Letters to the Editor

Bing Debut

Even though I'm not exactly a music aficionado, I was intrigued to read the description of the acoustics of the new Bing Concert Hall and even more excited to be holding a ticket for one of the performances early in its opening season ("Finely Tuned," January/February).

But I wonder: Have you received a lot of reactions from scientists and engineers expressing outrage that our society would spend money on a luxury such as building a great concert hall while there are still people in the world who don't have adequate food or housing? If not, why is it that the opening of space exploration—another triumph of the human spirit equally irrelevant to the day-to-day business of survival—elicited just such commentary from certain musicians?

Bob Kanefsky, '82

Mountain View, California

Enormous kudos to everyone [who] contributed to the creation of "the Fez." As mentioned, this has been an acute need for many, many years. Looks absolutely gorgeous, and I cannot wait to experience it firsthand. What a truly thoughtful combination of artistic and functional, toward the optimal audience (and performer) experience. Stage as sounding board—brilliant!  

Martin Puryear, '89

Redmond, Washington

Class Acts

I very much appreciated your article about the last survivor of the class of 1933 ("The Last of a Class," January/February).

My father, Michael Crofoot, '33, went on to medical school, did a pediatric residency, and then served in the Navy from 1942 to 1946 (a brief but terrifying stint on Omaha Beach). He practiced pediatrics in Omaha until his death in 1982 with the same sense of dedication born of the Depression and then the war years. I think he lived in Encina, then SAE. Many of the stories and recollections were familiar to me, particularly the Axe Caper, Ram's Head and Gaieties, Ben Eastman and Pop Warner. He, too, feared that he did not have the grades or the seriousness required for medical school but proved that humanism is a large part of what makes a good doctor.

He had six kids; I was the only one to go to Stanford. It was a wonderful experience for me, complete with Ram's Head and Gaieties. I was that weird thing, a French major who went to medical school and became a surgeon. My daughter, Meg, '01, is now a primatologist studying primate group behavior.

It was a wonderful, poignant and inspiring article. Thank you.

David Crofoot, '67

Northport, Maine

I enjoyed reading your article about Ephraim Engleman. I'll look for him next October when I show up as a returning member of the Class of '53. Human-interest stories about old-timers should be a part of your every edition.

Edward D. White Jr., '53

Scotts Valley, California

Not Totally Blind

I read with great interest President John Hennessy's column "An Unwavering Commitment to Access" (January/February). Like many readers, I am glad to learn that Stanford strives to keep its undergraduate tuition affordable and enhance its financial aid programs. This indeed embodies Jane and Leland Stanford's wish to keep the University accessible to the best students, regardless of their personal financial circumstances.

But President Hennessy incorrectly states that "Stanford is one of only a few need-blind universities that meet a family's full demonstrated need." Currently only six U.S. higher education institutions (Amherst, Dartmouth, Harvard, MIT, Princeton and Yale) offer a need-blind admissions policy to any applicant. In fact, Stanford's undergraduate admission instructions clearly state that an applicant's request for financial aid is considered a factor in their admission evaluation if they are not a U.S. citizen or permanent resident. Noting the limited financial aid resources available to international citizens, Stanford also declares any admitted international citizen applicant initially not applying for financial aid ineligible to request financial assistance during their undergraduate studies at the University (even if their personal financial circumstances change).

I find at least three aspects of such a policy troubling. First, it violates Stanford's nondiscrimination policy explicitly prohibiting discrimination against students on the basis of national and ethnic origin for its admission policies and financial aid programs. This policy also effectively discourages applications from middle-class international students in emerging markets, where the cost of an education preparing one for Stanford's academic rigor is prohibitive to most. Yet such candidates would likely benefit more from the social mobility that a Stanford education has provided to many alumni. Finally, Stanford's qualified need-blind admissions policy counters Jane and Leland's vision of a Stanford education becoming available to the world's best and brightest students, not just the richest.

Andres Small, '02

New York, New York

President Hennessy responds:

Thank you for your letter. I appreciate this opportunity to respond to your concerns about Stanford's international financial aid program.

Although Stanford aspires to meet the need of all students and has made progress, you are correct that we are not yet need-blind for international students, and I should have stated this more clearly.

Stanford does offer significant aid to its international students. This year, we awarded $5.745 million in international financial aid, up from $2.7 million in 2003. Last fall approximately 8 percent of our incoming freshmen were international students, and among them, almost 22 percent received aid.

