: “Guns, Drugs, Abortion, and Empirical Evaluation of Law and Policy,” students learn to disentangle fact from fiction in some of society’s most controversial policy issues.

The new freshman Introductory Seminar tackles tough subjects with a scientific rather than a moral lens, attempting to find solid empirical ground in the midst of impassioned debate.

Students use statistical analysis to address questions that range from “Does abortion reduce crime?” to “Is the U.S. death penalty racially biased?” (According to law professor John Donohue, who teaches the course, the answers are “yes” and “yes.”)  

“For a lot of these highly charged issues, there are quite an array of underlying empirical questions that can be answered, and yet people are still battling back and forth about them,” Donohue said.

“Facts have the potential to improve our democracy by making our battles over value judgments, as opposed to questions that can be resolved,” he added.  

LAW 116N is among this quarter’s most popular Introductory Seminars, having received over 170 applications for just 16 spots. Donohue believes this high demand comes from a growing interest in data-driven analysis, as well as the bestselling book, “Freakonomics.” Donohue co-wrote an influential paper on the abortion-crime link with one of the book’s authors, Steven Levitt.

That abortion research was the subject of Donohue’s latest class. He explained to students how he and Levitt had sought to explain an “incredible” drop in crime in the 1990s — at a time when many were predicting skyrocketing crime and a coming “bloodbath of teenage violence.”

Ultimately, Levitt and Donohue’s research connected the crime decrease to the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision to legalize abortion. During the 1990s, the post-Roe v. Wade generation was just coming of age; Levitt and Donohue argued that that a decrease in unplanned births led to better overall outcomes for that era’s adolescents.

“I’ve definitely been forced to think about things I didn’t before,” said Isaac Justice ’19. “I wouldn’t say I’ve changed my opinions, but I’ve been opened to new ideas. Before [the class], I had just never thought about the effect abortion would have on crime.”

In addition, many LAW 116N students have received a crash course in statistics.

As an Introductory Seminar, the class is meant to be accessible to students without significant prior training. However, the class dives heavily into econometrics — the application of math, statistics and computer science to economic data. Students use a software package called Stata to analyze data from major empirical studies.

Donohue modeled the class after a course he teaches at Stanford’s law school, modifying the content to cater to a less-experienced group. This is his first time teaching undergraduates.

“When I told a friend who teaches at Berkeley what I was doing, he said ‘Oh my god, that’s impossible, you’ll leave the students behind,’” Donohue said.

But Donohue has been pleasantly surprised by his freshman students’ ability to keep up.

“The big challenge, which is part of the idea of the IntroSem, is…you throw students who haven’t gone through years of training in a particular discipline into contact with a professor who’s doing cutting edge research of some sort, and try to bring the students right up to the point of understanding,” Donohue said.

Students have learned to use Stata through a series of group projects. For their first project, Donohue simply asked students to play around with data from a study of Connecticut death penalty cases.

“The assignment was just to have fun,” Justice said. “It made the process of learning Stata a lot less painful than it could have been.”

For example, Justice and his group members tried to investigate if the “reality-TV-worthiness” of a death penalty case was more likely to result in execution, by analyzing the outcomes for especially odd crimes such as lovers’ quarrels and kidnappings.

Michael Bloomer ’19 said his group tried to find a combination of variables that would lead to the highest possible likelihood of a death sentence. In the end, they could find no stacking of variables more predictive of the death penalty than a black person attacking a white person.

“We think of the death penalty as justice, and it’s really very arbitrary,” said Billy Ferguson ’19.

Students said they have learned to look more critically at data and how it is presented. Ferguson described a study funded by tobacco companies that excluded lung cancer patients to make smoking appear beneficial to one’s health.

“You can do anything with numbers,” Ferguson said. “You can frame it in a way that does what you want. This class is teaching us how to know when the framing is wrong.”

Contact Hannah Knowles at hknowles ‘at’ stanford.edu.

(Courtesy of Madeleine Lippey)

In 2011, students from a fraternity at the University of Vermont circulated an email asking members whom they wanted to rape. In 2010, Delta Kappa Epsilon members at Yale paraded around campus chanting what The Yale Daily News would later deem “an active call for sexual violence.”

Greek life has often found itself at the center of the sexual assault discussion nationwide. Although this issue is not isolated to Greek life, media and society often buy into a negative stigma of frequent sexual assault in the Greek community, often painting Greek life in a negative light.

This year, many Greek institutions at Stanford and their members are pushing back against this stigma. Madeleine Lippey ’18, philanthropy chair for Kappa Kappa Gamma, started a campaign called No More to help bring awareness to the issue and spur tangible action.

During the summer after her freshman year, Lippey interned for the Joyful Heart Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for positive change in the sexual assault arena. Joyful Heart’s No More Campaign aired during last year’s Super Bowl. It showed NFL players holding up signs with the words “No More” written across the top. Each player’s sign advocated an end to an aspect of our culture that perpetuates sexual assault and rape culture.

“The most common ones are things like ‘No More she was asking for it’ or ‘No More boys will be boys,’” Lippey said.

Bringing the campaign to the Stanford campus, Kappa Kappa Gamma sisters stood outside in White Plaza a few weeks ago photographing passersbys who would write their “No More” statements on signs. The sorority, who has officially adopted combating sexual assault as its philanthropy project, wanted to involve everyone interested, but with an emphasis on the Greek community.

“We were really thinking about the communities that we wanted to reach the most deeply and that was fraternity life,” Lippey said.

Every fraternity on campus participated. Lippey cited SAE’s participation as the most impactful for her.

“Every single person in the documentary [“The Hunting Ground”] is familiar with SAE as Sexual Assault Expected,” Lippey said. “We walked in to SAE where they meet every week and they said to us: ‘Can we write No More SAE = Sexual Assault Expected?’ And to me that was the entire point of doing this. The entire point was to have men just stand up and say we’re not OK with this either.”

The first pictures that went up online of Kappa Sigma members received over 10,000 views in around three hours.

“I feel like people really listen to those men. Those are the men that are serving alcohol. Those are the men that are throwing parties,” Lippey said. “And then for young women to see those photos and understand that men don’t want this either is really important to them feeling safe at Stanford.”

This “safety” Lippey alludes to is what passionate students across campus are working toward.

One of those students is Scott Arkin ’18. A member of Sigma Nu, Arkin was inspired by his aunt’s involvement in “The Hunting Ground” documentary as well as an incident at Sigma Nu at Old Dominion to bring more education about the issue to campus.

Arkin organized a screening of the documentary with a post-screening discussion led by Yisrael Donnovan, manager of emotional and sexual health programs at Vaden. His hope was to spark dialogue, but the result was even more impactful.

“A bunch of guys in my house came up to me and personally thanked me for putting it on,” Arkin said. “That just really showed to me how many members are actually very concerned about this.”

Although fraternities like Sigma Nu are making a tangible effort to curb sexual assault, it is still unclear whether these events will actually change the culture and bring about the “safety” for which so many yearn.

“I think the most effective way to change it is from within,” Arkin said. “Fraternities tend to be very insular in how they operate and so it’s really hard if its only external pressure to cause a change.”

Arkin emphasizes how difficult it is to change fraternity mindsets solely through University regulations.

“It’s important that the administration also has harsh guidelines and just punishments for any perpetrators as well as any houses where, if it’s a house that isn’t safe, the University should take action,” Arkin said. “But unfortunately it doesn’t matter how legitimate the cause was. If the University takes a house from a big group of guys or tries to put them on probation, the guys in the house are going to think ‘this is bullshit’ even if it’s not.”

Lippey and Arkin both believe that the most effective change comes from peers working together to change the culture. Peers are more likely to make an influential impact on each other.

Matthew Baiza ’18, co-founder of One in Five, a student group dedicated to educating about sexual assault, agrees.

“We really need to try to work to change the culture,” Baiza said. “Not just at our campus but around the nation.”

In researching the climate on campus, the student group realized that what was missing at Stanford was students educating other students.

“We tried to look at the institutional efforts of the University,” Baiza said.

“With that we felt that the university could do more to work to educate people, to make them aware,” he added. “We saw that one thing that was missing was student involvement on the issue.”

From a fraternity to a sorority and even a Greek-unaffiliated group, all unanimously concur: Students need to be at the focal point of the issue if Stanford is going to be successful in changing a nation-wide culture.

Although the Greek system is often stigmatized, Baiza acknowledges that the problem extends further than the Row.

“It’s not just a Greek life issue,” he said. “It’s an issue that extends past Greek life and really is an issue for the general population at Stanford.”

The Greek community is pushing back, and so is the Stanford community at large. Students want Stanford’s prestige to extend beyond academics.

“We want to see the University take steps to be the leader that it says that it is and that we know it is,” Baiza said.

With initiatives like Lippey’s, Arkin’s and Baiza’s, Stanford seems to be moving forward, with the Greek community leading the way.

“There’s a real hotbed of activism and a hotbed of passion for this issue at Stanford and at universities across the country. And I’m an optimist,” Lippey said. “I find it hard to believe that nothing good can come from… good people trying to do what they can to change the culture. I think that if there’s enough people behind it, that’s when the culture will change.”

Contact Yael Lederman at yael3 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

Wednesday, Nov. 18:

• An individual was found shoplifting from the Campus Bookstore between 1 p.m. and 1:30 p.m.
• A car caught fire and was consequently destroyed and towed away. The cause of the fire is unknown, though foul play is not suspected. The incident occurred at on Mirada Avenue at 9:20 p.m.

Thursday, Nov. 19:

• An elderly man made a comment on the phone to SUDPS about an explosion at Stanford University. He later said the comment was a bad joke. The incident occurred at 11:40 a.m.

Friday, Nov. 20:

• An unknown suspect broke a car window and stole a backpack. The incident occurred outside of the Lyman Graduate Residences between 4:35 p.m. and 7 p.m.
• An individual was arrested for public intoxication at the Neukom Building at 11:45 p.m.
• Campus Security Authority (CSA) informed SUDPS that a female student had reported being forcibly fondled by a male student. The incident occurred on Campus Drive in late October.

Saturday, Nov. 21:

• An individual was arrested for public intoxication at the intersection of Nathan Abbott Way and Salvatierra Walk at 12:25 a.m.
• An individual was cited for being a minor in possession of alcohol at the Jerry student residence at 6:55 p.m.
• Two individuals engaged in an argument that escalated to violence. Neither party pressed charges. The incident occurred at Stanford Stadium at 7:45 p.m.
• An individual was arrested for public intoxication at the Stanford Stadium at 9 p.m.
• An individual wrote Big-Game-related graffiti on the lounge wall at Theta Delta Chi between 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m.  

Sunday, Nov. 22:

• An individual was arrested for public intoxication at Munger between 1:30 a.m. and 1:35 a.m.

Monday, Nov. 23:

• An individual stole an unattended briefcase containing a laptop from a table outside of Tresidder Memorial Union at 7 p.m.
• CSA informed SUDPS that a female student had reported being touched on her backside by three males, who were on bicycles, as she was walking down Campus Drive in the middle of October.

Tuesday, Nov. 24:

• Two individuals were found prowling the bike racks on Serra Street at 6:15 p.m.
• An unknown suspect entered an unlocked office in the Varian Physics Lab and stole a laptop between Nov. 23 at 6 p.m. and Nov. 24 at 7 p.m.
• An individual climbed to the roof of Memorial Church and damaged a copper roof gutter. The value of the damages is estimated at $12,740. This incident occurred over a two-week period from Nov. 9 at 11 a.m. to Nov. 22 at 11 a.m.

Wednesday, Nov. 25:

• An individual was found in possession of concentrated cannabis at the Environment and Energy Building between 10:33 p.m. and 12:30 a.m.

Thursday, Nov. 26:

• An individual was found in possession of marijuana at the intersection of El Camino Real and Serra Street at 11:05 p.m.

Friday, Nov. 27:

• An individual was cited for driving without a license at the intersection of Palm Drive and Arboretum Road at 10:21 p.m.

Saturday, Nov. 28:

• An individual was arrested for public intoxication at the Stanford Stadium at 5:45 p.m.
• Two individuals were arrested, one for a suspended license and the other for being in possession of a controlled substance and a knife. The arrests occurred at the intersection of Campus Drive and Lasuen Street at 10:01 p.m.
• An individual was found in possession of marijuana at the intersection of Campus Drive and Lasuen Street at 11:10 p.m.

Sunday, Nov. 29:

• An individual was arrested for public intoxication at the intersection of Bowdoin Lane and Arguello Way at 1:05 a.m.

Monday, Nov. 30:

• An unknown suspect stole a reportedly U-locked bike from the bike rack outside of the Escondido V Highrise/Mirrielees at 9:30 a.m.

Tuesday, Dec. 1:

• An individual was cited for driving without a license at the intersection of El Camino Real and Embarcadero Road at 2 a.m.

There were eight alcohol transports reported between Nov. 18 and Dec. 1 as recorded in the Stanford Department of Public Safety bulletin.

Contact Blanca Andrei at bandrei ‘at’ stanford.edu.

Articles about Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) were some of The Daily’s most read stories over the last two years, but an extensive account about what happened was never published.

During July 2014, a Title IX investigation of SAE was initiated due to concerns that SAE “caused, condoned and tolerated” a “sexually hostile environment” at its 2014 Roman Bath party in May. The Roman Bath was SAE’s annual toga party, with a pre-party tradition during which pledges tell jokes to the audience. After that party, concerns were raised about sexist jokes told by some of the members, and the Title IX investigation results that came out in December placed the fraternity on alcohol suspension, social probation and a two-year housing suspension to start in spring 2015.

In March 2015, the University opened a second Title IX investigation as a result of concerns that SAE had violated their probation and participated in acts of retaliation or harassment that month. In April, the investigation expanded to look into additional potential retaliatory behavior, including posts on Whatsgoodly, against a Title IX witness in Cabo San Lucas over the 2015 spring break. In May 2015, as a result of the investigation, the fraternity lost its housing indefinitely, and the University placed SAE on probationary status for three years.

SAE declined to comment publicly for every past article regarding the situation. Then their alumni advisor reached out to us in June 2015.

A new investigation

I had been working on the story for nearly three months when SAE members said they had a new source for me.

After almost two dozen emails and a month of radio silence, I finally scheduled a meeting with her: 9:15 p.m. outside the Gates Computer Science building.

The entire correspondence felt like something from a spy movie. I didn’t know her name and had never actually communicated with her directly. My email exchange had been with her acquaintance in SAE: one of the only people — or maybe the only person — who knew her identity.

During the 2015 spring break, this female student had allegedly posted a question on Whatsgoodly, an anonymous polling app. The poll was referenced in the Title IX decision letter that took away SAE’s housing on campus indefinitely, and the University considered the poll one of several “retaliation concerns” by the fraternity against a Title IX witness.

During the second Title IX investigation, the female student with whom I would be meeting decided against taking responsibility for the anonymous Whatsgoodly poll. She was worried about potential repercussions from the University. Over emails with her SAE liaison, we considered several different options to allow her to come forward anonymously. We finally decided on a private meeting between just the two of us.

But a few hours before our scheduled interview, she changed her mind — the risk of the University discovering her identity and opening up an investigation was still too great.

In the larger scheme of the case, proving that one Whatsgoodly poll was not authored by SAE would have had little to no effect on the University’s Title IX decision, and for all I knew, SAE could have made this student up. But I found it difficult to believe that they would go to such lengths to challenge a minor point in the investigation.

My experience with this source exemplified many of the problems The Daily faced when investigating SAE’s story. People on all sides were not willing to talk, and when they were, University accounts differed from source accounts, and source accounts could not be 100 percent confirmed.

