The Stanford Daily MAGAZINE
VOLUME II
U
ISSUE 4
U
JANUARY 26, 2018
How and why do some students choose to spend a year off Stanford? p. 14
YEAR IN REVIEW p. 6 01 Front Cover.indd 19
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Contents
The Stanford Daily MAGAZINE
Volume II, Issue 4 January 26, 2018
NEWS 06 YEAR IN REVIEW Looking back at the biggest events on campus of 2017 through Daily articles 14 LEAVES OF ABSENCE Why some students take time away from Stanford 20 FACULTY SENATE TURNS 50 Examining the history of the body, how it has changed and why it matters
ARTS & LIFE 08 LGBT REPRESENTATION IN MEDIA How two new television shows challenge traditional depictions of queer characters
STUDENTS WHO TAKE TIME OFF OF SCHOOL Jessica Fry ‘19, pictured above, took a leave of absence to perform on Broadway. Photo courtesy of Al Ponce. — p. 14
OPINIONS
CREATIVE
10 THE ETHICS OF MURALS
04 CARTOONS
Columnist Miguel Samano argues that the mural titled “The Last Supper of Chicano Heroes” in Stern Dining Hall promotes dialogue 12 UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME Columnist Iain Espey discusses the benefits and drawbacks of the policy proposal
THE GRIND 24 OUTSIDERS ON THE INSIDE Talking to students who joined ethnic organizations not of their own ethnicity about their experiences
Reflections on 2017 and predictions for 2018 22 PHOTO GALLERY Capturing the colors of life 28 CREATIVE NONFICTION “New Year,” a submission by guest author Ella Eisinger 30 NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS Submissions from around campus
On the cover: A student leaving Stanford. Illustration by Roy Nehoran. 3
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CARTOONS | By Joe Dworetzky
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CARTOONS | By Joe Dworetzky 5
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Year in Review 2017 as told by Stanford Daily articles
by Sarah Wishingrad
Photos clockwise from top right: CHRIS DELGAGO, KEVIN HSU, JULIA INGRAM, FANGZHOU LIU, NAFIA CHOWDRY
May 24
Jan. 11 Stanford revamped Full Moon on the Quad.
Jan. 31
Jan. 27 The Band’s suspension was lifted.
John Etchemendy planned to step down as University provost after 17 years.
Feb. 6 A Stanford graduate student sued President Trump over the travel ban.
Feb. 10 Stanford fired a sexual assault lawyer who had criticized the Title IX process.
Feb. 28 President Tessier-Lavigne and Provost Drell outlined the longrange planning process for the University.
ASSU Exec announced that a dining hall would remain open during spring break starting in the 2017-2018 academic year.
Feb. 17 University president Marc Tessier-Lavigne would not declare Stanford a “sanctuary campus” but pledged support for the undocumented community.
May 1 May 2 The Knight-Hennessy Scholars program released its inaugural application.
Judge Aaron Persky, who had been accused of giving Brock Turner a lenient sentence, fought a recall campaign.
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Nov. 2 Dining hall workers submitted petitions to Residential & Dining Enterprises protesting “chronic understaffing” and “unacceptable workloads” in campus dining halls.
May 23
Stanford began construction to replace Scary Path with a lighted walkway.
Two women accused former Stanford professors, Franco Moretti and Jay Fliegelman, of sexual assault.
Nov. 14
Palo Alto residents living in RVs along El Camino revealed the depth of Silicon Valley’s affordable housing crisis.
Nov. 15 Robert Spencer visited campus, leading a majority of attendees to stage a walkout of his talk.
Aug. 4 Stanford Hospital workers picketed amidst rising hospitalacquired infections and failed hospital negotiation attempts.
Sept. 7 After Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos promised to roll back Obama-era Title IX regulations, Provost Persis Drell assured the community that Stanford would continue to “move forward” on sexual assault.
Nov. 17 President Tessier-Lavigne announced that the Advisory Committee on the Use of Historical Names on Campus, which did not reach a recommendation on the renaming of places named after Junipero Serra, would be replaced with two new committees.
Dec. 1 A GSB server exposed the personal information of 10,000 Stanford staff, including their social security numbers and salaries.
Oct. 10 The Board of Trustees announced the University would not divest from companies connected to private prisons.
Oct. 20 Stanford’s proposed General Use Permit was met with concern from parts of the community about environmental impacts. 06-07 Year in Review.indd 21
Nov. 9
Nov. 17 Privacy breaches in the University file system affected 200 people, exposing information on sexual violence records, confidential University statistics and emails to the Office of Judicial Affairs.
Dec. 1 Over 3,700 undergraduates participated in the “Stanford Marriage Pact,” which paired students up based on a Nobel Prize-winning algorithm.
Dec. 8 A visiting professor at the School of Medicine was the subject of an unfinished Title IX investigation for sexual misconduct at another institution before being hired by Stanford. 7
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‘The Bold Type,’
and representing queer r In the queer community, as with any other marginalized groups, lack of representation on television poses an issue because television is a major factor in shaping what people view as normalized and societally appropriate. By providing spaces for representation in mainstream television, there can be a more accurate representation of what is considered “normal” and allow people to be more comfortable with expressing who they really are. So it’s no surprise that fans were ecstatic when Freeform dropped a new favorite summer series, “The Bold Type,” at their feet. The show centers around three young women — Jane, Kat and Sutton — who work at a fictional “Comopolitan”-like magazine, “Scarlet,” where they deal with issues that any millennial women would face in the workplace: romance, office relationships and workplace conflicts. Kat, the social media director of “Scarlet,” has a huge amount of confidence compare to her friends. However, her reliance on this confidence comes with a consequence as she has problems opening up and being vulnerable with people, part of growing up with psychologists as her parents. Her main storyline on the show is the development of her relationship with Adena El-Amin, a lesbian Muslim photographer whom Kat meets when trying to convince her to publish a piece about Adena’s photos. In the beginning of the series, Kat is adamant about being heterosexual, but when she starts to develop feelings for Adena, she starts to question her sexuality. Their “will-they-or-won’t-they?” relationship, a designation often awarded to the primary relationship in many shows, is a unique situation in this show, as Kat and Adena are both queer women of color. This is what sets “The Bold Type” apart and truly allows it to excel — the intersectionality seen on this popular show is vitally important to the development of better queer characters in the future. A large majority of queer characters that are currently represented on TV are white men and women and often tend to be boxed into a series
of stereotypes. The beauty of showing two women of color falling in love on screen is the ability to better represent the complex identities in the queer community and explore the contradictions that come from their identities. Adena is a great example of a queer character who has a contradicting identity but takes power from it — as she puts it, “[the hijab] does not oppress me but liberates me from society’s expectations of what a woman should look like.” Adena and Kat are a perfect example to demonstrate to queer viewers and viewers of color that they are not alone and can empower individuals in these communities to feel less like an outsider. Another distinctive point about Kat’s coming out story is that no one makes a fuss over her revelation. When Kat starts to question her feelings about Adena, her friends didn’t mind being her shoulder to lean on. When she revealed that she kissed Adena, her friends were excited for her and were rooting for them to get together. Furthermore, once Kat makes it official that she wants to start a relationship with Adena, her friends don’t act differently around her. They’re not afraid to say “I love you” to one another, joke around or change clothes in front of her — these types of behaviors supports the stereotype that queer people automatically want date their straight friends once they decide to tell their friends about their sexuality. Rather, the show gives a great example of how queer allies can appropriately support and provide a safe space for their queer friends. Even though Kat has not yet formally put a name to her own sexuality, her decision is also fine — and her friends respect her for that. Bisexual erasure — using phrases like “everyone is a little bit gay” and queerbaiting — the practice of hinting at a potential same-sex relationship between two canonically straight characters — are both destructive mechanisms that are prevalent throughout years of media programming, and tropes likes these are often used to invalidate queer characters and individuals. Kat’s
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‘Carmilla’
r relationships on television by Jourdann Fraser
bisexuality is on full display in the series and shows the true complexity that can come with discovering that one may be bisexual. For example, once Jane asks Kat if she’d like to be matched with a male or female for their group dating app, Kat replies that she’d prefer men as she still wants to work out whether her feelings about Adena are indicative of her sexuality. Although this may seem as writers hinting at the fact that Kat is just bi-curious, it’s hinting at something else entirely. Kat may not be comfortable self-identifying as a bisexual; she may even think she only has feelings for Adena and no other woman. Nevertheless, using this narrative to mirror experiences that many queer individuals may go through allows for Kat’s coming out story to be more authentic. As viewers see Kat develop on in later seasons, we follow along with her journey and potentially may see her eventually selfidentify as bisexual. The show also avoids the trope that bisexuals are nymphomaniacs by showing Kat’s commitment to a relationship with Adena. Prior to her relationship with Adena, Kat is known for not being in relationships with men, preferring flings and hook-ups. However, once Kat starts a relationship with Adena, Kat is so smitten with Adena and expresses her commitment in a thoughtful fashion, not wanting to ruin their initial friendship in the case that they eventually break up. Kat’s bisexuality doesn’t further her promiscuous nature — instead, it curbs it and allows her to be more vulnerable and willing to take more risks. Kat’s discovery of her own sexuality allows for her to develop as a person in more ways than simply her romantic relationships. Nevertheless, Kat’s coming out story doesn’t simply define her character. Rather, her sexuality becomes one of the many parts of her character’s complex, multidimensional personality. The show’s ability to go in this direction with Kat’s character also has to do with a huge amount of groundwork done by alternative and
nontraditional media to normalize queer individuals in spaces like network and cable television that usually do not provide this opportunity. One example of this is “Carmilla,” a Canadian short-form supernatural web series that centers on Laura, a college freshman who is on a mission to uncover why girls are disappearing from her university. In “Carmilla,” Laura has no coming out story, but her sexuality is hinted at and slowly revealed by showing that she has a crush on her female TA, normalizing it as part of her character. By the end of the first season, Laura also falls into a romantic relationship with her roommate, the eponymous vampire Carmilla; the show includes many queer characters, including Laura’s friend LaFontaine, a nonbinary student. Instead of creating a season- and series-wide coming out story, the approach in “Carmilla” is to work on normalizing and depicting queer individuals and relationships in many forms, thus giving the show space to focus on developing the fully fleshed characters themselves and how that leads to conflicts that directly reflect and mirror our own lives. Both of these shows attempt to show an accurate, complex representation of queer individuals by breaking down stereotypes and creating new roles for queer people that don’t simply center on their sexuality. While coming out stories are important, it’s important to remember that coming out stories don’t have to be the main storyline for queer characters — individuals can be at many different points in their own stories. Television shows need to follow in the footsteps of shows like “Carmilla” and “The Bold Type,” focusing on developing queer characters in a variety of roles and different sexualities presented on screen in order to better represent the queer community in media and support them in our own society. Contact Jourdann Fraser at jourdann@stanford.edu.