While we have sought to expand financial aid for international students, there are significant stumbling blocks to doing so. Specifically:

The average Stanford scholarship for an international student this year is $52,110—43.2 percent more than the average U.S. scholarship of $36,393. Scholarship amounts are calculated based on the costs of attendance, minus parental and student contributions (and government need-based grants for domestic students). International students have higher costs of attendance (primarily due to transportation and health insurance) and fewer resources or parental contributions available to them.

Additionally, we have had a much harder time raising funds for international undergraduate financial aid.

Despite the challenges, we had hoped to achieve the goal of need-blind admission for all students by 2015. Unfortunately, the global economic crisis—the likes of which we have not seen in our lifetimes—set us back considerably. It affected both the value of the University's endowment and our undergraduate families' resources. We received increasing numbers of applications for financial aid, and we must build additional endowment for U.S. financial aid before we can contemplate further increasing international financial aid.

Throughout the University's history, Stanford has demonstrated a commitment to educating the best students, regardless of financial means. It is the commitment of one generation to the next, and it remains one of our highest priorities.

I hope I have addressed your concerns, and I thank you for taking the time to write.

Not the Youngest

Thank you for including the news item about the establishment of a collection on the Bahá'í religion by Stanford Libraries (News Briefs, Farm Report, January/February). The article stated that "Bahá'í is considered the world's youngest monotheistic religion, originating in Persia in the mid-19th century." In fact, another monotheistic religion, Christian Science, was founded in the United States in the late 19th century, making it just a few decades younger than Bahá'í. In 1879, Mary Baker Eddy established The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston. She also founded the Christian Science Monitor and religious publications such as El Heraldo de la Ciencia Cristiana.

Ellen Seusy, MA '85

Columbus, Ohio

The Value of Humanities

I was very glad to see the article by Mike Antonucci in the November/December issue ("Who Needs the Humanities at 'Start-Up U'?"). Among the faculty featured were Dan Edelstein, associate professor in the department of French and Italian, and Russell Berman, professor in the departments of comparative literatures and German studies. As the chair of the division of literatures, cultures, and languages (DLCL), which contains those three departments, I was happy to see the achievements and new ideas of my faculty attain the publicity that they deserve. However, we in the DLCL were very disturbed to see that the print version of the article contained a text box purportedly listing the humanities departments at Stanford, but leaving out our five departments. For the record: The 15 humanities departments at Stanford include the departments of comparative literature, French and Italian, German studies, Iberian and Latin American cultures, and Slavic languages and literatures, all located in DLCL. I am grateful to you for removing the text box from the electronic version of the article after I pointed out the problem.

Gabriella Safran

Eva Chernov Lokey Professor in Jewish Studies

Director, Slavic Languages and Literatures

Chair, Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages

I found myself nodding in agreement a lot while reading [the article]. I believe an education in some aspect of the humanities can be more valuable in a business career than an MBA. I took a degree in English literature with a minor in music, and I ended my 35-year career in the auto industry (16 at Ford and 19 at Toyota) as the senior vice president of Toyota Motor North America. During my Toyota career, I oversaw half a dozen divisions ranging from our race teams to government affairs to planning and corporate advertising. Now I am the executive in residence at Winthrop University's School of Business Administration, where I teach a business management course based on a textbook I wrote because I was dissatisfied with the usual choices.

Some might shrug their shoulders and say, "Go figure." But I believe my unexpected career was the direct result of the critical thinking and communication skills I learned at Stanford and Northwestern (where I took my master's degree). I hired a lot of young people over the years and I always looked for intelligence, curiosity and an urgent heart—not technology skills. You can teach them everything else they need to know.

Jim Olson, '64

Rock Hill, South Carolina

Sometimes comparing my English literature background to my husband's engineering ('50, MS '51), I was very happy to see the feature article. However, the article seems to express anxiety about humanities PhDs finding gainful employment outside academia. This underlines the prevailing attitude that higher education is about finding a good job.

For one thing, a PhD is not requisite for enjoying a rich association with literature, history, other cultures, music and poetry, which in turn binds us to sentient beings both past and future. On this score, I heartily endorse Alexander Nemerov's return to teach history of art; my class in the same by Edward Farmer, '23, blending architecture, painting and sculpture, music and literature with political/social history, was one of the best experiences I've ever had. In fact I think such a course should be required of all students.