Furthermore, the more I learned about the case, the more questions I had about the Title IX investigation process. SAE members and lawyers argued that they had not been provided with due process.

“I just do not think that the punishment fits the crime,” said one current SAE member who had gone through the investigations.

But first I needed to find out: What exactly was the crime?

The Roman Bath party

Every year, as part of its annual Roman Bath party, SAE hosts a pre-party event and invites the members of Stanford’s Pi Beta Phi (Pi Phi) to attend. As part of the 20-year-old tradition, each new pledge must stand in front of the crowd, say his name and tell one joke. If the joke does not receive enough of a response, audience members can throw wine and grapes, and the pledge is asked to sit in the rafters for the remainder of the event.

Sometime before the 2014 event, SAE’s president was contacted by Pi Phi’s president at the time. According to the University’s Dec. 11, 2014 Title IX decision letter, she asked him to “tone down the jokes told at the pre-party” and “to stay away from jokes that were racist or sexist.” However, in a screenshot of their exchange provided by SAE, the Pi Phi president did not explicitly mention racism or sexism.

“I’ve been receiving quite a few concerns/worries about the potential to cross the line with some jokes,” she wrote. “Obviously most jokes are just plain hilarious and great, but last year there were a number of people that were offended even if they were intended to be just a joke.”

Despite differing accounts of exactly what happened in the presidents’ exchange, both the Title IX decision letter and the screenshot agree that the SAE president responded that he could not necessarily control what the pledges would say, since the fraternity does not “censor” the jokes. But he agreed to remind them to “keep [the jokes] under control.”

Whether or not this message reached the new members is unclear. According to the Title IX letter, the president notified both the vice president and SAE’s New Member Educator, and while the latter told new members not to be insensitive, he noted that he may not have stressed the message enough. Pledges interviewed for the investigation did not remember being told to “tone down” their jokes based on prior concerns.

Yet that evening, after one pledge told a sexist joke and received a “big response,” according to the Title IX letter, several others, some of whom were drunk, began to search for jokes about women online. The result was at least six sexist jokes cited by the University, including “Why don’t women ever wear watches? Because there’s a clock on the stove” and “What do you tell a woman with two black eyes? Nothing: You’ve already told her twice.”

Speaking on behalf of the fraternity, Laird Cagan ’80 M.S. ’80, who has acted as SAE’s alumni advisor since 2003, confirmed this sequence of events. While he said that everyone agreed the jokes were offensive, he questioned the University’s categorization of the jokes as “sexual harassment.”

“It is important to appreciate that the University never established facts to bring the Bath Party jokes within its sexual harassment policy,” Cagan said. “That policy, Administrative Guideline 1.7.1, is very specific and requires much more than offensive conduct or even unwanted sexual advances or requests for sexual favors.”

“Does telling jokes at a joke party at a fraternity, where everyone knows the format, create a hostile living environment under Title IX?” he added.

The Title IX letter said witnesses uniformly described the pre-party as a “rowdy affair,” with some witnesses calling the climate “shocking” and “primitive.” It also stated that women were not able to “easily leave or remove themselves from the situation.”

SAE members present commented that although some women did get up to leave or walk around during the event, the environment did not seem unusual for a Roman Bath pre-party.

“Absolutely not out of the ordinary,” said one SAE member when asked about the environment that night. “It was like any fraternity party I have literally ever been to on this campus. It was no different.”

In their appeal, which included letters of support from several Pi Phi members, SAE argued against the claim that a majority of the women present sat in “stunned silence.” Members of Pi Phi declined to comment for this story.

SAE members and witnesses from the Title IX investigation, however, did agree that concerns about the jokes arose quickly after the pre-party. SAE apologized to individuals who brought concerns to them, and the jokes were discussed at a house meeting after an email sent to all fraternities from the Inter-Sorority Council on May 22 referenced the jokes. According to the Title IX letter, a more focused house discussion was not immediately held, and both Pi Phi and Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority (Kappa) canceled their remaining social events with SAE for the quarter.

What further complicated the situation were two transports from SAE that same evening. The first involved a pledge who, according to Cagan, had stumbled while climbing down a ladder from the rafters and had to receive several stitches on his forehead. The second involved a female student transported as a possible result of being roofied.

In the Dec. 11 Title IX decision letter, the University did not list any specific substantiated instances of SAE’s use of drugs or alcohol to incapacitate women. In a section titled “Other Concerns of Possible Drugging Incidents and Unwanted Physical or Sexual Conduct,” the letter stated “several concerns had been raised” regarding “suspected drugging incidents” and “alleged unwanted physical conduct.” However, it said that the “majority of women involved in these incidents were not willing to participate in this [investigation] or any other formal investigation.”

“Based on information available about other incidents, the University by a preponderance of the evidence is not able to substantiate what exactly occurred or whether what occurred could be attributed to SAE,” the letter reads.

“The number and nature of the concerns involving conduct against women at the SAE house, however, is concerning especially in light of the hostile climate at the Roman Bath pre-party in combination with the nature of SAE’s response to concerns raised before and after the pre-party,” it adds.

When students heard about the alleged roofie incident at the Roman Bath party, several blamed SAE. The fraternity claimed that its own concern to clarify that its members were not responsible for the drugging incident eclipsed much of its concern regarding the jokes.

SAE sources emphasized this point in regard to two meetings between their leadership and members of Kappa, the second of which also involved ASSU representatives. SAE members told The Daily that they were upset not at Kappa’s cancellation of their social events, but rather at an email sent by Kappa leadership that attributed the roofie incident to SAE. But based on witness reports, the University cited these meetings as “concerns regarding retaliation and intimidation” by SAE.

“[SAE members] indicated that they regretted the tone of the meetings, but felt it was necessary to defend their organization against the alleged drugging incident being presented publicly as a proven fact when that was not the case,” the Title IX letter reads.

The first Title IX investigation and appeal

The week following the Roman Bath party, Catherine Criswell Spear stepped into her role as Stanford’s first Title IX coordinator. During Spear’s tenure at Stanford, the Title IX office handled several controversial cases, including Brock Turner’s arrest for alleged rape and an investigation of the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band that led to its ongoing travel ban. Spear stepped down from her position on Sept. 11, 2015 and declined to comment for this article. The investigation of SAE became one of her first Title IX cases at Stanford and the University’s first organizational Title IX incident on campus.

Initiated on July 7, 2014, the case was based on two primary concerns: that SAE had created a “sexually hostile environment” and that SAE had been involved in the use of “high-grain alcohol and drugs to render female students attending SAE-sponsored events susceptible to unwanted sexual advances and actions,” according to the Title IX letter.

Simultaneously, Stanford’s Organization Conduct Board (OCB) also began an investigation that took place in November and December.

SAE received a Title IX decision letter on Dec. 11 and an OCB decision letter on Dec. 19. It appealed to the University on Jan. 14, 2015.

The results of the OCB investigation released on Dec. 19 found that SAE had violated University alcohol and hazing policies by providing alcohol to members under the age of 21 and by requiring pledges to climb into and sit in the rafters at the Roman Bath party. SAE “accepted culpability for these events” in its appeal.

However, SAE’s appeal also included several concerns about the Title IX process, as well as over 250 pages of support letters from SAE brothers, members of Pi Phi and other sororities, SAE chapter alumni and other interested parties.

Although the Title IX letter stated that unsubstantiated claims played no role in the Title IX decision, SAE members, representatives and lawyers questioned why the unsubstantiated incidents were mentioned at all if they had no effects. In an email to The Daily, University spokeswoman Lisa Lapin expanded upon whether or not substantiated instances of sexual harassment by SAE members had been found.

“It is important to note that this situation involved much more than ‘lighthearted jokes,’” Lapin said. “Many examples actually were found to be substantiated with respect to alleged sexual harassment. It is some of the additional allegations of sexual assault and misconduct that could not be substantiated or corroborated.”

However, Cagan, along with SAE members at the time, reported that the University had not told them about any of these substantiated claims and “refused to share any information regarding any unsubstantiated claims.” Despite Cagan’s research into SAE’s history over the past five years, he could not find significant examples supporting alleged sexual harassment.

According to Cagan, members were also never explicitly told to whom the Title IX office spoke or exactly what the claims against them were, besides the two general concerns — creating a sexually hostile living environment and incapacitating women with drugs or alcohol — mentioned at the start of the investigation. In fact, one of the row staff told SAE that “if it is just a bunch of jokes, you have nothing to worry about,” Cagan said.

Lapin clarified some of the details about the origins of the investigation.

“The transports were not the reason for the initiation of the original Title IX investigation,” she said. “The University has a legal obligation to respond when it knew or should have known about the existence of a sexually hostile environment. There were several reports to University staff at the end of spring 2014 that were forwarded to the Title IX office.”

In addition to breaking down the Title IX letter by sections and subsections and responding to particular claims, the appeal brought up two other primary concerns about the investigation process: “procedural irregularities” and “investigative bias.”

SAE’s primary concerns included a low number of witnesses and the investigation’s lack of timeliness. Only six of the 34 people interviewed by the investigator were Pi Phis, despite the Title IX letter’s claim that “[w]hile not all the Pi Phis who heard jokes found them to be offensive, the majority did.”

The Title IX Administrative Policy and Procedures also states the following with regard to investigation timelines: “A Title IX Investigation should normally be completed within 60 calendar days after the University has notice of an allegation of Prohibited Conduct. The Title IX Coordinator or her designee may extend this time frame for good cause, including University breaks.”

The SAE investigation took a total of 157 days from its initiation to its outcome letter. According to SAE’s appeal, the Title IX office also committed to and rescheduled the outcome delivery meeting with SAE leadership six times between October and December before they met in person at 4 p.m. on Dec. 11, 2014 — in the middle of the autumn final exam period. Given the delayed final meeting, the leadership was told they would be able to see the letter in advance but received only a one-hour period starting at 3 p.m. the same day.

Once they were given the letter, SAE leadership were initially told they had only five business days to complete an appeal. However, the University quickly altered this decision to give SAE more time.

Lapin explained that the delay in the investigation resulted from witnesses’ lack of availability over summer break, since the process was initiated in early July.

“Sixty days is a goal,” Lapin said. “For more complex cases involving multiple allegations and witnesses, it is not uncommon for an investigation to take longer.”

“With respect to the initial investigation, part of the delay was due to initial lack of availability of witnesses, in particular SAE witnesses and leadership,” she added.

But one past SAE member said that he had to take an incomplete on a class that quarter — and almost had to take a second incomplete as well — due to the stress and work that resulted from the investigation process.

SAE also argued that the investigator hired by the Title IX office was “a source of bias and discomfort.” SAE members reported that her questions seemed to assume guilt and that she demonstrated a “hostile” and “intimidating” attitude toward the fraternity members she interviewed.

“I just thought that she didn’t seem neutral,” said one past SAE member who was interviewed for the investigation. “Maybe because we were the accused, you can’t really expect to be treated fairly and neutrally.”

“She treated me like a criminal being charged,” he added.

While it acknowledged that the jokes were wrong, the appeal also questioned whether or not the Roman Bath activities constituted sexual harassment.

“I talked to many lawyers and other people knowledgeable about the law [around Title IX], and they said that there’s absolutely no way a joke-telling party at a fraternity house would constitute a hostile living environment for other students who don’t live there,” Cagan said.

“If any hostile environment has been created, it has been created against the SAEs,” he added.

But on Feb. 12, 2015, Greg Boardman, the vice provost for student affairs, upheld the original Title IX decision and denied SAE’s appeal. He explained that the investigation delays did not have a negative impact on the outcome decision and did not find that the appeal demonstrated bias by the investigator. He also addressed the concerns about the low number of Pi Phi witnesses.

“It is undisputed that some number of attendees, more than one and less than all, were upset and offended by ‘The Forum’ [the pre-party],” Boardman wrote. “It is unnecessary to quantify that number, and trying to do so misses the point.”

“The point is that having been advised by the President of Pi Phi to take care to ensure that there was an appropriate environment at ‘The Forum,’ SAE leadership failed to take the opportunity to guide members in a discussion regarding an appropriate environment by the event,” he added.

Boardman also highlighted the difference between intent and impact and SAE’s failure to recognize the distinction when it came to both sexual harassment through the jokes and also hazing. He explained that while a single crude joke was not sexual harassment, what happened at the Roman Bath pre-party was.

“‘The Forum’ involved an onslaught of jokes that rewarded this behavior by the membership,” he wrote.

Boardman’s response disregarded many of the points in SAE’s appeal due to the Title IX appeal requirement that new evidence be “not available at the time of the initial review.” SAE argued that while information brought up in the appeal had been available at the time of the initial investigation, they had not known exactly what specifics they would need to provide, since they had only received general bullet points about the charges against them and had not been able to view witness statements.

“SAE at all times knew the allegations against them and any and all information they wanted to provide would have been reviewed. They were given notice of the concerns,” Lapin wrote to The Daily in response. “The allegations were very specific.”

However, Boardman did make some changes to the original decision. SAE was allowed to live in its house until the end of the 2014-15 school year while on alcohol suspension and social probation. The fraternity could not hold social events in the house with invited guests, and alcohol was not allowed in common areas. SAE would also be eligible to reoccupy the house in fall 2017 if the chapter developed a plan for house management.

The second Title IX investigation and appeal

But less than a month later on March 11, 2015, the University notified SAE of a second Title IX investigation based on a possible party and concerns of retaliation and harassment against an individual to prevent her from reporting possible unwanted sexual contact on March 7-8.

On April 20, SAE received a second notice stating that the investigation would also look into whether or not members had harassed and intimidated a female Stanford student vacationing in Cabo over spring break because they believed she had been a Title IX complainant in the first investigation.

On May 18, Boardman delivered the results of the investigation, and SAE lost its housing indefinitely. For the remainder of the school year, the fraternity could not have alcohol or outside guests within the residence — with the exception of family members — and all members were immediately placed on probationary status for three academic years. Provost John Etchemendy denied SAE’s second appeal on Aug. 4.

The second Title IX decision letter, written by Boardman, references not only the possibility of alcohol and guests in common spaces on March 7-8, but also several other potential social events or instances of alcohol in common spaces later in the quarter.

“Not all reports to the University were substantiated,” Boardman said. “However, I conclude that the evidence establishes that, on a number of occasions, these restrictions were violated or recklessly ignored.”

In an interview with The Daily, SAE admitted that some members held an unofficial “Probation Party” in April, and a Facebook invitation brought the event to the University’s attention. However, it also argued that, despite the fact that members broke probation, the two primary events on which the second Title IX decision was made — an incident involving alleged intimidation by an SAE staff member and SAE’s alleged retaliatory behavior in Cabo — did not justify the outcome decision.

Witness accounts and University accounts differ with regard to what happened on the night of March 7 or in the early morning hours of March 8. All agreed, however, that an intoxicated female student, Beth Jones*, arrived at SAE on March 7-8 with some friends. While she stayed with her group of friends during much of her time there, she also spent some time alone with an SAE member (SAE A) who had never met her prior to this incident.

After Jones went back to her dorm, she said she may have been subjected to unwanted sexual contact sometime during that night but was not sure when or where it had happened.

According to a former SAE member who had been present, Jones had been at other dorms and houses before arriving in tears at SAE. When SAE A heard about Jones’ concern regarding sexual assault, he became worried, and an SAE staff member (SAE B) decided to go to Jones’ dorm to relay information to her resident fellow about what had happened at the house. Both of the other SAE members, and later Jones, confirmed that SAE A had not been involved with any sexual assault, according to SAE’s second appeal.