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NUESTRAS MURALES
COMUNIDAD AND THE VALUE OF DIALOGUE BY MIGUEL SAMANO
“T
he Last Supper of Chicano Heroes” (1988) by José Burciaga is one of Stanford’s most controversial murals. Its critics have raised a fuss over Burciaga’s choice to have socialist revolutionary Che Guevara depicted as a hero despite the atrocities he committed against Cubans during Fidel Castro’s rise to power. Residents of the Chicano/Latino theme dorm Casa Zapata, who serve as this Stern Dining mural’s unofficial stewards, have shot back that the mural is open to numerous interpretations and therefore is not intended to represent the views of the Zapata community. An attack on the mural could, in one view, be an indirect way to critique specifically Chicanos and Latinos living in the dorm. Immediately prior to the above debate, this community, or comunidad, had been under attack, along with other communities of color, by the campus’s conservative publication, the Stanford Review, during a particularly rough student government election season. I sympathize with concerns that critiques of an ethnic community’s art can be proxies for attacks on the community itself. Artworks do not usually lend themselves to such easy meanings that aesthetic considerations are always reducible to primarily political statements. Few people would interpret art hanging in a museum that way, yet that is precisely how Chicano murals are too often interpreted. A reading of Burciaga’s mural as a primarily political statement is particularly unfair. My own interpretation is that the mural is about the multiplicity of views among Chicanos, that as a product of internal critique and discussion among over 200 Chicano activists and students, the mural serves as a metaphor for the role of dialogue as a foundational principle in a free society and for comunidad. “The Last Supper of Chicano Heroes” should enjoin members of comunidad to live up to their principles. Dining underneath the mural reminds me that my ethnic heritage
connects me to a tradition of dialogue. The worthiness of that tradition should be judged by the instances when defending dialogue proved most difficult. Here, I want to examine how arduous ensuring unfettered dialogue can be and to how instructive Burciaga’s mural is towards achieving that end. During his time as Zapata’s resident fellow, Burciaga polled community members for their choice of Chicano heroes to include in the mural. He asked both Chicano students at Stanford and older Chicano activists from the 1960s living in the Bay Area. While the activists concentrated their votes among a small group of people who either played important roles in the Chicano Movement or served as symbolic historical figures during it, the students spread theirs out among 240 candidates. Many of the students’ choices were included in the mural despite not being the most popular choices. As Burciaga explained in his essay collection “Drink Cultura,” the community-oriented nature of Mexican and Mexican-American culture made identifying individual Chicano heroes difficult. Aside from obvious candidates, on which many students agreed with the activists, many students voted for the everyday people in their lives: “mothers, fathers, grandparents, Vietnam veterans, braceros, campesinos and pachucos.” Most of the students’ choices stand behind the selected few Burciaga depicted sitting down for supper. Without these people to fill in the background of the mural, the sense that the mural represents a Chicano community invested in communal values arguably disappears. The mural models conviviality as a cornerstone to Chicano community. Living with one another requires more than deferring to whatever the majority backs; we must be willing to inhabit the same spaces, even when we disagree on matters as foundational as who our heroes are or what we believe. By the time Burciaga painted his mural, conviviality played a leading role in a Chicano canopy of ideas. A steadfast commitment to dialogue was its wellspring.
Genuine dialogue can be much harder to achieve outside of choosing a mural. In the messiness of campus politics, dialogue has been effectively redefined into a form in which each side presumes itself right and brooks few disagreements. During my time at Stanford, this kind of dialogue has occurred whenever one side dons the mantle of the oppressed, only to forget that others, including those with whom they most deeply disagree, have cause to suffer too. One particular moment stands out to me because I am a proud member of my comunidad, yet I witnessed it failing to uphold the value of dialogue. The moment was provoked by the Stanford Review’s ill-conceived response to the activist coalition Who’s Teaching Us? The Review chose to satirize the coalition by releasing a list of demands, one of which angered comunidad: “WE DEMAND that Stanford builds a wall around El Centro and makes MEChA pay for it.” Because the demand targeted a Chicano/ Latino community center and singled out a Chicano/Latino advocacy group with language peculiarly similar to thenpresidential-hopeful Donald Trump’s antiimmigrant rhetoric, members of comunidad interpreted it as a racist dog whistle. For the children of Mexican immigrants especially, the demand hit too close to home. Comunidad responded to the demand by having its members stand together in a wall of unity. The protest, of which I was a part, was intended as a show of resilience. We were reaffirming our commitment to each other as members of the same comunidad. Many of us who stood together continue to share memories of that moment over social media or in conversation. What I dwell on most, though, is our collective failure to stand with those members of the campus community who were then persecuted for their commitment to dialogue as a foundational principle. The Review provoked a reaction that many of its writers — including myself at the time — did
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not anticipate. Nonetheless, even when the reaction was at its most distressing, many of its writers refused to retract their views. Doing so would have implied a shallow understanding of dialogue as a principle worth defending only when it is easy or convenient to do so. After publishing its “demands,” the Review staff was put almost immediately under attack. Activists filed at least 43 Acts of Intolerance against the Review’s editors. Many even phoned individual editors’ current employers to demand their firing. I feared that if I didn’t publicly disavow the Review, I would be threatened next. Comunidad’s wall of solidarity had us spectacularly donning the mantle of the oppressed. Activists on campus chose to target the Review largely in our name. Either we did not see members of the Review staff suffer, or we did not care. Some of us were members of Who’s Teaching Us?, the activist coalition the Review satirized. In original the list of demands we helped draft, we put pressure on the University to undo the silences obscuring our presence within canonical history and literature. But when push came to shove, we condoned, or at least did not intervene in, attempts to silence others on our campus. It should not have mattered that the Review was being provocative. The Review has made a habit as a publication of publishing what they can reasonably anticipate will provoke overreactions all while under the aegis of wanting dialogue. What was different about the Review’s “demand” was that even its staff was taken by surprise by the intensity of the reaction. Rarely have the conditions for living out one’s principles been ideal. We should have upheld dialogue as a matter of principle, and that includes when the people asking for dialogue do not seem particularly sincere or deserving. Dialogue, depicted in our murals as the principle structuring our comunidad, should have compelled most of us to confront a wave of public opinion with a simple request to not silence others in our name, but it didn’t. We failed to uphold one of our principles. Worse, we revealed that we don’t hold dialogue as one of our foundations, after all — that some of us are willing to defend or vouch for dialogue only when it conveniences us. “You would rather I stay silent,” wrote Elliot Kaufman, then an editor for the Review, in
an op-ed he penned in response to activists’ attack on Review staff. Kaufman has twice critiqued “The Last Supper of Chicano Heroes” for its inclusion of Che Guevara. The first time, as mentioned above, Zapata’s ethnic theme associates (ETAs) published an op-ed in response. In it, they emphasized the dorm’s openness to criticism and stated their hope that the op-ed would “open the door for further engagement.” I am not sure whether the op-ed was a candid invitation for Kaufman to visit Zapata, or if it was an attempt to rhetorically silence him by implying that if there was anyone who didn’t want sincere engagement, it was him. When he critiqued the mural a second time, the content was largely the same. But the rhetorical situation had changed. The Review was not in the campus spotlight. Fidel Castro had just passed, and members of comunidad were divided on Che Guevara’s legacy. Zapata would have gained little and risked alienating some members of comunidad had it called for dialogue. So it didn’t; dialogue was inconvenient. Or, more accurately, dialogue with students outside of comunidad was inconvenient. Instead of responding to Kaufman via an op-ed or other public statement, the ETAs organized a debrief at Zapata for its residents and a panel composed of members of comunidad. Dorm staff were concerned more with addressing internal tensions stirred up by the mural, such as those between students with a nascent Chicano Movement-era fondness for Guevara and Castro and the children of Cuban exiles. Comunidad does not shy away from dialogue between its own members. When difficult conversations are brought to the fore, such as whose concerns matter when comunidad represents itself to outsiders, internal dialogue isn’t only crucial to providing a space for healing and reflection; it can be the right, principled thing to do. But the dual missions of choosing how to best represent oneself and abiding by one’s principles can also overlap. One should not be confused for the other. When deciding how to respond to the Review’s “demand,” members of comunidad also urged internal dialogue. The wall of unity was the most popular response suggested. There was disagreement among those of us
there about whether it was right to persecute Review writers by calling their employers. But we didn’t doubt that there needed to be a response. In fact, the facilitators of the event framed the dialogue, in announcements to mailing lists and in the event agenda itself, as a method of deciding how to best respond to the Review. A response to activists on behalf of a persecuted Review, however, was not on the table. Matters of principle demand of us that we take the other side’s concerns seriously as claims bearing upon us. Ultimately, it is our values that are at stake. When we do wrong by other people, we incriminate ourselves. Politics does not ask for such introspection or, frankly, commitment. All we have to do in matters of politics is decide what would be most beneficial for the group. Questions of principle are secondary — a means to an end. Even when it heals or produces unity, a dialogue guided by politics remains a dialogue strategically deployed. That’s not really dialogue. I ask for dialogue in its truest form. A dialogue worthy of ourselves as a comunidad. One that impels us to critique those among us who would offer a dialogue of lesser value. Zapata’s strategic deployment of dialogue is not atypical. Neither was our collective response to the Review. Both are symptoms of a larger failure within comunidad to commit to dialogue as a matter of principle. Other groups on campus, such as the College Republicans and the Stanford Review, fail in the same way, and “dialogue,” for these other groups, often reads as cynical ploy. What sets comunidad apart is that the internal dialogue it has provided genuinely tries to be inclusive of all members, regardless of disagreements on who or what they value — just like in “The Last Supper of Chicano Heroes.” I would like comunidad to exhibit the kind of dialogue modeled off of “Last Supper,” but for everyone on campus. Dialogue needs to be as visible and as accessible as that mural. Only then will this specter — that dialogue is not being defended as a matter of principle — finally disappear.
