University president Jonathan Levin ’94 addressed a recent Stanford Review article that alleged the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “academic espionage” from Stanford research at the Faculty Senate meeting May 8.
Levin said that the University takes both “national and research security…with utmost seriousness” and that Stanford is a leader “in researching and advancing best practices to address foreign influence in research.” He also said that “it is important to distinguish” between the CCP and “valued members of our community,” referring to Chinese or Chinese-American faculty and students.
Steven Goodman, the associate dean of clinical research and professor of medicine, asked Levin about the “express concern” that international students might use the education they receive at Stanford to advance interests outside the United States.
Levin responded that a “very large fraction” of international graduate students remain in the U.S. after completing their degree.
Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education (VPUE) Jay Hamilton and Vice Provost for Student Affairs (VPSA) Michele Rasmussen provided updates on the state of undergraduate education.
Hamilton said that next year, the Faculty Senate will consider expanding the mandatory first-year COLLEGE requirement from two to three quarters. He also said that he plans to implement a “writing study” to assess the quality of instruction in the University’s required writing courses, Program in Writing in Rhetoric (PWR) and Writing in the Major (WIM).
ASSU senator David Sengthay ’26 M.A. ’26 asked Rasmussen why Synergy and Terra would be converted to self-ops, citing a letter of support from students, faculty and alumni urging the University to reinstate their co-op statuses. Sengthay said that the pre-assignment system, which only allows students to apply to one theme house, prevented students who were willing to live in Synergy or Terra from indicating that preference.
Rasmussen said that the decision was “by no means an indictment” of co-ops but the result of “very low preassignment numbers.” Given the cooking and cleaning responsibilities required of residents, maintaining co-op status would not have been “viable for next year,” Rasmussen said.
Provost Jenny Martinez said that 185 students applied for pre-assignment to 266 co-op spots. Martinez added that self-ops exhibit higher demand.
Associate professor of history Jennifer Burns said that students may interpret the co-op conversions as another example of the University’s supposed “war on fun.”
“Students know better than faculty how to generate and sustain their own communities,” Burns said.
Correction: A previous version of this article omitted part of Levin’s quote. The Daily regrets this error.