RULES AND TOOLS
William Damon's concept of absolute morals ("The Parent Trap," March/April) seems arbitrary and difficult to justify. A simple "no stealing" rule may make sense to a middle-class family where the issue is a CD from the music store. But is a poor child "bad" to take an orange from someone's tree when otherwise he might not eat that morning? Or, when my child is out on the soccer field -- in a competition intended to prepare her for real life -- is taking the ball suddenly okay? These are not black-and-white situations, and to make them appear so is misleading.
Without absolute guidelines, the early years of childhood are very difficult for a parent to steer through. But they're not impossible. What my family has done is to come up with our own set of limits and boundaries as substitutes for morals. This allows for more complex interaction with our child as she grows. It also means truly taking lessons from life. For instance, all people have their personal space, and my child needs to learn how to respect it -- when to exercise restraint, when and how to cross the line. I feel that this is necessary if she is going to be able to exercise free will as an adult and at the same time have meaningful relationships with others. I also feel that as she grows, she needs to develop a sense of worth that transcends issues of right and wrong, good and bad. She needs tools -- not necessarily rules -- to make sense of a world that throws us curve balls. I want my child to be a rule maker, not just a rule follower.
Curtis Wilbur, '74
Morgan Hill, California
While I enjoyed Tim Grieve's perspective on William Damon, I am concerned that he and Damon used the term "authoritative parenting" without acknowledging the originator of the concept, UC-Berkeley's Diana Baumrind. Nor did Grieve mention that the good news about authoritative parenting has been known to educators and researchers for the past 30 years.
Jean B. Lanz, '65
Seattle, Washington
SORRY, CHARLEY
Charley Dean's Rose Bowl diary ("A December to Remember," March/April) is an example of why your magazine makes great reading. My only regret is that Charley did not get to play in the Rose Bowl. He sounds like the type of student-athlete who represents the University at its highest level.
Warren Nelson, '60, MA '63
Los Altos, California
HARDNOSED HOOVER
Herbert Hoover was ruthlessly efficient, and this made his fortune ("Into the Outback," March/April). It was the period when Taylorism (technically planned production) was the aim of business regardless of the feelings of the workers. Laboring in the goldfields literally drove workers to drink. The paradox is that Hoover was at heart a deeply humane person.
Once the nation's great idealist, he was its most hated man by the time I came to Stanford in 1941. The faculty were loud in their attacks. Traumatized by past events, he had become embittered and grumpy, which only made things worse.
Ronald Hilton
Professor emeritus, romance languages
Stanford, California
Your interesting article on Hoover's Australian gold-mining days would be better if the money amounts were more accurate. Specifically, the mine earnings of $55 million circa 1910 would equal more like $2.5 billion today, not a piddly $350 million. My calculation uses the the most readily available common denominator, wage rates for semiskilled labor. In 1910, a manufacturing worker earned about 25 cents an hour, or $10 per week. Today, a similar worker earns $12 an hour, or $480 a week, thus providing a conservative multiplier of 47.
Jack Carpenter, MBA '50
San Juan Capistrano, California
SERIOUS CHARGES
With respect to the report from Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation concerning spying allegations against Wen Ho Lee (Farm Report, March/April), I have no personal knowledge as to whether Mr. Lee is spy or scapegoat; I've not read the "flawed" Cox report; and I'm very reluctant to differ with someone as distinguished and well-informed as Wolfgang Panofsky. I'm also aware that the American Physical Society has sharply criticized the conditions under which Mr. Lee is currently being held. Nonetheless, the accusations against Mr. Lee -- that he improperly copied from secure computers and carried away to unknown recipients large amounts of significant classified information concerning nuclear weapons -- appear detailed and credible, at least on their face. I have also been told by informed colleagues at the national weapons laboratories that what Mr. Lee is alleged to have done is seriously illegal.
Any "cloud of suspicion" this may have cast on other Asian scientists has to be in the eyes of the beholders; I see no reason to draw any such conclusions myself. Mr. Lee's specific actions, however, appear to be matters of serious concern that remain to be adequately explained.
A.E. Siegman, PhD '57
Professor emeritus, electrical engineering
Stanford, California
ALL A's ALL THE TIME
Stuart Rojstaczer's account of grade inflation and workload reduction in research universities (Shelf Life, March/April) prompted me to dig out my old Duke transcript. I graduated from the engineering school there in 1952, ninth in a class of 66. My uninflated grade point average in today's terms was 2.97. My workload ran 18 to 20 hours per week. Upon graduation, I had completed 151 credit hours. Comparing this to the 3.4 current Duke GPA cited by Rojstaczer and the 15 hours per week for science (and presumably engineering) students, I must agree that grade inflation and workload reduction have occurred. Considering that I was well above the averages in my class, I estimate that in present-day inflated terms, my score would have been about a 3.8.