Contact Miguel Samano at msamano@ stanford.edu.
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What a
UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME won’t solve by Iain Espey
IRENE HAN / The Stanford Daily
W
hat would you do if you had a guaranteed, no-strings-attached cash flow that kept the rent paid, avocado toast on the table and the interest on your student loans at bay? Inconceivable, I know, but bear with me. What you need now is a way to pass that extra leisure time, but how? Would you finally get down to writing that novel? Revive your tepid romantic life? Sell handmade baskets on Etsy? Smoke a bowl (or more likely, a few) and ravage your Netflix queue? Would you find something more meaningful to do with or
your life, or just some more decadent means of distracting yourself? Setting aside the cheek and exaggeration, what I’m sneaking up on here is a universal basic income (UBI), the “disarmingly simple idea” of providing periodic cash payments to every individual member of society, regardless of means and with no requirement to work. Think of it like having a patron or a sugar daddy, except it’s the government. I’m interested in two things about the UBI: the economic argument for it and the potential it offers for a vaguely Marxist psychological
liberation. I’m sanguine about the former, skeptical of the latter. In 2017, it’s almost trite to claim that wage labor is alienating, but my contention is that there’s a deeper, cultural sickness, one untreatable even by a UBI. If you’ve got Internet access and an ounce of political awareness, you’ve probably encountered the concept of a UBI already. In the last decade it’s gone from pipe dream to serious political viability, and in Oakland, Ontario, Nairobi and Finland, tentative reality. Last February, Stanford established the Basic Income Lab to study UBI’s implementation and financial feasibility under the virtuous auspices of the Center for Ethics in Society. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and other Silicon Valley big boys believe a UBI will become a necessity in the near future, as automation stands to displace 45 percent of American workers over the next 20 years. Needless to say, Bernie’s behind it. It’s not just bleeding-heart academics and conscious capitalists, though. Somewhat shockingly, there are conservative arguments for a UBI too. OG patriot Thomas Paine proposed 10 pound per annum payments to “to every person, rich or poor,” while libertarian luminary/real life turtle man Milton Friedman argued that a guaranteed income could clean up the U.S.’s current hodgepodge approach to anti-poverty programs and enable work not otherwise compensated in free market economies, like volunteering or creating art. The minimum wage — which could be a good or a bad thing for the economy depending on who you ask but which, either way, isn’t exactly the be-all-end-all answer to workers’ money woes — could be binned entirely with a UBI. A UBI is also an intuitive and compelling answer to the welfare trap. There’s a perverse incentive to stay on government assistance indefinitely when earning just a little over the income cutoff makes you ineligible for your benefits; a UBI bypasses that issue because it’s dished out to everyone regardless of means. The fundamental necessity of a UBI has always been poverty reduction, which we mostly talk about today in terms of inequality, though even that’s starting to sound a bit too Obama-era. The U.S. is the prime case of inequality among the so-called advanced economies, a slightly snobby-sounding classification the IMF is propagating, not me. Nine in 10 U.S. households make less than $35,000 each year, with the top 0.1 percent earning almost 200 times the income of the bottom 90. The only time in our history when income inequality was comparable was the late 1920s, and I’m blanking on it at the moment, but I’m pretty sure something bad happened a little while after that. (It’ll come
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to me eventually.) What’s more telling is the rate of real hourly compensation, which has been dragging alone at a miserable clip compared to productivity since the early ’70s. And the wealth gap? Let’s not even go there. (But if we were to go there, let’s just say there’s finally something we’re worse at than Russia or Iran). In terms of inequality, Miami is comparable to Zimbabwe, as though you needed another reason to never, ever go to Miami. Say what you will about our troll of a 45th president, but Trump’s election is a very real indication of how deeply this rampant inequality has penetrated the psyches of those “forgotten Americans” feeling excluded from the golden touch of the tech boom. Clearly our current welfare system isn’t serving them sufficiently, and by now, I hope I’m starting to convince you that a UBI is the most promising alternative. Is the problem excessive inequality, or inequality itself, full stop? Sure, some amount of inequality is a certainty in a market-based society, on account of differences in talent, effort and luck. That inequality is most painfully apparent in America’s cities. A stroll from the Caltrain terminus in San Francisco up through SoMa and toward the Tenderloin reveals a disturbing microcosm of the situation. In social terms, though, inequality only becomes toxic when those on the lower rungs have trouble getting their basic needs met, which is precisely why a UBI could be the answer to the American middle class’s current economic discontent. What kind of car Bill Gates drives or how long Larry Ellison’s yacht is (it’s not about size really, but in case you were wondering, 453 feet) doesn’t matter so much when you’re not pulling 60hour workweeks to keep your kids clothed and fed. The point I’ve been making up until now is that a universal basic income could be a decisive step toward addressing inequality and economic insecurity. A UBI could reduce inequality, meaning higher incomes for the average American, which would increase consumption and investment, ultimately benefiting the economy as a whole. At the same time, it could simplify our social welfare system and maybe, just maybe, liberate us from the worst of wage slavery. What I mean is that our malaise is only partly an economic problem. There’s a cultural component too, one that is too easily overlooked precisely because it presents no obvious ways of addressing it.
M
aterial stability is all well and good, but what of the spirit? Could a UBI really make us less alienated from our work, the world and our lives? “Men don’t need
money,” says Jordan Peterson, “men need function.” The reality, of course, is that we need both, but the deeper point stands. Many of the institutions that gave meaning to the lives of earlier generations of Americans have today evaporated. Church attendance and belief in God are both on the decline, multigenerational households are an oddity and a modern career path is more often a labyrinth than a ladder. Religion, family, local communities and the traditional nine-to-five used to provide a clear and stable social context within which to locate and define one’s self. Yet we can’t return to the past to fill that absence. Another Great Awakening is an impossibility, and as lovely as a live-in grandmother may be, the nuclear family and the single-parent household aren’t going anywhere. Money will never reveal to us who we are or how best to be in the world, but our culture isn’t helping us much either. I often make up metaphors to explain life to myself. Sometimes I share them with others, but mostly I keep them to myself, since they remain a bit too inchoate to sound sensible. One of these metaphors is the end of the party. The party always ends, and then you’re at home, taking off your shoes, putting your phone on the charger and feeling a bit empty but not too bad, passing time, until tomorrow arrives and you can once again (praise God!) be preoccupied by those quotidian
Material stability is all well and good, but what of the spirit? Could a UBI really make us less alienated from our work, the world and our lives?
wears off and your woes are once again front and center, not in any desperate way, but rather like a pesky poltergeist. What makes our lives feel meaningful, however briefly? Having activities, sensations and ideas to distract us from life’s baseline meaninglessness. Maybe you won’t agree — and I promise I’m not putting on nihilism for the sake of nihilism here — but everything meaningful proves fleeting, while the creeping suspicion of an underlying valuelessness can only be covered up, if even that. Each generation seems to see itself as more profligate and unmoored than the last, but when I look at what our culture is producing to keep us entertained, a voice inside me screams, decadence and decline! (It’s my own voice; I am, as always, half joking, even with myself.) A 32-year-old man spends thousands to dress like a Dalmatian, indulge in “puppy play” and feel like his most authentic self. In Boston, you can buy a pizza with hamburger meat and French fries on it. How many of us check our phones for messages, updates, emails, whatever, dozens if not hundreds of times per day? Don’t you feel uneasy without it in your pocket or purse or wherever you’re in the habit of putting it? Our metaphorical opiates are available to almost all of us, even the poor. About 70 percent of people in the U.S. own a smartphone and 45 percent own a tablet, while 96.7 percent of American households own at least one TV. I don’t mean to act as though economic insecurity is a day at the beach, only to point out this is not your grandmother’s brand of poverty. I’d venture to guess that with more money on hand, many of us would only increase our consumption. The most appealing possibility of a UBI — the potential to liberate us from the crushing grip of necessity in order to pursue our own interests, passions and artistic ambitions — seems its most naïve, too. Our culture of decadence feeds us junk-food pursuits that only bring attention to our cultural displacement. That’s not really an argument against a UBI. On the contrary, its economic promises look too, well, promising for us not to explore implementing it further. We can only hope that puppy play is enough to tide us over for now. Contact Iain Espey at iespey@stanford.edu.
