Global attention fixed on Japan in the wake of March's earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. At Stanford, concerns also have focused on alumni, students and researchers living and working in the country—while campus experts have stepped up to help analyze the economic, sociopolitical and environmental impact of the crisis on Japan and the world.
1: At a Memorial Church vigil on March 15, President Hennessy urged the community to send help. He spoke of the University's ties to Japan, home to more Stanford alumni than any other foreign country. The Stanford Japanese Association, and some individual students, organized relief efforts linked to the Red Cross.
2: The Freeman-Spogli Institute reported that all students at the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies in Yokohama were accounted for. The Bing Overseas Study Program canceled its spring quarter in Kyoto; none of the program's students were in Japan at the time. The Graduate School of Business canceled a study trip to Japan planned for late March.
3: Stanford's environmental health and safety department issued a statement on March 17 that there was no health risk from radiation for California residents or for the Stanford campus at the time and that it continued to monitor the situation.
4: Stanford scholars were mostly sanguine about Japan's future and the future of nuclear energy at a March 21 symposium organized by the Center for International Security and Cooperation. Dan Okimoto, professor emeritus of political science, said he believes Japan will "develop a new sense of national mission," eroded by economic woes for decades before the disaster. He expects the economy to pick up by the end of the year. Kate Marvel, a Perry Fellow at CISAC, discounted the nuclear accident putting a chill on that form of energy. Countries using nuclear power would beef up efforts to improve safety and disposal of spent fuel, she predicts, but "too many countries depend too heavily on it" to turn back the clock.
5: The office of communications maintains a website on the Japan disaster as a central source of information, updates and other resources and links.
