Profiles in Converse Spring Issue

Profiles in Converse

Hear their lives | Live your stories

A Waltz Through the Life of Richard Powers Alexander Nemerov: Art and Poetry

Spring 2013

Content Foreword Conversations A Conversation with Terry Winograd In the Office of the President A Waltz Through the Life of Richard Powers A Conversation with Lap-Chee Tsui A Conversation with Gregory M. Thomas A Chat with Mehran A Chat with James Fearon Alexander Nemerov: Art and Poetry

Our Team Follow Profiles in Converse

www.profilesinconverse.org profilesinconverse@gmail.com

Editor-in-Chief: Shuyu Wang Designer: Ivy Guo

Profiles in Converse is a bilingual Chinese-English e-magazine that specializes in interviewing people for their life stories. It was founded by students at Stanford University but also includes members from around the world. We aim to share the ideas, experiences and stories of interesting people in the hope that they will inspire our readers to create stories of their own.

Our interviewees currently include professors and faculty members from different universities but in the future will include people from all backgrounds and professions. We believe in the value of genuine conversations and the positive impact of remarkable narratives.

All the members joined this team with the conviction that what we are doing is meaningful. We personally all benefited a lot from these conversations and therefore would love to share these invaluable stories with our readers worldwide.

Welcome to the inaugural issue of Profiles in Converse

Conversations A CONVERSATION WITH TERRY WINOGRAD Terry Winograd is a professor of Computer Science at Stanford University and co-director of the Stanford Human-Computer interaction group. He is best known for his work with Ar tificial Intelligence, phenomenology and software design. He was one of the founding faculty members of the d.school at Stanford, as well as the founder and past president of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. In 2011, he received the ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Research Award.

STANFORD, CA— When I arrived at Terry Winograd’s door, I was surprised to find it already open. For a Computer Science professor, he had been startlingly attentive in his choice of interior decor—various trinkets hung in neat corners; vibrant paintings and drawings lined the walls. In the lemoncoloured kitchen, a pool of sunlight stretched itself over the marble counter.

There was no one inside, but from the distance I heard the swell of voices over babbling water. As I stepped through to the garden, the thought came to me that I’d happened upon a separate world entirely.

Perhaps it had something to do with the warming October wind, but as I emerged, I was struck by the relaxing atmosphere that seemed to emanate from both my peers and Prof. Winograd himself, all of whom were seated around a wooden table and chatting cordially. It was a beautiful day by every measure, a sentiment that was doubtlessly helped along by the idyllic backdrop of the professor’s garden, complete with miniature fountains. Our voices came again above the sound of water as we began our conversation.

Whenever a student speaks with Terry Winograd, his passion for teaching

becomes immediately apparent. To explain his personal view on the topic, he brought up Ralph Waldo Emerson, who stated that education was more about provocation than instruction. He expounded, “You don’t need me to give you knowledge, you need me to inspire you. I think education is really about waking people up, not giving them facts.” Winograd credits his own predilection towards teaching to his personality: “My self-image is based on my being able to say, ‘I’m doing a great job teaching.’ Teaching is what I’ve found nourishing.”

And indeed, it would seem a rather fitting end profession for the ultra-precocious Colorado child who skipped two grades and quickly became known as the smartest kid in his high school. As a boy, he knew from the age of four that he wanted to get into academia, though at the time he had no better name for it than “the arithmetic business.” By the time he landed in middle school, he had narrowed down the terminology to professorship, setting him on a path that would ultimately lead him to one of the world’s premier academic institutions.

But while Prof. Winograd has evidently achieved his childhood dream, he admits that he might have liked for his 22-year old self to have taken bolder risks. He described the earlier periods in his life as doubtful: “I grew up thinking if I did a little something out of the line, I’d be disapproved of. And my parents were nice, but I ended up feeling like, ‘I won’t do that. It’s a little too risky to try that.’”

He leaned in as he brought up the boldness of Alan Kay’s vision for a personal computer back in the 1970’s, an epoch long before Apple or Microsoft. “He basically had that vision. He didn’t do that all himself…but I think it inspired people in some way. I think I’ve been much more analytic, and I help you think of how it all fits together as opposed to inspiring things.” He grinned and patted his stomach, “Maybe had more fire in the belly.”

Despite this self-described risk-averseness, Prof. Winograd has been attracted to the birthplaces of innovation all his life: “What I’m very good at is noticing that something is really happening and jumping in relatively early… after someone else has started it.” Peculiar as the skill seems, it must have been the very same one that led him to be among the founders of the Stanford d.school, as well as those of one of the earliest web browsers ever created. While he might not call himself an inventor, there’s no question that he’s made many significant contributions to beginning projects.

When it comes to major life decisions, however, his mind is far from the professional realm. In fact, he identified the most influential decision he had ever made to be choosing his wife, Carol Hutner Winograd, who also works for

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Stanford as an associate professor in Medicine and Human Biology. What began as a whirlwind romance at 22 became a life-changing and fruitful relationship that was most beneficial in bringing two complimentary people together; even now, Winograd thanks his wife for introducing him to new skills and ways of thinking which he had never considered before. While he views himself as a thinking-oriented person as opposed to an emotional one, his wife is exactly the opposite: “She’s the kind of person who’d get onto an elevator [with you], and by the time you get onto the fifth floor, she knows your life story… She has this extreme strength in EQ.” Between the two of them, then, there’s no doubt that they make a good team!

If it’s not immediately apparent, Terry Winograd is an extremely familyoriented man. With us, he spoke of his two daughters with a habituated fondness, relating his vain (and now comic) attempt to get them interested in computers; instead, one did her undergrad at Stanford in Urban Studies, completed her GSB and began working for a green energy start-up. The other became a Jewish rabbi. Both, however—and he was proud to admit it—make it their main goal to help other people.

And indeed, listening to Winograd talk, it’s evident that he feels strongly about our obligations to each other: “[I’m happiest] when I’m feeling that I

am helping other people: whether it’s my kids, whether it’s the students in my class, whether it’s my country. It’s that feeling that I’m doing something for more than just me.” Having founded Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, he’s constantly considering his impact on the people around him; in the course of his talk, he also encouraged us students to consider the impact of our work after graduation: “It’s not bad if you make money, but you want to be thinking, ‘how can I use that to help?’ I think we are inherently social beings. That’s just part of our nature.” On the origin of this kind of thinking, he offered that it may have been part of his cultural background, in that his whole family had always been very involved in helping others—his mother was heavily involved with mental health issues, while his father was active in helping schools and education, eventually even having a school named after him.

Beyond his family, he lists his greatest influence as Fernando Flores, a Chilean Engineer whom he met on the Stanford campus years ago. On his earliest collaboration with Flores, a book called Understanding Computers and Cognition : A New Foundation for Design, he reported, “Even though we were coming from completely different directions, there was a lot of resonance… It really shifted the kinds of things I was thinking about, writing about. Without him, there’s no question, I wouldn’t have gone that direction.” In fact, he and Flores are currently collaborating on a new book, on the subject of which Winograd admitted laughingly, “I expect to be further influenced by him.”

We asked Prof. Winograd what he would list as his proudest accomplishment, and he returned our gaze unwaveringly. “My two daughters. The biggest contribution you can make is moving forward the generation that’s going to follow. That’s both children and students.” As for the professional realm, his most proud accomplishments are twofold: the development of humancomputer interaction, which has today become the basis of a vast body of research and innovation, and the founding of the d.school, which continues to produce brave and imaginative solutions for various problems in the world.

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ADVICE FOR THE STUDENT

Of all of Winograd’s advice, one thing that remained consistent was the importance of social connections.He smiled as he touted the urgency of “really having people you can count on,” citing how his daughter still kept in close contact with her draw-group years after they graduated and split ways. While those strong relationships were founded on a similar view of life, for Winograd, the idea of social connectivity extends the purely social— he encouraged anyone to seek out people to talk to if, for example,they were beginners in a subject.

In the course of our talk, he related to us a piece of advice he had recently passed on to his son-in-law: “As much as you think of yourself as an independently-thinking person, you are tremendously influenced by the people you interact with. And one of the biggest decisions you make is who you spend time with. This is also in terms of where you go to school, what you do at school. Put yourself in the company of people who are doing what you would like to be doing.”

We then asked him for more advice for current students. As he pulled himself out of his reclining position, leaning into the conversation, Winograd took on a subtle urgency: “Take advantage of the opportunity to explore different things.

Take opportunities to broaden. Often, the thing which you think is going to be your main interest is going to be helped a lot by talking to someone who is very different, or by taking a course that doesn’t seem related at first. The nice thing about university is that you have that sort of openness to do that.”