experiences, pleasurable and painful, that constitute your ongoing reality. The end of the party is the feeling you get when distraction 13
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A year off Stanford NEWS
by Ellie Bowen
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y the end of his sophomore year, Adison Chang ’19 was "done" with Stanford. Burned out from juggling his extracurricular commitments and frustrated by his major requirements, Chang felt like he'd lost sight of his purpose at school. "I was like, ‘Why am I here? What do I want out of my time here?’” He took a leave of absence. Over 200 Stanford undergraduates do the same each year, according to Corrie Potter, Associate Vice Provost and director of Stanford Institutional Research. Students' reasons for taking time off from the Farm range widely, going far beyond the Stanford stereotype of the computer science major who leaves to work in tech or found a startup. Some take leaves to pursue a once-ina-lifetime opportunity; some like Chang leave to get distance from the college experience; still others leave because of circumstances beyond their control. Whatever their reasons for leaving, students whom The Daily spoke to found themselves gaining new perspectives -- and coming back to Stanford without regrets. Realizing a dream
The decision to take time off comes easily to some. “[It] was kind of a no-brainer for me,” Jessica Fry ’19 said. “When you have the opportunity to perform on Broadway, you don’t miss it.” Fry, a Physics and Theater and Performance Studies (TAPS) double major, has always been interested in theatre and has danced since she was three years old. She is highly trained in multiple forms of dance including ballet, jazz, contemporary, hip hop and tap, with credentials from renowned dance programs such as The Juilliard School and American Ballet Theatre. For her first two years at Stanford, Fry was
involved in many performing arts groups on campus — from Cardinal Ballet to Urban Styles to Ram’s Head Theatre — on top of her Physics core courses and research. As a consequence, she spent many hours rushing between the physics lab and the ballet studio in order to keep up with both her training and her academic pursuits. When asked how she had time to juggle all of her extracurriculars on campus, she replied, “I actually have a time turner like Hermione Granger, so that helps out.” Fry might have continued pursuing both passions on campus, like many Stanford students who are interested in both artistic and academic careers. But in spring quarter of her sophomore year, her agent in New York called her about an opportunity to audition for a role in a Broadway play. She jumped at the chance to fulfill a lifelong dream. Like Fry, Josh Petersen ’18, a German Studies and Philosophy major, was eager to realize a longtime dream through his leave of absence after receiving a fellowship to study at the University of Freiburg in southern Germany. This particular fellowship had been his goal ever since he attended a BOSP summer seminar there after his freshman year. “It was the perfect storm of networking and financial opportunities,” Petersen explained. “And after two years here and a little burnout, I figured it was time for me to get away, get out and get a little perspective.” Bursting the Stanford bubble
For other students, the decision process is much less clear-cut. Chang, who is studying Symbolic Systems (SymSys) and TAPS, just returned from two quarters on leave, during which he studied at a Kung Fu Academy on the Kunyu Mountain in China and then traveled solo through Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Korea. Chang decided to take time off in part due
to academic burnout. Towards the end of his sophomore year, he was taking what he describes as “really lame” and difficult SymSys requirements while also trying to balance his theatre commitments as a member of Stanford Shakespeare Company. “Since I wasn’t enjoying my SymSys classes, and I knew I wanted to pursue theatre after graduation, I was kinda beginning to lose sight of what I wanted to get out of my education,” Chang said. “SymSys just seemed like I was doing it because it seemed like it would get me a financially stable job, and I didn’t really have any deep love for the subject.” Chang said his parents understood how confused he felt and were very open to letting him take time off to do something nonacademic and garner more life experience. So in winter quarter of last year, after attending Stanford in New York in the fall, Chang packed his bags and moved to a remote mountain village in China’s Shandong Province. Chang was drawn to the disciplined and rigorous lifestyle practiced at the martial arts academy, which he says was the exact opposite of his schedule at Stanford. By the end of sophomore year, Chang said, he would miss his morning classes and wake up at 3 p.m. due to the excessive stress from his overwhelming academic and extracurricular commitments. In stark contrast, at the academy, Chang would wake at 6 a.m. everyday for Tai Chi before breakfast. From 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., he attended classes in various martial arts practices, ranging from Shaolin-style Kung Fu basics and mountain running fitness to Qigong meditation and Chinese language. Still other students decide to take a leave of absence in part because they want to make their college experience more intentional. “I’ve heard that graduating in four years is good for employment,” said Jessica Luo ’19, “because it shows that you’re good at meeting
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Jessica Fry--Courtesy of Rachel Neville
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deadlines and being competent in general, but there are other ways to signal that.” Unlike Chang and many other students, Luo, a Symbolic Systems major, never intended to graduate in four years when she started her freshman year at Stanford. In high school, her chemistry teacher and mentor advised her to consider taking time off if she didn’t know what she wanted to do with her time in college by the end of freshman year, and she heeded this advice. When she was younger, Luo was set on going to art school: A trained visual artist, she focuses mostly on drawing but has also branched out to painting, sculpture and video. Luo explained that in deciding to come to Stanford, she had to relinquish not only this idea of going to art school but also her original, clear idea of what she wanted to do in the future. Because of this, she had difficulty finding academic direction her freshman year. “With college apps, especially the essay, you are giving an account of yourself, and you have to have a certain kind of certainty about what kind of person you are and what interests you have — and be really sure about that, or otherwise you’re not going to be able to fit into the tiny space they give you,” Luo explained. “I was very conscious of this when I was writing the essays — that I was constructing a persona — but I think I was kind of holding on to it.” Because she felt tied up to the identity she constructed, she had trouble eliminating options and admitting that some things interested her more than others, Luo added. “It was really compelling to have this clearly articulated person that I could be,” she said, “except being that person wasn’t really getting me anywhere at Stanford.” She began thinking of taking a leave of absence just two weeks into fall quarter, after reading a text from a Chinese philosopher in one of her Structured Liberal Arts Education
(SLE) core courses and being reminded of her desire to improve her Chinese language skills in college. With the encouragement and support of her parents and mentor, Luo decided to spend fall quarter of her sophomore year in Taipei at the National Taiwan University and winter quarter in Beijing at Peking University learning Chinese. There are, of course, many other students for whom a leave of absence is less of choice than a necessity due to circumstances beyond their control. “My decision to take a leave of absence wasn’t a decision at all!” wrote one student, who wishes to remain anonymous given the personal nature of their responses, in an email to The Daily. "My parents got divorced in June of this year, and the updated financial award I received ... was not even close to commensurate with my new level of need," the student wrote, explaining that Stanford was already a financial stretch for them and that most family expenses doubled with the divorce. The student went on to say that they decided to take a leave rather than transfer to a less expensive institution in large part because of the support of friends. “Over the course of this prior year at Stanford, I was pretty miserable,” they continued. “Fall and winter quarter were marked by a continuation of my anxiety and depression, contrary to what every rosy-tinted account of Stanford led me to expect.” The student said their mental health struggles eventually culminated in larger issues that made life at Stanford increasingly difficult; they spent the summer on campus as a "polyaddict" working to support their drug use. “During spring quarter, when the campus to me seemed ever more histrionic and detached from how I was feeling, I slipped into
severe substance use, to the extent that I began neglecting every responsibility and activity that previously I was sure were inseparable from my identity,” the student said. Jerry Brower ’20, a Computer Science major from a Native Alaskan whaling community, took time off during winter quarter of his freshman year in order to support his family during a difficult time. “Over the past few years at boarding school, everytime [my family] needed me, I couldn’t be there because, you know, high school is mandatory,” Brower explained. “My family relies on me to be a father figure for my little nephews … and they want me to be a bigger part of their life and put them on the right track.” Brower said that he’s always felt this responsibility to care for his family, especially because of the community he comes from. During his freshman year at Stanford, Brower was constantly managing his schoolwork along with the stress of hearing news from home and the desire to be with his family. “It was always kind of known, always kind of put on me from an early age.” Brower said. “It was always like okay, you’re the only son. Especially from a whaling family it’s a lot of pressure.” Demystifying the process of taking a leave
After making the difficult decision to take time off, Chang was surprised by how logistically easy it was to go on leave. “Stanford really wants to let students go do cool things,” Chang said. “It was one sheet of paper, literally." To learn more, The Daily spoke with Sally Mentzer, the coordinator of Transfer Advising and the Returning Students Process for Undergraduate Advising and Research, who advises students through both the processes of
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taking a leave and returning. Contrary to what students may think, the process of requesting a leave of absence is extremely easy, according to Mentzer. Students are only required to meet with their Academic Advisor (AAD) once and then simply fill out a one-page form stating a reason for their request. Other students such as Luo echoed Chang’s sentiments. “I didn’t even get the leave of absence form until the day housing closed,” Luo said. “This is just to illustrate how easy it is. I went to my AAD and filled out the form … and gave it back to her in the space of 15 minutes, and then I was on leave.” Mentzer says that advisers work to support students in whatever way possible. She said the most rewarding part of her job is when students learn about their own individual strengths and focus on maximizing those as opposed to comparing themselves to those around them. “I’m a proponent of a student making the most of their time here, whether that means four years, or whether they find they need to take time out,” Mentzer said. “I love being part of the process of resilience of students.” Beyond classroom lessons After taking the leave of absence, students embarked on journeys taking them miles away from campus, both geographically and ideologically. For most, the experience was both challenging and eye-opening. Chang described the transition from “Stanford mode” — wherein you have “six different meetings in different parts of campus every day” — to living abroad as profound. For Chang, the experience gave him the opportunity to focus on just one thing at time, instead of doing everything all at once. The shift wasn’t just relaxing; it was perspective-
