Initiating reentry sequence.
Vaccinations are happening. Restrictions are lifting! But, also, variants are spreading. If you feel yourself simultaneously elated and nervous about resuming “normal” life activities that have been altered (or nonexistent) over the past year—welcome to the club. “We’ve essentially been in training for a phobia,” says David Spiegel, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford Medicine and director of the Stanford Center on Stress and Health. He and other experts offer tips to ease the transition. Spoiler: More worry does not equal more safety.
Lest you think the teenagers might be faring better than you, a recent study showed that 43 percent of high schoolers report getting less sleep than they did before schools closed in 2020. Denise Pope, ’88, PhD ’99, a senior lecturer at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education, talks with GSE dean Dan Schwartz about sources of student stress during the pandemic in an episode of the School’s In podcast.
Coup in Myanmar.
Weeks into the military coup in Myanmar, the U.S. Embassy there confirmed shots had been fired in an American Center in Yangon. “On Myanmar’s Armed Forces Day, security forces are murdering unarmed civilians, including children, the very people they swore to protect,” Thomas Vajda, ’88, the U.S. ambassador there, told Newsweek. “This bloodshed is horrifying. These are not the actions of a professional military or police force.” On March 26, the U.S. Embassy advised American citizens to leave Myanmar.
In February, former U.S. ambassador to Myanmar and Stanford visiting scholar Scot Marciel spoke with the Stanford News Service about the history and future of Myanmar. “The story of Myanmar’s struggle for democracy is not over. Many people there will continue to do what they can to restore elected government and build, brick by brick, the foundations of democracy,” he said.
Welcome to the neighborhood.
The Draw is no more. For the first time in 52 years, undergraduate housing will be assigned in a new way. The ResX initiative, part of the university’s Long-Range Vision, groups residences into eight campus neighborhoods. Most undergrads will spend all four years with the same cohort, in one neighborhood, with access to increasingly desirable and more independent housing options over time. ResX aims to strengthen relationships, learning and inclusion in undergraduate dorms and houses. “Many students communicated the desire to develop relationships and experience a sense of community in their frosh year, and have the opportunity to learn and grow in that same community during their undergraduate years at Stanford,” Shirley Everett, senior associate vice provost for Residential & Dining Enterprises, told the Stanford News Service.
Rising upperclass students are currently ranking their neighborhood preferences (solo or in groups of up to eight). Once assigned, they’ll be able to voice their seniority-weighted druthers for specific residences and, ultimately, choose their rooms. Co-ops and Greek houses will remain available to upperclass students, and university-wide theme houses, such as ethnic and academic theme dorms, will be available to applicants from all classes. Each neighborhood has rooms that will accommodate a wide variety of disabilities and will include all-frosh housing. And for the 2021–22 academic year, the university will offer all-sophomore housing for members of the Class of ’24, most of whom have spent their first year learning remotely. And, yes, there’s a map.
Champs again, at last.
Photo: Andrew Brodhead/Stanford News Service
Stanford’s squeaker of a victory in the NCAA women’s basketball final on April 4 was literally a total team effort. Eleven of 12 Cardinal players saw action in the 54–53 win over the University of Arizona—and the 12th, freshman Agnes Emma-Nnopu, provided crucial “big cheering,” according to senior star Kiana Williams. And for women’s basketball head coach Tara VanDerveer, the winners that night extended far beyond her bench to the hundreds of women who’ve ever put on a Stanford jersey. “I really feel like we won this for all the great players that have played at Stanford,” VanDerveer said after claiming her the first title in 29 years. Victory tasted all the sweeter after a season of constant off-the-court challenges. Because of local COVID-19 restrictions, the team spent almost 10 weeks living out of suitcases, practicing for much of that time in a high school gym in Santa Cruz. Despite the masks at the campus victory parade, the smiles were obvious.
The buzz on humming.
Mosquitoes whine, bees buzz and larger birds “woosh.” Now, Stanford engineers understand exactly how hummingbirds hum. Their wings generate a strong, upward aerodynamic force during both the upstroke and downstroke. The upward stroke is the main source of the humming sound. But unlike most insects with similar wing function, hummingbirds sound pleasant, and that has to do with the overtones created by varying aerodynamic pressures on the wings. Researchers (who have video) say this new knowledge could help make fans and drones quieter. Jury is still out on whether it will make drones cuter.
Our passion for passion.
Passion has become a magic word for job seekers and college applicants. And understandably so. Conventional wisdom holds that enthusiasm for a field correlates with future achievement in it, so why not drape it all over your LinkedIn page? But the robustness of that connection turns out to be far from universal, according to Stanford psychologists, who compared results from 59 countries in the Programme for International Student Assessment with students’ ratings of their interest levels in different subjects. Students who felt passionately about math, science or reading were generally more likely to score better in those areas. But the connection was far stronger in “individualistic” cultures like the United States than in “collectivist” societies like China, where students felt family support for their interest was just as important. The findings suggest a blind spot among gatekeepers in U.S. education and employment, who often use perceived passion in their selections. “We need to make our admission and hiring processes fair to people from diverse backgrounds,” said Xingyu Li, MA ’18, a doctoral student at Stanford Graduate School of Education and lead author of the study.
But wait, there’s more.
By the end of the century, Jordan’s water supply will be cut in half, which will affect low-income areas the most and could lead to conflict. Stanford experts explain what lies ahead for that nation as well as for the rest of a world that is heating up.
Are we grown-ups yet? Former dean of freshmen Julie Lythcott-Haims, ’89, talks with Stanford magazine about her new book, Your Turn: How to Be an Adult.
Kojoh Atta, ’20, shares his Stanford story and his experience with intense personal grief during the pandemic.
In 1995, English professor and Pulitzer Prize finalist Chang-rae Lee wrote an essay about his dying mother for the New Yorker. That essay has been adapted into a fictional film, Coming Home Again, now available online.
Stanford Law School faculty and students have published a report that proposes non-police approaches to traffic violations and more, saying the changes would have public safety benefits, especially for vulnerable communities.
It could be raining diamonds on Neptune and Uranus. Sort of. Sparkly space stones probably aren’t exactly like ones on Earth, says Wendy Mao, professor of geological sciences.
Summer Moore Batte, ’99, is the editor of Stanfordmag.org. Email her at summerm@stanford.edu.
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