And who knows what’ll come with that openness? Perhaps a fire in the belly.

Or perhaps, like Terry Winograd, you won’t need a brazen boldness to end up truly successful.

When the afternoon drew to a close, we all stood up and shook hands with him again. We thanked him as we stepped back through his kitchen, which had acquired a new depth in the dimmer light. As I reemerged into a familiar world, I heard the sound of that glass door finally sliding shut.

Interviewers: Helin Gao, Ivy Guo Writer: Michelle Jia Editor: Doris Kwai Photographer: Quyen Nguyen

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IN THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT John Hennessy first studied electrical engineering at Villanova University, and then earned an M.S. and Ph.D. in computer science at SUNY Stony Brook. He went on to conduct groundbreaking research in computer architecture and brought his technology to the computer industry through MIPS Computer Systems. He began his career at Stanford University as an associate professor of electrical engineering and rose through the ranks, ultimately getting inaugurated as the university’s tenth president in 2000. He has won numerous awards, including the IEEE Medal of Honor; he is also a member of several national academies, as well as a board member for several technology companies, including Google and Cisco Systems.

We arrived early at the Office of the President, a gorgeous building tucked into the northeast corner of the main quad. At first, I was hesitant to leave the sun, but I was pleasantly surprised by the warmth of the front room—while the rich wood furnishings and deep red accents created a feeling of impressive regality, the compactness and coziness of it all afforded the place a certain sense of comfort. I felt all the more welcome when the President himself came out and engaged us with a smile.

Inside his office, John Hennessy maintained his friendliness and eagerness for discussion. His height, booming voice, and affable expressions made it difficult not to want to listen to him. I found myself excited merely by listening to him telling us about what he reads in his free time (“I just love Dickens”). The very fact that he finds time to read is particularly impressive considering the difficulty of his job, which involves trying to please a very diverse constituency. “Balancing all those, with of course the reality of what’s possible,” Hennessy described, “is probably the hardest task.”

And while he will always have his critics, he has done some indisputably great things for the students of Stanford University. One in particular, the university’s financial aid program that he led into fruition in 2008, “made the Photographer: Linda A. Cicero / Stanford News Service Photo's courtesy of http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/december/hennessy-ieee-honor-120111.html

institution much more accessible for lower and middle-income students [and] is something that we’re tremendously proud of,” Hennessy recalled. He continues to have visions for Stanford’s future, including encouraging current students to be interdisciplinary in their studies and “trying to raise the role and profile of the arts in the university and in the lives of our students,” despite the institution’s famous relationship with Silicon Valley.

Of course, John Hennessy was not always at the helm of decision-making at Stanford University. He was once a student himself, and we smiled as he remembered a revelatory conference with his math teacher: “I wasn’t working very hard; I wasn’t challenging myself and that was really a wake-up call for me, that if you’re given this capability, this mental capability, you should use it.” It was amazing to listen to his story and recognize similarities in current Stanford students. What’s more, the words of his math teacher seem to be echoed daily in the encouragement we receive from campus staff and faculty.

Unlike many students, however, Hennessy admitted he was lucky in that he discovered his passion early in life. In high school, he learned that he loved computing, and devoted himself to projects like building a computer that played tic-tac-toe with his friends. After high school, while he was studying electrical engineering at Villanova University, he discovered computer science and was hooked. “There was something about the way you had to think that aligned with the way my brain worked,” he told us. Like any major, it was difficult at times, but he knew he had found his calling when he realized that he loved even the difficult parts of it. Talking to him made the process of vocation-seeking seem effortless, but he reassured us again that he had been lucky. For the majority of students, he suggested that they “be open to different things.”

Even Hennessy discovered a new passion in college in this way: in addition to computer science, he found that he loved teaching. “I had the opportunity to be a consultant teaching assistant for students taking programming courses and I learned that I just loved to help people learn.” When he followed this love, it naturally led him into academia, where it turned out that helping people became one of his greatest sources of fulfillment. While he noted that one’s idea of happiness changes over time, he told us that, at his current point, “what makes me happy is contributing to other people being successful and seeing other people be able to do something good in the world as they would define it.”

His realization of this has been a lifelong process that developed in stages. When he was still a student, it made sense to be more focused on his own life and

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education. “A lot of it is about individual achievement and really mastering something for yourself.” He worked hard in school, ultimately earning his Ph.D. and following up his education with computer architecture research, the culmination of which was a revolutionary technology called RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer). Hennessy then did what he considers to be the craziest thing he has done in his life, which was starting a business to bring his research to the computer industry. “We were three engineers,” he remembered. “We didn’t know anything about starting a company.” But he succeeded in cofounding MIPS Computer Systems, now MIPS Technologies, a company that designs microprocessors.

After this huge personal achievement, Hennessy reentered the world of education at Stanford University and found fulfillment in others. As an academic, “what really motivates you is close collaboration with students,” he told us. He loved helping students master a subject, and went from being a professor in Computer Science to Chairman of the department to Dean of the entire School of Engineering. After he became Provost of Stanford University, his next leap was to President. Again, his greatest source of fulfillment and happiness changed. “When you become an administrator,” he told us, “you have to find enjoyment and fulfillment by helping other people succeed, by seeing that someone that you’ve been able to support, encourage, facilitate—even indirectly—is successful.” There is a sense of duty involved but it is an incredibly satisfying one that has encouraged him throughout his career. When Stanford professor Brian Kobilka won the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Hennessy celebrated along with him—“that was a great day for me,” Hennessy said. Though it an even greater joy for Kobilka, it was wonderful for Hennessy to see him celebrated for the achievements for which he had worked so diligently.

But the fulfillment Hennessy receives as president of Stanford University isn’t unique to the world of academia. He told us about graduation day, when he sees the parents beaming behind the tired and victorious students, and knows that they completely understand how amazing it feels to help someone achieve something so great, especially someone close to you. “People don’t do things alone,” he remarked, and the truth of that statement resonated with us long afterward.

Interviewer: Shuyu Wang Writer: Cecily Foote Editor: Michelle Jia Photographer: Peng Hui How

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A WALTZ THROUGH THE LIFE OF RICHARD Richard Powers is a dance instructor at Stanford University specializing in both historic and contemporary social dance.

With education and work in engineering and design, he is now known for his pioneering study of vintage dance and founding of dance groups, choreography and excellence in teaching. He also leads workshops around the world and his Social Dance class at Stanford is among the most popular at the school.

We wandered into the welcoming room on a gorgeous, quiet Thursday afternoon to discover the attentive, kindhearted Richard Powers smiling and ready to share his life with us. The dancer’s passion is fantastically evident in every corner of his office. His walls are covered with vintage posters of dance events and oil paintings with broad, expressive brushstrokes of the professor himself in slacks and button-ups in slightly blurred action. The shelves are piled with antique canisters of floor polish, which Powers later excitedly told us were once sprinkled on dance floors and danced on to rub in. Small CDs are stacked everywhere, labeled by hand in a small scrawl with names of dances and marked up with circles and highlighting. This is the kind of contagious passion that makes Powers’s students excited to come to class every week.

Powers’s Social Dance series, in fact, is easily one of the most popular course offerings at Stanford University. Still, Powers modestly recognizes that most students sign up out of peer pressure rather than pure academic interest. We all laughed when he described telling students on the first day that “half of them probably are dubious if they want to be there but their best friend told them they had to take the class,” but even the initially hesitant students leave the class recommending it to others. Students who want to take Social Dance I, an introduction to common partner dances, have to be ready the second enrollment opens to secure a spot. (“That’s right,” he chuckled, “midnight.”)

Part of what makes Social Dance so sought-after is the personal touch Powers added when he took over the position to teach the class. He recalled, “I did redesign the Social Dance courses to better meet the needs of the students as I saw them, as opposed to straightforward just teaching steps.” Instead, he instructs students in communicating with partners and even extends lessons in dance to lessons in life. Veteran students claim that in addition to making you a better dancer, this class makes you a better person.

Yet despite his current passion and skill at practicing and teaching dance, Richard Powers wasn’t always interested in dance. When he was a student at Stanford himself, Powers studied engineering and design, initially working toward a career in design and building. His interest in graphic design led him to calligraphy, which he practiced with Japanese and Chinese brushes in Europeanstyle lettering. He recounted, “I realized to understand Asian calligraphy better I should take T’ai Chi,” a meditative Chinese martial art. This engaging form of movement, kinesthetically satisfying and rewarding, was a revelation for him and he soon began learning Kendo, a Japanese form of fencing. This introduced Powers to playing off the spontaneity of others, a key component of social dance.