But then I speak from the luxurious position of a nonworking wife married to a teacher of engineering. We have been a team for 58 years, living very well on a limited income, raising three excellent daughters (two Stanford grads, one Cal—physician, lawyer and engineer), and generously supporting community organizations with time, energy and money. We have lived abroad, traveled widely, have many friends and a lifetime of attending music and art events: all this, thanks not only to our own venturous spirits, but in large part to the length and breadth of our humanities education at Stanford.

DeAnne Russell Hart, '52

Watsonville, California

There should be no question as to the importance of the arts and humanities in the accomplishment of engineering tasks. They are very valuable. Let me give you a bit of anecdotal evidence.

Over the last few decades, I have done a considerable amount of civil engineering design. But the best design work I ever did was when I was paired with a draftsman with an MA in fine art, though not from Stanford. He has a good reputation in our area for painting and photography. He became a draftsman after burning out teaching art in an urban high school.

Our process was simple. Working with survey data, I would lay out a project that would meet the client's need and make the necessary calculations. Then I would sketch out what I thought the design might look like to meet technical requirements. Then I would bring it in to my friend and say, "Here is something that will work. Can you make it pretty?" He always did and clients liked what they saw.

Richard Wyatt, MS '66

Madera, California

Having attended my 50th medical school reunion a little over one year ago and experiencing the depth of Stanford's commitment to entrepreneurism and technology as such visible changes on a campus I had not visited for several years, I must say I was ecstatic to read the recent article regarding the humanities at Stanford. While the technologies that we now have available in medicine are, indeed, impressive, as too is our drive to develop them for profit, medicine and higher education in general need to reflect deeply on the distance they have carried us away from the humanities. A good many years ago, a professor attending Sir William Osler's presentation at Oxford University commented that no higher degree in the sciences should be awarded without a similar certification in the humanities.

It would certainly be my desire that the humanities be much more incorporated into medical education in the 21st century. Perhaps it will ultimately be more important to have such training than that of an MD/MBA degree. My congratulations to Professor Saller and the members of the humanities departments for recognizing and developing this critically important area of training in the sciences at Stanford. Many thanks to you all for the excellence of your magazine.

William J. Daily, MD '61

Columbia Falls, Montana

Another Rose Bowl

As much as we enjoyed your July/August feature regarding Stanford Olympians ("Rising to the Challenge"), our family immediately noticed a blatant error in your piece on Bob Mathias, '53. We were very surprised to find neither the Athletic Department nor another writer corrected the error in the following two editions.

It was the team from the fall of 1951 that played in the 1952 Rose Bowl, not the team from the fall of 1952 as written in the article. The 1952 Rose Bowl is forever etched in our family history because of the great experiences my father, the late Owen Powell, '52, enjoyed playing as one of the "How Boys" through the fall of 1951 and in the 1952 Rose Bowl. Today's players continue their legacy: Go Cardinal!

Kate Powell Segerstrom, '77

Sonora, California

The following letters did not appear in the print version of Stanford.

English Lesson

I began reading Tracie White, “What’s Eating Mary Rose?” (Farm Report, January/February). I read the first three lines, about the “British” Naval fleet of Henry VIII. A miss of 150 years. I stopped reading at that point.

David Wingeate Pike, PhD ’68

Paris, France

‘True’ Humanities

Finally reading the November/December issue, I was deeply touched by Kevin Cool’s brief article, which said it “in a nutshell”: “How to Be a Successful Human” (First Impressions). I abandoned my high school plans to become a high school music teacher in favor of a more practical medical career. Although I never regretted that decision, it was my humanities exposure at Stanford that left the deeper impressions. Those exposures helped provide acceptance of ourselves as vulnerable, frequently helpless individuals, tossed about by circumstance, but simultaneously inspired to higher levels through music, art, literature and history. I treasure memories as a member of Stanford Chorus and Choir led by wonderful Harold Schmidt singing with the San Francisco Symphony under conductors Bruno Walter, Pierre Monteux and others. Those transcendental experiences produced by the broad humanities programs lead us to higher goals, greater effort, and open-mindedness and understanding.