Courtesy of Joshua Petersen
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changing. “Stanford trains you to believe that once you graduate, your only option is to go in to work for a big tech company or other company from nine to five,” Chang said. “It’s a very normalized career path that they make us believe is the only option — at least that’s my experience. And in China, I met people who were like, ‘yeah, I’m just gonna stay at the academy for like a year … until I run out of money.’ It was really cool to meet people whose life trajectory is up in the air, and nothing is set in stone for them.” While he was studying at the academy, Chang had a 29-year-old roommate from Australia. One day, another student asked his roommate what he was doing with his life, pointedly referencing the fact that he was almost 30 years old and still living out of a backpack with no structured plan for the future. Chang said it was really powerful to hear his roommate answer: “I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing.” Luo, too, experienced a perspective shift. Through her experience studying Chinese language, Luo began to see herself less and less as an inadequate Chinese speaker and more as a Chinese language learner. As a result, Luo said, she was able to actualize the cliché of adopting a “growth mindset” as opposed to a “fixed mindset.” “I realized that a lot of my frustrations came from expecting myself to be able to do something naturally,” Luo said, “instead of thinking of it as just a skill I hadn’t acquired yet.” Petersen said that one of the most eyeopening parts of his leave was being in what he dubbed the “foreigner box” for the first time. In his first week in Germany, Petersen visited the immigration office everyday in order to
transfer his tourist visa into a student visa. However, due to the influx of people and the incredibly high demand for immigration office services, he was unsuccessful for the first four days. Finally, on the fifth day, he got up at 5 a.m. and was able to get to the line in time to make an appointment for that day. For some people in line with Petersen, obtaining a visa in a timely manner was far more pressing. One woman was leaving the country to go home and visit her dying mother, but her visa was set to expire while she was gone. If she didn’t get her visa renewed that day, she would have had to choose between seeing her mother before she died or being able to assuredly return to the country where her children live. “It was jarring beyond an academic sense,” Petersen said. “When we think of mass immigration, we think about people on boats in the Mediterranean; we see all these pictures of people coming in on trains and being greeted in stations — but there’s a more realistic aspect to it of people trying to learn the language and no one being there to teach them, of people trying to get visas legally and not being able to and there not being an infrastructure for them.” Part of Petersen’s motivation for taking the leave of absence was a sense of wanting to have more responsibility, and this is something he’s confident he gained. When asked why he thinks one can’t learn these “adulting” lessons by staying at Stanford, Petersen said that the “crises” students face in the adult world are more removed at Stanford. And rightly so, he added, but that’s not how the real world works. “I’m not saying we need to add some more 'Lord of the Flies' back into the University,” Petersen joked. “There was just some sense in which I felt ready to be more in the world.” Peterson said it was empowering to confront the threats and obstacles that riddle real life —
Courtesy of Jessica Luo
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Courtesy of Jessica Luo
and to find that he could make it on his own. “I got mugged in Poland, got robbed once or twice and pick-pocketed and locked out of my apartment when it was 17 degrees outside, and there were four inches of snow on the ground,” Peterson recalled. “No matter what happened, in the long run it was fine, and I figured it out.” Rare experiences
While it would be hard to return from a leave of absence without a good story or two, few people can say that they shot an attacking polar bear during their time away. But Jerry Brower can. To support his family, Brower is currently spending a year at home in Nuiqsut, Alaska — a city at the northernmost tip of Alaska with a population of approximately 400 people, mostly members of a Native Alaskan tribe who work as whalers. One day while out cutting up whale meat with the other hunters, Brower noticed a polar bear waiting nearby and getting increasingly impatient. When it finally charged at the group, Brower was forced to shoot it to save their lives. Apart from whaling work and family responsibilities, Brower is using his leave to teach, from sharing his hunting and cooking skills with his nephews to leading coding lessons for the local school children. “I’ve done a lot of stuff at the school,” Brower said, “I went there and talked to the kids about where education could get you. In rural Alaska — middle of nowhere, with 400 to 500 people — there’s not a lot of CS known. So I want to go home and be able to give and hopefully get people interested in [CS], or at the very least, let them have some fun with it.”
Overall, Brower says spending time with his family and being there for the little things like birthdays have been meaningful for him. “The whole experience in itself was very empowering — I got to solidify what I value and what I hold dear,” Brower said. “And being able to grow as a person from it and take this time off from school — my first break from school in years — being able to step back from it and see it from a different lens, that really makes me miss Stanford all the more.” While Brower has to shoulder significant responsibility in his family, he does not see it as a burden — to him, family and community have always come first. “I’ve never thought negatively about it,” Brower said thoughtfully. “Yes, I took time away, but this is my family. I need to take care of them. They’re under my wing. Whatever happens, I’m going to be there.” In a very different way, taking time off has also allowed Fry to focus on something she loves — dance. Her year away from Stanford was devoted to rehearsing and performing for her Broadway debut. “This has been a dream for me ever since I was a little girl,” Fry said. “When I was 10, I traveled to New York for a dance competition and saw my first Broadway musical, “A Chorus Line," and fell in love with it. It’s been my dream ever since then.” Fry laughingly said that the experience has all felt surreal until recently when she got her first paycheck, which made it real to her that she was a professional dancer and could call herself that. Another big moment for Fry was walking in to Broadway’s Cort Theatre for the first time and seeing the set, the stage and her name on
the dressing room. “That’s when it finally hit me that this experience was not just something in my dreams,” Fry said. This summer, Fry also had the opportunity to pursue another, quite different dream of hers: particle physics research. She spent the summer months leading up to her Broadway debut in Geneva, Switzerland researching at the Center for European Nuclear Research. She explained that at Stanford, she was used to balancing dance and physics; the harder thing for her this past summer was switching from sitting at a desk programming and doing equations all day for 10 weeks to the two-week pre-show period where she was dancing eight hours a day. Back home to the Farm
For other students, transitioning back to life on campus also brings the fear of losing friends and falling behind in their academic careers compared to their peers. Petersen explained that he didn’t discuss his leave with his friends beforehand because he had already made up his mind and didn’t want them to influence his decision. Afterwards, however, he says many of his friends were shocked and skeptical. Petersen pointed out that many people take two quarters abroad during their junior year, and students don’t find that weird — but “up and leaving is considered crazy,” he said. Many of his friends asked if he was nervous about not graduating with other people or losing touch with friends. “I lied and said ‘No, not at all,’” Petersen said. “But I was. I think the idea of people having a whole year of life without you — well
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you want to think that you’re an absolutely critical part of your friends’ lives and [they of yours], but their lives will go on without you and vice versa; that’s just how it is.” Mentzer, who runs a support group for returning students, said that many students come to her with these concerns after taking time off, only to find that their worries are typically quickly assuaged. For Chang, re-joining the Stanford community was easier than he anticipated, but he said that transition was eased by his summer work for Stanford repertory theatre, where he reconnected with many of his friends from the Stanford Shakespeare Company. Both Luo and Chang said that their friends tended to tread carefully around the topic, even though taking time off wasn’t exactly stigmatized. “The only reason I have to believe that there’s a social stigma is how careful people have been to express their supportiveness very obviously,” Luo said. “They’ve been very deliberate in saying this is a good thing, not saying quite as clearly ‘I don't think badly of you for it,’ but a lot of people think I might be insecure about it.” The anonymous student echoed Luo in their email to The Daily. “I could tell from the ubiquitously gloomy tone of [friends] responses that they considered my taking an LOA as more of an abnormal setback as opposed to a genuinely good thing,” they wrote. “But I can't blame them; a few months ago I thought the same way.” Chang said that there is a sort of mystery to the idea of taking time off, since people do it for such disparate reasons. Many students avoid the topic altogether as a result, he observed. Fry, on the other hand, said her friends were very supportive of her decision, which she attributes to Stanford’s interdisciplinary culture. “One thing I love about Stanford is its encouragement of interdisciplinary pursuits — everyone at Stanford does so many things.” Fry said. “It didn’t feel super unusual to spend hours in the studio and then hours in the lab. That two-sided thinking is very encouraged, and that’s one of the things that drew me to the school.” Brower said his friends and dorm staff, especially his freshman RA, were there for him throughout the process, from his initial decision to leave to his time away from Stanford. He recalls many people taking the time to talk through his situation with him and updating him regularly via email till today. “Their main focus was making sure that you were gonna be okay before coming back,” said Brower. “In the short time [I was at
Stanford], I connected with a lot of people… I’ve been keeping in contact with everybody, and they still say that they miss me. I feel like my friends are still there for me, and they’re definitely waiting for me to get back.” Approaching Stanford anew