“As you can imagine, that led to dancing,” he recalled to us with a glimmer in his eye.

When Powers first started learning dance, however, the teachers and material available were limited. He found historic dance at the one place it was being taught on the East coast, Castle Hill Early Music and Dance, and immediately fell in love with dance. We all intently listened as he told us, “I found it was the perfect combination of everything I loved,” with incorporations of history, dance and early music. But even then, Powers told us, “historic dance only meant Renaissance and Baroque,” and ragtime was considered “too much fun.” It wasn’t long before he discovered his current specialty, 19th century and Ragtime Era dances, where, as he affectionately described, “instead of dancing with partners who were six feet away, you were dancing with a partner in Photo: A painting of Richard Powers dancing, hanging on the wall of his office

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your arms.” But with nobody teaching these dances, Powers had to form his own vintage dance group and instruct his fellow dancers himself.

Between developing vintage dance and coming to teach the newer styles at Stanford, Powers spread his knowledge and enthusiasm of social dance in countries throughout Europe and across the United States. Now, largely as a result of Powers’ passion and outreach, the Stanford dance community has flourished. When we asked him about his favorite dance, he excitedly began listing great things about the cross-step waltz. It was hard to stifle the urge to go try it as he talked about how “it’s easily creative” and “has a wonderful easygoing, almost relaxing but highly engaged energy level.” It is becoming the dance of the 21st century and is even exploding in Beijing and areas in Europe.

While he admitted, “I got into teaching reluctantly,” Powers and his students couldn’t be happier with how things ended up. Besides being an incredibly fun and memorable class, Social Dance and the lessons Powers incorporates into it make his students better people. Powers noted the age of technology and the resultant decline in physical interaction and exposure to diverse ideas and ways of thinking. “I think we also have a deeper craving to be balanced,” he thoughtfully noted, and his historic dance provides a unique opportunity for people to move, and in a uniquely social environment, fulfilling that craving he believes exists in all people.

Not only does Powers offer students great social interaction, but he also offers them the skill of adaptation. As he’s heard from his former students who now work at Google, the ones who succeed “are the ones who can quickly adapt to a changing situation, on their team or elsewhere,” and he declared proudly to us that “they say they learn how to do that in my Social Dance classes.” While it may seem like a strange connection, students learn this type of quick thinking and reaction while working with different partners and dances. As freshmen hoping to take the Social Dance classes ourselves, we were thankful to hear that Powers plans to remain at Stanford, and many more students will get to learn these skills.

Photo: Richard Powers’ collection of dance posters

Throughout our conversation, Richard Powers spoke with an air of contentment and optimism, which was enforced when he cheerfully reflected on his thoughts on life and happiness. His advice to himself, while he recognizes it may not apply to everyone, is “to see where the path at the moment is diverging or is heading as opposed to sticking to what you think

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the path should be.” Though when we asked him if he thought dancing was his calling in life, he was quick to reject the idea. With Zen-like confidence, Powers described, “If a path went in a different direction, that’s what I would be doing today and I’m still the same person.” This attitude brought him to his passion in dance and has made him particularly happy with how his life has gone. He suddenly remembered our question about his dream job as a kid and realized that his current job is “honestly much better than anything I could have dreamed of.”

For Powers, happiness largely comes from his family, students and teaching partners. It also comes from kindness, an attribute apparent in Powers through our conversation and descriptions of the Social Dance classes.

He told us, “Being there for others is a deeper happiness then momentary pleasures but also seeing kindness in others is the same thing.” Just talking with Powers made me want to practice kindness more consciously, and I can only imagine how much kinder his students become through his classes.

But overall, Powers believes that happiness is not what happens to you, but “happiness is your approach to what comes through your life,” a philosophy he adopted from his mother and one that made him follow his path in historic dance and has made him truly appreciate this path. While most people don’t have the opportunity to take Social Dance and learn from Powers firsthand, everyone can apply his philosophy to their own lives and follow their passions, even when that means diverging from the path they intended.

Interviewer: Shuyu Wang Writer: Cecily Foote Editor: Michelle Jia Photographer: Quyen Nguyen

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A CONVERSATION WITH LAP-CHEE TSUI Professor Lap-Chee Tsui, (Chinese: 徐 立 之 ; born 21 December 1950) is a ChineseCanadian geneticist and currently the Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Hong Kong. Tsui was born in Shanghai and grew up in Hong Kong. He studied Biology at the New Asia College of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and was awarded a B.Sc. and an M.Phil. in 1972 and 1974, respectively. Despite his modest performance at university, Tsui would eventually prove himself as an accomplished scientist. Upon the recommendation of his mentor at CUHK, he continued his graduate education in the United States and received his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in 1979. He became Postdoctoral Investigator and Postdoctoral Fellow in 1979 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee, then joined the Department of Genetics of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto in 1981. In 1989, Tsui became internationally acclaimed when he and his team identified the defective gene that causes cystic fibrosis, namely the Cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR), the discovery of which was a major breakthrough in human genetics. He has been working as the Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Hong Kong since 2002.

We walked into the office of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong before the appointed time. The atmosphere was just as dignified as we had imagined: souvenirs quietly laid in the glass-frame cabinet; neat, classified files piled on the desk. The sunlight came through the window, projecting the heavy shadow of the window frame onto the floor. Mr. Tsui was not yet in his office, so we began to prepare for our interview. Just as we were adjusting our cameras, the man himself emerged from the back room with a ceramic cup in hand, sitting himself down in front of his desk without a single word. It seemed as if he had not yet realized our existence. We stopped what we were doing, held a collective breath and looked at him. “I am sorry. I still have an email to deal with.” His voice was so gentle that it almost took us off guard.

actuality, the distance between us is not as great as most people would imagine.

For me, he simply seems like a man who has lived a full and colourful life.

However, it was interesting that when we first mentioned his “colorful life” at the beginning of the interview, the term seemed to shock him a little. “Tell me about it,” he said, in a tone that suggested a colorful life was precisely what life ought to have been. Instead of flaunting his life experiences, he tended to look upon them with joviality and quite a serene mentality.

Tsui was born in Shanghai and received his primary education in Hong Kong.

Due to poverty, he and his family often moved from one place to another; he therefore studied in many different primary schools, some of which, for various reasons, have been closed down over the years. He was one of the seven students in his class who were able to go to a secondary school. As Tsui himself described, “It was not a very good start.”

In secondary school, Tsui took the advice of a mentor and chose the Chinese stream. With his sensitivity for aesthetics, he had always wanted to be an architect. Therefore, for college, architecture was his ideal subject. At that time, architecture was offered only at HKU which was quite remote for a student studying the Chinese curriculum like him. He then applied to the Hong Kong Polytechnic for its textile design programme, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong to study biology. He finally went to the Chinese University. He now reflects that it seems in a way, he chose biology; in another way, biology chose him. Tsui regarded that time in his life as a turning point and had reflections like this: “Life sometimes is not what you plan. For some interesting reasons, you get onto one track instead of another.” However, this did not mean that Tsui relinquished his dream to reality. If we liken his life to a river, with the left bank as a dream and the right as reality, then Tsui must have been sailing in the very middle of it, working to strike a balance. He did not allow himself to be blown too much to either side of the river and even made an attempt to combine the two.

“When I was young I dreamed of becoming a designer, [especially] an architect, for I really appreciate beautiful things. But in biology I also learned about many beautiful things, like the structure of living organisms. And I designed my experiment and presentation slides. With the development of human genetic engineering, I can be an architect of organisms and I can design genes.” What Tsui wanted to emphasize is that life events may sometimes be unforeseen. But between dreams and reality, there is no unbridgeable gap. We can still find the intersection of the two, and maximize our passion. Thus, Tsui encourages young people to work for their own passion instead of just for money and others.

The reason why I call him Mr. Tsui and not Mr Vice-Chancellor is that, in Photo's courtesy of http://expo2010.ifeng.com/huodong/mingxingcanyushibo/detail_2010_02/24/353178_0.shtml

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After Tsui got an M.Phil. at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, he continued his graduate education in the U.S. and received his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. He then became a Postdoctoral Investigator and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee, after which he joined the Department of Genetics at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. When asked why he joined such a special institution, Tsui answered, “Genetic research had just started at that time. I needed to apply my knowledge to something useful and at the same time, I could help people.”

Photo: During the interview

While Tsui is casual about most other matters, he is truly serious about his work. Those who don’t know him well may even regard him as difficult to work with, since he always demands more, both from others and himself. He tends to be critical with others, but with himself first to catch any weakness in his own designs and interpretations. “It is not necessary to know everything as long as we know something is possible and some other people may have different ideas about it (the thing)”. Tsui believes that we don’t need to be an expert in everything, and that knowing when to get help from others is very important. Besides that, he also mentioned that to be a leader, one also needs to do quite well in his own field. Broadening one’s mind, cooperating with others as well as being critical with oneself —that is Tsui’s philosophy for work.