SAE B took a fellow SAE member (SAE C) with him — as a second witness to the conversations at the dorm, according to a former SAE member. The University saw this as another instance of intimidation.

“The protocol for urgent situations is to call the on-call residence dean,” Boardman wrote in the second decision letter. “It was not a reasonable or sensible decision for the SAE student staff member to bring a fraternity brother along with him to conduct private and sensitive student affairs work.”

When Jones’ resident fellow could not be reached, SAE B ended up speaking with a resident assistant (RA) at the dorm instead.

While the Title IX letter reports that the RA claims SAE B never inquired about Jones’ well-being, SAE’s second appeal claims that both SAE B and SAE C confirmed that this is false. Despite being listed as a witness to the event by SAE B, SAE C was never interviewed for the Title IX investigation. SAE C did later submit a personal statement confirming that SAE B had asked about Jones’ well-being, but the University chose to use the RA’s account of what had happened.

“In his testimony to Ms. Glaze [the Title IX investigator], the SAE staff member indeed reported that he thought he had asked how [Jones] was,” Etchemendy wrote in his appeal response. “I followed up with Ms. Glaze, who said that the staff member did not volunteer this information on his own, but only said so when she explicitly asked him about it.”

“Since the RA had nothing to gain or lose from this testimony, his testimony trumped the SAE staff member’s, who had a great deal at stake,” he added.

The second incident in question occurred in Cabo, where several SAE members decided to spend their 2015 spring break. Three specific instances of retaliation against Title IX witness Jane Smith* were cited in the University’s May 18 Title IX decision letter. Smith also wrote her own account of what happened in a Daily op-ed.

The first encounter referenced in the decision letter talked about a private room SAE had reserved on March 21 at a bar. Smith approached the room, and one SAE member, Jeff Taylor*, was acting as bouncer. The Title IX letter stated that when Taylor asked whom she knew there, Smith answered “something to the effect that she knew everyone,” and Taylor reportedly had a “rude and childish reaction.”

The letter also details two other interactions between Taylor and Smith and cites them as retaliatory behavior and verbal harassment. SAE’s appeal, however, argues that many of the descriptions referenced in the Title IX letter are unsubstantiated, subjective claims by Smith. It also explained that Taylor’s actions were not driven by the fact that he believed Smith was a Title IX witness.

The University also referenced anonymous polls targeting Smith on Whatsgoodly, but the co-founders of the app, one of whom is an SAE member, would not provide IP addresses or demographics about the posts to either the University or to SAE. Despite SAE’s objections that no evidence could attribute the polls’ authorship to fraternity members, Etchemendy emphasized that both authorship and participation in the polls mattered.

“There would have been a very limited pool of people who both could have participated in these polls (given the geographic range of a Whatsgoodly poll) and who would have been interested in doing so,” Etchemendy wrote.

“It defies belief that these respondents were not primarily members of SAE, though no doubt some friends of SAE, both male and female, also participated,” he added.

Smith, who felt unsafe after her interactions with SAE, ultimately went home early from Cabo. When the events from spring break were brought to the University’s attention, the Title IX office was obligated to investigate, and Stanford also opened an Office of Community Standards (OCS) case against Taylor as an individual.

SAE, however, questioned why Etchemendy did not wait for the OCS panel to come to a decision about Taylor before responding to SAE’s second appeal.

“[I]f the student disciplinary panel were to come to a different conclusion about whether one particular individual engaged in retaliation, that would express the judgment on one issue by a small group of individuals versus the judgment of a larger group of highly experienced advisors to Vice Provost Boardman,” Etchemendy wrote.

“Such an outcome would not in itself invalidate the reasoning that led to Vice Provost Boardman’s decision about retaliation by either this individual or by SAE as a chapter — much less about the broad array of incidents on which his decision was based, most of which are not at issue in the student disciplinary case,” he added.

However, on Aug. 14, 2015, the OCS panel found Taylor “not responsible” for retaliation by a vote of 5-0. Robert Ottilie ’77, a Sigma Chi alumnus and the lawyer who represented Taylor in the OCS case, spoke about how he believes a similar decision would have been made for SAE had the Title IX investigation given the organization due process.

“Having the benefit of a much more thorough investigation that was conducted by the individual student and those assisting him [through the OCS case], and having had the advantage of seeing a substantial amount of evidence, I think there were determinations made by the University — as reflected in that May 18 letter — that were not supported by all of the facts,” Ottilie said. “Those facts weren’t assembled.”

“There were findings made against SAE [in the Title IX investigation letter] that I think — given the benefit of the full record that was established throughout the summer — just aren’t supported by the full record,” he added.

A participant in the OCS investigation, however, explained that the University did not dispute the events that happened in Cabo — the jury only found that there was not enough evidence to determine Taylor’s motivation for his actions.

Cagan emphasized the difference in “due process” between the Title IX investigation and the OCS case, particularly in Taylor’s ability to know all of the claims made against him and to cross-examine witnesses. According to Ottilie, the OCS office allowed Taylor to see everything on file against him, including some of the Title IX witness statements. SAE, however, never had the chance to read the reports from either of the Title IX investigations or from any witnesses.

“I think it would have been helpful had a full and accurate record been developed before the organizational decision was made,” Ottilie said. “And I think that would have been the case had Stanford provided the organization the same hearing process that they provided to the individual. Because then [SAE members] would have had the opportunity to see what was in the file — views that supported their position — go out, and develop their own evidence and help contribute to the development of the evidentiary file.”

“Had they also had that opportunity, I think their result would have been the same as the individual’s result,” he added.

In a conversation with The Daily, Lapin clarified the differences between the Title IX and OCS investigations. SAE had received summaries of the Title IX investigations, but to protect witnesses, exact statements were not shared with the organization. In the OCS case, witness statements are shared with the accused individual but are considered confidential. She emphasized that the reason SAE was not allowed to see exact witness statements from the Title IX report was to protect those involved in the investigation.

“The University’s decision in the Title IX case stands that a student at Stanford was subjected to retaliatory conduct,” Lapin wrote. “That one individual in the OCS process was found not individually responsible for conduct does not overturn the University’s Title IX finding. That individual case does not overturn the University finding that the organization did retaliate through social media and events over spring break.”

According to one past SAE member, the only reason some SAE members had even found out about Smith’s name as a Title IX witness was through a flaw in the first investigation process that allowed all interviewees to see who had agreed to participate, through a shared Google document used for signing up for appointments.

Smith, however, never signed up on the Google document herself and was never informed about how her identity had been revealed, despite the University’s having promised her confidentiality as a witness.

In an email response to questions from The Daily, Smith emphasized that despite her concerns surrounding the process, discussions attempting to “delegitimize” Title IX are hurting victims more than helping.

“The rights of victims and witnesses in Title IX proceedings at Stanford are not respected or protected,” Smith said. “But even though the process is flawed, it’s better than nothing. Unless you’re proposing a solution, all you’re doing by attacking the Title IX office is undermining the limited access to resources and opportunities for justice that a victim has.”

“The conversation about due process should not distract us from seeking to improve procedure while empowering and protecting students who come forward,” she added.

Other concerns with Title IX and University judicial processes

Ottilie, Cagan and several other sources — both SAE and non-SAE — voiced additional concerns about “due process” in Stanford’s Title IX and judicial processes.

According to Ottilie, who said he had confirmed this with the senior University counsel in Stanford’s Office of the General Counsel a couple of years ago, the disciplinary procedures of OCS cases create a contract between Stanford students and the University. He said this would also be true in Title IX cases through the Alternate Review Process and Procedures and explained that although constitutional due process does not apply to Stanford as a private institution, contractual due process would.

“If the University were to violate their own provisions, it would essentially be a breach of contract,” he said.

“I have been alarmed at the conduct of their Title IX office really since its inception, and I think that alarm has been confirmed by two recent outcomes related to the Title IX office,” he added. “The first, of course, was the University imposed a secondary sanction on the SAEs on May 18.”

He emphasized that the May 18 Title IX decision not only did not give SAE a proper hearing but also was made before all evidence had been developed.

“The problem at Stanford, both in their individual cases but more so in their organizational cases, which they seem to treat differently, is they don’t have a hearing,” Ottilie said. “With no hearing, there’s no adversarial process.”

Ottilie spoke about how, as a lawyer who has dealt with several student law cases, he believes that Stanford also often assumes guilt of the accused. He explained that this bias is largely due to a lack of separation of roles in the judicial process.

Ottilie also works with the Student Justice Project, which focuses on student rights issues at Stanford. In 2011, it released a case study that alleged misconduct by officials assigned to Judicial Affairs cases, and in its second report in 2013, the group conducted an internal review of Stanford’s OCS process through testimonials from 24 individuals. Several of these individuals, all of whom had either been not charged after referrals to OCS or who had been charged and acquitted, reported that the system appeared to presume guilt of the accused.

“My experience at Stanford is the people that are going into that system are, in many many cases, not guilty of what they’re charged,” Ottilie said. “[Stanford has] brought bad charges.”

“And yet, the process isn’t set up, in my view, to let [the accused] prove they’re innocent,” he added.

Cagan said that he met with a number of attorneys, all of whom told him that “the facts and circumstances of the SAE case would be very favorable to SAE in a court of law and SAE would most likely prevail,” he said. He pointed to Corry vs. Stanford, in which California’s Leonard Law required that private colleges in California uphold free speech under the First Amendment by law, above any institutions’ private guidelines.

“There isn’t one allegation of physical assault since the Roman Bath Party to anything later — it’s all been speech, verbal communication,” Cagan said. “Why was SAE punished with the worst punishment in decades because of seven freshmen telling offensive jokes?”

A lawsuit under the Leonard Law would have required a single fraternity member to bring charges against the University, and none of the SAEs wanted to do so. Instead, they chose to refrain from making the case public.

“They wanted to work within the system,” Cagan said. “But I think the system failed them.”

Lapin explained that the Leonard Law was “inapplicable” in this case.

“The Leonard Law does not protect conduct that rises to the level of sexual harassment,” she wrote.

“SAE had organizational privileges withdrawn based on organizational conduct,” she added. “The Leonard Law prohibits discipline, under certain circumstances, of individuals, and here no individual was disciplined.”

The line between harassment and constitutionally protected speech, on campus and off, is a blurry one, constantly re-negotiated. Title IX defines conduct that creates “hostile environments” as pervasive, outrageous and interfering with educational opportunity, and prohibits such conduct. But who’s to say what counts as “pervasive, outrageous and interfering” in each specific situation?

“It’s an issue that is without an absolute answer,” said Joel Siegal, a San Francisco attorney who has argued Title IX cases in federal court.

On a national level, a Congressional bill was introduced this July that would make it more difficult for colleges to discipline alleged perpetrators of sexual assault. Two major fraternity and sorority organizations lobbied for the bill, while Title IX advocates have rallied against it.

Hannah Farr ’15, a Kappa alumna who frequented the SAE house, recalled her perception of the SAE Title IX investigation as a sorority member observing from the outside. She said that she wished there had been more communication from the University clarifying the accusations against SAE.

“There was a lot of talk among sororities about how we wanted to face this issue as a whole sorority group, but in my opinion, there was not a lot of transparency once again about exactly what was going on and what they were being accused of and what the danger was,” Farr said. “There was a lot of discussion about what we wanted to do but no material fact.”

Farr also spoke about how the fraternity was not given an outlet to voice its side of the story.

“I think that these guys were actually slandered last year on campus, because I didn’t really hear their point of view publicly,” she said. “And that just frustrated me.”

Almost every SAE source, including Ottilie, also said that he had been unaware that multiple University offices had been involved in the Title IX decisions or that it seemed like the Title IX office had had a disproportionate amount of power in determining the fraternity’s fate. Cagan said that he felt that “the actions of the Title IX coordinator were unusually harsh.”

“It seemed like she had an agenda to send a message, using SAE as the very first case without concern to the collateral damage to the SAE members whose reputations were unfairly tarnished,” he said.

However, the University emphasized that the Title IX office was not the only one involved in the decision.

“[I]n response to concerns brought to the University’s attention, Vice Provost Boardman requested that the Organizational Conduct Board, Residential Education and the Title IX office conduct a joint investigation,” Etchemendy wrote.

“It is worth mentioning that the opinion of the Title IX representative was by no means an outlier nor the harshest opinion represented in the discussion,” he added. “Several attendees [in the meeting discussing an outcome] felt that the chapter’s charter should be entirely revoked, but that was not Vice Provost Boardman’s ultimate decision.”

Moving forward

SAE members are working to move on from the situation, but for some, that has been easier said than done.

“That whole [investigation] process and then now not being able to live in the house — it sucks,” said one current SAE member. “I don’t get to go and hang out with all my friends every night, and it’s really causing a rift in a lot of my really close friendships where I wish I could be closer.”

“It’s kind of ruined my Stanford experience to be honest,” he added. “I don’t really love Stanford anymore.”

The second Title IX decision in particular affected the fraternity’s recruitment class last year. Only 12 of 33 pledges decided to remain with SAE after the second Title IX decision was released. Those who did decide to stay with the fraternity, along with the returning members, will still be under the three-year social probation.

“I don’t blame them for dropping out,” Cagan said. “I believe they have been treated unfairly. The way the probation was outlined, they would have to walk on eggshells for their entire Stanford experience.”

When reached out to for a comment in September, Brandon Weghorst, the associate director of communications for the national organization SAE, said that staff members and local alumni would be conducting a membership review of the Stanford chapter members within a few weeks.

“During that review, they will evaluate each brother in the chapter to determine if he is following our policies and membership expectations,” Weghorst wrote in an email to The Daily.

On the University’s end, the Title IX office is searching for someone to fill the position of Title IX coordinator.

Despite conflicting accounts and uncertain facts, the facts of which we’re certain boil down to the following: SAE was put on probation and had their housing removed for two years for telling jokes and creating a “sexually hostile environment” at a pre-party event and for violating University alcohol and hazing policies. The fraternity then lost its housing indefinitely for breaking alcohol and social probation and for “retaliation” on two counts: a staff member who disobeyed University protocol and SAE members who were found to have been rude to a Title IX witness, one of whom was deemed not responsible for retaliation against her.

There may have been other substantiated instances of sexual harassment by SAE members, the details of which the University cannot disclose. The staff member may have been intimidating on March 8, and the anonymous Whatsgoodly polls in Cabo may have had many SAE participants.

After months of talking to sources, reading official documents and exploring Title IX, I leave it up to you: Does the Title IX process provide sufficient due process for the accused or protection for witnesses and victims? Did SAE create a “hostile living environment” and deserve to lose their house indefinitely? Did the punishment fit the crime?

*Editor’s note: The Daily has chosen to change the names of students involved in the investigations in order to prevent repercussions against those involved.

Abigail Schott-Rosenfield and Skylar Cohen contributed to this report.

Contact Kylie Jue at kyliej ‘at’ stanford.edu.

“We are very pleased to announce R&DE Stanford Dining’s new culinary education course, Jamie Oliver’s Cook Smart program, in the Teaching Kitchen @ Stanford,” said Eric Montell, in a statement from Stanford Dining. “We fundamentally believe in educating students in the use of healthy cooking techniques and sustainable ingredients, and we passionately believe that this knowledge can help them live healthier lives — at Stanford and beyond.”

The program, which is the first of its kind in the nation, consists of nine-week cooking classes taught by trained and certified chefs from Residential & Dining Enterprises (R&DE). This fall, the eight-person classes met weekly on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

The class curriculum teaches basic kitchen and food skills to participants in a hands-on, engaging fashion, which helps students gain confidence in their cooking abilities. In addition, the course teaches core principles of nutrition and sustainable food, using education modules developed by the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation.