Momentary anxieties aside, if he were to repeat his Stanford experience, Peterson said he would definitely take a leave of absence again. “I might even take another one and be Class of 2020,” He said with a laugh. “I don’t buy into the four-year plan. I think people are at different maturity levels and in different places. I don’t think [the four-year structure] has to be for everyone … and [none of my friends who took leaves] have ever been like, ‘I wish I had that year back.’” Chang agreed with Peterson, commenting that his time away expanded his horizons and gave him time to think deeply about how he wants to approach his education. Each student The Daily spoke with views Stanford in a different light after spending some time away. “I still see it as this magical place where opportunities are made,” Brower said. “But looking back at it, I look at it from a sentimental point of view that makes it look even more magical with the sunshine all the time … and I tell the story from a different point of view — from a storyteller’s point of view.’” Fry shares his nostalgia for the University and the people that comprise it. “I’ve come to appreciate the intellectual vitality of Stanford’s campus,” Fry said, “[and] those late-night conversations in dorms about very philosophical concepts. It’s rarer to find those things in a work environment, outside of the university setting. That’s something I’ve learned that I really do value.” Mentzer says many of the returning students she advises express similar feelings of newfound appreciation and also become more intentional in their approach to college in general. “I can’t remember anyone being dissatisfied that they took a leave, and I think many of them appreciate Stanford more when they return,” Mentzer said. “And many also change their [academic] focus … [after realizing] ‘oh, I go to a liberal arts school, and maybe I’m being a little narrow in my major,’ so they add in some other kinds of classes to be more balanced.” Mentzer also commented that many students feel better equipped to make friends and participate in the Stanford community after returning. Now that he has returned to campus, Chang feels that the experiences he had on his leave
have influenced the way he sees Stanford. “[At Stanford] I was largely surrounded by people of a certain socio-economic background,” Chang said. “Abroad I met people from all different backgrounds, which really put Stanford as a special bubble into perspective a little more.” His leave of absence also changed his attitude towards his academics. “At the end of my sophomore year, I was just taking classes just to take them… I wasn’t putting much thought or effort into what I was taking or how I would take them,” Chang said. “But now I feel more intentional about the way I’m approaching my schoolwork.” For students who were feeling disenchanted or burned out, taking time off gave them new perspective on Stanford and on themselves. “So, while technically I took an LOA to work and save to be able to return, I also took it to rehabilitate myself and rediscover the person whose attributes got me to Stanford in the first place,” the anonymous student wrote. “I've been clean of all substance use since taking it, and I'm on track to get a very decent-paying job in my local tech industry.” For Luo, her time in China was a time of personal growth as well as academic growth. Having to focus solely on learning Chinese while abroad helped her to develop better study skills, but above all, Luo says the experience has shown her what she wants out of the rest of her Stanford experience. Because she was spending so much of her time during her leave studying, which could be isolating at times, Luo began to realize that when she returned to campus, she wanted to prioritize building stronger relationships. The process of language learning also led Luo gradually to Symbolic Systems and Comparative Literature. “Because I grew up in a place that doesn’t emphasize humanities education in the same way, I don’t have that kind of skill, but because of that I’ll try to develop it through studying Comparative Literature,” Luo said. “Before it seemed to me that it was a certain type of person that I wasn’t.” Luo’s break from Stanford freed her from viewing school as stress-inducing and pressure-filled and opened her to a new approach to her education. “I have spent more time doing acquiring things to be curious about,” Luo said. While the decision to leave can be difficult and sometimes less than voluntary, each student The Daily spoke to described their time away as a period of growth — and, at times, healing. “I'm happier than I ever was while [at Stanford], and I'll return to campus a rehabilitated and strengthened individual,” wrote the anonymous student. 19
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The Faculty Senate at 50: A student's guide by Erin Woo
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n 2018, the following will celebrate their 50th birthdays: Will Smith. The Big Mac. The Beatles’ hit song, “Hey Jude.” Hugh Jackman. “2001: A Space Odyssey.” And, last but certainly not least: the Stanford Faculty Senate. The Faculty Senate makes academic policy at Stanford and debates a variety of other University-wide issues — in the past year alone, it has weighed in on academic diversity among faculty as well as students, campus sexual assault processes and your WAYS requirements. For the Senate’s 50th anniversary, The Daily put together a student-centric crash course to the Faculty Senate, what it does and why it matters. What is the Faculty Senate? The Faculty Senate is the legislative branch of the Academic Council, which is made up of all of Stanford’s tenure and tenure-line faculty. It exists to provide a Goldilocks-sized forum for discussion. Before the founding of the Faculty Senate in 1968, faculty governance was conducted only by the full Academic Council and a ninemember Executive Committee. The Academic Council, which met only once a quarter, was too large for effective debate. (Currently, the Academic Council consists of upwards of 1000 members.) On the other hand, the University decided that the Executive Committee was too small to capture the diverse range of voices within the faculty. The Senate was designed to split the difference. Today, the Faculty Senate includes 55 elected members, 15 ex officio members, who have the right to speak but not to vote, and three ASSU representatives, who share the
same rights as the ex officio members. Senators are elected from 12 units based on school and discipline for staggered two-year terms. Council members (other Stanford faculty) vote to elect Senators within their unit. However, once Senators are elected, they are free agents and don’t represent their particular unit. Instead, the Faculty Senate as a whole serves two main functions: First, it makes and approves academic policy. This involves creating new degree-granting programs, such as honors and joint degree programs like CS + X, as well as wider policy on research and undergraduate financial aid. It also includes University-wide curriculum requirements — love or hate the WAYS requirements, the Faculty Senate was behind their approval in 2012 and continues to oversee program outcomes and future changes. In June, a report to the Senate showed that the switch to WAYS from IHUM — the previous breadth requirement — corresponded to a 50 percent drop in the number of freshmen taking humanities courses. In the meantime, students have unknowingly built their academic experiences around the policies that the Faculty Senate approves and assesses. Second, the Senate serves as a forum for candid dialogue between faculty and various other University groups, including students and the administration. Recent discussion topics include faculty diversity, Stanford’s offshore investments, a visit by Jihad Watch founder Robert Spencer, the University-wide long-range planning process, the House’s tax plan and more. When Spencer spoke at Stanford in November, Senator and Graduate School of Business professor Jeremy Bulow questioned whether Stanford should pay thousands of dollars for
event security to facilitate the event, suggesting instead that speakers sign a waiver of liability. The discussion came amid campuswide debate about whether the event should be permitted in the spirit of supporting free speech in universities or censured for giving Islamophobic hate speech a platform. In response to Bulow’s proposal, Provost Persis Drell made the University’s stance clear. “We need to defend free speech,” said Drell. “If it costs, it will cost.” Anti-war movement Difficult as it may be to think of a group of people more stereotypically staid than the professoriate, the Faculty Senate has been involved in its share of historical drama from its inception. Founded in 1968 at the height of anti-war political unrest, its early history is closely tied to the “student war at Stanford,” which roiled Stanford for most of the decade. A landmark decision at the time was the removal of credit for ROTC courses, effectively forcing ROTC off campus. The academic policy had real consequences for students and the political debates on campus — the gravity of which was reflected in the Senate’s deliberation on the matter. Between 1969 and 1970, the Faculty Senate changed its policy on ROTC courses a total of three times, first voting against the ROTC, reversing that decision and finally revoking all academic credit for freshman ROTC courses. Student activists protested ROTC at mass sit-ins and demonstrations that occasionally escalated into violence and even arson in the late 1960s, but faculty members who opposed ROTC as well were more phlegmatic in their reasoning.
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(Above) Professors Debra Satz and Harry Elam debate Stanford campus policies at a recent meeting of the Faculty Senate. (Left) Marc Tessier-Lavigne
“Basically the curriculum was awful,” says Barton Bernstein, a history professor who was a leader in the 1969 movement against ROTC. “It was on the level of mediocre coursework in high school. The readings were sophomoric. The ROTC faculty were not PhDs. I think it was the case that some [opponents to ROTC] had deeper political purposes, but everybody could agree that it was an intellectual embarrassment.” Over 40 years later, in another controversial decision, the Senate voted to invite ROTC to return to Stanford. In a jam-packed Faculty Senate session, the ASSU spoke on behalf of the student body in urging Faculty Senate members to vote “no” on the ROTC’s return. “ROTC does not align with the vision of this University,” said the ASSU president at the time, Michael Cruz ’12. “Currently, Stanford is one of the safest communities for transgender students in the world. I want to make sure all Stanford students feel safe enough to call this place home as well.” Ultimately, the Faculty Senate voted to invite ROTC back to campus in a resolution that included a condemnation of the military’s discrimination against transgender people. William Perry, Michael and Barbara Berberian Professor (emeritus) at the Freeman Spogli Institute and Engineering, said he hoped Stanford-educated members of the armed forces would make military policy more progressive. “Stanford has the opportunity to help create military leaders that will later make these enlightened decisions,” said Perry, speaking about the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in support of ROTC’s return. Whatever the outcome, the decision of whether to grant academic credit, and how, is a question of how Stanford conducts its mission
to educate and what it thinks students should be learning — plus all the political implications that come with it. The Faculty Senate now The student government has often treated the Faculty Senate as a platform to be heard by the instructors and researchers who define the academic experience at Stanford. Successive generations of ASSU executives have been pushing the Faculty Senate to support a “Diversity in the Field” requirement — a major-specific diversity requirement beyond the course needed to complete Engaging Diversity under the WAYS system — since the 2015-16 academic year. At a Senate meeting in October, Justice Tention-Palmer ’18 and Vicki Niu ’18, student body President and Vice President, presented a report focused on the need for increased diversity in teaching, courses and mentorship. “Fifty-one percent of white students felt that Stanford faculty cared about them, compared to only 35 percent of Black or African American students,” said Niu. “And we think that gap is unacceptable. Similarly, only 21 percent of non-first-generation students felt very often overwhelmed by their work, compared to a much higher 38 percent of first-gen undergraduates. And in thinking about ways that we can lessen that gap, a lot of it is in the kind of classroom environments that we create.” In the wake of a 2016 Undergraduate Senate bill to rename University property named after Junipero Serra, it also took the Faculty Senate to approve the University committee that would deliberate the renaming process one month after the undergraduate resolution.