Tsui also pays special attention to his working method. He realizes that all his scientific subjects are interrelated and may draw insights from each other. Thus, he employs parallel thinking and is able, for example, to have conversations with five different people at the same time. He is used to discussing different scientific subjects with his different teams simultaneously. But he also added: “Everyone is different. Not everyone can do this (parallel thinking), and this is for my special subject, my special team.” Just like Tsui, we all need to find our own ideal working methods.

The most enjoyable moments for Tsui come when he is doing experiments on his own. While designing one experiment and thinking about how to make it work, he is also thinking about another experiment which may be even better than the current one, a process that serves as a driving force for him. This can also be called a kind of parallel thinking. Here is an interesting example: once, Tsui told his girlfriend—the woman who later became his wife—that he would finish his experiment in 10 minutes. But after 10 minutes, he had thought of another experiment, and totally forgot what he had promised.

Being the Vice-Chancellor of HKU had not been part of Tsui’s plan. “The opportunity just came. That’s life. You may think that road is well designed and every time you come to an intersection, you can think about going right or left for a long time. But most of the time, life is not like that. Opportunities will just knock at your door and then disappear. So you have to think about your future all the time.” For Tsui, one of the best things about a university education is the positive interaction that takes place all the time, among students everywhere. He is happy to see youngsters gathering together, reasoning, arguing, discussing with each other. It is a great fulfillment for him to see his students’ success as his happiness is largely based on the happiness of others.

When it comes down to it, Tsui is an optimistic person. “When people are not happy, I can sometimes make them happy because I think differently. I can see different openings in somebody’s life. I always look for the hidden things.” I still doubt that his early life experience (his frequent family relocations due to poverty) has positively influenced his attitude towards his life, though he claims it has. But one of his responses certainly convinced me of his optimism: “I enjoy life. I appreciate different things happening and different people’s talents. When I go to a market or onto a street, I love to watch the regular people. I watch the small shop owners, beggars and children on the street. I appreciate what they are doing.”

As for advice for young people, Tsui mentioned that we, the younger generation, need to appreciate what has been provided for us and to be optimistic towards any setbacks in life, since nowadays we have so many opportunities. He also suggested that we take advantage of situations where we can learn about things, notw only on campus but in society and the workforce, and learn to apply them to our work. “Be a life-long learner. Never think that what we learn is not useful, but think more broadly, in longer terms, since eventually it will come back to us”.

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When the interview ended and we were about to leave Tsui’s office, his secretary advised us to take a photo with him. ”I thought we were taking photos the whole time,” Tsui said jokingly, indicating the recording equipment we had used during the interview. ”Do you mean we should stand in a line and take a picture, ‘Hong Kong style’?” We all laughed and took a photo in which everyone wore a big bright smile. Tsui truly possesses a sense of humor and can bring a great amount of happiness to the people around him.After Tsui got an M.Phil. at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, he continued his graduate education in the U.S. and received his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. He then became a Postdoctoral Investigator and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee, after which he joined the Department of Genetics at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. When asked why he joined such a special institution, Tsui answered, “Genetic research had just started at that time. I needed to apply my knowledge to something useful and at the same time, I could help people.”

Interviewers: Sherry Zheng, Sunny Liu, Xuanqi Gao Writer: Sherry Zheng Editor: Michelle Jia Photographer: Charlie Song

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A CONVERSATION WITH GREGORY M.THOMAS Greg M. Thomas is a professor of Art History at the University of Hong Kong and the chairperson of the Department of Fine Arts at HKU. He specializes in 19th-century French art, and also studies 18th and 19th century Western art and architecture. He is also interested in crosscultural interactions in art, especially the interactions between Europe and China, the focus of his long-term study on the Chinese palace of Yuanming Yuan. He has published two books, “Art and Ecology in N ineteenth- Centur y France” and “Impressionist Children.”

After a long conversation with Prof. Thomas on an outdoor platform, we were invited to his office and extended the talk. As a Chinese saying goes: “The style of one’s handwriting reveals one’s personality.” Similarly, the professor’s office, where he works everyday, naturally outlines what he loves, and who he is.

When I stepped into Prof. Thomas’s office, the strong mix of cultures struck me at once—on the wood shelf which dominated the left side of the room, seemingly endless books in both English and Chinese stood in silence; under the Western-style paintings on the wall, an irregular slab of Chinese stone lay on the table. Postcards and souvenirs from all over the world occupied every corner of the room, a large number of which were gifts from Thomas’ students. When we asked about a funny puppet that hung on the side of the shelf, he explained that it once danced in a small puppet theater he had made for his older daughter’s puppet shows. Thomas, with his eyes twinkling, was filled with joy and contentment as he spoke about the interesting stories behind the objects he cherished.

Listening to his stories, my mind flew back to the very beginning of the inspiring conversation. Seated on the outdoor platform with sunshine and a beautiful sea view, Thomas began to recall his high school life in Pittsburgh.

He described the young Thomas as a “boring” boy who “followed the normal

path” and was engaged, foremost, in study. But his path was greatly shifted during his fourth year as an undergraduate at Washington University, when the physics student decided to study art history, a subject he had altogether dismissed in the past. During his first two years, Thomas sat in on different courses apart from the compulsory courses of his physics degree, including several courses in art history. After coming back to Washington from a one-year exchange at Colorado University, he continued working on physics for finishing up his degree during the senior year. “In the meantime, I found I wasn’t that good at physics…I was doing okay, and then I was getting more and more interested in humanities and art history…I finished in physics, but I also decided that what I really wanted to do was to study art history…and to become an art historian.”

This huge shift had not been entirely unfounded—in fact, the very branch of physics that had most interested the young Thomas was cosmology, similar to art history in its search for the source and meaning of life.,In addition to taking related courses during his last year at Washington, Thomas went on afterwards to the University of Pittsburgh for a one-year study focusing on art history before enrolling in graduate school at Harvard. “[Since that time, ]I went back to be very boring[laugh], [because I] just wanted to do art history and I’ve just been doing art history,” which he described as “following the path”. It’s quite apparent, however, that his experience was totally different from that of those who actually followed the normal path.

When asked, Thomas still clearly remembered the professor who first led him into the world of art history. His way of sparking inspiration through his own strong ideas and opinions had made a deep impression on the young Thomas, one that later exerted a profound influence on Thomas’s way of teaching art: not only through providing facts and information, but also through discussing the ethics, morality and outlooks on life expressed by the art, a method that motivated students to develop their own points of view. Indeed, teaching gives Prof. Thomas a strong sense of fulfillment in life; he enjoys the nurturing process of student-teacher interaction both in and outside of class. Similarly, he finds that spending time with family, especially his children, is fulfilling and meaningful.

Apart from his transition to art history, he views the birth of his two children as another “real turning point” in his life, for it caused a fundamental change on his outlook and awakened the human “instincts” hidden deep within himself. As the father of two daughters and the teacher of countless students, Thomas seems to enjoy a role as both nurturer and innovator.

It must be said that Greg M. Thomas’s outlook on life has been deeply influenced by his mixed cultural identity. He found himself interested in Chinese language

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and culture as early as high school, and went on to study Chinese and Tai-ji during his year at Colorado University. He met his Chinese wife in graduate school, whom he described to us as smart, charming, and quick-witted, an interesting complement to his alleged “mild and slow” self. One of his primary academic foci is the artistic interaction between Europe and China, which later helped to drive his relocation from the U.S. to Hong Kong. Hong Kong was also the perfect environment for the American-Chinese couple to raise their children under the influence of both Western and Eastern culture.

Having lived in the city for 13 years, Prof. Thomas shared his observations on the differences between Chinese and American students. “Coming here, I definitely feel that students and their parents have a higher respect for teachers… and it’s a very different feeling… however, it’s also very counterproductive. One of the problems is that students are reluctant to challenge teachers, to think on their own.” In the U.S., according to his teaching experience, students are more self-confident and often charge ahead by pushing questions regardless of previous knowledge. Prof. Thomas suggested that students, especially those raised in a Chinese culture, should think more independently and be more skeptical: “I think everybody should question authority…at all times.”