“The partnership between Stanford Dining and the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation is incredibly exciting because it allows my team to really make an impact with Stanford students where better nutrition is concerned,” Oliver told Stanford Dining. “I’m extremely grateful to Stanford  Dining for working alongside us.”

According to the statement, the program intends to provide opportunities for students to build life skills relating to food, while supporting community building and helping to create a culture of health and wellness at Stanford. In addition, the class aims to inspire change through increased understanding of the food we consume.

Contact Albert Zhang at albertzh ‘at’ stanford.edu.

Named LkCa 15 b, the alien planet seems to be growing into a Jupiter-like world some 450 light years away. The postdoctoral researcher and her colleagues had to design a new instrument to detect the light emanating from the protoplanet.

“This is the first incontrovertible detection of a planet still in the process of forming — a so-called ‘protoplanet,’” Follette said to the Stanford News Service.

Observing protoplanets yields clues to the forming of worlds in other galaxies. The prevailing approach has been to search for clearings inside rings of debris, where planets are thought to form. Yet, astronomers have learned little about protoplanets in this way. They hover past the limits of what the best telescopes can see.

Instead, Follette and her colleagues caught the light LkCa 15 b gave off as it grew. It was no easy task — light from young planets is normally much fainter than the light from their host stars.

“The difference in brightness between a star and a young exoplanet is usually comparable to the difference between a firefly and a lighthouse,” Follette said. “It’s very hard to isolate the light from the planet when it is so faint and so close to the star from our point of view.”

Luckily, the researchers knew exactly what they were looking for. LkCa 15 b gave off a special wavelength of visible light known as Hydrogen-alpha (H-alpha) light as it swelled from its core of rock or ice into gas giant.

“Because we could focus on a special color of light where the planet is glowing very brightly, the signal was significantly stronger than what we normally look for,” Follette said.

Follette and her colleagues will be publishing the sighting in their planet formation theories in the Nov. 19 issue of Nature. Follette’s co-author Steph Sallum, a graduate student at the University of Arizona, verified the observation with independent data on the same protoplanet.

The University of Arizona’s Magellan Telescope and its visible light camera first captured the light from LkCa 15 b. The Magellan is the first telescope up to the task of tackling H-alpha light.

Bruce Mackintosh, professor of physics, astronomer and advisor to Follette, said that these imaging processes help to chart the birth cycle of planets. He has tracked down a slightly older planet using the Magellan system.

“51 Eri b is an adolescent — about 20 million years old, already full-grown and still cooling off from the energy released during its formation,” he told the Stanford News. “Kate’s planet is a baby — still heating up and growing.”

The team will continue to watch LkCa 15 b grow to understand how planets form, as well as to test the theory that “clearings” in debris disks are a sign of developing planets.

“One of the fundamental human questions is whether we’re alone or unique,” Follette said. “It’s cool to look at Jupiter-like exoplanets like LkCa 15 b, but ultimately we’re trying to push the technology to be able to detect Earth-like exoplanets.”

“I’ve always been inspired by the famous ‘pale blue dot’ image of Earth taken by Voyager as it passed Saturn,” she added. “We’d really like to do that some day for a planet around another star, and this sort of work is moving us in that direction.”

Contact Fangzhou Liu at fzliu96 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

In addition to being a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution since 1983, Rowen was the Edward B. Rust Professor of Public Policy and Management emeritus, at the Graduate School of Business (GSB) and a director emeritus of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). Prior to his years at Stanford, Rowen had a long and influential career in policymaking, economics and national security. Rowen was also a senior fellow at the The Hoover Institution.

Rowen began his career at Rand Corporation, a nonprofit organization that studied national security. He worked as an economist there for much of the 1950s, returning to serve as the corporation’s president in 1967 after a brief stint with the U.S. Bureau of the Budget. Rowen expanded Rand’s influence into areas of domestic policy, working on education, healthcare and housing.

The publication of the Pentagon Papers in 1971, which revealed the true nature of the Department of Defense’s involvement in Vietnam, led to the end of Rowen’s leadership of Rand. According to the New York Times, Rand owned a copy of the Pentagon Papers, and under Rowen’s discretion allowed journalist Daniel Ellsberg access to them. Within the year, Rowen resigned from Rand and became part of the Stanford faculty.

Rowen returned to policymaking during the Reagan Administration. He was the chairman of the National Intelligence Council from 1981 to 1983 and later went on to serve as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs during George H. W. Bush’s presidency. In the final decade of the Cold War, Rowen argued for the United States to withhold aid from the struggling Soviet economy in an effort to force them to open up.

In the years following the Cold War, Rowen was heavily involved in research studying Asia’s burgeoning technology sector. Through FSI, Rowen was involved in the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE), as well as the Shorenstein Center. Rowen predicted in a 1996 issue of National Interest that China would have become a democracy by this year, and although the prediction did not come true, he expressed his belief that the change was still to come. Other works he coauthored included “Making IT: The Rise of Asia in Information Technologies” in 2007 and “The Silicon Valley Edge: A Habitat for Innovation and Entrepreneurship” in 2000.

Rowen is survived by his widow Beverly Griffiths, as well as their six children and nine grandchildren.

Contact Jacob Nierenberg at jhn2017 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

(McKENZIE LYNCH/The Stanford Daily)

A group of students will travel to Paris at the end of the month to attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference (the 21st Conference of the Parties or COP21). The students are taking a course called “International Climate Negotiations: Unpacking the Road to Paris,” specifically designed to teach students about the issues involved with the conference and to prepare for the trip. Enrollment in the course was by application.

“Climate change is the issue of this generation,” said professor Richard Nevle, deputy director of the earth systems program and co-instructor of the course. “It’s something that [my co-instructors and I] have all been deeply committed to working on through different means, everything from activism to research to teaching.”

Paris trip and final project

After Thanksgiving break, the students will meet in Paris on Nov. 29 and stay until Dec. 6.

“I want students to leave this course and to leave Paris with an understanding of why it has been and is so challenging to reach a meaningful international climate agreement, what the key issues are in the international negotiations and, more than anything, with a resolve to continue their work for climate action in their work, their studies and their lives after Paris,” Strong said.

Each student is working on a final project and will use the trip to conduct research. Before traveling to Paris, each must create a plan for where to go, whom to meet and what to do while in the city for the project.

Students’ projects range from an exploration of how American new media covers and frames the negotiations to research on subnational engagement or climate activism.

Guest speakers representing diverse perspectives, including journalists, negotiators and NGO workers, will speak with the students every morning. Nevle said these speakers will help students understand the negotiation progress as it unfolds.

Preparing for Paris

The class focused on gaining a background knowledge on issues pertaining to climate change as well as preparation for the trip to Paris for the COP21 negotiations. Students studied a broad range of topics including climate finance, game theory, carbon accounting, climate justice, equity, adaptation and climate science communication. Despite the wide curriculum, students were able to study each topic in depth.

“The class has focused on the history of the international climate change negotiations, tracing the path that led to all the focus on Paris,” Aaron Strong, a Ph.D. candidate and co-instructor, wrote in an email to The Daily. “We have had practical lessons on the nuts and bolts of how the U.N. system works and how to read the texts that form the basis of negotiation.”

Students acknowledged the complexities of the issues involved with the climate negotiations and how that has informed their own learning.

“We learned how integral all of these considerations are to reaching a deal and taking a position that achieves the goals of justice, equity and progress that most people want,” Josh Lappen ’17 said.

“I think many of us realized by the end of the class that the more we learned, the more we became aware that we can’t know everything related to climate change, because it’s such a broad issue and covers so many different areas,” Ruairí Arrieta-Kenna ’18 said.

Students in the class come from a variety of backgrounds. Many are studying earth systems or another science, while others are majoring in political science or economics. According to Nevle, the instructors were purposeful in accepting students with “diverse academic perspectives.”

Many of the students, including Lappen, are participated in the sit-in at Main Quad last week to demand divestment from fossil fuels.

Mock COP

The first eight weeks of the quarter led up to four hours of mock negotiations last Sunday designed to replicate the real COP21. Of the 30 students, 28 represented a nation or party and two acted as co-chairs. According to Nevle, the mock COP was an authentic, realistic experience that helped students understand what the process will really be like in Paris.

According to Arrieta-Kenna, negotiators discussed a modified version of the actual 16-page text that will be used at COP21. Their goal was to agree upon the specific wording of certain parts of the document, taking into account each of their countries’ unique interests. Complete consensus was necessary to reach an agreement, so competing interests complicated the discussions.

Arrieta-Kenna was one of the co-chairs, and he said the experience was “intense” because of the pressure involved with his role. As co-chair, his only goal was reaching a successful agreement, rather than acting in the interest of a particular country.

Sarah Johnson ’16, who represented Egypt, said the mock negotiations were challenging because her country hasn’t released much information about its position on the topic so far. Still, she was engaged and came out with a better understanding of the complexity of the issue.

Impact of last week’s terror attacks

The terror attacks in Paris last week have raised some concern among students and instructors about the safety of the trip and how COP21 will be affected.

“I think we’re all very concerned about the recent attacks in Paris, and we’re going to have to wait to see…how it will affect the official negotiations,” Arrieta-Kenna said.

However, the group is still planning to travel, and the only effect the attacks have had on the negotiations is the cancellation of some side events, such as a major climate march and other celebratory gatherings. Increased security measures will also be implemented.

“The talks are not being moved to a new location outside the city. They will still take place at the Le Bourget Conference Center,” Strong said. “Most importantly for our class, the French government is keeping the large Civil Society space around the negotiations open to the public, and this is where much of what we are planning to do there will take place.”

Strong hopes students will use their time in Paris to try and understand how the attacks might impact the negotiations. He said the “resolve” among negotiators to reach a successful agreement might be higher because of the attacks.

“Several of our students are interested in following the rhetoric around these topics in Paris,” he said.

But overall, instructors and students feel that their participation in the course has been influential on their personal and academic lives.

“This has been the most amazing teaching experience of my life, and that is all thanks to the inspiration the teaching team has gotten from the drive, ambition and focused attention of our students,” Strong said.

Contact Sarah Ortlip-Sommers at sortlip ‘at’ stanford.edu.

As the head of WFP, she spearheads the effort to achieve zero hunger, as per the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which was adopted Sept. 25. Post-talk, The Stanford Daily sat down with Cousin to continue the conversation.

The Stanford Daily (TSD): You mentioned during the Q&A that you were raised with people talking about changing the world at your dinner table — are there moments from your childhood that you try to keep in mind now?

Ertharin Cousin (EC): When I was a child, my mom worked for the city of Chicago as a social worker and one of the things she would do every summer was that she would bring a box full of balls and bats and gloves home for the entire neighborhood. The kids could sign them out and bring them back. She didn’t monitor it — it was all on the honor system. Even children, if given the opportunity, will do the right thing. If given the ability, they’ll share with each other.

What I try to do every day is build an organization that gives people the tools to do the right thing. No mother I’ve ever met wants to stand in a line to feed her child. She just wants to be given the tools and the opportunities to do the right thing — which is to feed her own child.

TSD: How do you see national and on-campus civil rights movements relating to the communities with which you’re working?

EC: The more people who make positive change necessary, the more opportunity there is for people who otherwise don’t have access to achieve equity. And the more we have equity in any one country, the more people you have who care about ensuring equity in other parts of the world, and the greater the opportunity there is for achieving the public will that is required to support the multi-year investments necessary to make the changes in those marginal communities in other parts of the world.

For example, in the Republic of Korea, as the Korean population had increased economic opportunity in their country, the government is supported by their people in providing investments in agricultural production and in women’s empowerment in Sub-Saharan Africa because there is a recognition of the difference it has made in their country and the possibility of the difference it can make in other countries.

TSD: What is WFP’s strategy to approaching sustained hunger, which has a harder time with funding than hunger caused by conflict or disaster? What role does media have in this?

EC: Acute hunger caused by conflict or disaster attracts media attention and, as a result, the support for immediate emergency response. As crises become more protracted, you don’t have media attention, but you also need different solutions. Those are the cases where the work we’re required to do goes beyond the humanitarian assistance and requires us to begin to build the capacity for populations to feed themselves.

The challenge is, as you note, continuing to have the public will — building media support is one tool we use. To get the media to identify the opportunities for change, because the reason the people stop contributing is because they believe nothing will change.

TSD: And what about the role of students — how can we keep that in sight?

EC: If we can build the desire [for] sustainable and durable food security, then we can make the difference. Student voices have the possibility of driving government policy because they’re voters, advocates, contributors, and they will ultimately be business people who can help by providing new tools as well as additional support.

As an African-American, I sit here today as a direct beneficiary of the student movements of the 1960s when students gave voice to the lack of opportunity for an entire portion of the population. We know that the world has changed in my lifetime and in your lifetime because of activism of students.

TSD: Do you see particular student movements now specifically related to hunger?

EC: Not enough. We have student organizations on campuses around the world, but hunger as an issue has not been one that students have taken up in mass. We’re hoping that will change; as the global community has adapted 2030 as a goal, we’re hoping that students will see this as an ambitious but achievable goal and will work with us and will lead us.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

An earlier version of this article stated that the Freeman Spogli Institute is running the lecture series instead of the Center on Food Security and the Environment. The Daily regrets this error.

Contact Irene Hsu at ihsu5595 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

A report recently published by the Economic Policy Institute suggests that United States schools may not be trailing behind those of other countries as much as previous studies have suggested.

The report was authored in part by professor of education Martin Carnoy, an economist specializing in education who has been a professor at Stanford for more than 40 years. The report analyzes international results of two assessments, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). It focuses on the usefulness, or lack thereof, of common metrics used to compare the U.S. with other countries in order to make conclusions about the relative statuses of international education systems.

“This report is essentially a continuation of an earlier report, which analyzed the results of the PISA and TIMSS tests in the U.S.,” Carnoy said. “But this time, we focused heavily on individual states. Our main idea is that the U.S. as an educational system doesn’t really exist; it’s really at least 51 separate systems [including each state and the District of Columbia].”

Carnoy emphasized that comparing average test scores across countries ignores students’ family backgrounds; in other words, test scores might not provide an accurate measure of the quality of education.

“The test scores themselves measure an aggregate of a lot of effects: family background, inequality of schooling and extracurricular commitments,” Carnoy said.

With this in mind for the report, Carnoy further broke down test score numbers to consider the backgrounds of students for a more accurate reading of data, using the number of books per home as a proxy for showing how much a family is focused on academics. Adjusting for such family academic resources reduces variation between the U.S. and other countries in reading by up to 40 percent and in mathematics by up to 25 percent.

“The U.S. has one of the highest poverty rates among developed countries, and so the samples from the U.S. reflect that difference,” Carnoy said. “We have a lot more poor kids taking these tests. Adjusting for that, the U.S. does somewhat better.”

While controlling for students’ backgrounds does reduce variation in scores when comparing the U.S. to other countries, Carnoy argues that it is still rather fruitless to make these nation-by-nation comparisons in the first place.

“The educational and social cultures among countries vary enormously, and that variation is a lot smaller among U.S. states,” Carnoy said.

One example he touched on was the comparison between the U.S. and South Korea. Korean scores are greatly influenced by the fact that students often attend cram schools, where they study for the purpose of improving scores. Thus, the high scores in Korea do not necessarily reflect the quality of the education Korean students receive at at standard schools.

“On the other hand, we have models in the U.S. that can help us understand what works in terms of improving education,” Carnoy said. “Looking state by state, we have a much better chance of looking at the numbers we’re getting to figure out which levers to pull in education to improve it.”

