The old joke goes that the reason academic politics are so brutal is that the stakes are so small. If there is one thing I have learned in my first few months as president of Stanford, it is that the second half of that formulation is absolutely wrong. When it comes to the decisions that Stanford's leaders are making today, the stakes are monumental.
This became exceedingly clear in our recent negotiations with Santa Clara County over our proposal for a General Use Permit (GUP) that would govern campus development for the next 10 years. There were many competing interests as we negotiated a plan that was acceptable to all the parties involved--Stanford, city and county officials and, not incidentally, our neighbors, many of whom are alumni.
The GUP decision-making process, like many issue-driven decisions, became a lightning rod for some people, and it generated a great deal of emotion on all sides. I am often asked how one can make fair decisions in such a heated environment. I'd like to talk about that in this column.
One of the most difficult aspects of the GUP negotiations was the inclination for many to define Stanford's needs based on one particular narrow interest. This is a natural tendency, but it obscures how the University must look at issues that will define us as an institution for decades--even centuries--to come.
How does the president of a university make decisions about the future when the attendant issues are narrowly defined by constituencies whose opinions matter to us? For me, this is complicated by the fact that I am not just "president"--I am also a resident of the community. I share a deep concern about the environment, open space, quality of life, housing and many other issues with my fellow Peninsula residents.
And yet, as president of Stanford, I must adopt a very specific perspective. I have found that in making the hardest decisions, two guideposts have been very useful.
The first guidepost is simple: how does this decision affect our core research and teaching mission? Does it strengthen it or weaken it? Does it help us meet the goals inherent in the mission or distract our attention from the task?
The second guidepost is the perspective of time. I have found as president (and as a trustee) that I worry about not just the current students, faculty and staff, but also the future of the University community 50 or 100 years from now. This view comes partly from the charge given to the president and the trustees from the Stanfords in the founding grant. It comes as well from the knowledge that David Starr Jordan occupied this office and led this fledgling University less than 100 years ago. And that Wally Sterling's drive to build Stanford into a world-class university started only 50 years ago. Their leadership helped make Stanford the great institution it is today. I feel a similar obligation to future students, staff and faculty and, of course, future presidents.
In that regard, I saw our efforts to obtain the GUP as primarily about one issue: the future of Stanford as a world-class institution. It is self-evident in the thousands of undeveloped acres in the Foothills that the University has always acted as a responsible steward of its land. Because the GUP proposal covered a period of 10 years, our initial proposal called for maintaining the Foothills as open space for that period of time. The County Planning Commission staff submitted a report that called for a number of changes and a stipulation that the Foothills be maintained as open space for 25 years. Despite some concerns about that length of time, in the spirit of compromise we agreed to live with the 25-year proposal. Nonetheless, I was unwilling to give up property rights on the Foothills for 99 years--as some demanded--precisely because it would have prevented Stanford's future leaders from making their own informed decisions.
Under the approved plan, the University will be allowed to add 2 million square feet of academic facilities and more than 3,000 housing units over the next 10 years. Virtually all of this growth is in the core campus, and it is necessary if we are to stay at the cutting edge of research and teaching. The housing situation for graduate students is particularly desperate; and if we are to remain "a University of high degree," as the Stanfords envisioned, we simply must provide some solutions. We are pleased that we were able to reach agreement with Santa Clara County and are eager to start work on implementation of the plan. Moreover, we are committed to working with our neighbors to foster a mutually productive working relationship as we move forward, acknowledging that our mission has an impact beyond our 8,000 acres and that we should play a role in helping to ameliorate that impact.
I am optimistic that the University community will rise to the challenge. For Stanford, the stakes truly are monumental.