When asked what happiness was for him, Prof. Thomas answered without hesitation: “Teaching and spending time with family, and doing things like this [conversation]—interacting with students.” He also expressed joy in seeing students succeed, which he compared to seeing his own children succeed. To Thomas, success involves one being happy with what he is doing, in contrast to another kind of success that involves the fulfillment of external measures in the so-called system, regardless of happiness. Sitting next to Prof. Thomas, quietly listening to him talking, I recalled the last class of Art and Society: Prof. Thomas was standing by the screen, showing the most expensive works of art ever sold in the market. With his eyes sincerely twinkling, he said to us: “Remember, what’s really important is that you find your own personal connection to the work of art and that it’s meaningful to you. That’s really the real power of art. Not those amazingly high prices born by the monetary standards in the art market.” Thus, it rings true to him that one should not conform to a system at the cost of losing one’s own individuality and happiness, both of which he sees as important elements of a fruitful life. And indeed, this man who has just been enjoying doing art history, interacting with students, and spending time with his family has already received countless knocks on his door from the goddess of happiness.

Photo: During the interview

In addition to a sense of fulfillment, another essential part of Thomas’s life philosophy is to find a source of meaning in life. Art and religion naturally became two important ways for him to look for such a source. “[When I am studying art and artists,] I feel like I am directly talking with these people from the past, about what they experienced, how they thought [of the meaning of life].” As a result, he himself finds reasons to explore his own beliefs.

What’s more, the fact that Thomas doesn’t follow any religious system has not prevented him from getting interested in religion. Since high school, he has been most attracted to Buddhism and Daoism, which have had a great influence on his personal beliefs. From his point of view, religion responds to a fundamental need of human beings—again, to find a source of meaning in life, a pursuit close to Thomas’s heart.

For Prof. Thomas, humanities “matter tremendously.” However, they are considered to be constantly under threat in modern society and capitalist culture. The dominant capitalist lifestyles and values seem to take money as a measure of happiness, which leads to fierce competition in wealth and creates inequality; it is thus that they pose a considerable threat to some fundamental ethical and moral values in the humanities. In addition, there seems to be “dominant bias in favor of science and technology,” arising primarily from the claim that they can “save the world.” Nevertheless, Prof. Thomas pointed out that the existing problems in the world, such as regional conflicts, are not caused by our lack of technology, money, or productivity; instead, they primarily result from our inability to live together harmoniously, which is caused by our lack of understanding of ethical issues, religions, and cultural diversity. “You don’t get that [understanding] in science and technology,

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or from business… I truly believe that humanities and social sciences are playing important roles in making the world a better place.” Prof. Thomas also attributed the lack of attention to humanities partly to the current curricula of elementary and secondary education, arguing that emphasis has been placed much more on math and science. So he has encouraged students, regardless of discipline, to study more of the humanities in high schools and colleges. As for himself, he is proud of changing the world in his own way: by inspiring students to think more deeply about ethical, moral and cultural issues through teaching the humanities, which will have a profound influence on the future development of students, and their way of thinking.

As for advice to young people, he strongly recommended students to sit in on different classes, and listen to what other people are thinking. This not only aids students to explore where their passion lies, but also helps them to better understand different ideas and opinions, thus cultivating their appreciation for diversity. In general, he encourages young people to explore a wide range of different things and look for their real passion. Just as the young Thomas did in his earlier years as an undergraduate, we ought to explore as much as possible in order to finally find our way.

Citing the career-choosing method of his daughters’ peers in an HK international school, Thomas expressed worry that many young people today—whether in China or the U.S.— tend to have a narrow sense of what it means to be successful, and are inclined to conform to the system under the overriding capitalist ideology. “I would urge young people to remain open to possibility. If you would like to do what the system offers, it’s fine; then do it. [As long as] you can be happy, that’s great. But don’t feel that you have to follow the system. Try to maintain your individuality, and try to build your own meaning of life as much as possible.” As those words flowed, his eyes were twinkling sincerely.

When I came to, I found myself standing in front of this middle-aged man, who was gazing at the postcards and souvenirs from his cherished students and the puppet for his beloved daughter. This time again, his eyes were twinkling, tenderly and mildly, in the afternoon sunshine.

Interviewers: Sunny Liu, Xuanqi Gao, Sherry Zheng Writer: Sunny Liu Editor: Michelle Jia Photographer: Charlie Song

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A CHAT WITH MEHRAN Professor Mehran Sahami is a computer scientist and the lecturer for Stanford’s m o s t p o p u l a r c l a s s — Pro gra m m i n g Methodology, CS106A. A Stanford alumni and Silicon Valley veteran, Sahami worked in various tech companies in the early 2000s and returned to the university as a full-time faculty in 2007. As a professor, Sahami is famous for his funny, lively lectures, which have gained worldwide popularity on YouTube and iTunes. His areas of focus include machine learning and information retrieval. Sahami lives with his wife and two children in Palo Alto.

We walked through the winding hallways of Stanford’s computer science department to find Mehran Sahami, who was sitting between piles of books and glowing in his signature smile. For a lecturer who presides over a 600-person class, Mehran worked in a surprisingly small office. A tall bookshelf loomed over the entire room and displayed fat, intimidating textbooks on Java and C++.

Mehran is no typical programmer. In defiance of the coder’s tradition, his office contained more candies than books—bags filled with Snickers, Reese’s, M&M’s, and KitKats piled up on the desk, and extra candy boxes leaned on the wall. If it were not for the giant bookshelf, this room would have been the dream world of a spoiled six-year-old. But Mehran has long passed the age of sugar addiction; instead, he throws these candies to students who speak in his giant class. Sometimes, Mehran even hurls his arm like a pitcher in order to reach someone in the back row.

After Helin and I walked into the office, Mehran volunteered to get an extra chair. Unprepared for his kindness, I awkwardly stood up and watched the professor pushing in the chair. “Feel free,” Mehran said as the friendly smile unfolded on his face again. He took a seat behind the messy desk, and we quickly began our conversation.

Photographer:John Todd Photo's courtesy of https://commencement.stanford.edu/events/class-day-lecture

Budding Interest “The first time I got exposed to [coding] was in fifth grade. Our elementary school got a Commodore pet computer that had 4K of memory. It had a four-inch screen… I thought it was really neat, and part of the neatness was it empowered you to create things. You could make a game, an image… and it was just fascinating for me.”

Mehran immediately fell in love with the novel gadget. On the four-inch screen, he saw a world of endless possibilities and wild creations. When Steve Jobs’ Apple II swept into the computer market, the teenage Mehran could not resist the temptation. “I kept bugging my parents to get an Apple computer at home. I bugged them for years until junior high, when I got it and told them I would use it for my school work.”

Mehran did not get to use computer for homework as often as he liked to. At a time when programming was still limited to hackers and university professors, Mehran bought several textbooks and taught himself the abstruse algorithms.

But Mehran never had the aura of a child prodigy. He was not another Silicon Valley legend who discovered the secret joy of coding as a teenager and enjoyed an unbroken series of success. “Looking back on it, I was not a particularly good programmer. I did not pay attention to the style… It was not natural for me.”

What doesn’t come in nature comes through arduous work. In the late 1980s, Mehran came to Stanford as an undergraduate and soon decided to major in computer science. Even then, it was not smooth sailing.

“There are times that I struggled in classes. There were all-nighters that I pulled because something took longer than expected. You got caught on bugs… You run into a lot of bumps along the road. But if it is something that you feel passionate about, you got to deal with the issues that come up. Eventually, things will be better. I think perseverance is a part of it. If you love it, you’ve got to keep doing it.”

For students who take Mehran’s introductory lecture, CS106A, it is hard to imagine a time when he also fretted over codes. In fact, Mehran took exactly the same class more than twenty years ago. “Everyone gets frustrated in computer science.” To those who are discouraged, he is more than willing to talk about his own struggles. His modest remarks remove the lecturer’s daunting authority.

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Teaching Mehran’s connection with CS106A extended into his sophomore year, when he became one of the teaching assistants.

“The thing that was really a big turning point for me was getting involved as a section leader for the class… And I thought, ‘Wow, I can take this passion of computing and this other interest in teaching, and there is a real career path’… To teach at university level, you need to get a Ph.D. So then I thought about what I need to get a Ph.D. Well, that’s really about getting involved in research… Some people go pursue a Ph.D. because research is interesting; for me, teaching is the initial motivation.”

With this genuine passion in teaching, Mehran stayed sober despite the inebriating atmosphere of Silicon Valley. In a perennial celebration of the enterprising spirit, stories of garage billionaires and multi-billion IPOs tempt people away from their original dreams. But as Mehran said, “After several years at Google, I was asking myself what I truly enjoyed… and soon I decided to come back to Stanford as a full-time faculty because I love it here.” The man never lost his bearings: teaching has always been his true passion.