In order to find those levers and to improve education, Carnoy is actively researching the processes and standards that differentiate top-scoring states, like Massachusetts, and lower-scoring states, like California.

Stanford professor emeritus of education and business administration Michael Kirst, who is also in his fourth term as president of the California State Board of Education, found Carnoy’s report to be both insightful and helpful as he continues to engage in work surrounding the improvement of California’s education.

“This is a very informative and unique analysis,” Kirst said. “I think a lot of international organizations like the OECD have been making claims about U.S. education and how to reform it without truly understanding it, and this will help get us on the right track.”

Kirst is hopeful that Carnoy’s findings will help yield concrete practices so that people are less focused on borrowing from international school systems and more focused on improving California state education, which is more accurately compared to that of other states.

“The California to Texas comparison is much more relevant than the comparison between California — with almost 40 million people and 6.3 million students in public school — and Finland — with a total population under 6 million,” Kirst said. “[International comparisons] push policy action to the federal level when it’s better off being tailored to each state’s unique context.

“Our job as a state board is to dig deeper into the differences between California and other states, and that’s what we’re planning to do,” he added.

Contact Susannah Meyer at susannahmeyer ‘at’ stanford.edu.

(TARA BALAKRISHNAN/The Stanford Daily)

Approximately 100 students, staff and other members of the Stanford community gathered in White Plaza on Friday, Nov. 20 to commemorate the International Transgender Day of Remembrance. The event, organized by Stanford Students for Queer Liberation (SSQL), memorialized transgender people who have been murdered or who have committed suicide since Nov. 20, 2014, and was one of over 140 such gatherings nationwide.

The Transgender Day of Remembrance was established by Gwendolyn Ann Smith in November 1999, in response to the murder of transgender woman Rita Hester. Each year on Nov. 20, the Day of Remembrance serves as an occasion to recognize the individuals lost to anti-transgender violence in the previous year.

Stanford has played host to such events before, but this year’s gathering differed markedly from the somber, candlelit vigils of past years. Lily Zheng ’17, one of the event’s co-organizers and a columnist for The Daily, characterized this year’s event as a call to action.

“[Transgender Day of Remembrance] is not a funeral — it’s a rising,” Zheng said.

As black-clad attendees arrived at the event, SSQL members provided them with printed statements of solidarity: “I will educate myself and challenge complacency to end violence against trans people.” Organizers also distributed handmade cardboard signs, bearing messages such as “Trans Power,” “Black Trans Lives Matter” and “Cis Complacency = Consent.”

Co-hosts and organizers Zheng and Alex Rezai ’18, both of whom identify as transgender women of color, then asked cisgender (non-transgender) attendees to “die in.” Participants laid down in White Plaza, forming a visual representation of transgender loss of life, as Zheng and Rezai recited the names of trans people killed in 2015. Cisgender attendees who were unable to participate in the die-in held signs in the audience, and transgender attendees joined the hosts on stage.

Zheng and Rezai began their reading with the names of transgender people killed worldwide — a list that reached nearly 300 in number. According to Zheng, low reporting rates for anti-transgender hate crimes meant that the list was by no means comprehensive.

“I would hesitate to say that we even got to half of them,” she said.

The listing of the names, many of which belonged to murdered transgender women in Brazil, displayed the lack of information available about worldwide anti-transgender violence. Many of the deceased were referred to only by first names or titles — “Miss Garcia” or “Paloma.”

As Zheng and Rezai moved on to the names of transgender victims of suicide and those of transgender people killed in the United States, the accounts grew more comprehensive. “Papi Edwards, 20. Black. Louisville, Kentucky.”  

Unprecedented levels of reported anti-transgender violence in 2015 have played out against a backdrop of an increased transgender presence in the media and pop culture. Zheng cited former Olympic athlete Caitlyn Jenner, who announced her transition earlier this year, and transgender actress Laverne Cox of “Orange is the New Black” as examples of trans visibility. But both hosts emphasized the insufficiency of transgender celebrities in fighting transphobia.

“The recent surge of visibility has not changed the state of emergency for trans communities,” Rezai said.

Celebrities like Jenner, she explained, are poor representatives of the marginalized transgender people hit hardest by transphobic violence. That 18 of the 25 transgender people reported murdered in the United States in 2015 were black trans women and feminine people, Rezai said, is “not just a tragedy, [but] a symptom of violent and oppressive systems.”

Zheng noted that none of the event’s organizers were black trans feminine people, calling on the audience to “acknowledge the lack of blackness on this stage” by “indict[ing] the systems” that promote violence against black transgender people. She dedicated part of her speech to recounting the narratives of successful black transgender femmes (the population hit hardest by anti-transgender violence in the United States), including activist Miss Major and model Isis King.

Zheng and Rezai presented the audience with two demands: first, a commitment from cisgender people to do their part in ending violence against transgender people; second, a commitment from Stanford University to create a safer world for transgender people.

On campus, Zheng stated, this means taking steps such as ending the creation of binary-gendered bathrooms, creating gender-inclusive housing and including trans identities in academic curricula. But Stanford’s responsibility, she said, extends beyond campus.

“It is not enough for Stanford to be the eye in a global storm,” she said.

“[Stanford] needs to do something bigger and better, to ensure that this idea of ending anti-trans violence, keeping trans students safe, is not a promise that ends when students set foot off campus,” Zheng added in an interview with The Daily. “Safety looks like creating structures outside of campus. It looks like divesting from private prisons; it looks like investment in communities of color and low-income communities. Stanford graduates populate every niche of society, and so it is also their responsibility and our responsibility to use that power in ways that are positive.”

Zheng and Rezai urged the event’s attendees to act on their pledges to support and protect transgender people from violence and prejudice. They closed the event with a call-and-response statement: “I believe that we will win!”

After the event concluded, the hosts welcomed attendees to an informal discussion at El Centro Chicano y Latino. The space was decorated with art and poetry from transgender artists, much of which was created for the Transgender Day of Resilience (an art and activism campaign implemented for this year’s Day of Remembrance).

A focus on resilience and action has characterized many recent Transgender Day of Remembrance events and was a key point of focus for Zheng, Rezai and other organizers as they planned Friday’s gathering. To Zheng, last year’s candlelight vigil felt “voyeuristic,” and placed too much emphasis on pain, sadness and helplessness to effect any meaningful change.

“We wanted to move away from this narrative of always grieving and kind of take power back,” Zheng said. “And so this event was our attempt at still memorializing the dead but leaving on a note of struggle, of fight, of ‘We can do something.’”

To Zheng and Rezai, that action looks like cisgender people educating themselves about transgender identity, valuing the voices and labor of transgender people and reaching out to communities inaccessible to trans people. It also means talking to other cisgender people about the actions that they can take to help transgender people — and listening to trans voices when they ask for help.

After the discussion at El Centro, organizers asked cisgender participants to leave in order to allow trans students to debrief, reflect and converse in a transgender-only space. In a statement that echoed the shift toward resurgence Transgender Day of Remembrance has taken in recent years, Rezai emphasized the importance of creating a space “for trans people to come together and laugh.”

“I hope that in the future, there’s more celebration of trans folks, both on campus and off, “ she said.

For now, though, Rezai is cautiously optimistic about the event’s outcome.

“I was very pleasantly surprised, and it made me feel at least like a good amount of people care, and with this amount of people, something can happen,” Rezai said. “Something better happen.”

Contact Francesca Lupia at flupia ‘at’ stanford.edu.

(Courtesy of Karlheinz Merkle)

Karlheinz Merkle, supervisor of the Physics Machine Shop, recently received the 2015 Marsh O’Neill Award For Exceptional and Enduring Support of Stanford University’s Research Enterprise.

According to its website, the shop offers design assistance or complete project development — moving from blueprint sketches to actual construction through welding, brazing and soldering. The shop features a CNC (computer numerically controlled) mill and lathe, as well as electro-discharge machining. These technologies allow the shop to design shapes beyond what is possible with more conventional machines.

In his role as supervisor, Merkle is officially responsible for ensuring that the shop’s machines function properly and that the lab’s budget is maintained properly, according to Giorgio Gratta, a professor in the Department of Physics.

“In practice he also works with the machines himself, and he’s also very good at actually advising people and helping them design things that they need,” Gratta said.

Merkle’s history with Stanford goes far back: He began working at SLAC in 1983, when a new storage facility opened up there. In 1998 he joined the Physics Machine Shop and has been there ever since.

Merkle said that over his years at the shop the work has become more sophisticated. For example, individual atom manipulation was not done when Merkle first arrived in the shop but has emerged during his time here.

“There are still things that we could not do in that scale [in the past], but we have now all the CNC equipment that you need for today’s fabrication,” Merkle said.

The award came as a total surprise to Merkle, who says that he heard of the news after returning from a vacation. An award ceremony was held on Nov. 16 at the Faculty Club: speakers included physics department chair Peter Michelson, physics professor Blas Cabrera and Merkle.

“My kids were there; some friends were there and then [also] staff, my colleagues and the faculty,” Merkle said.

Merkle said the shop is always faced with challenges because the jobs they take on always concern something that hasn’t been done before. He noted that his work is highly cooperative in nature.

“A lot of times it takes a collective mind, not only myself but the staff — that we will have to say ‘OK, how are we going to approach this the best?’” Merkle said.

One particularly challenging project Merkle remembers was the Enriched Xenon Observatory (EXO-200). According to Gratta, the EXO-200 is a very large particle detector, the creation of which involved collaborators from several countries. The largest and most critical components of the project were fabricated in Stanford’s Machine Shop, largely due to its reputation.

“It is an excellent shop, and everyone [involved in the project] recognized that,” Gratta said.  

According to Gratta, the components were mainly designed by non-Stanford engineers, but Merkle designed a number of features and auxiliary parts used while building the detector.

Looking forward, Merkle said that the direction the lab takes in the future will be determined by the scientists whose work is realized there. Although Merkle noted that the lab may need to acquire machines with new capabilities as time proceeds, he believes the shop is generally prepared to deal with most of what it will face in the future. This is especially true because the shop mainly deals with plastics and metals, he explained; other materials are handled by other Stanford establishments like Stanford’s Crystal Shop, which works with crystalline or amorphous materials, or off-campus providers.

According to Merkle, the shop does work for a variety of places in the University and beyond, including the hospital and the School of Medicine. He explained that this ensures that there is always something going on.

“It’s a fun job at the end, because you meet a lot of new people, young people, constantly,” Merkle said.

Contact Skylar Bromley Cohen at skylarc ‘at’ stanford.edu.

The cast of “Fox Mirror Forest.” Photo by Frank Chen.

It’s immersive and the narrative immediately hooks the audience. “Fox Mirror Forest,” written by Rebecca Ormiston and directed by Rebecca Chaleff, is a graduate student-devised production that is part theater and part modern dance. Inspired by Rosemary Minard’s 1975 collection “Womenfolk and Fairy Tales,” the play captures what it means to live in a world of fantasy without access to reality.

Marked by a convoluted plot, music and audio endeavor to keep everything straight throughout. The performance begins with a podcast explaining that the author, Rosemary Minard, has been accused of encouraging misunderstood young girls to take their own lives. The bodiless voice then announces that “Fox Mirror Forest,” one of Minard’s fairytales, will be performed — upon which two people dressed as foxes, two frizzy-haired librarians, a young girl and a man dressed as a nurse in drag enter. The first 10 minutes of the production is the antithesis of dreary theater.

Upon accepting the world of the fairytale in the next segment of the play, the audience is charmed by the outlandish characters and any initial confusion disintegrates. Despite the heavy subject matter and the fact that the young Rosemary Minard is in a sanatorium, “Fox Mirror Forest” is also a comedy. The play-within-a-play includes a raucous tea party and a librarian with cotton balls in her ears whose sole purpose is to remove words from books. Throughout the performance, however, the humor is interrupted by the entrance of the two foxes, who pause to engage in lengthy modern dances while the actors are frozen onstage. While they are meant to signal young Minard’s fairytale-esque fantasies, the dances detract from the plot and inspire greater confusion.

The final reveal of the performance takes place three-quarters into the show, when the literal third wall of the stage is broken. When the young Minard goes missing, the characters push down the 20-foot back wall of the stage, exposing the amphitheater behind it. The foxes appear hundreds of feet away from the audience from behind the trees and dance for over 10 minutes. While the dance is thoughtfully choreographed and the unveiling of Frost’s expansiveness is stunning, it is drawn-out and loses much of its intended power.

As if embedded plots, comedy, modern dance and music were not enough for a piece of 90-minute theater, “Fox Mirror Forest” also tries its hand at being interactive theater. Meant to “break the fourth wall,” the players periodically make direct references to the audience and attempt to engage them. While a good idea, it seems as though the graduate students who devised the production had a bucket list of things that they wanted to try in their work and attempted, unsuccessfully, to utilize them all.

Contact Olivia Witting at owitting ‘at’ stanford.edu.

(MISO KIM/The Stanford Daily)

The night before the rally, organized by Fossil Free Stanford (FFS), the participants had received another warning from the University, this time with a more clear timeline for punishment as well as an extended threat to suspend investment requests currently in the process of being reviewed.

University-FFS exchanges

On Thursday night, the administration delivered another notice to sit-in participants, many of whom were members of Fossil Free Stanford. Following up on the previous warning, the second letter outlined that if the protesters were not gone by 5 p.m. on Friday, they would be issued Fundamental Standard charges.

The letter clarified previous statements about Hennessy’s willingness to meet with protesters, saying that he will only meet with sit-in participants “on the condition that Fossil Free members are not continuing to act in violation of the university policies in regard to the Main Quad.”

The University’s message concluded with a warning that the University “is considering suspending Fossil Free’s request to APIRL [Advisory Panel on Investment Responsibility and Licensing] until they are in compliance with University policies.” The APIRL “advises and makes recommendations to the Office of the President on issues related to socially responsible investing,” which would include evaluating student proposals such as fossil fuel divestment.

Similar to the exchange between the administration and FFS participants earlier this week, participants in the sit-in released an Op-Ed letter in response to the University’s. After summarizing what they view as the success of the sit-in (375 students at the opening rally, 80-100 students camping out around the clock, over 30 faculty led teach-ins and 30 alumni joining the protest and announcing the withholding of donations to the University), the FFS letter heavily criticized the University’s threat to suspend APIRL processes.

According to the response letter, by not processing APIRL requests, the University would not be punishing the students for breaking the Main Quad Policy but rather “condemning all of the people on the front lines of climate change and pollution, who face injustices perpetuated by the oil and gas industry everyday.”

“If we will have earned a charge under the Fundamental Standard at 5 p.m., we have earned it already,” the letter said. “Come charge us at 11 a.m. in our encampment. We are not just Fossil Free Stanford. We are Stanford. And we are not going away.”

Concluding rally

On Friday morning, sit-in participants woke early to prepare for a concluding rally and potential Fundamental Standard charges, which the University ultimately did not press.

(McKENZIE LYNCH/The Stanford Daily)

A half hour before the rally began, Stanford members of two workers’ groups — Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 2007 and the janitorial group DTZ — joined sit-in participants for a pizza lunch provided by SEIU. Francisco Preciado, the executive director of SEIU, emphasized the need for students and workers to join in solidarity on causes of social justice.

“We’re asking for your support to raise the standards for wages, for just and socioeconomic research related to health,” Preciado said to a crowd of staff and students. “We’re here to support you in this just cause, and we hope you come to support us in our just cause as well.”

