I recently returned from our Leading Matters event in Singapore, a technologically advanced, very cosmopolitan city with a vibrant Stanford community. This was our most international event ever, attended by alumni and parents from nine countries.
Singapore shares Stanford’s passion for innovation. Our newest collaboration is the Singapore-Stanford Biodesign program launched in January and led by Stanford professor of medicine and entrepreneur Paul Yock. Modeled on the successful Stanford-India Biodesign program established three years ago, the Singapore program will bring young researchers, clinicians and engineers to the Farm to study our biodesign process, with the goal of developing products to meet the needs of Asian patients.
Global partnerships are mutually beneficial and essential if we are to maximize the University’s potential. Stanford has long been recognized for pioneering technological advances and educating world leaders. These activities are increasingly collaborative, involving people of many backgrounds. By taking a global approach to our teaching and research mission, we can extend our reach and have an even greater impact in this century.
This impact was evident during our Leading Matters event in Taipei. Hsinchu Science Park is the nucleus of Taiwan’s successful electronics and IT industry. One of the key advisers in the creation of the Science Park was former provost Frederick Terman—who had earlier created the Stanford Industrial Park—and Stanford alumni have founded many of the most influential startups in Taiwan.
Of course, Stanford’s global influence extends beyond technology. Many of today’s thought leaders in foreign affairs have Stanford connections. Susan Rice, ’86, this year’s commencement speaker, serves as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and as a member of President Obama’s Cabinet. This past year, three scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies were appointed to positions in the Obama administration: Michael McFaul, FSI’s deputy director, is special assistant to the president for National Security Affairs and senior director of Russian and Eurasian affairs at the National Security Council; Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, senior research scholar at FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, serves as senior director for European affairs at the NSC; and Paul Stockton, senior research scholar at FSI, is the assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and security affairs.
Through Stanford’s International Initiative, faculty and students are taking on interdisciplinary challenges that have the potential to advance knowledge and create a better future for people worldwide. The Rural Education Action Project featured in the cover story in this magazine is one such example. Other research projects include a study of China’s environmental protection efforts and an examination of links between climate change and civil unrest in areas of great poverty.
As China has assumed a greater role in the global community, we have developed programs that reflect the increasing interest in it among students and faculty. In partnership with Peking University, courses such as Cross-Cultural Design team Stanford and PKU students in collaborative projects. Other research projects in China include that of Dr. Samuel So, a liver cancer and transplant specialist at the School of Medicine and director of Stanford’s Asian Liver Center who is working to eradicate hepatitis B, a disease that kills about 1 million people each year and is prevalent throughout Asia.
We are establishing a long-term presence in China to give us the potential for greater involvement in this rapidly developing region. As of this writing, we are finalizing an agreement to build the Stanford Center at Peking University. The new center will become a hub for Stanford’s China-related activities from across the University, supporting internships, faculty research, graduate seminars and executive education programs, as well as providing a home for existing programs and a venue for Stanford-sponsored events.
The Bing Overseas Studies Program will be a beneficiary. For more than 50 years, Stanford Overseas Studies has provided 27,000 students opportunities to experience the world’s social, political, cultural and business differences. The China program recently celebrated its fifth anniversary with PKU, its host university in Beijing. Other new programs have opened recently in Madrid and Cape Town. Our first center in Africa, the Cape Town program emphasizes service learning and community-based research.
Our mission is to educate future world leaders, to challenge our students and faculty to see things differently and prepare them to address some of the great challenges of our time. Through our growing international programming, we will play a greater role in the global community and ensure Stanford’s continued preeminence as a research and teaching university.