Moments of Pure Joy In the Profile in Converse project, we always conclude the conversations with the same question: what is happiness for you? We are not looking for Socrates’ sophisticated discourse or Freud’s abstruse essays—we are looking for happiness in daily life. We want to make the discussion of happiness as simple as happiness itself.

“The other day, in the morning, my wife and I were in bed. The kids ran into the room and jumped on the bed. We were tickling each other… and playing around… And I just thought, ‘this is a moment of pure joy.’ Nothing else really mattered.”

Mehran’s happiness is not a lasting condition. He believes that pure happiness only exists in moments. They appear and vanish each second, like the rolling waves that hit the shore. We can capture a happy moment and fully relish its sweetness; but the next moment, it will vanish and the sweetness will be no more than a piece of beautiful memory. Even weeks after the interview, these thoughts continued to ring in my head.

Interviewer: Chuan Xu, Helin Gao Writer: Chuan Xu Editor: Michelle Jia

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A CHAT WITH JAMES FEARON James D. Fearon is Theodore and Frances Geballe Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Stanford University.

His research focuses mainly on political violence – interstate, civil, and ethnic conflict, for example – though he has also worked on aspects of democratic theory and the impact of democracy on foreign policy. Fearon was elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002, and has been a Program Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research since 2004. He served as Chair of the Department of Political Science at Stanford from 2008-2010.

Intellectual passion isn’t something that you can just pull out of a hat. It isn’t something that can be engineered. It cannot be primped and manufactured for easy, bite-sized consumption, even in the best of college applications. In the broad spectrum of life, passion isn’t something you can necessarily foresee or plan, but rather, something that you develop along the way.

This is certainly the case for Professor Fearon, Theodore and Frances Geballe Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Stanford University, who, despite graduating from college without any clear idea about the future, could not be any more passionate about his current work on political violence.

“After I got out of college,” Fearon says, “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, but [I knew] I was interested in politics and public policy. I went to Washington DC without a job, looked for a job, eventually got a succession of jobs as a research assistant in a couple of different places, some of which involved working on policy issues related to Africa, on economic development in Africa.” His interest in Africa stemmed from the time he had spent there in between two years in college, an experience that inspired him to write his undergraduate thesis on local politics in Kenya.

It was while working as a research assistant in DC that he gradually realized getting a PhD might be a good idea, especially if he “wanted to do more in Washington, doing policy-related work of one kind or another.” Nothing was certain, though – he wasn’t sure if he really wanted to go to graduate school, and he wasn’t even sure whether he wanted to become an academic, though he was enjoying the more academic side of his research assistant work.

Fearon eventually went to graduate school at Berkeley, where “one thing led to another,” landing him with an academic post which he has enjoyed “ever since.”

When we ask him about how he found his passion for political science, Fearon objects to the very phrasing of the question. “The language of ‘finding your passion’ and ‘chasing your dreams’ and so on,” he tells us frankly, “there’s a little bit too much of the supermarket in it.” He says it gives people the impression – falsely – that passion is something that they can “buy or select out of the blue,” as opposed to something that develops slowly and accidentally.

Such language, as he notes, is particularly rife among high school and prospective college students. The very word “passion” is one that he closely associates with the “frenzy of competition for spots and places [at] allegedly top schools,” such as Stanford.

“I’ve been in high schools and I’ve seen this language used in bulletin boards, [asking] what you’re passionate about and so on,” he observes, “and I think it’s just a whole culture that’s been encouraged by admissions systems – to get into these allegedly top schools, [...] you need to stand out. And so students are pushed very early on to [...] develop an alleged ‘passion’ which is going to distinguish you from other people. But when you think about it, it’s really kind of odd that high school students should have a passion – I mean, it’s just bizarre, to even use that kind of language. Now I guess some students do develop a really strong interest in something, but [by] making it kind of a condition – which is

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what it’s become, and you have to answer the passion question when you’re doing interviews or writing applications – it’s encouraging a kind of false or [...] almost dishonest presentation of self in this system.

“Rather [than students] coming to college with a passion, [...] we should be taking students who don’t know what their [passion is] – who are curious about a lot of things and haven’t [yet] committed to some particular thing.”

Indeed, when asked how different college was when he first went compared to what it is like today, he comments, “I never used to hear this word [passion] from undergrads, and nowadays, I meet freshmen who come in and they’re telling me, ‘My passion is this,’ or ‘I’m passionate about that.’ And to be frank, it always sounds odd to me.”

He adds: “I don’t think there would’ve been as much of a strong expectation back when I applied to college that high school students should be cultivating some kind of extreme, very specific so-called ‘passion.’ It seems to me that it’s perfectly fine and natural for most high school students to feel that they have no clue what they want to dedicate their lives and interest to.

“Did I have a passion for studying political violence going back to the time when I was in middle school?” He adamantly shakes his head. “No, definitely not. It was something that developed – it wasn’t even something that I would have imagined. I certainly wouldn’t have characterized it as a passion going into grad school. I’m not even sure it had occurred to me that that’s what I would be spending twenty-five years thinking about.”

His advice for college students goes along those lines. “I would encourage them not to think about it in terms of finding your passion,” he offers. “I think the whole thing is kind of false and bogus. Not to say that you shouldn’t try to figure out what you’re interested in, and where you’d like to try working.

But I think life is a lot more random. [...] There’s a lot of chance involved – stuff that’s fortuitous, based on all kinds of different factors. Next year, you may find yourself being exposed to something or [being] in some situation that suggests something entirely different. That’s what I’d say.”

Fearon’s own decision to research political violence was very much a fortuitous one. “My interest in Africa, and the fact that I went to grad school for political science at all, is in a way related to deciding to take time off of college after sophomore year and – very much by chance – ending up going to East Africa,” he remarks. “I had no prior interest in Africa whatsoever,

I had no prior knowledge of East Africa – it was just kind of random. But nonetheless, [living there] was an extremely influential experience.”

So would he say that his experience in Africa was a moment of major transformation in his life?

“I don’t know that it’ll be transformation,” he says thoughtfully. “It’s not like a Road to Damascus kind of thing, where [everything happened] all of a sudden. But that year was certainly really influential, because I came back with this strong interest in developing country politics and economics, which then ultimately led to me going to grad school and studying similar stuff there. It was also a transformation in terms of the people I met there. And I think it’s really valuable to experience a very different culture, to go through the phase of culture shock and come to appreciate how things hang together.

Not to say there was anything particularly unusual in the way I experienced it or what I did – but that was definitely an influential and important year for me.”

So he would definitely encourage students to study abroad?

“If that’s something that they find appealing or curious about, definitely,” he says. “I suppose that’s another thing that’s changed, that Stanford has this amazing overseas studies program, which makes it pretty straightforward.

That didn’t exist, at least while I was in school, back in the early eighties.

“Striking off the beaten path – I’d encourage that, if you feel like college is going by too quickly. It’s certainly a good experience to take time away. I came back with a lot more focus; I felt better able to make decisions. It was also a very good year for maturing in various ways – being on my own, in a more difficult setting was a good thing.”

Fearon is quick to add, though: “That said – not to discourage people who want to go to Africa or other less developed countries – sometimes I wish there was more of an interest in American politics, and in social and political problems in our own country, which are quite serious in a lot of areas.” He pauses for a moment, and then continues, “But its seeming less exotic leads students – like I was – to not consider those things.”

Living abroad is not the only fortuitous experience with major potential impact on your life: your choice of future domestic partner is another. “Your life will be hugely influenced by who you end up with – if you do end up

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marrying someone or being in some committed relationship with some partner,” Fearon reflects, “and that’s huge amount of chance. And you know, where you go to college is a big factor – people end up marrying people they met in college. But sometimes not, sometimes it’s afterwards. That’s another hugely random element that you really have very little control over, but has a massive effect on the rest of your life, through both the relationship with your spouse, and your kids.”

in the New York Times, or in the books that are published every few years about what’s wrong with higher education, which tends to focus much more on Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, and so on.

The issue of domestic arrangements might seem a long way off for many people, but it’s clearly something to keep in mind. And for Professor Fearon, family is a very important part of life. In fact, he describes himself as being invested in only two things – his family, and his work – adding modestly, “I don’t know that I have answers that would be much different from what probably a lot of people would say.”

Places, if not for finding a passion, then at least for kindling a few fortuitous sparks.

“But you know, I don’t think there’s anything fundamentally wrong with the research universities. I actually think they are a crown jewel of American economy and society.”

So what does he like to do when he’s not working or being with family?