Sadly, in a huge distortion of those goals, there is also “teaching” at major universities in precisely the opposite directions, promoting debasing, pornographic, ugly, profane, desecrating, immoral behavior such as at “Sex Week” at Yale described by Yale graduate Nathan Harden (“Man, Sex, God and Yale” in Imprimis Vol. 42, No. 1, January 2013). These events, rather than being “liberating” for women, place them in greater danger of mistreatment, abandonment and broken lives. I am not prudish, just disappointed. Let history objectively record those episodes of violent depravity forced upon others along with other human errors and promote goodwill and understanding instead. Teach human sexuality as it should be taught in a medical school; in an objective, dignified, scientific manner along with related consequences rather than subjectively distorted and titillated (particularly by setting aside a “Sex Week”). Thank you for the true humanities.

Don McCleve ’53, MD ’56

Monte Sereno, California

Who Will Listen?

I received an amazing, interdisciplinary undergraduate education in the arts and humanities at Stanford. I have gone on to pursue graduate studies and have taught at institutions that, in my eyes at least, pale in comparison. Reading the last three issues of this magazine, I’ve enjoyed the support shown by top administrators and faculty for all the things I’ve come to learn were so unique about my Stanford experience. Frankly, I don’t think I could have gotten a better undergraduate education anywhere else. Stanford, in my time there, had the best of both a small liberal arts college and a top research university.

I don’t think that this has changed. What has changed is how Stanford is perceived. I don’t think Stanford’s commitment to liberal arts or the quality of their humanities programs is in decline. I think the value our society places on the arts, the humanities, the liberal arts approach to education has declined. Stanford is one of the few places that I truly believe remain invested in these things. But since common sense seems to have changed since I was an undergraduate—now that universities and colleges are
“corporations” rather than public service providers, now that students are “customers” rather than beneficiaries, now that college is just another four years to get your résumé together and prepare to join the work force rather than a time to explore, experiment and do things you may not have the opportunity to do later in life—I think it’s hard for most people to even perceive, much less appreciate, how great the humanities, arts and undergraduate education are at Stanford.

Today’s students—and their parents—are far more concerned with a direct economic payoff from higher education than I was and even more than my engineer-turned-corporate-executive father was. During the course of four years, they want to see clear evidence of career development. And at graduation, they want guaranteed employment in a lucrative and “respectable” profession. I work with these students every day and have a deep sympathy for them. At some level, they know they’re missing something. But the pressure to secure a prime position in today’s workforce is, in most instances, just too strong, too demanding, to think about what gets left by the wayside. That’s why Stanford’s effort to keep this vanishing public good at the forefront of their student’s attention, readily available to all, is so important. And the various selling points offered by humanities scholars are just that. Mere selling points. They’re telling students and their parents what they want to hear. They sincerely believe what they’re saying, but it would be a mistake to assume that they think or are trying to give the impression that these are the most important things about the humanities. For better or worse, we have to wait to address these most important things when we have the students face-to-face in the classroom. What makes the humanities and arts so important is too
rich, polyvalent and complex to articulate adequately in a magazine article, much less a sound bite.

This brings me to another point of contention. The talk of the relative “maturity” of disciplines is moot, because gauging their respective development requires completely different metrics. In addition to teaching reading, writing, research and critical thinking, the humanities offer a place to ponder the really tough questions, to dwell with vagueness and uncertainty, to continue the project of making sense of our experience, providing a springboard from which to launch a fully lived life. These are things that are hard to quantify, if they’re even quantifiable at all. But I believe that those things we find hard to measure are exactly those that are most important. And part of the reason I think this is that, when brought to an advanced level of development, scientific inquiry and engineering endeavor are forced to confront the big, difficult questions the humanities tackle from the get-go. A key example is the development of cybernetics, from Wiener to von Foerster to Varela and everyone else engaged in the study of complex systems today. The fact is that the contemporary academy is too complicated to be understood through a “two culture” heuristic. For one thing, there are more than two ways to skin a cat when it comes to research and teaching. Second, by virtue of these very differences, disciplines and interdisciplines can enrich each other and the core set of skills and motivations that they all share. They are complementary, not in competition. Except when it comes to funding.