When 11 a.m. rolled around, no students had been charged with violations, and the closing events proceeded in the Main Quad uninterrupted. Rebecca Behrens ’19 opened the rally by saying that although Stanford has not committed to divest from fossil fuels, FFS was ending their sit-in “in victory.”

“I felt ignored, frustrated and hopeless, because of the apathy that Stanford showed,”Behrens said. “Yet every day… I was inspired and uplifted by all of you.”

“[The administration] cannot ignore us when we made international headlines as we did all this week,” she added. “This week, we showed the world that our voices do matter… We showed the world that we can win.”

A medley of speeches and performances followed. Four students detailed personal encounters with consequences of the fossil fuel industry — from environmental degradation in Alaska to conflict in the Middle East. Fossil Free’s a cappella group sang an original song calling for climate change action.

Pedro Martins ’19 and Sadie Cwikiel ’19 took the microphone to acknowledge the many campus groups — students, faculty, alumni and staff — that have supported the sit-in, contrasting these groups’ solidarity with the University’s response.

Cwikiel then explained FFS’s decision to end their sit-in at 11 a.m. and said that FFS hoped all participants would attend the Transgender Day of Remembrance event occurring in White Plaza at noon.

At that point, members of FFS stepped in to announce that they had just confirmed a 2 p.m. meeting with Hennessy, open to all.

Finally, after a performance by the a cappella group Talisman, Behrens affirmed that although the sit-in was ending, FFS “will continue to escalate and take direct action until the University divests fully from fossil fuels.”

The sit-in closed the same way that it began — students holding hands and singing.

Meeting with Hennessy

The meeting with Hennessy was held in the Oak Lounge in Tresidder Union, where administrators had to pull up additional chairs to seat more students. Despite this measure, many students had to remain standing in the crowd of around 100.

The meeting opened with FFS leader Yari Greaney ’15 M.S.’16 summarizing the five day long sit-in. Greaney stressed the real-world negative impacts of climate change and fossil fuels.

(McKENZIE LYNCH/The Stanford Daily)

Hennessy, who sat in the circle with his senior assistant Jeff Wachtel, said that while he agreed on the facts of climate change, that didn’t change the fact that not everyone on the Board of Trustees supports divestment. According to Hennessy, the Board has a very specific process for investment decisions that requires significant amounts of time and research.

“Quite frankly if I asked SCIR [Board of Trustees’ Special Committee on Investment Responsibility] on to do divestment, they would say no,” Hennessy said. “I will tell you completely honestly [complete fossil fuel divestment] has no chance of passing because it has no background research.”

The issues of the Board processes and the research necessary for action became two of the central topics of discussion. According to the FFS leaders, the research required has already been done by outside parties around the world, including the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the Board has access to this information.

“We aren’t going to fudge these numbers — we are here because of those numbers,” said Josh Lappen ’17.

While Hennessy said that the Board would move as fast as possible while still being “deliberate,” he also stressed how far Stanford has come by divesting from coal.

ASSU President John-Lancaster Finley ’16, who was present at the meeting but did not participate in the sit-in, said that while divesting from coal had made Stanford a leader, the community shouldn’t stop at just coal.

“We really need to show that Stanford can lead on this, and Stanford should lead on it again,” Finley said.

Finley also emphasized that he was representing not just his own views, but the views of the student body that has voted in favor of full divestment.

At this point, Wachtel also entered the conversation, stressing that the University has other obligations and has to consider future divestment campaigns as well.

“Given the commitment you made to sitting around, it would in some ways be easier for us to divest,” Wachtel said. “But rather than taking the politically easy route and making everybody here feel happy about it, we are thinking about the long term.”

Beginning to wrap up the meeting, Lappen and fellow student leader Sijo Smith ’18 reiterated that FFS was requesting a commitment from Hennessy and the Board to use and publicize criteria based on scientific research.

With no real change as a result of the meeting, Greaney concluded the student input, telling Hennessy that Fossil Free “will still be here and will continue calling for full divestment.”

“I admire your conviction, but there can still be a disagreement on whether or not divestment is the solution,” Hennessy responded.

Correction: A previous version of this article listed Sadie Cwikiel as Sadie Cwikly. The Daily regrets this error.

Editor’s Note: Ada Throckmorton was an embedded reporter at the sit-in.

Contact Ada Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu and Hannah Knowles at hknowles ‘at’ stanford.edu.

Second Official Notice from Stanford University

(Courtesy of University Architect / Campus Planning & Design)

On Tuesday, Nov. 24, Stanford will open access to Meyer Green, the new landscaped bowl field replacing Meyer Library located at the intersection of Green Library, Sweet Hall and the Graduate School of Education.

According to Stanford News Services, Meyer Library, which was built in 1966, did not meet current seismic safety standards, so the school decided to raze the building instead of spending more than $45 million to make updates.

After months of construction work that began last February, Stanford has created 2.45 acres of open green and restored the accessibility of one of the original pathways of the campus along Escondido, which stretches from student residences on East Campus to the Main Quad.

Meyer Green visitors can find a series of wooden benches along the upper walkway and picnic tables located around the upper level, looking down onto a circle of paved colored concrete and stone pavers.

During the demolition of the library, landscape crews protected the existing eucalyptus and cedars in the corners of the site, according to Stanford News Service. Some of the new vegetation found at Meyer Green includes one cedar, five coast live oaks and 11 Japanese pagoda trees transplanted from various locations on campus. It also features California coffeeberry shrubs, white flower carpet roses, sage shrubs, fortnight lilies and star jasmine plants.

Groups that would like to reserve Meyer Green spaces for events, including the entire open space, the four groves or the lawn, can contact the Registrar’s Office.

Meyer Library’s previous divisions, including the East Asia Library, Academic Computing Services and a 24-hour study room, are now stationed in Lathrop Library, located directly east of the Oval and adjacent to Memorial Hall.

Contact Ariel Han Liu at aliu15 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

A group of local alumni joined the sit-in on Thursday and marched to the Alumni Center to say that they would not donate if the University continues to invest in fossil fuels.(McKENZIE LYNCH/The Stanford Daily)

At the site of the Fossil Free Stanford (FFS) sit-in outside the president and provost’s office, wakeup times are staggered as the sun rises. Some participants, in tents, sleep longer. Others, in sleeping bags under the Main Quad arcades, begin to wake earlier. Most begin to pull out laptops, starting their work for the day.

When most of the sit-in protesters are awake, Yari Greaney ’15 M.S.’16 gathers the group for their morning meeting. In a typical day, the participants meet all together twice — once in the morning and once in the evening. Sitting in a circle on the quad, they share announcements, discuss their emotions as the sit-in continues and conclude each meeting in song.

Greaney herself has been with FFS since its conception three years ago. An earth systems undergraduate and coterminal student, Greaney has experienced the impacts of climate change firsthand with widespread forest fires and lowering reservoir levels near her home in Redding, California. For Greaney, these experiences have reinforced the need for urgency in climate action — something FFS doesn’t feel the Stanford administration has taken into account.

“Toward the end of last year, we were realizing that the University might not follow through on its commitment to act quickly,” Greaney said. “When our mentor at 350.org asked if we would be interested in escalating to nonviolent direct action, we began to plan.”

As the sit-in has progressed, Greaney said the conflict between University administration and the Stanford community has become more apparent as the community has shown “overwhelming support” over the past week of the sit-in.

There are common activities from day to day of the sit-in: homework, teach-ins, film screenings, music, art. Food is brought in from co-ops or just friends of the participants. One alumnus brought hot chocolate to warm up protesters late Wednesday night, and on Thursday afternoon more alumni walked up carrying pizzas.

Many of the amenities brought to the protesters are offered to the police standing watch at the door to Building 10 as well. Most of the time, the officers decline the offers of coffee or granola bars, but the relationship between the officers and the sit-in participants is a comfortable one.

Chris LeBoa ’19, a freshman who heard about FFS during Admit Weekend last year, has been particularly interactive with the police.

“The police officers are there because they have to be, but they have a lot of stories too,” LeBoa said. “Carol, who’s working now, actually lived on a boat… Chris, the guy in the morning, is a surfer who lives in the Santa Cruz mountains. Israel wakes up at 4 a.m. to get his kids ready for school.”

According to LeBoa, the main “sacrifice” he has made to the sit-in is that his parents haven’t been supportive of the idea. They’ve told him that they didn’t intend to raise an activist.

“But for the first time, I’m not just doing what I’m told but doing what I think is right,” LeBoa said.

Students as well as protestors, the sit-in participants are frequently doing work to try and minimize the academic “sacrifice.” For some, this means getting a little distance (sitting 50 yards away from the main campsite) and getting some reading done. For others, this means pulling out a whiteboard and forming a Computation and Mathematics Engineering (CME) 100 study group.

Some of the participants hardly leave the site, while others continue to attend classes and other functions.

According to Zhanpei Fang ’19, an intended physics major who joined the sit-in because she felt powerless as a student in the “Stanford bubble” and saw the sit-in as having real cultural impact, the sit-in has been calm enough to get homework done. Nonetheless, she hasn’t stayed on-site at all times.

“I have been going to classes because I don’t want to fail,” Fang said. “And I went back to my dorm once to shower.”

In addition to individual studying, some of the teach-ins have taken the form of classes that either relocated to the site of the sit-in or classes that allowed students to attend via Skype in order to not miss out on learning opportunities.

Sijo Smith ’18, who Skyped into Earth Systems 112 with seven other classmates from outside Building 10, indicated that many professors have been very accommodating of students participating in the sit-in.

“It’s been great working with professors who have allowed students to make up classes one way or the other,” Smith said.

Throughout the day, work and learning tends to be broken up by musical interludes. On Wednesday alone, the sit-in was visited by Occupella, a Bay Area pacifist music group; the Stanford Collaborative Orchestra; and the University Singers.

Much of the music, however, is more impromptu. Walking through the arcades, songs are hummed under students’ breath. One student pulls out a ukulele, and a group surrounding her breaks into an impromptu cover of Vance Joy’s “Riptide.”

The most frequent instances of music, however, have been the songs of the protest itself. With simple songs about building power and expressing confidence in this power to effect change, the students sing both at meetings and at various other times during the week, such as when Smith presented FFS’s response letter to the administration’s warning letter.

Smith, who has been a member of FFS since her freshman year, said she came to the sit-in with a strong group of friends, but also with people she didn’t know as well or had never met.

In fact, participants in the sit-in have differing levels of connection to Fossil Free Stanford and the rest of the environmental community at the University. Fang, for instance, decided to come to the event after reading about it on several email lists, but she didn’t know anyone doing it particularly well.

“I have had my friends visit me though,” Fang said. “They’ve been very supportive of the cause.”

FFS organizers have also encouraged participants to attend other activist events on campus. On Tuesday, this meant a rally in the courtyard of Old Union to uplift Muslim and Arab voices in the wake of Islamophobia following the Paris attacks. On Wednesday, this meant a #StudentBlackout rally in White Plaza to stand in solidarity with students protesting racism at campuses across the country such as Mizzou, Yale, Claremont McKenna and all other educational spaces where discrimination occurs.

While the fossil fuel divestment movement is not directly about these racial discrimination issues, the global environmental justice implications of fossil fuels is heavily emphasized in the FFS campaign.

Gabriela Leslie ’15 M.S.’17 was one of the people that led the charge on an art project underscoring the way that the fossil fuel industry has impacted communities across the globe. The project was a large trifold structure placed first off the main quad facing the oval, then moved back to the site of the sit-in after being notified by the University that it would otherwise be taken down by workers.

The idea of the work, according to Leslie, is to “shine a spotlight on the high profile cases of global communities that have been directly affected by the negligence of the fossil fuel industry.” The piece specifically features stories from the Chevron oil spill in Ecuador, the threat of sea level rise in Tuvalu and the drought in California, among others.

“The two main criteria that institutions typically ask when deciding to divest is [one,] whether the product creates substantial societal harm and two, whether there are alternatives to the product or service readily available,” Leslie said. “We wanted to tackle this first question in particular.”

“[The project] really brings the moral issue to the absolute forefront in a place where the University can’t turn a blind eye,” she added.

Other actions have included the response letter presented back to the administration and an op-ed written by Andrea Martinez ’15 M.S. ’15 in response to an article published in The Stanford Review.

For the protesters, the work and the music and the visitors are all just part of the now natural sit-in routine. The final shakeup of this routine, however, may come when the group has a rally on Friday at 11 a.m. and a tentative public meeting with President John Hennessy at an undetermined time on Friday. While FFS organizers have met with Hennessy in the past, this will be the first time it will occur in a public setting.

Going into Friday, Greaney emphasizes the importance of attitude of the group.

In the words of Greaney, the students intend to show Hennessy just how “passionate and persistent, hopeful and determined” they are, as they once again make their case for fossil fuel divestment.

Editor’s note: Ada Throckmorton is an embedded reporter at the sit-in.

Contact Ada Throckmorton at adastat ‘at’ stanford.edu.

According to Ermelinda Campani, the Spogli Family Director of the Breyer Center for Overseas Studies in Florence, the change will allow more students to apply — especially STEM majors and athletes who might not otherwise be able to fit the requirements into their schedules.

“We encourage STEM majors in Florence to follow in the footsteps of the great engineers, scientists and thinkers of the Renaissance,” Campani said.

In order to apply for the spring, applicants in the past were required to complete the equivalent of one year of Italian language courses with ITALLANG 2A: “Accelerated First-Year Italian” or ITALLANG 3: “First-Year Italian, Third Quarter.”

The language requirement remains for students who enroll in the autumn quarter program, but the language requirement for winter quarter applicants has also been waived every year since 2014. Since this change, winter quarter enrollment in the program has increased dramatically — from seven students in winter 2012-13 to 37 in winter 2013-14.

All classes at Florence are taught in English, with the exception of the required on-site Italian course. Class topics range from Renaissance art to Italian cooking to bioethics.

“While the ideal is to have students who understand the language fully, in practice they seem to enjoy themselves and learn a great deal,” said Timothy Verdon, who teaches art history to the students in the Florence program.

The rich cultural heritage of Florence makes the city a haven for scholarship, Verdon said. Students in his art history classes don’t take trips to museums, but instead visit palazzos and public spaces where centuries-old art can be found.

“It’s quite remarkable — in America, we don’t have…paintings and frescoes that are still in the chapels in which they were painted,” Verdon said.

Despite the program’s draw for many Stanford students, Elizabeth Bernhardt, professor of German and the director of the Stanford Languages Center, doubts that students without a background in the language will be able to learn Italian while they are in Florence.

“The data are fairly clear that if a person goes into a foreign setting with no language ability on entry, they have virtually no language ability when they leave,” Bernhardt said.

Bernhardt also suggested that students without an appropriate language background may be at significant risk in case of an emergency, citing the recent attacks in Paris.

“It makes me very nervous for students to go to any foreign country without some knowledge of the language because things happen,” Bernhardt said. “When there is some sort of emergency, the assistance happens in the language of that country.”

Students studying abroad in Florence live with local homestays to allow for linguistic and cultural engagement. Because these hosts prefer to interact with students in Italian, conversational fluency is central to residential life, said Louise Stewart ’16, who completed one quarter of Italian before studying in Florence last winter.

“I had friends who didn’t take Italian, and dinners were torturous because they couldn’t communicate in Italian,” Stewart said.

“I would recommend taking one quarter even if you’ve fulfilled the language requirement,” she said. “And even if you haven’t taken it, still go.”

Depending on the program’s success, Florence coordinators will consider waiving the language requirement for future spring quarters. 

Contact Augustine Chemparathy at agchempa ‘at’ stanford.edu.