“I entertain myself by playing guitar a lot, so I’ve been playing guitar since I was – I don’t know, around fourteen or fifteen – and played it throughout college and grad school, and just continued to play. That’s how I entertain myself. And beyond that, really, I’m in a stage of life where I spend a great deal of time driving kids from one place to another. Being involved in their various activities. Watching shows together over the summer, traveling with the family. But basically, I don’t feel like there’s much time besides work and driving kids here and there.”

To conclude, we ask for his views on higher education in the US, to which he replies: “The industry, or business I’m in – I’m in a very particular part of it, which is this small set of leading research universities which are very, very well financed from various sources, and there’s tremendous competition for students who want to come here. So this is a totally unrepresentative, tiny part of the higher education system in the US, which is really a pretty amazing system.

“But when I worry about the system, I worry less about the kinds of things that are perhaps overly debated currently, concerning schools like Stanford – I worry more about public institutions, community college systems where a high percentage of the student population in higher education in the US are actually getting training or being educated. [Whether these students] are getting the quality and the amount of support they deserve – that’s the part that seems like the most important one, and one we hear much less about

Interviewer: Shuyu Wang Writer: Sarah Lyo Editor: Davis Wertheimer Photographer: Ivy Guo

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ALEXANDER NEMEROV: ART AND POETRY Alexander Nemerov is the Carl and Marilynn Thoma Provostial Professor in the Arts and Humanities, in the Art and Art History Department at Stanford University. He was Chair of the History of Art Department and Professor of Art History and American Studies at Yale University prior to his relocation t o S t a n fo r d . N e m e r o v s p e c i a l i z e s in American painting, sculpture, photography, film, and literature. He has authored numerous books, including To Make a World: George Ault and 1940s America (2011), and Acting in the Night: Macbeth and the Places of the Civil War (2010). His latest book, Wartime Kiss: Visions of the Moment in the 1940s, was published in November 2012.

In college, Alexander Nemerov majored in Art History and English. He said he always cared about art, likely “because of the family [he] grew up in.”

Nemerov’s father, Howard Nemerov, was a Pulitzer-Prize winning poet, and his aunt, Diane Arbus, was a renowned photographer. “It kind of seemed selfevident that I would be interested in these things, but at the same time, no one forced it on me. In fact, my two brothers don’t have anything to do with the arts,” he says. His high school AP Art History class served as another motivation to study the subject. The class, he says, “was important for me.

There was just something right about painting – it was something I really liked.” During his senior year, the class went on a field trip to Kansas City, Montana. There, he particularly enjoyed “a Caravaggio painting of John the Baptist – he’s brooding, and the image had a big effect on me. But it wasn’t just the sort of beauty and presence of these works of art. It was also the sense that they’re historical artifacts from the past.” Nemerov’s mother took her sons to historic sites, spiking Nemerov’s interest in paintings as “fascinating vestiges from some other time and place.”

Nemerov speaks fondly, if with distance, about his family. Nemerov never actually knew his aunt – they lived in different states and he was eight years old when she committed suicide. Still, in regards to his aunt’s portfolio,

Nemerov admires her “incredible, formidable, ferocious” commitment to art, and the lack of superficiality that she brought to the craft. “It wasn’t about being an artist, or being successful or not successful. It was because she had to do it, had to bring it to some kind of philosophical level, to try to reveal something about our lives, about who we are and what it is to be human.”

For Nemerov in his childhood, it was difficult not to be influenced by his father. “He kind of thought in poetry and really lived his whole life as a poet.”

Nemerov’s father died when Nemerov was 27, and Nemerov adds that even at that age, he “was probably still a little young to be able to relate to him fully, intellectually. So I feel I have come to know both of them well, or better, since they are no longer around. Because when I was growing up, I could not have told you exactly how they were influencing me.” Now, Nemerov says he has “a good relationship of distance and proximity” from, and with, his father’s poetry.

“I admire it, I kind of understand it somewhat from the inside, I can hear the cadence of his voice in my voice sometimes, especially when I’m reading poems, but in a way he’s just another great poet.”

Nemerov generally enjoys 17th century paintings greatly, but he is moved by particular works of art – though he is careful to add that they need not be exalted or highly acclaimed pieces. He has written with a similar perspective about 1940s films, as well – “not especially famous films or anything like that. In fact, they are only Hollywood films, but they move me.” When he says he is moved by a piece of art, he clarifies it as “something shaping me, shaping my sensibility, my emotional awareness, my sense of the past and present. Most everything I see does not interest me.”

Nemerov sees the study of art as a philosophical one. Art is a philosophy, both in respect to the cultural literacy that comes along with studying the field, and in respect to the self-discovery involved in viewing it. For him, it is a motivator of self-reflection. “You have a sensibility, that there are certain things that matter to you, that help shape who you think you are and contribute to your ongoing sense of the voyage of your own life.”

And what does Nemerov see in a moving piece of art? Art is present in the lives of individuals because life is “about a sense of coming into some awareness about oneself and the world via encounters with things like paintings, poems, and so forth. This is not about self-fulfillment so much as living one’s life according to a kind of heightened awareness that things like works of art can bring about for us.” In this sense, says Nemerov, art is “a mode of resistance.”

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He continues, “In the popular culture, in the mythology of our times, we’re taught to be individuals and to have a sovereign sense of our own subjectivity.” This heavily contrasts with “the very academic and disenchanted sense that our subjectivity is a mere fiction, that we are invented through and through by, in our case, a commercial culture, and it creates our wants, needs, and desires, it manufactures those things for us, it tells us what we want and why we should want it, and it basically excavates us and fills us up with nothing less than the sense of who we are and who we will ever be.”

As a result of this paradox of the modern day, Nemerov strives to live and teach in the middle ground.

Happiness, to Alexander Nemerov, is momentary. This, though, is really a positive. For him, happiness arises by seeing “things that are just stunning.”

He mentions recent moments of unadulterated happiness, starting with a stroll on the Connecticut River on a September morning, after delivering a lecture at Dartmouth. “It was sunny, and the light was just playing off the ripples in the water, almost statically. The scintillation was changing quickly, even blindly.” The moment was breathtaking. When Nemerov attended a wedding in South Carolina, he was struck by the “big, rolling storm clouds coming over the beach. The ocean was slight gray and the sand was beautiful and stretching away as far as the eye could see, providing some sense of the largeness of the universe.” He is modest in saying that he has “no wish to give a more exalted answer, or one that sounds more impressive or professorial as are the facts.”

Maybe art, then, for Nemerov, is here to evoke and make us think about these fleeting moments of beauty. “I guess probably many of us would acknowledge that it would be a nice thing to live a beautiful life – however that might be defined.”

Interviewer: Shuyu Wang Writer: Or Gozal Editor: Davis Wertheimer Photographer: Quyen Nguyen

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The Founding Stories

From Shuyu Wang, Founder and Editor-in-Chief

How this magazine came into being:

Almost as soon as I received the acceptance letter from Stanford in April 2012, my mind became restless, and I was obsessed by many interesting ideas. During the first week of college, I had my first meeting with my Pre-Major Advisor, Professor James Fearon, and talked to him about these ideas. He was very encouraging but at the same time kindly pointed out that I could not possibly have time to commit to all the projects I wanted to do. My time after class would be very limited.

Currently we have members from Hong Kong, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, U.K., and California. We also have members conducting interviews for the magazine at Yale, University of California Berkeley, University of Cambridge, and Hong Kong University. We plan to further expand our staff to more people who are enthusiastic about this idea of experience-sharing and willing to conduct interviews in their own regions.

However, already at that time had I set my mind to one specific project, one that I planned to do for the long-term: having a conversation with an interesting person every week. As a college freshman who had no idea of what I wanted to do with my life or what my calling was, I wanted to hear people who have already discovered their passions talk about their life stories: how they got to where they are right now, and what kind of difficulties they have encountered along the way.

I felt that if I persisted in carrying out this project for four years of college, I would inevitably learn a lot from these conversations.

Special Thanks

In retrospect, I can’t even remember when I decided to turn this personal goal for my college life into a larger project for the benefit of the interested public. I simply thought: someone like me would be interested in hearing these people’s stories; why not turn these conversations into an e-magazine? That is how I decided to take this project to the next level: founding a bilingual e-magazine that would allow English and Chinese readers around the world to read our articles and share the benefits of these stories.

How the Project Develops

During Week Two, I conducted the first interview with professor James Fearon, who kindly accepted my invitation and became the first guest in this project. However, I quickly came to realize that the sheer amount of work involved in initiating contact with potential interviewees, preparing for interviews, writing two articles for each interview, and building the website necessitates the building of a team. So after the first interview, I began to send out emails to my classmates in the Structured Liberal Education program. In the mean time, I also sent out invitations to college friends around the world and explained the project to them. Fortunately I received many keen responses in a short amount of time and was able to build a team of 15 members by Week Three.

