The Stanford Academic Council held its annual meeting on May 21 to review Stanford’s commitment to higher education and its responsibility as a university.
University President Johnathan Levin ’94 hosted the event alongside Vice Provost Jenny Martinez, Faculty Senate Chair Anna Grzymala-Busse and Faculty Senate Vice Chair Dustin Schroeder. Various faculty and associates of the University attended.
The meeting began with the Faculty Senate Chair report to the Academic Council, which Grzymala-Busse utilized to overview the purpose of the Faculty Senate and the University’s challenges.
“This year, together with the rest of the university, we faced several challenges, ranging from the rise of LLMs, to a new research environment, to the decrease in public trust in all kinds of institutions, including universities,” she said.
Grzymala-Busse also highlighted several recent milestones for the Faculty Senate including legislative decisions, such as those against faculty censure and a uniform policy on academic authorship.
She also highlighted academic milestones, such as the continuation and expansion of COLLEGE, the adoption of a full proctoring system, changes to the status of non-matriculated students and allowing student athletes to pursue post-baccalaureate programs.
Levin presented his president report to the Academic Council, discussing a variety of issues and values relevant to the University. “Stanford is unapologetically committed to excellence, to the freedom of faculty and students and to being a home of curiosity, inquiry and ambition,” he said. He remains confident that the “enduring value of education” will remain even in the face of a growing AI sphere.
Levin posed two questions to the audience: “How can we lead the way in undergraduate education?” and “How can we sustain […] the research system?”
To answer the first question, Levin drew on his own experiences at Stanford. In his freshman year, he took a Chinese philosophy class, a graduate seminar in classics and an honors math class, and ended up majoring in both english and math.
“The Stanford education that my classmates and I received embodied the best qualities of the liberal education,” he said.
He argued that the flexibility of the quarter system, the expansive opportunities for research and overseas studies, as well as the world-class academics, athletics and extracurriculars at Stanford offered students both breadth and depth of education.
Levin also explained that Stanford has a unique role in creating change among universities. As both a top institution and a contributor to the Silicon Valley space, Stanford has the capacity to both develop and regulate the tech spheres. “Earlier this year, I had a friend of an Ivy [League] peer university [ask] ‘what is Stanford doing around AI?’”…and I said, ‘well, what are you doing?’ and he said ‘our strategy is to let you guys figure it out,’” Levin said.
Addressing the second topic, Levin emphasized the importance of research for the general benefit. He argued that while “companies excel in taking ideas and driving them to products and services,” it is universities like Stanford that generate the ideas and prototypes later utilized by those companies. He argued for the importance of federal partnership and lamented the hiring cuts many universities have been forced to employ as a result of cuts to federal funding.
Following Levin’s speech, the floor opened for a number of questions from the audience, which included topics such as government “misunderstanding” of higher education institutions, grade inflation, the endowment’s role in mitigating funding cuts, government investigations into medical school applicants and a recent controversial book about Stanford’s education system.
“I think the reason for having that endowment is precisely for moments of crisis like one we’re now in,” said one audience member in regards to the recent endowment taxes imposed by the federal government. Council members responded by arguing that “ripping off the band-aid” for difficult financial decisions would make them more manageable in the long term.
This was followed by several “Open Minds” seminars, which demonstrated the effective research and science education occurring at Stanford.
Presenters included engineering professor Allison Okamura ’00, 3 Minute Thesis finalist and 7th year religious studies Ph.D. student Anuj Amin, 3 Minute Thesis finalist and 3rd year materials science and engineering Ph.D. student Ibukun Ajifolokun and associate professor of art and art history Emanuele Lugli. Topics covered included soft-body robotics, inscription bowls, gel vaccines and Renaissance art.
“A fair immune response is how you protect everyone, so that no antigen is left behind. But more importantly, no child is left unvaccinated,” said Anifolokun, discussing gel vaccines as a more effective method of immunization.
Levin concluded the session excited by the showcases of Stanford’s innovation and research through these presentations, and adjourned the session.
“That was spectacular. And I’m really glad you all got to see a little bit of what we were taking out on the road to show people,” Levin said.