For much of the 20th century, our attempts to “shape world events” have been led by engineers and economists. At some point, power shifted into the hands of political strategists and financiers. Those with “humanities-honed skills” have been vastly underrepresented in key leadership and decision-making positions, even denied entry into both the pool of “experts” and the sphere of financial giants and their “talking heads.” The problem is that today’s “talking heads” lack the expertise in hard or social science that the “experts” once possessed. The problem most definitely isn’t that they have “humanities-honed skills.” They lack those, too. As someone who has been teaching ethics to undergraduate public policy majors for the past year and a half, I can confidently say that the humanities offer resources for counteracting the toxicity of our current political culture, for enabling decision makers to make better decisions, for improving the wellbeing of everyone. I do, however, sometimes wonder if anyone will ever be interested in listening.

Ryan Snyder Ananat, ’98

Durham, North Carolina

Thoughts on Memory

Regarding some of the matters discussed in “How the Truth Gets Twisted” (November/December), my impression, based on books, book reviews, articles and other content published in recent years, has been that growing bodies of research support all of the following points, none of which are mutually exclusive:

(1) Memories are subject to varying degrees of accuracy/inaccuracy.

(2) Accepting (1) does not mean that memories regularly suffer from pervasive inaccuracy. Memories, to the contrary, can and often do possess substantial degrees of accuracy.

(3) False memories can be implanted, either intentionally or unintentionally, through various means, including by counselors and other health-care professionals.

At the same time, memories of actual events can be discounted, intentionally or unintentionally, including by counselors and other health-care professionals, to a point that the people remembering the events could come to believe their memories were false and the events never happened.

In light of these twin possibilities, with respect to the matter of child sexual abuse, any memory of such abuse, whether recovered or never forgotten, should be carefully considered as to its validity or lack thereof.

(4) Both repression of memories and later recovery of repressed memories frequently occur for survivors of all sorts of trauma. (Just as, conversely, a trauma survivor—and sometimes one who had previously repressed and then recovered memories of their trauma—can experience “intrusive memories” in which memories of the trauma can intrude upon their consciousness repeatedly and at any time.)

In the case of child sexual abuse, a number of instances of such repression and recovery can be found in survivors of abuse by Catholic priests—cases supported by testimony of multiple adult survivors as well as church records.

Claims by adults of having suppressed and later recovered memories of having been sexually abused as children should therefore be taken seriously, without, of course, being accepted unquestioningly.

(Differences of opinion seem to exist among experts as to whether terms such as “repressed,” “repression,” “recovered,” “recovery,” etc. accurately describe the mechanism by which memories of a traumatic event, after being absent from a survivor’s consciousness for years or decades, can then emerge or reemerge. These terms are used here for convenience.)

(5) Child sexual abuse is far from rare and perpetrators are frequently persons close to the child victim, such as relatives or other authority figures (coaches, teachers, religious leaders, etc.).

In addition, revised statutes of limitations for accusations of child sexual abuse have been signed into law in a number of states—statutes that substantially increase the number of years during which charges of abuse can be brought, sometimes for as long as the lifetime of the alleged abuse survivor. The purpose of such revisions isn’t to lend a prima facie presumption of validity to an alleged survivor’s accusations of abuse.

The purpose, rather—in light of current knowledge concerning child sexual abuse, the accuracy/inaccuracy of memories in general, and the repression and recovery of traumatic memories by adult survivors—is to allow the judicial process to arrive at a determination as to the truthfulness, or lack thereof, of the accusations based on a thorough consideration of the evidence presented, including evaluation of testimony by both regular and expert witnesses for the prosecution/plaintiff and the defense. The fundamental legal presumption of a defendant’s innocence until proven guilty—whether by a preponderance of the evidence in civil cases or beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal cases—remains in place.

Finally, regarding the article’s statement that “most people” believe that memory works “like a video camera, with events perfectly preserved forever,” this hasn’t been my experience when listening to friends, acquaintances and others recall events in their lives.

Instead, I’ve found such recollections to be, typically, laced through with a healthy measure of tentativeness and uncertainty regarding various aspects of whatever is being recalled. Which is, it seems to me, as it should be given that memories, though often substantially accurate, are ever subject to fallibility.

John Brooks, ’77

Tokyo, Japan

What About the Wildlife?

The item on wind turbines (“At Last Count: 4,000,000,” Farm Report, November/December) states that half the turbines would be over water and the remaining “would require a little more than one-half of 1 percent of the Earth’s land surface.” The article doesn’t say how many birds and bats would be killed each year by these turbines.

Leslie Bellah

Borrego Springs, California