In 1991, at the end of my freshman year, John Gardner gave Stanford’s 100th commencement address. Gardner, ’33, MA ’36, had been a U.S. Cabinet secretary, a distinguished Stanford faculty member, and an architect of the Haas Center for Public Service. His speech was about renewal—how individuals renew themselves, and how we can renew institutions.
Since becoming Stanford’s 13th president in August, I also have been thinking about renewal. How do some organizations reinvent themselves while others go into decline? It’s an essential question for universities, charged with the ongoing discovery of new knowledge and the education of new generations of students.
It is no secret that American universities have faced challenges in recent years. Many of the challenges stem from outside influences—global events, politics, changes in college athletics, skepticism about elite institutions—and some come from within.
Yet by its nature, Stanford is also a place that can renew itself. Our very design involves renewal. I often say that my second favorite day of the year is the Monday after graduation: The students are gone, campus is quiet, and a productive summer beckons. But the best day is when students return—from all over the world, to set ambitious goals and pursue bold ideas. So, as we begin this year and a new phase in Stanford’s history, I am thinking about what we can and must renew.
First, we can renew the purpose of our university: discovery and learning. Each of us has had the experience of sitting in a Stanford classroom and hearing an idea that changed the way we think, or feeling a flash of illumination while participating in a research project. At our best, we bring the brightest students and scholars in the world together in one place to pursue cutting-edge research, engage in discussion, and learn. The research on our campus leads to insights that deepen human knowledge. The education that takes place here opens students’ minds and prepares them for lives of meaning and contribution.
‘I believe Stanford can be a community where a wide range of ideas can flourish, and where people are curious, open, and generous with one another.’
Second, we can renew Stanford as a place of possibility—a place that is optimistic, forward-looking, and bold. Stanford was founded with social purpose; it’s a place where we take on the problems of the world and develop solutions. Today, Stanford researchers are inventing better batteries to support the clean energy transition, designing markets to improve the allocation of water rights, and even creating a wearable electronic cap that helps people with impaired mobility move objects using only their brain signals. In a way that our peers strive to emulate, Stanford is a place where great ideas become reality.
Third, we can renew Stanford’s culture. We are made up of students and scholars from different backgrounds, with different perspectives and different aspirations. What unites us is a shared commitment to learning. Even in a time of contention and skepticism, I believe Stanford can be a community where a wide range of ideas can flourish, and where people are curious, open, and generous with one another. In fact, this culture is fundamental to the pursuit of academic excellence, exploration, and innovation.
That commencement day in 1991, Gardner, looking to the future, said that “we must begin now to gather the knowledge, formulate the concepts, and design the institutions that will enable us to survive that future, and perhaps with luck have some part in shaping it. In those tasks, no instruments will be more helpful than the research universities. And Stanford stands in the front rank. We must strengthen it, protect it, improve it, renew it, and help it to move to new levels of greatness.”
I hope all of you, our alumni, will renew your commitment to Stanford and to higher education. I encourage you to stay engaged as we work to spark curiosity, deepen knowledge, and put it into practice. With your help, we can take Stanford to new heights and make a difference in the world far into the future.
Jonathan Levin, ’94, is president of Stanford University.