I am extremely grateful that I had so much support and encouragement from my parents, professors, and friends from the very beginning. In retrospect, this project could not have reached this point without the support of people around me. Here are some acknowledgments and special thanks to people who have helped our project along the way.

James Fearon, Political Science Professor at Stanford Univerisity: Without your endorsement from the beginning, I do not know if I would have determined to carry out this ambitious project. You accepted my invitation even though there was nothing concrete about this project at the time, and your participation was a great encouragement to us all.

Greg Watkins, Assistant Director of SLE program: Thank you so much for offering me great advice on how to build my team, how to find resources on doing interviews, and always giving me confidence in what I am doing. I literally could not describe how much your support means to this project.

Doree Allen, Director of Oral Communication Program at Center for Teaching and Learning: Thank you so much for meeting with me twice and teaching me how to become a better interviewer. The resources you showed me are invaluable and definitely instrumental in improving our collective interview skills.

John Hennessy, President of Stanford University: I was overcome with surprise and excitement when you responded to my email within one day and said you would be glad to participate in this project. I do not know how another presidents react when they receive a long and passionate email

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from an international student, inviting them to be a part of a project that has not even begun, but you kindly expressed your interest and support. Thank you so much, and it gave me tremendous encouragement and faith in the success of the magazine.

Richard Powers (Dance Instructor), Mehran Sahami (Computer Science Professor), Terry Winograd (Computer Science Professor), Alexander Nemerov (Art History Professor): Thank you for being so supportive and agreeing to be interviewed.

Now Profiles in Converse is an international student organization with members from universities around the world, including Yale University, New York University, University of Cambridge, Mount Holyoke College, Hong Kong University, Columbia University, Imperial College London, Wellesley College, University of St. Andrews, Paris Institute of Political Science, Pennsylvania State University Park, College of William and Mary, etc. These members conduct interviews in their own regions and are committed to bringing the best articles/videos to our readers worldwide.

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Our Team Shuyu Wang

Ivy Guo

Mengyuan Li

I’m a freshman at Stanford who loves music (my favorite singer is Norah Jones), literature, dancing, and I have the habit of collecting movie posters for every single movie I have watched in my life(I have collected over 400 posters already!). I am deeply passionate about what we are doing in PiC, and it’s been my utmost honour to work with all these amazing members towards something that we all deem meaningful to our readers worldwide.

Hello, I am Ivy Guo. I am a master student in Learning, Design, and Technology program at the Graduate School of Education. My expert domains are psychology, education, design, and technology. A fun fact about me: I biked across the U.S. (New York City - San Fran) with 27 riders and raised $125,000 for the American Cancer Society in 2011.

Yale University 14', Undergraduate Film Studies & Political Science Major; born & raised in Beijing, interests include movies, politics, writing and scotch whisky, or any combination of aforementioned items.

Xu Chuan

Doris Kwai

I grew up in the sprawling suburbia of Beijing and have been studying in the United States in the last five years. I have travelled to five continents and developed a special fondness of secluded villages untainted by modern influence. I am still deciding on my major, but before life gets complicated, I am savoring every moment.

Greeting to all the readers who find our website useful and intriguing, and the entire PiC staff! I'm Yiyu Kwai, Doris, an undergraduate freshman struggling in The Pennsylvania State University. I'm double-majoring in Supply Chain and Japanese, though I've been learning Japanese for around 5 years, I'm a rookie in the field of logistics. I've been engaged in media editing, layout design and website construction since high school. I also hold great passion on social critics, education and forensic science. Having such a great range of interests, I'm willing to share my thoughts and experiences with any one of you.

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Michelle Jia Xuanqi Gao I’m Xuanqi Gao, a first-year student from the Faculty of Social Sciences in the University of Hong Kong.

It’s hard for me to clarify my interests, but for sure I love trying different things and sometimes dare to do the things others dare not.

Join Profiles in Converse group is a surprise for me. I love the belief we are holding and the fellows I’m working with. I will keep moving on with you as a group with passion and hope.

Helin Gao I'm a freshman majoring in Math in Stanford. Apart from spending most of my time hovering about Math library, I enjoy mountain scrambling, playing bananagrams, and writing, whatever it means. Apart from Profiles in Converse , I'm also a news fellow for the Stanford Daily.

My favorite quote is, 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.' ~John 12:24

I'm a freshman at Stanford, hungry for well-placed words and new meetings.

Grew up in suburban Toronto on a diet of good books and piano music, and old appetites are hard to shake. Interested in philosophy, cycling, poetry and the indescribable I'm very pleased to be a part of the Profiles in Converse team!

Shiyu Zheng Self introduction: I am a Chinese girl studying arts in the university of Hong Kong and now a interviewer and writer in the Profiles in Converse. I would like to describe my self as a paparazzo not because I love to dig out others' private life, but I am curious about the world.

There are many times when I went to travel, visited art galleries, read books I met interesting people and things which make me feel content with my life. So happy to meet everyone in Profiles in Converse.

Yiqing Zhang Have a lot of experience in journalism.

One of the editors for the Chinese magazine.

Qianli Song Hey, I’m Song Qianli from Hong Kong University. People around here call me Berber, which derives from the super adorable pet dog I raised in Beijing. In our team, photographs, videos and design are the duties where my contribution mainly lies in. Yeah, I am the tech guy who has always been obsessed with media and journalism ever since my first day working in my high school’s propaganda department. I am hoping Profiles in Converse would bring me something that I have always wanted.

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Sylvia Yang

Peng Hui How

Quyen Nguyen

I am an undergraduate sophomore majoring in math, and was born on the other side of the globe. I join the team as a photographer to find out about the great members of the school and learn from them, through the camera lens. I love traveling, particularly in the wild, where the beauty of nature calls.

I'm Quyen, grew up in Vietnam and spent a year living in Chicago before I started at Stanford. I love writing, photography and getting to know people's stories. One of my favorite books is On the Road by Kerouac and I hope to spend the next few years of my life just being on the road, embarking on great stories, taking meaningful photos and getting my wandering thoughts down on paper. Joie de vivre, come at me.

Xiaonan Tong Xiaonan Tong is an undergraduate freshman attending Stanford University. His interests are Computer science, human computer interaction, visualization, and art/design.

Hey, guys. I am Sylvia from Shenzhen, currently in Stanford university. I am engaging in planning, interviewing, Chinese editing and Facebook page. As for interests and major, I am literally all over the place. I am trying to combine engineering with biology withstudio art. For other fun facts, I have been doing Chinese painting for 13 years; I scubadive; and I am a foody.

Or Gozal Or Gozal is currently a Stanford University Freshman and prospective Philosophy major. She is currently a student writer for the Stanford University McCoy Center for Ethics in Society and a Research Assistant at Philosophy Talk. In the past she has written for The Daily Californian and the Berkeley High Jacket. Aside from writing, her hobbies include meeting new people, exploring different cultures, photography, and different aspects of the entertainment industry.

Nina J. Zhu Nina is a Master of public health currently based in Imperial College London. She joined the team as a Chinese editor. Benefiting from her experience of being a columnist for magazines, she makes efforts to evaluate and interpret the Englishbased interviews in such way that all the Chinese readers can share the brilliant stories beyond the language barrier.

Sunny Liu I love talking with people around me, listening to their stories, and collecting something interesting and inspiring. I often walk on the streets, observe the people passing by, and get absorbed in thinking. Fo me, to talk is a way to get connected to the world I am in, to the people around me; to take photos and to write about them are ways to share their stories and my thoughts with those who are interested, and what I love to do.

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Profiles in Converse welcomes your submissions!

We cordially invite you to submit your articles to Profiles in Converse!

You can choose to interview an interesting person or write about your experience living in the region you come from. If you have any questions regarding what kind of articles we are looking for, please email your inquiries to profilesinconverse@gmail.com The deadline for submissions to our third issue is Jun. 20th. We will be in touch with you once we receive your articles.

Follow Profiles in Converse From the second issue onwards, our team will include members from the following universities: University of Cambridge, Yale University, New York University, College of William and Mary, UC Berkeley, Hong Kong University, Wellesley College, Imperial College London, Pennsylvania State University Park, Mount Holyoke College, University of Chicago, Columbia University, Harvey Mudd College, Paris Institute of Political Science, Renming University.

Want to know who they are?

Want to follow the latest news of Profiles in Converse?

Please subscribe to our magazine at www.profilesinconverse.org Follow our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/ profilesinconverse And help us share our articles and websites to let your friends know about this magazine!

We will see you again this summer!