Jonathan Levin ’94, an economist, faculty member and former dean of the Graduate School of Business (GSB), was inaugurated as Stanford’s 13th president on Friday, ushering in a new era of University leadership.

“Stanford is the university of the American frontier,” Levin said in a speech emphasizing the institution’s forward-looking spirit at the inauguration ceremony at Frost Amphitheater. “Stanford has all the complexity of the frontier, and like the frontier, it is infused with a sense of openness, possibility and hope that are fundamental to who we are.”

The inauguration brought a symbolic end to the leadership turnover at Stanford since former President Marc Tessier-Lavigne resigned in August 2023 over allegations of research misconduct. A University special committee investigated the claims, which were first raised by The Daily, finding several apparent manipulations in Tessier-Lavigne’s neuroscience research that he had failed to correct. A search committee, formed last September and composed of faculty, students, staff and trustees, appointed Levin as the new president in April after a months-long search.

With former Stanford presidents, provosts, members of the Faculty Senate and Board of Trustees sitting onstage, Levin’s address struck an optimistic tone, even as he called recent years “a time when American universities are under intense scrutiny.”

Stanford continues to navigate a fraught political landscape. In the last year, free speech debates and clashes over the Israel-Gaza war erupted on college campuses across the country, while Congress launched probes into alleged antisemitism at elite universities.

“We are criticized for not doing enough to address societal challenges, and for doing too much,” Levin said in his speech. “We are criticized for suppressing speech, and for permitting it. Our admissions policies, faculty composition, research funding, campus climate and endowments are the subject of heated debate.”

The last year saw protests and counter-protests at Stanford over the ongoing war. In June, the University removed a pro-Palestine encampment in White Plaza after about a dozen protesters barricaded themselves inside the president’s office, demanding institutional divestment from Israel. Levin has previously expressed support for institutional neutrality, telling The Daily in an interview last month that University leaders should “refrain from taking positions on social and political issues on behalf of the collective.”

In his speech on Friday, Levin sang the same tune. “To be clear, we want Stanford’s students and faculty to engage with the world. We expect them to wrestle with social and political issues,” he said. “Yet the University’s purpose is not political action or social justice. It is to create an environment in which learning thrives.”

Levin’s family, including his wife, physician Amy Levin, and their three children, watched the speech from the audience. Several first-year dormmates of the president, who is the first in the role since 1968 to hold a degree from Stanford, also attended.

In an interview with The Daily before the ceremony, Levin said that assuming the presidency was “a huge honor and responsibility.”

Recounting his path from New Haven, Conn. — where his father, economist Rick Levin, was president of Yale University — to California, Levin said that Stanford’s “intellectual expansiveness of ideas” had always been intertwined with the “physical expansiveness” of the American West in his mind.

“It’s just how I experienced Stanford from the first day I walked onto campus,” he told The Daily. That image of the West inspired the speech’s “frontier” metaphor. 

When asked about American frontierism’s troubled legacy, however, Levin acknowledged a darker side to the history of the American West, including the displacement of Indigenous peoples and exploitation of immigrant laborers.

“There is a great opportunity to think about all the different things that it took to build this university, some of which are inspiring, some of which are not nearly as commendable, and we shouldn’t ignore any of those things,” he said.

Levin also cited former University president Donald Kennedy, one of his undergraduate advisors, as a major influence. The University had benefited from “outstanding” leadership throughout its history, he said.

At Friday’s inauguration, Board of Trustees Chair Jerry Yang ’90 M.S. ’90 and former GSB student body president Shivam Patel MBA ’24 offered Levin a cardinal red presidential robe.

“Just as this community creates solutions that are meant for the world, the challenges of the world find a home on our campus as well,” Yang said before the investiture. “We entrust [Jon] with leading us to a future in which we can advance the search for truth.”

Senkai Hsia ’24, an undergraduate member of the presidential search committee, spoke in support of Levin at the end of the ceremony. “In Jon Levin, we will be led by a president whose values…I aspire to emulate as a Stanford graduate,” he said.

The ceremony also featured performances by student groups such as Cardinal Calypso, a steelpan band, and Talisman, an a cappella group. Alumni Christina Galisatus ’19 and Gracie Laboy ’16 performed the alma mater, and Provost Jenny Martinez read “Ulysses” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

At a post-inauguration celebration in Main Quad, community members marked the occasion with food, games and more acts. The Stanford Dollies, Leland Stanford Junior Marching Band and cheerleading team greeted attendees with dancing and music. The Stanford Jazz Orchestra, Mariachi Cardenal and Taiko also performed.

“It’s wonderful to see people celebrating out here in the Quad,” Levin said in another interview with The Daily during the celebration, adding that he would “always remember” the day. “I’m most optimistic about the students, because the students are incredible here.”

Julia Proshan and Kevin Kennedy, two first-year Ph.D. students in psychology, both attended because the day felt “historic,” Proshan said.

After his remarks at the ceremony, Hsia told The Daily, “My hope is that people will follow the things that he says, in terms of Stanford being a place of freedom and open inquiry.”

Lyle Goodyear ’26 and Ethan Farah ’26, co-presidents of Stanford DJ Society, played a DJ set during the celebration. Midway through the night, Levin himself went behind the DJ table and played “Circle of Life” from “The Lion King.”

Goodyear said he felt grateful to perform at Levin’s celebration. “He’s probably the first Stanford president to be inaugurated to drum and bass.”