The next step, it seems, would be for some impartial body to index these data, using some given year, say 1950 or 1960, as the base. This has long been done for monetary inflation. U.S. News and World Report could then list, for each school covered in its annual ratings, an index number giving an approximation of how meaningful that school's grading is. This would help people compare different schools, and it ought to discourage grade inflation.
Malcolm Murray, MS '61
Baytown, Texas
Some time ago, I searched the literature for evidence to support grading on a curve -- and found nothing. On the other hand, a counselor once said that each of us has the ability to understand everything. I believe every student is an A student. The trick, then, is to encourage them to do A work. Often, that means getting them to cooperate rather than compete.
Bob Shaw
San Jose, California
TOO MUCH TECH
I'm pleased that Stanford's undergraduate curriculum continues to respond to our changing world, as evidenced by the entrepreneurial fellowship program ("Ready for Takeoff," January/February). I'm concerned, however, about the manner in which Stanford markets the University. From the majority of articles in the magazine, it would appear that Stanford breeds only scientists, engineers and business professionals. People engaged in public service receive little coverage.
Donald Kennedy was the president while I studied at Stanford, and he significantly advanced the commitment to public service as a core value of the undergraduate experience. I ended up pursuing a degree and a career in education precisely because public service was integrated into Stanford's undergraduate residential education, academic opportunities and extracurricular programs.
I know that public service continues to be a part of the Stanford culture. Students and alumni are founding nonprofits, teaching in low-income communities and pursuing careers in the arts. And Stanford's liberal arts departments, just like the engineering departments, continually redefine their programs to respond to changes in the nonprofit and public-sector market. Has our alumni magazine missed this entire field, or has it simply fallen prey to focusing on our country's economic-based value system and current obsession with Internet entrepreneurs?
Stacey Blankenbaker, '93, MA '94
San Francisco, California
'A TEACHER IN THE BEST SENSE'
I read "Falling Apart" (January/February) with interest because of my family's experience with depression and my volunteer work with a program for families whose loved ones have brain disorders. Major mental illnesses are physical ailments that attack a particular organ, the brain. Yet people with these illnesses have much more to contend with because of society's attitudes. If Joel Smith's article had ended, "Yes, I am a diabetic; and yes, I was a vice president of Stanford," it would be a nonstory. But people have major misunderstandings about brain disorders, so talking frankly about the subject becomes a dramatic revelation. By writing this memoir, Smith has been a teacher in the best sense, enlightening his readers on a complex and painful subject. When I finished reading it, I silently added, "And yes, you tell the truth."
Joan Frantz Vesper, MA '65
Seattle, Washington
WEIRD COINCIDENCE
"Was It Murder?" (January/February) sent shivers into the hearts of two sets of parents and their children, current Stanford students. David, '25, and Allene Lamson, '26, MA '28, are hauntingly echoed in the lives of two students: senior David Lampson, editor of the Chaparral, who physically resembles the man in your article; and my daughter, Alice, a Stanford junior, known in her childhood as "Alli." These two are a couple and share several similarities with the earlier Dave-and-Ali combo. When I read your article, I felt as if I were living in an episode of The X-Files.
Patricia Ganier
Nashville, Tennessee
'POETICS OF POLITICS'
Months after reading with Kafkaesque horror your article about the dismal academic job market for humanities PhDs ("Pecking at Crumbs," July/August), a friend and I stumbled on an equally Kafkaesque solution. We were wondering at the fact that Vaclav Havel, the poet-president, had managed the division of Czechoslovakia without civil war. Perhaps Plato was wrong to ban poets from the Republic. But then, after all, isn't Clinton a sort of hurried, harried, unconscious poet -- fudging, proclaiming, contradicting, evasive, vague, meticulous, idealistic, promiscuous? Would humanities PhDs do so badly deconstructing and interpreting his real meaning? Isn't any political candidate also a bit like this -- hidden agenda, compromise, some ideals, twisted language? Couldn't a poetry specialist do deeper work with this than a superficial commentator? And wouldn't many firms pay well for an "implicit policy" consultant decoding the "poetics of politics"?
Dick Gardner Jr., '64
Menomonie, Wisconsin
CORRECTION
An article in the March/April Farm Report ("Cashing in on 'Stanford'? Not So Fast") stated incorrectly that the University had adopted a "new" name and trademark policy in December 1999. In fact, the December action was an update of a previously existing policy.
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