In late November, I interviewed fashion designer Renee Cafaro, ’03, in the New York City Garment District.
That’s right. Late November. Now, it’s early April (at best), and you’re holding the magazine containing her story.
We typically start work on feature stories four to six months in advance. Sometimes, the story germinates years earlier. I was at a women’s gymnastics meet in January 2023 when I noticed that decorated Stanford gymnast Tabitha Yim, ’08, had become the head coach, and I started wondering how many former student-athletes were now coaching the Card. Other times, we start reporting a story immediately, as when we learned in October that Stanford physician Bryant Lin was teaching a course that invited students to follow along with his treatment for stage 4 lung cancer. Either way, the final details have to be locked down a full month before the magazine lands in your mailbox, so that it can be printed, bound, and mailed.
A quarterly magazine was once a perfectly serviceable way for alumni to receive campus updates from their alma mater. Not so in an age when breaking-news alerts ding from our pockets. We rely on the Loop, our biweekly email newsletter, to keep you abreast of the latest Stanford and alumni happenings. (Not in the Loop? Email stanford.magazine@stanford.edu.)
Engaging in constructive dialogue can be revelatory. It reminds us we don’t know everything.
In these pages, we take a longer view, aiming to provide context and the opportunity for contemplation. So, too, does the massive effort at Stanford to teach and model the principles of constructive dialogue—that ability to disagree productively rather than demonizing those with whom you have differences. As our cover story explains, embedding these values and techniques in the community is an ongoing, long-term project. It’s the kind of thing that happens one classroom discussion and one dorm hallway conversation at a time. My favorite moment in the story is when a student declares, after a class session on when society should limit its own use of technology (with readings ranging from Plato to a New York Times story about cell phones and the Amish community to a Foreign Affairs perspective on the safe use of gene editing), “This is what college should be like!”
Engaging in constructive dialogue can be revelatory. It reminds us that we don’t know everything. That others have knowledge and experience we do not. That changing our minds can be liberating. That life will present us with paradoxes.
Which brings us back to that fast-traveling commodity, news. In a 1987 book, Stewart Brand, ’60, wrote, “Information wants to be free.” But while that’s often quoted in support of a news ecosystem without paywalls, it’s only the first part of his observation. The second part is “Information also wants to be expensive.”
Perhaps information wants to be fast, and information also wants to be slow.
Discuss.
Kathy Zonana, ’93, JD ’96, is the editor of Stanford. Email her at kathyz@stanford.edu.