OpenXChange held the first of six “Open Office Hours” on Thursday, Nov. 19, featuring a panel on climate change. (TARA BALAKRISHNAN / The Stanford Daily)

OpenXChange launched its “Open Office Hours” program on Thursday with a panel discussion on climate change. The event was the first in a six-part series.

“Our hope [was] that, like office hours, the event [would] serve as a venue for people who want to learn about a complex topic to ask questions and engage with faculty,” wrote Sharon Palmer, Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, in an email to The Daily.

The discussion was moderated by professor Pamela Matson, dean of the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences. Attendees had the opportunity to hear from five panelists from a variety of academic fields.

Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Harry Elam opened with a few words about the new Open Office Hours program. The intent is for each event to imitate real office hours, giving students and experts the opportunity to “exchange ideas.” There will be five more discussions this year on the topics of human rights, immigration, Black Lives Matter, sexual assault and mental health.

Elam then offered the floor to student representatives from Fossil Free Stanford to read a statement they had prepared. They expressed their gratitude toward the University administration for acknowledging the importance of climate change and for this event.

“We hope that meaningful action can and will emerge from the discussions that take place today,” one student said.

They also noted their disappointment that some administrators “have not engaged with us” at Building 10 during the sit-in. They invited everyone at the event to talk with them at the site if they have questions or concerns.

“Fossil Free Stanford hopes that OpenXChange will be used as a springboard for action, rather than an excuse for inaction,” they said.

Matson launched the panel discussion by highlighting the urgency of the climate change issue and the challenges of responding effectively.

“This is the kind of discussion we need to be having in the University,” she said. “This is an era of responsibility. The actions we make today will affect our kids and grandkids and future generations.”

Each of the five panelists spoke about their experience with climate science or policy and offered unique perspectives on the next steps we need to take to address the issue both as inhabitants of the earth and as members of the Stanford community.

Katharine Mach, senior research associate at Carnegie Science’s Department of Global Ecology, discussed the challenges we face in limiting climate change into the future. She specifically addressed warming limits and the timeline for reducing carbon emissions. She explained that if the world keeps emitting at its current rate, we will reach the current warming limit, two degrees Celsius, in a little over 20 years. Total global emissions will have to be zero in order to not surpass the limit once we get there.

“It’s not a question of if we get to zero emissions, but when,” she said. “This challenge can be an opportunity to build a better world.”

Arun Majumdar, professor of mechanical engineering and co-director of the Precourt Institute for Energy, discussed possible technologies that would help with a smooth transition to sustainability.

“The big question is how do we decarbonize our system while continuing economic growth?” he said.

While many people believe these two efforts are mutually exclusive, he rejected that assumption. He outlined his top 10 technologies for making the two more “inclusive,” which included reducing the price of carbon capture, improving battery storage, increasing enforcement of building codes and increasing efforts in genetic engineering.

Larry Goulder, professor of environmental and resource economics and senior fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy and at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, provided insight into the economic and political levers for addressing climate change. He noted how some special interest groups have stakes in forestalling action, and many say that the cost of taking action to reduce climate change outweighs the benefits. But from an economic standpoint, Goulder said, this is a false claim.

“Appropriate public policies can deal with the problem and can create… benefits that are greater than the sacrifices,” he said.

He emphasized the need for public policy to combat climate change, citing two specific types of policy that would be most effective. The first is policy that discourages the demand for carbon-based fuels (i.e. cap and trade), and the second is policy that directly promotes clean-energy innovation.

Goulder also noted that education, voting in elections and local environmental actions are also crucial in the fight against climate change.

Alicia Seiger, deputy director of the Steyer Taylor Center For Energy Policy & Finance, discussed the Steyer Center’s efforts in clean energy investment. She proposed recycling old tax policies from oil and gas industries and applying them to clean energy and analyzed the risks and returns of certain actions involving capital to combat climate change.

Law professor Michelle Anderson discussed the relationship between poverty and climate change, which she described as “the two central challenges of our era.”

She responded to a widespread view that the goals of reducing inequality and limiting climate change must be “pitted against each other.” Instead, she believes that we can work toward achieving both goals without sacrificing benefits in one area for benefits in the other.

After hearing from the five panelists, Matson asked them a few questions. The first, directed toward Goulder, questioned what policies are “win-wins,” or the most effective in terms of costs and benefits. Goulder said that removing subsidies for coal, oil and gas would eliminate some deadweight loss to the economy as well as benefit the environment. A carbon tax would also be effective, he said.

Another question addressed possible technologies. Majumdar talked about efficiency and what he thinks are the best steps moving forward. He specifically discussed enforcing building codes, reducing the cost of carbon capture and eventually increasing nuclear power.

“We need to reduce energy consumption without sacrificing energy services,” he said.

Matson then turned to the topic of divestment. How do we reconcile the fact that “not all oil and gas actors are evil?” she asked.

Seiger said she is particularly upset with companies such as Exxon that purposely hide information about climate change. However, she explained that we need to understand that not all companies are the same, even if some are particularly egregious.

“Actively obscuring information is something we shouldn’t be standing for as citizens,” she said.

The panel finally responded to questions from members of the audience, many of whom were students involved in the sit-in calling for divestment from fossil fuels.

One person questioned the emphasis on GDP as a measure of the well-being of society. Majumdar agreed that there may be better measures of quality of life, particularly Human Development Index.

Another asked about top-down versus bottom-up approaches to fighting climate change. With the COP21 in Paris coming up, she mentioned that the United Nations historically has taken a top-down approach. Goulder responded by discussing how as more and more countries realize taking action is in their interests, negotiations such as the upcoming summit will move toward a bottom-up approach. Majumdar pointed to the recent joint statement between the United States and China as a “critical” example.

Mach addressed the issue of divestment from fossil fuel and what kinds of challenges are present based on the way Stanford manages those kinds of decisions. She also offered information to those interested in promoting change, like the students who attended the event representing Fossil Free Stanford and the divestment movement.

Contact Sarah Ortlip-Sommers at sortlip ‘at’ stanford.edu.

(Courtesy of Aubrey Kingston)

Jason Mayden, a native of Chicago’s South Side and former global design director for Nike’s Jordan Brand, faced 44 East Palo Alto residents the morning of Nov. 14. They ranged from elementary school students to adults, most of whom had never worked with code before — until that weekend.

Mayden had been chosen as the opening speaker for StreetHacks, a weekend-long hackathon hosted by StreetCode Academy in East Palo Alto, for the similar background he shared with many residents in the community.

At the front of the room, he spoke rapidly about his life, shuttling between expanses of time — a childhood still urging him on, one of “syrup sandwich” dinners, too-large hand-me-down sneakers and wavering self-esteem; the present he lives in now, waking up each morning to “stay hungry, stay humble” scrawled on his mirror and a future of which he is now certain.

“This is the building of a foundation; this is one brick in a pyramid of opportunities, and you need to decide that you’re going to build together,” Mayden said to the room. “You’re building momentum for your community.”

StreetCode Academy, founded in 2014 by current and former students Shadi Barhoumi ’17, Rafael Cosman ’15 and Olatunde Sobomehin ’03, is the technology education program of Live in Peace, an East Palo Alto organization for youth empowerment. For the past year, StreetCode has worked to create opportunities in and exposure to tech within East Palo Alto through classes and events for the community, most of which are hosted in its building in East Palo Alto.

This past weekend, members of the East Palo Alto area convened at StreetHacks, StreetCode Academy’s first hackathon, to build technology- and community-centered hacks. The two-day event concluded with StreetCode’s second annual TechFest, open to the public, featuring participants’ project presentations and technology demos from guest companies and sponsors, including Facebook and Google. Cash prizes were given to the first-, second- and third-place winners, chosen by a panel of judges from industry and from the community.

The first-place project was Drivic, a virtual reality driving simulator created with Unreal Engine 4, Oculus Rift and Makey Makey. Drivic was built by Jose Guzman, freshman at Cañada College and graduate of Menlo Atherton High School, a nearby public school, with the help former Ohlone College student Salofi Tautua’a, Jr.; eighth-grader Dylan Duncan from Terman Middle School; and mentor Luke Wilson ’16 from Layout, a company for virtual reality education.

“In Guatemala, my mom couldn’t afford a car, but here, the cities are spread out, the jobs are far away. She can’t always walk,” Guzman said. “When she came here, she had to learn how to drive, but she was scared to go behind the wheel.”

Inspired by this memory, his own impending driver’s license test and his love for video games, Guzman wanted to create a safe, virtual space for unlicensed residents to practice driving.

In second place was 34-year-old Lavell Russell, who built a website for his business concept, Everything Two Dollars, a goods delivery service guaranteeing $2 delivery.

Twelve-year-old David Ruiz’s the Messi Game placed third, featuring Argentinian soccer player Lionel Messi as a protagonist in a Super Mario-esque video game built on Construct 2.

One of StreetHacks’ most surprising features was the age range of its participants. Originally, StreetHacks co-organizers Rohun Saxena ’19, Aneesh Pappu ’19 and Akshay Jaggi ’19 recruited participants from East Palo Alto Phoenix Academy, East Palo Alto Academy and Eastside College Preparatory School through on-campus visits and flyering. Over the past month, word about StreetHacks traveled through the community at the library, at school and even via Uber rides.

Saxena, Pappu and Jaggi recalled mentioning StreetHacks and passing along information to their Uber driver, Gary Clemons, on their way back from East Palo Alto Academy one time.

A couple hours later, Pappu received a message from Clemons’ wife, Jerri, who ended up spending the weekend at StreetHacks creating a website for Let’s Talk, an idea she had for peer counseling within the community.

“We take a lot of pride in the stories of how we got people out, because one of our biggest challenges was getting people to participate,” Pappu said. “It’s unlike hackathons like CalHacks and TreeHacks, where college students are already interested in tech.”

StreetHacks participant Sergio Flores, an East Palo Alto native and freshman at San Jose State University, spoke about the potential disconnect between technology and the East Palo Alto community.

“Because of the lack of exposure to tech, the idea seems foreign to many people in the community — they haven’t seen people [they know] use that as a tool,” Flores said. “They do their best in the path they see for themselves, and that may not always include tech because they’re focused on stuff like safety, working, parents.”

At StreetHacks, projects ranged from an informational website on East Palo Alto’s housing crisis to a platform for showcasing up-and-coming talent to an app for recipes in response to East Palo Alto’s lack of restaurants. Participants at the hackathon were anywhere from age 8 to age 50, and Sunday’s TechFest saw attendance from teachers, family and coaches of the participants, as well as from Mayor of East Palo Alto Lisa Yarbrough-Gauthier on both days.

“Look at the generational effort that’s happening — you have people from different stages of life all building together,” Mayden said during his opening speech, gesturing to Clemons and Ruiz. “This would not be possible without technology, so please embrace this moment.”

In fact, many mentors and workshop leaders such as Roger Luna, an East Palo Alto resident and software engineer at Tecarta, were previously unaware of the participants’ age range. Luna led an Android workshop and spoke about how the age differences didn’t matter.

“It worked out fine because the older folks weren’t afraid to ask questions, and the younger people were helping the older adults,” Luna said.

According to Pappu, other workshops included a design and entrepreneurship workshop to generate project ideas and help people “identify what skills they need to achieve that goal” and developmental workshops in iOS, Android, web, gaming and virtual reality platforms led by industry and community members from East Palo Alto, Stanford and the wider Silicon Valley.

After the workshops, participants worked with mentors in groups of one to three until midnight on Saturday and had all of Sunday morning to complete their hacks.

While the seven-person StreetHacks leadership team hoped participants would walk away with “a cool project,” they also wanted to keep the environment relaxed and fun. Over the past month, they organized with several sponsors such as Facebook, Google and the Kapor Center. Saturday morning kicked off with Zumba, and several musicians including DJ John Asenso performed over the weekend. Both music and basketball were ongoing activities throughout hacking hours.

“It was the most continuous energy I’ve experienced at any hackathon,” said mentor Vicki Niu ’18, who has attended and organized several different hackathons.

Niu said she woke up to an email from one of her mentees the Monday morning after StreetHacks asking for the code he worked on over the weekend.

“I was so happy,” she said. “It meant that the end of StreetHacks wasn’t the end of hacking.”

StreetCode Academy, too, is continuing beyond StreetHacks. Matt Mistele ’17 and Nathaniel Shak ’17, also on the StreetHacks leadership team, are currently developing a winter schedule to teach computer science classes at their center in East Palo Alto and to continue exposing students to technology.

“I saw the community come together, kids running around with their StreetHacks shirts on and asking questions about projects — everybody spending the weekend together learning about programming, gaming, iOS, Android, a little bit of everything,” Luna said. “It just sets an example for the kids growing up that they have access to this technology — it’s nothing to be scared of.”

This post has been updated. A previous version misidentified the East Palo Alto Mayor. The Daily regrets this error.

Contact Irene Hsu at ihsu5595 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

Wednesday, Nov. 11

• A reportedly U-locked bike was stolen from the bike rack at the Math Corner of the Main Quad at 8 p.m.
• An unlocked bike was stolen from the bike rack on the north side of the Braun Music Center between 8:20 p.m. on Nov. 11 and 12:05 a.m. on Nov. 12.

Thursday, Nov. 12

• An incident of domestic violence occurred at Escondido III Highrise-Hoskins at 8 p.m.
• Individuals were awakened by three known suspects peeping through their bedroom blinds at Escondido Village I at 11:45 p.m.
• An unknown individual entered an unsecured construction site and spilled buckets of white paint on the sidewalk and lawn at Rains Complex between 6.30 p.m. on Nov. 12 and 6:30 a.m. on Nov. 13.

Friday, Nov. 13

• An unknown suspect or suspects stole a golf cart outside Sweet Hall at 2:15 p.m.
• An individual was arrested for public intoxication at the Arrillaga Outdoor Education and Recreation Center at 11:40 p.m.

Saturday, Nov. 14

• An individual was arrested for public intoxication at the Stanford Stadium at 7:15 p.m.

Sunday, Nov. 15

• An individual was found in possession of marijuana at the intersection of El Camino Real and Palm Drive at 1:55 a.m.  
• An individual was found in possession of marijuana at the intersection of El Camino Real and Serra Street at 2:30 a.m.
• An individual reported the theft of a golf cart from Arrillaga Outdoor Education and Recreation Center. The theft occurred between Oct. 8 and Oct. 10.

Monday, Nov. 16

• A reportedly locked bike was stolen from the bike rack behind the Keck Science Building between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.
• An unknown suspect entered an unlocked classroom and stole two iPads and a laptop from Escondido Elementary School at 7 p.m.
• An unknown suspect stole a laptop and cell phone from Sterling Quad Schiff House at 9:55 p.m.
• An individual was found in possession of paraphernalia at the intersection of Junipero Serra Avenue and Santa Maria Street at 11:40 p.m.

Tuesday, Nov. 17

• No incidents reported.

There were six alcohol transports reported between Nov. 11 and Nov. 17 as recorded in the Stanford Department of Public Safety bulletin.

Contact Blanca Andrei at bandrei ‘at’ stanford.edu.

Students participate in a “teach-in,” led by Jeremy Sabol, a SLE section leader, in the Main Quad. (ADA THROCKMORTON / The Stanford Daily)

Fossil Free Stanford (FFS) sit-in participants responded Wednesday night to the University’s warning letter to protesters by affirming their resolve to remain outside President John Hennessy’s office. Throughout the day, many faculty members supported the sit-in participants by holding “teach-ins” and relocating regular classes to the area outside Building 10, where protesters are camped out.

Hennessy also has agreed to meet publicly with protesters on Friday. No specific time, however, has been set.