LINDA CICERO/Stanford News LINDA CICERO/Stanford News
Why should we care? Just because the fact that the Faculty Senate has at least 11 committees at any given time does not mean that it is immune to Stanford’s culture of wacky traditions. Every year, the Senate pays tribute to the outgoing chair in skit form. The final meeting of the 48th Faculty Senate produced the following gem from Dean of the Humanities & Sciences Richard Saller: “Because we have no voting items on the agenda today, we do not have to pretend to know Robert’s Rules of Order,” said Saller. “I wish to remind you, though, that once more our meeting format is a bit different; presenters will give short presentations followed by substantial, and usually pointless, discussion. This is made possible by Senators having pretended to have read the material that we sent to them ahead of time.” Faculty: They’re just like you! In all seriousness, the concerns of the Faculty Senate are not far from the concerns many students have. Have a strong opinion on faculty diversity or student activist group Who’s Teaching Us? The Faculty Senate has looked at the numbers and discussed the policy on inclusive hiring. Think undocumented students should get more support? An undergraduate senator brought that question to a Faculty Senate meeting and got a response on Stanford’s financial aid policy for undocumented applicants from then-Provost John Etchemendy. Whether students know it or not, the Faculty Senate makes and deliberates Universitywide policies that affect students some way or the other — and the good news is, most meetings are open to all. (As are the Stanford Daily recaps that go live every Friday morning.) Contact Erin Woo at erinkwoo ‘at’ stanford.edu. 21
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LIGHTROOM
Colors of Life
By Andrew Solano, Lucy Brewer, Vedi Chaudhri and Eder Lomeli
Peacock—Andrew Solano/THE STANFORD DAILY
Smoking—Lucy Brewer/THE STANFORD DAILY
Umbrellas—Lucy Brewer/ THE STANFORD DAILY
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Flower—Vedi Chaudhri/ THE STANFORD DAILY
Train—Lucy Brewer/THE STANFORD DAILY
Lights—Lucy Brewer/THE STANFORD DAILY
Bees—Eder Lomeli/ THE STANFORD DAILY 5
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Outsiders on the inside: A closer look BY MEGHA PARWANI
ASAS. PASU. MEChA. BSU. Q&A. Like most things at Stanford, ethnic and cultural organizations constitute an array of acronyms. This speaks to the sheer number of groups on campus built around ethnicity and its intersections with sex, race and politics. Nonetheless, most members of these organizations identify with not just the organization’s literal title but also the group’s sense of community or outreach efforts. In fact, some members identify with everything but the title: These are students who join ethnic organizations not of their ethnicity. A search for broader community and cultural understanding Katie Jonsson ’21, who identifies as white and not Arab, is a member of the Arab Student Association at Stanford (ASAS). Having spent the last four years at a boarding school in Jordan, she considers herself part of a subset of ASAS members “who have no ethnic connection to the Middle East but have a strong emotional connection to it.” Jonsson has always been interested in the Middle East, so after hearing about her older sister’s positive experiences in ASAS, she joined the organization in the hopes of finding “a sense of community” as she began her career at Stanford. A potential International Relations major, she believed that ASAS would allow her to thoughtfully explore and educate herself about the Arab world. Similarly, Michelle Bae ’20 views ethnic organizations as a means of learning more about the cultures of the world, as well as cultivating community. A Korean American, Bae joined the Pilipino-American Student Union (PASU) last year because “it seemed like a good family.” This year, she also joined Sanskriti, an undergraduate South Asian organization, at the recommendation of a friend and to learn about South Asian culture. Bae wants to learn about unfamiliar cultures through ethnic organizations, in particular, because she believes they are immersive and respectful educational platforms. “It’s valuable to put yourself into a new community to learn,” she explained. “I honestly feel like sticking yourself in that culture is the best way to do it because it seems like so non-intrusive. Just like you go to meetings, you’re legitimately putting in the time... I’m not enjoying the culture or benefiting from the culture without getting to know the people because that would be awful... It comes with the nuance of people when you join the group.” She also joined Sanskriti to address a gap
in her experiences with the Asian-American/ Pacific Islander (AAPI) community at-large, which she was already engaging in as a member of Queer & Asian and Sigma Psi Zeta and as a resident of Okada, the Asian-American ethnic theme house. “Many of my other ethnic organizations don’t really have South Asians as part of them even though they’re all AAPI organizations, which is kind of awkward because ... so often [the AAPI community] is painted as a monolith,” Bae said. Like Bae, Rogelio Salinas ’20, who identifies as Latinx but not black, cites a desire to foster connections between ethnic organizations as his reason for serving as a staffer at the Black House. Last year, he was a member of the Black Student Union (BSU) and Stanford’s NAACP chapter, and he also lived in Ujamaa, the black ethnic theme house. He also works with the Latinx community on campus through Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán (M.E.Ch.A) and Los Hermanos de Stanford. Having attended a high school where his peers were largely black and Latinx, Salinas wants to further unify the two ethnic communities at Stanford because they “aren’t as close as they were back home,” and he believes members of both groups would enjoy and benefit from interethnic interaction. In particular, he hopes linking the two ethnic communities will allow them to work together to combat shared social issues. “If students want to make change on this campus, particularly with protests and activism, [and] if we’re all in 50 different organizations, it’s hard for us to congregate together to work on the same things that we all definitely care about,” Salinas said, citing the example of prison reform as one such issue. As a bridge between the black and Latinx communities, Salinas wants to facilitate interethnic collaboration for the greater good.
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Graphic by JACQUELINE LIN / The Stanford Daily
Finding belonging Bae, Salinas and Jonsson’s motivations for joining ethnic organizations not of their ethnicities are each highly personal but present some parallels. Likewise, their experiences in these organizations have been necessarily different but comparable in their generally positive nature. Bae described her experiences in Sanskriti as “really good so far” but noted that “sometimes there’s definitely a ‘Whoa, this is kind of like a learning curve’ [feeling].” Sometimes she does not understand nonEnglish phrases or pop culture references used by South Asian members and has to ask someone to translate or explain. Rather than being disheartened by such experiences, however, Bae considers moments of disorientation and the subsequent explanations “super important because it’s not me looking up a Wikipedia article and seeing the abridged version of this people’s history. It’s me going in -- in I feel a mostly non-intrusive manner because I’m learning with the people, rather than about the people.” Just as Bae sees merit in exposure to the unfamiliar, she is excited when conversations in PASU and Sanskriti delve into themes that resonate with her Korean-American identity, like food, family and colorism in the AAPI community. “It’s really nice to share these experiences and come together in allyship,” Bae said. “I find it
very …enlightening.” Jonsson, likewise, speaks fondly of being able to bond with fellow ASAS members over shared experiences. She feels that “there is a lot [she] can identify with” when conversation turns to Arab culture. “There are definitely times when they’ve in ASAS mentioned a movie or a dish, and I know how to make it, or I’ve made it with my friends.” “I do feel a strong community,” she contended. Besides allowing her to meet likeminded students, both fellow freshmen and upperclassmen, Jonsson appreciates how ASAS connects her to the Arab world at large, beyond the Stanford bubble, citing how the group recently organized a trip to San Francisco, where members met with local Arab entrepreneurs. “The Arab SS and a lot of ethnic groups are incredibly inclusive and ... it generally comes down to whether you have a genuine interest in that culture,” Jonsson said. “Ultimately any perceived boundaries in race, culture, background or ethnicity, I think, will fade away when two people are interested in the same thing.” Similarly, Salinas has found the black community “very accepting of other ethnicities and races of people” and described his experiences within it as “some of the best I’ve had at Stanford for sure.”
“Ultimately, any perceived boundaries in race, culture, background or ethnicity ... will fade away when two people are interested in the same thing.” — Katie Jonsson ’21
Sanskriti core members at a joint event with the Jewish Student Union, Courtesy of Sanskriti. 25
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Dealing with initial hesitation to join While Salinas and Jonsson have enjoyed being in ethnic organizations not of their ethnicity, they acknowledge how their unique contexts eased their integration into these groups, perhaps differentiating them from the average interested student. Having lived in Ujamaa during his freshman year, Salinas’ fellow residents were vital sources of information and encouragement when he began to engage with Stanford’s black community. “I lived in Uj and with people who were tied very directly to the organizations [I joined]. I think that’s definitely helpful with outreach,” he added. “I mean I definitely heard most about the black community through people I knew. I think it’s definitely hard to enter communities if you don’t already know people in it.” Jonsson voiced a similar view about why some students might hesitate to join outside ethnic organizations. “Coming as a non-Arab and wanting to be a part of the ASAS community, I felt like the reason I was accepted is because I have a strong tie to the Middle East, and I had spent four years there,” Jonsson said. “However, I think if I hadn’t had that exposure to the Middle East, it would have been quite daunting [to join ASAS], especially if it’s just an area of the world you’re interested in.” She attributes this hesitation, in part, to the way many students understand the purpose of ethnic organizations. “I think a lot of these ethnic groups are seen as, ‘oh, the Filipino Association is for Filipino students to get to know each other, rather than … a chance for other students to get to know the Filipino world,’” Jonsson explained. She believes that emphasizing ethnicity over culture and the organizations’ internal development over outreach might make students reluctant to engage with these groups as they worry about feeling disoriented or infringing on a safe space.
“A lot of these ethnic groups are seen as, ‘oh, to get to know each other, rather than ... the Filipino world.” The role of the external gaze Some interviewees felt that uncertainty about participating in ethnic organizations not of one’s ethnicity can be linked to harsh external scrutiny. “I have the ASAS rollout poster on my door, and people will walk by and be like, ‘You’re not part of ASAS -- you’re not Arab,’” said Jonsson. “So I feel often I have to like justify being in ASAS, not even to members of ASAS, but to the outside community… I grew up in Jordan. It’s a huge part of who I was. But if I was just really interested in the Middle East and the Arab world, and I didn’t have that justifier, I think it’d be really hard. And ultimately the Middle East is something I’ve been interested in my whole life, and even if I hadn’t lived in Jordan, I would still want to be part of this club, but I wouldn’t know how to explain to people why.” Brent Obleton, Interim Director and Dean of Students of the Black Community Services Center (BCSC), echoed Jonsson’s observations: “Whenever [students] feel like that sense of belonging is being infringed upon, whether it be by people talking about them -- not only comments but also how people look at them -[that] plays a role in them being hesitant to join these organizations.” Cindy Ng, Director and Associate Dean of Students of the Asian American Activities Center, pointed out an interesting catch-22 in how the external gaze has a “tendency to
see ethnic groups as self-segregating” yet, simultaneously, can discourage students from attempting to join ethnic organizations outside their ethnicity. Jonsson and Salinas both hope their work with outside ethnic organizations will help other non-Arab or non-black students, respectively, who are keen on joining these communities, distill their own convictions from the self-consciousness outside scrutiny can inspire. “For me, if I want to get more Latinx people to come to the Black House and interact with the black communities, I think saying ‘I’ll be here, you should come by’ or something like that ... makes that situation easier,” Salinas said. All the same, Bae, Salinas and Jonsson agree that, while they have enjoyed being in other ethnic organizations, it is not necessary that all students try to do the same. “For a lot of people, it just doesn’t make sense for them to join an ethnic group that they don’t consider themselves part of,” Bae stated, reiterating that reasons for joining these groups are and should be highly individualized, given the personal nature of ethnic identity. In fact, all three students noted that joining and staying in ethnic organizations not of their ethnicity has, with good reason, required a lot of internal reflection on their behalf.