Fossil Free’s response letter

In a letter to Hennessy and the Board of Trustees, members of FFS mimicked the structure and language of the administration’s own warning letter to reject the University’s suggestion that they end their sit-in or relocate to White Plaza. The group stated that they will stay outside Building 10 “specifically to call for action from Hennessy and the Board of Trustees.”

Paralleling the University’s call to protesters to leave the Main Quad in order to comply with school policy, the letter from the sit-in participants states, “In order to comply with Stanford University’s mission and Fundamental Standard, you must immediately divest from the rest of the fossil fuel industry. The student body and Stanford community are instructing you to do so.”

After laying out the repercussions of Stanford’s refusal to divest from fossil fuels (“Can you accept the consequences of your own inaction?”) and refusing to move to White Plaza, the letter says, “This movement is not going away.”

The protesters presented a physical copy of the letter to Chris Griffith, associate vice provost and dean of students. Griffith and Nicole Taylor, associate vice provost for student affairs and dean of community engagement and diversity, delivered the university missive to sit-in participants on Tuesday afternoon.

Faculty teach-ins and classes demonstrate support

Since Tuesday, faculty have shown their solidarity with protesters through a near-continuous lineup of teach-ins and relocated classes held in the Main Quad.

“A lot of faculty are teaching and researching and thinking about different facets of this campaign and environmental justice,” said Daniel Murray Ph.D. ’15, Stanford’s director of community engaged learning. “Trying to bring other folks into this space and capitalize on those conversations is valuable for helping students think critically about what they’re doing here.”

Teach-ins — which range from “Politics and Justice in Carbon Accounting” to “Antigone and Social Dissent” — are open to the entire campus community and discuss social, political and environmental issues relevant to the Fossil Free movement. Relocated classes do not necessarily relate to the sit-in and divestment, but FFS student organizer Josh Lappen ’17 said that these classes combine with the teach-ins to help make the sit-in “an educational space.”

“The fact that we’ve chosen this [sit-in] tactic means that we have a lot of spare time,” said FFS media coordinator Michael Penuelas ’15 M.S.’16. “We wanted that time to be constructive toward the goal of educating people about fossil fuel companies… and their role in driving climate change.”

“Upholding the educational mission of the University, we wanted the sit-in to provide space for all kinds of discussions, including but not limited to fossil fuels,” Penuelas said.

As of Wednesday night, FFS’s website listed 10 teach-ins and 12 relocated classes that have already taken place; more are planned for Thursday and Friday. This list continues to grow as more faculty members hear about the outdoor classes and request to participate, said Lappen, who helped coordinate the educational activities.

Lappen pointed out that 379 Stanford faculty members have signed a letter urging the University to divest from fossil fuels. He noted high interest in teaching at the sit-in as further proof of strong faculty support for the movement.

The students in FFS reached out to trusted professors late last week asking if they would be willing to teach classes in the Quad. Penuelas said that the Earth Systems program was the most contacted and most responsive department, but that faculty members leading the classes represent a wide range of disciplines, from urban studies to classics to computer science.

Faculty members leading the teach-ins were eager to share areas of expertise that they thought would intersect with and provoke thought about the divestment movement.

Donna Hunter, a lecturer in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric (PWR), held a teach-in Tuesday evening called “Black Lives Matter and Student Activism.” She argued that, overall, University professors were more supportive of the Occupy movement than the Black Lives Matter movement because they could relate more to the former group. Hunter challenged FFS students — whom she pointed out are mostly white — to consider the role of racial politics in their own movement.

“I feel like even five years ago there wasn’t this kind of activism on Stanford campus,” she said. “I see students getting really motivated to take their education really seriously, but also what’s going on off campus.”

Murray led a teach-in called “Radical Democracy: Power to the People” at midday on Wednesday. He spoke about the limits of a democracy in which citizens choose representatives but rarely engage more deeply.

Students participating in the sit-in were grateful for faculty support.

“It feels similar in nature to having people come and drop off warm supplies, or having people drop off food,” said Gabriela Leslie ’14 M.S. ’17. “They’re coming in and dropping off their knowledge.”

However, Penuelas emphasized that the teach-ins are for everyone, saying that Fossil Free has sought to publicize the teach-ins with posters and a Facebook page. He estimated that about a third of the 30 attendees at professor of classics Rush Rehm’s teach-in “Antigone and Social Dissent” were not members of FFS.

“They’re just folks who came because they wanted to engage with the issues,” he said.

Similarly, urban studies lecturer Kevin Hsu ’10 — who moved his class “International Urbanization” to the Main Quad on Wednesday — emphasized that the sit-in classes should be inclusive of all students and views.

“Being here does not necessarily mean that you have to agree with what we’re doing,” he said. “We’re just saying that we think it’s a worthwhile conversation to have as members of the Stanford community and inhabitants of planet Earth… You are citizens of this community that we’re all part of — students, faculty, alumni and staff.”

Contact Hannah Knowles at hknowles ‘at’ stanford.edu.

Official Notice From Fossil Free Stanford

Official Notice from Stanford University

(MCKENZIE LYNCH/The Stanford Daily)

In its meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 17, the ASSU Undergraduate Senate approved funding for various student groups, including Kappa Kappa Gamma for Snowchella, deliberated and voted against a bill to modify senate by-law policies and passed a resolution for a sustainable dining hall.

The bill to modify the Senate by-law policies, drafted by Viraj Mehta ’18 and Christian Sergent ’18, called for proposed student petitions to be vetted by the Senate for impartial language, feasibility and adherence to University policy.

“I am interested in making sure the way student government runs is how a true democracy would run,” Mehta said. “Currently, referenda just need a number of signatures, and they are put on the ballot without being vetted for impartiality of wording. A question’s wording can affect the democratic process and can make the outcome of a referendum election invalid.”

Several Senators expressed reservations regarding the exact details of the changes the bill would propose.

“[Mehta and Sergent] may not have thought through the exact minutiae but I think that’s important,” said Gabriel Knight ’17, Senate Advocacy Committee Chair. “It is a cool idea in theory but it is important to know how it will work in practice.”

Others conveyed concerns about the bill unjustly inflating the Senate’s authority.

“We feel like this is giving the Senate more power without the consent of the student body,” said Pablo Lozano ’18, proxy for David Wintermeyer ’17. “We don’t think it’s democratic of us to give ourselves more power without oversight.”

ASSU President John-Lancaster Finley ’16 argued that the bill conflicts with the constitution by abridging the student’s power to petition.

“Our constitution creates a direct democracy, like the California referendum policy,” said Finley. “That is the intent of our constitution and how our democracy was intended. If the ASSU were to come to a point in which it decided that this is not a good system, there should be a bigger conversation amongst the entire student population.”

The bill failed to pass, but Mehta and Sergent will continue to work with the Senate to develop and propose a revised version of the bill.

The Senate passed a resolution in support of a sustainable food-themed dining hall, which would create a mainly vegan dining hall in Roble Dining.

At the start of the meeting, Michele Dauber, professor of law and sociology, gave a presentation, in which she detailed and presented the inconsistencies of Stanford’s Climate Survey.

Kappa Kappa Gamma asked for and received $6,000 to secure the audio farm budget for the speakers and logistics necessary for Snowchella.

This year, the proceeds from Snowchella will go to the Joyful Heart Foundation, an organization focusing on ending sexual assault and domestic violence, rather than Support for International Change as it has in past years.

“We chose to change the organization this year because this is an issue that both [Kappa Kappa Gamma and Sigma Nu] are extremely passionate about; we want to extend the impact beyond the event itself by doing things like fundraising through social media,” said Madeleine Lippey ’18, Kappa’s director of philanthropy. “We want to make sure people know that this is a philanthropy event.”

Contact Pallavi Krishnarao at pallavik ‘at’ stanford.edu.

Jeff Sheng is a fourth-year doctoral candidate and interdisciplinary graduate fellow who started the Fearless Project. (CATALINA RAMIREZ-SAENZ/The Stanford Daily).

Jeff Sheng, a current Ph.D. student in the sociology department, led a discussion this past Tuesday on his newly published book, “Fearless: Portraits of LGBQT Students.” Featuring over 200 LGBQT students, “Fearless” is a photography project that aims to promote social change.

The Stanford Daily (TSD): What first made you interested in student photography?

Jeff Sheng (JS): I did it as a hobby first and I went to Harvard as an undergrad where they have a really great visual studies program. The photography and film department there really emphasized documentary work and I was really lucky to have advisers who really liked the idea of documentary photos to explore society injustice topics.

I just thought it was a really interesting way to use my creativity, with something that was also academic. It was a really a hobby that I never thought I would major in but I took a few classes and before I knew it, I was a photo major.

TSD: What inspired you to focus on LGBQT athletes?

JS: The project is a very personal project — I played tennis most of life, since I was 6 or 7 years old. I played varsity in high school and actually decided to quit playing right before college, mostly because of my own identity as someone as part of the LGBQT community, I decided athletics wasn’t a very accommodating place for people who identified as [LGBQT]. Basically, I thought [about] doing a photo series that explored that idea. [I’m] also photographing people who were able to come out as high school or collegiate athletes, which is still pretty rare. If you go to a lot of schools, especially at the elite Division I levels, there are very few athletes that do come out.

TSD: How did you choose the athletes you worked with and what was that process like?

JS: A lot of them found out about the project through word of mouth. I’ve done about 40 to 50 exhibitions at different colleges and high schools already over the last couple years so often times when I visit a school or area, the athletes find out about the project and volunteer.

There’s no audition process or anything like that; I just try to make my schedule work with theirs. Sometimes photoshoots are able to happen, sometimes not.

We also sometimes have have a hard time finding an open time at the gym or where they work out at to do a shoot because I prefer when there’s not a lot of people there so there’s a privacy to the photoshoot. There are also some Stanford athletes [in the project].

TSD: Does the project involve more than just photography?

JS: I actually did a lot of informal interviews with the athletes about their experiences. When I came around to putting together the book project, that idea started about three years ago and people suggested to turn it into a book but part of the problem about doing photo books is that they’re really expensive and mainstream publishers are often really worried about photo books making money. I was in a lot of different talks with photo book publishers and nothing was really happening with the mainstream publishers because they wanted me to focus on famous celebrity athletes who were really well-known and [they] kind of overlooked the idea of celebrating the accomplishments of these college athletes who’ve done a lot, I think, by coming out to their sports teams, especially in an environment that is often times homophobic or transphobic.

In 2012, I started a Kickstarter drive and over 60 days we raised $55,000, which provided a really good amount of the deposit for an independent publisher to take on the job. So for the last couple years, while I’ve been at graduate school here, I’ve been working on this book on the side with the publishers in New York and finally this summer, we were able to publish it. I had a book opening at Nike Headquarters, one of the big sponsors of the book.

TSD: What are some of the other projects you have worked on?

JS: One of my other big projects is on the “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” policy in the military, the policy that prohibited service members in the military to come out as [LGBQT]. Between 2009 and 2011, I photographed about 80 service members without their faces showing because they couldn’t reveal who they were or they would be kicked out of the military. That project got a lot of media attention; it was in the New York Times, ABC News…they all published photos from that series and interviewed me about it.

I came to Stanford to work on expanding that project as a dissertation for my Ph.D. in sociology, so I’m kind of going back to a lot of those service members and re-photographing with them with their faces showing and also interviewing them and writing about the integration between of sexual orientation and gender identity policies in the United States military.

TSD: How do you think your book has been received by college students across America?

JS: It’s been really good…I think a lot of people don’t expect that the book is a really personal project. I wrote a lot about my own experience coming out and five other athletes talk about their experiences. One of them talks about their experience attempting suicide. It’s a very emotional book and people don’t really expect that…they think it’s a beautiful coffee-table book but it goes much deeper than that and I’m very happy to have done a project like that.

TSD: How has your time here at Stanford shaped your work?

JS: It’s my fourth year here at Stanford and I love it here. I play on the club tennis team here and it’s cool to be back on a sports team. The sociology department has been super supportive. I’m currently a Stanford interdisciplinary student graduate fellow and that fellowship provides me with an incredible funding package for three more years here. It’s basically time for me to just do my work and research and devote a lot of my time and attention to my projects that are both creative and academic at the same time.

Contact Arielle Rodriguez at arielle3 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

“Stanford Traveler is an online magazine dedicated to sharing students’ travel stories, whether they be from study abroad or just personal travel,” said Kali Coleman ’18, the founder and editor-in-chief. “So many people have so many amazing stories, and it’s important to be able to share them.”

The publication was officially recognized as a student group in March and has published two bi-monthly issues. The magazine is currently on hiatus while the group focuses on web development.

Coleman’s inspiration came from the Princeton Traveler, a magazine at Princeton that features student travel stories online. She worked with Kate Kaneko, a senior at Princeton and the editor-in-chief of the publication, to create the Stanford Traveler.

The online platform features stories that are particularly distinctive or novel. Madeleine Lippey ’18, who served as managing editor last year, wrote an article called “The Elastic Zipcode” for the magazine’s first issue about her experience in Bhutan.

“It was definitely interesting to write about somewhere I knew I’d probably never return to. That’s what made my experience most memorable,” Lippey wrote in an email to The Daily.

Coleman described Lippey’s piece as “an interesting perspective on the country.”

“As someone who has lived internationally and has always loved travel, and as an English major, I felt that Stanford Traveler would allow me the opportunity to combine creativity and experience,” Lippey said.

For Coleman, one of the most exciting aspects of the magazine is its integration with photos. Each issue’s landing page is tiled with photos of each travel experience. Individual articles include a large photo at the top of the page and multiple smaller ones accompanying the piece.

Alexis Kallen ’18 got involved in the Traveler after hearing about it from Coleman, who lived in the same dorm. At the time, Coleman had just begun formulating the idea.

“It was a really cool process to see through and be a part of,” Kallen said.

Since only a few students were involved at the start, each one got to take on a leadership role. Kallen is now the public relations manager.

“[Working for the Traveler] was my first exposure to any type of journalism, and I really like it,” Kallen said.

Kallen wrote two articles last year for the magazine, one about her experience in Peru and the other about Nicaragua.

“One of my favorite parts of the publication is reading other people’s articles,” Kallen said. “The prompt is just to write about your experience, so to see how people interpret that is really awesome.”

She said she likes that writing for the Traveler allows for more artistic and creative writing, which many Stanford students don’t have a chance to explore because of academic classes.

In the future, Coleman hopes to come out with a print version of the magazine, perhaps a “year in review.” She also wants to keep in touch with Kaneko to create an overarching publication for multiple universities.

Coleman encourages interested students to reach out and get involved through email or Facebook, especially people with a programming background who could help with web development. She has already been happy with the level of interest in the magazine.

“It’s great to meet with people and hear outside perspectives,” she said.

Looking forward, the magazine wants to feature more experiences from students who studied abroad. Kallen also mentioned that she would like to see a series modeled after the New York Times’ “36 Hours in…” articles, which can function as travel guides when exploring a new city for a limited amount of time or simply as informative pieces about eclectic world cultures.

According to Kallen, the group hopes to reach out to the Bing Overseas Studies Program or other study-abroad programs to encourage participating students to share their stories with the Traveler. She is also working on an outreach plan to recruit new writers, especially freshmen.

“I definitely think there is a need here at Stanford, within the ‘bubble,’ to celebrate curiosity and wanderlust,” Lippey said. “Travel isn’t just a token of youth or college or a wild summer, it’s a lifestyle, and one that we all have a stake in.”

Contact Sarah Ortlip-Sommers at sortlip ‘at’ stanford.edu.