Left: 2017-18 members of the Black Student Union, Courtesy of BSU. Right: New members of the Arab Students Association at Stanford after fall quarter rollouts, Courtesy of ASAS. 26
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the Filipino Association is for Filipino students a chance for other students to get to know — Katie Jonsson ’21
A need for self-awareness “I need to remember that I enjoy a privilege in being able to join these different groups,” Bae stated, “so I need to be aware that I’m not exoticizing other cultures because I joined these groups to learn about culture respectfully ... but there can be a fine line between cultural appreciation and appropriation.” Jonsson, meanwhile, noted students of other ethnicities “who join these clubs have to be very internally aware of why they’re doing these things and whether it’s a genuine effort to be part of this community or whether it’s overshadowing the space of someone else.” From personal experience, she contended, “I feel like a lot of times, coming from the Middle East and maybe being a non-Arab member of an Arab community … people ask me, ‘How do you feel about the Trump ban or Robert Spencer?’ And part of me wants to say, ‘It doesn’t matter what I feel. I’m not the one being affected.’” While such issues are important to her, she wants to reserve space for Arab and Muslim students who are directly impacted by these topics. Obleton affirmed: “Coming in there to not take up space is definitely a thing, and allowing those who do identify to take up that space and to reside in that space and not infringe in those intimate conversations where [we say], ‘Look, this is a very real thing, something you can’t
identify with, but we still welcome you into this space.’” Salinas and Jonsson both noted a belief that the best thing they can do as members of ethnic organizations not of their ethnicity is to help create space for other members to speak about the issues they face, rather than speak for them. “It’s more like I’m here to help facilitate what students want and what students need here in the black community,” Salinas explained, “but not to sort of be the face of the Black House or to want to change the way black students act at Stanford or something like that.” He believes that “those are very important distinctions to make for doing that — [for] working in different communities than the ones you may identify with.”
Embodying a vision According to Ng, ethnic organizations “provide students with environments where their shared culture, backgrounds, experiences and identity are validated and valued. Ethnic organizations also collaborate and provide opportunities for meaningful cross-cultural dialogue and engagement across campus.” In many ways, this definition rings true for Bae, Salinas and Jonsson, albeit in a somewhat untraditional way.
“I enjoy a privilege in being able to join these different groups, so I need to be aware that I’m not exoticizing other cultures because I joined these groups to learn about culture respectfully ... but line between cultural appreciation and appropriation.” — Michelle Bae ’20
Contact Megha Parwani at mparwani@stanford. edu.
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New Year
KRISTEL BUGAYONG / The Stanford Daily
A creative submission by Ella Eisinger “I don’t need a bag,” I blurt out, interrupting the rhythmic beeping of the red scanner and steady conveyor belt motor. The grocer pauses, ginger root in upturned palm, quizzically surveying the produce and milk carton that litter the checkout station. “No bag?” Her brows furrow in confusion, bushy diagonals leading from her graying hair to converge at the ripples of wrinkles that ebb and flow across her forehead. I shake my head and attempt the polite, seemingly patronizing smile that overtired mothers often bestow on their toddling children. But my assertiveness is most profound in the pyramidal stack of groceries that I bundle into outstretched arms — a precarious embrace not just of produce but also of an everyday conscientiousness with which none other than the collegiate opportune has imbued even the slightest of encounters. With the obligatory, “Have a nice day,” I stride through the automatic double doors — one small step for the profitability of the local market, one “giant” step for Ella and conservationism. This year has been a peacock-like aggrandizement of importance, a flaunting of the iridescent plumes of independence whereby every action is imparted with a sense of momentousness, and everything is a window for change, no matter how slight. This year is routine and simultaneous lack thereof, schedules shattered by the spontaneity of great ideas, of hedonistic cravings. It’s a sense of being able to taste the saltiness of the world’s tears better than the rest, a notion of purpose that is exalted on a lofty pillow, basking in its perceived unattainability. It’s the 21st-century rock n’ roll, albeit characterized by a ceaseless productivity and yearning for notoriety — for the vibrancy of the avant-garde that earns the glint of the badge of distinction. It’s the terror of homogeneity, a hunger for differentiation that the most minute of actions “might” achieve. Every moment is weighted by importance, and so we stand in this semi-permanent state, arms outstretched on the stern of this life’s vessel that carries us, always tipping either one way or the other into the ranks of non-renewable grocery bag abusers or environmental patrons. But where are we sailing? Where from? 28
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My aging grandmother, burdened by the onslaught of temporality, approaches me in peaceful offering, asking if I’d like her old mink coat — a desperate attempt to sail along my same wavelength and meek retreat upon noticing the volatility of the waters I chart. I couldn’t respond; internally I scoffed at the offer’s materiality, appreciative of the gesture’s kindness but bestowing it with a sense of disposability nonetheless. I insensitively suggested that she pawn it, strong-willed in that the money could be more prudently used toward some charitable end. Yesterday I found out that the coat I so flippantly suggested my grandmother trade was one of the only luxury items she had afforded herself — the first item to make her feel beautiful and accomplished. For the first time in the eight hamster-wheel-like weeks of my sophomore year, my firecracker-like sense of utilitarian correctness fizzled out. My grandmother’s eyes return to me now, glazed with sadness and an inability to recognize she — not truly me — who was one so perceptive of meaning in life’s corners and crevices, who once didn’t shackle everything to the weights of “larger purpose.” I’ve been so intoxicated with independence and the fortuitous change to create an impactful extension of myself that I’ve become oblivious to the myriad manners in which people share themselves. Self-extensions can be as intimate as they can be far-reaching. Scope is irreconcilable with magnitude. A simple exchange can be earth-shattering in a manner distinct from, but not necessarily lesser than, an earning of worldly renown. This year is rife with change, brimming with opportunity, bubbling with hopeful fantasy… But the need to bite into every apple with a self-satisfying crunch is largely compensatory — a mechanism of grappling with the persistent churning forward into the uncharted depths of the ether, the unknown independence electrifying but the solitude oft-alienating. And so, like the boats that ferrymen used to pull across the river using a rope that spanned the water’s width, I cruise along these waves of self-definition and serendipity with the reminder that I am intrinsically connected to earthly harbors of family, friends and faith that ground me whenever the tsunami of opportunity threatens to weather the ship. Institutional religion may be redefined into a more personalized philosophy, familial ties are often subject to the strain comparable to that achieved by over-extended reunions, and some friendships feel volcanic in their cycles of intensity and dormancy, but I still feel that, as I pick up the soggy and frayed rope from the river’s depths, I can reign my boat in to shore and comfortably anchor to something exceeding the grandeur of my plans. The path ashore might be as undefined as the outbound journey — one may not even know to what one is returning — but the regimented pulling of the rope towards some stable force that can handle the weightiness of my ship’s cargo laden with dreams, expectations, successes, disappointments and failures is humbling nonetheless. My ship will not sink amidst the whimsicality of the waters that I sail; I am not a lone cartographer; I can be Ella Eisinger, grocery bag hero, while realizing that every moment need not be capitalized upon as a means to an end; I can twirl around in my grandmother’s fur coat and watch her eyes sparkle in youthful reminiscence, temporarily putting social rebukes of materialism aside to impart joy in a lesser expected way. This year is radically opportunistic independence, but it’s also interdependence. It’s everyday conscientiousness packed with consciousness, the limitlessness of flight coupled with the humility to sometimes return to the nest of values held near and dear, forces to which the rope will always lead. It’s fire and water — each in check of the other — and a harmonious balance between the auspiciousness that plows and the character-crafting that trails.
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New Year’s Resolutions
from around campus
“I'm looking to spruce up the Tree Room a bit, add a few new dance moves, open up treeKoin for an ICO, solve everything everywhere ever at every time and maybe survive CS107.” - Anaxi Mars ’18, current Stanford Tree
“[I’m] antiNew Year's resolutions; [instead, I try to] do more crazy [stuff] every year.” – Elijah Gentry, Narnia chef
“Have a better work-life balance and ... have the confidence to say ‘no’ to additional projects or commitments that infringe on that balance.” – Rosie Nelson, Ph.D. student, Graduate Student Council Co-Chair
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“Make more time to spend time with loved ones. We sometimes have such a hectic life that we don't stop to truly enjoy and spend quality time with our friends and family. Having lost my grandfather this past year it made me think how much time I lost with him the last few years because I was so far and so busy. “ – Fabi Cruz, Pi Beta Phi chef
“Reply to emails in a timely fashion”* – Justice TentionPalmer ’18, ASSU President *Submitted three weeks after The Daily’s request
“Write at least one handwritten letter every week” – James Ralph Jacobs, Executive Director of Vaden Health Center
“I’m looking forward to a productive and exciting 2018! Here are a few of my most important resolutions. A significant early phase of the long-range planning process will be completed this spring. I’m committed to ensuring that we distill the more than 2800 ideas and proposals from the community into a shared vision, one that truly reflects our inclusive and collaborative planning process. I’m also eager to make progress on a variety of campus issues and to continue community-wide conversation on the importance of empathy and mutual understanding. National issues related to our education and research mission continue to be a focus. On that front, I’m committed to reaffirming the important role of research universities in strengthening the fabric of society in myriad ways. On a lighter note, I’m secretly hoping to participate in another student theater production (as long as my enthusiasm can continue to substitute for acting talent). That was fun! #gaieties “ – Marc Tessier-Lavigne, President of Stanford University
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