The effects of federal policy changes on universities.
On Thursday, university president Jonathan Levin, ’94, updated the Faculty Senate on federal policy matters, including concerns about federal support for scientific research and about proposals to increase the tax on university endowments, which support undergraduate financial aid, university research, and more. “Taken together, there is a genuine threat to the university research model that has served the United States so well for such a long time and helped to ensure the country’s scientific leadership and provide an engine of innovation for the country,” he said.
He also addressed the U.S. Department of Education’s recent “Dear Colleague” letter, which informs schools of how the department plans to interpret the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions—extending well beyond the use of race in admissions to other areas of campus life and proposing steep penalties (including loss of federal funding) for noncompliance. According to Levin, there is “a great deal of nuance in how we engage with the issues raised” by the letter, and the university is evaluating its implications and seeking legal guidance. “Stanford is stronger for having the contributions of people with a wide array of backgrounds and perspectives, and we are at our best when all members of our community are supported and celebrated,” he said. Its organizations that bring people together around particular cultures or fields of study “enrich our understanding of each other and of the world around us [and are] an important part of education.”
Testing time.
The FDA has approved a new diagnostic test for sepsis, called TriVerity, which takes just 30 minutes. Currently, diagnosing and appropriately addressing the origin of infection, which can be bacterial, viral, or caused by some other pathogen, can take as long as three days. That’s problematic, because in sepsis—which occurs when the body’s immune system responds improperly to infections and can cause rapidly progressing organ dysfunction—mere hours of delay or incorrect treatment can be catastrophic. One in five deaths globally and one in three deaths in hospitals are due to sepsis. “Emergency department physicians have been hobbled by the need to wait so long to identify a patient’s infection as viral or bacterial,” said Purvesh Khatri, the professor of medicine behind the new tool. Using machine learning to analyze a broad set of publicly available patient data, Khatri’s team identified 29 genes that reveal whether an infection is present, its viral or bacterial nature, and how severe it is. “Time is of the essence in the proper diagnosis of sepsis,” said Khatri.
Pen pal.
When Rachel Syme, ’05, sends a message, it’s not subtle. It may involve calligraphy, scented stickers, and various small treasures. Fortunately, subtlety isn’t her aim. Syme, a staff writer at the New Yorker, is trying to revive a languishing literary form that she loves: good old-fashioned letter-writing. She invites you to love it, too, with her new book, Syme’s Letter Writer: A Guide to Modern Correspondence About (Almost) Every Imaginable Subject of Daily Life, with Odes to Desktop Ephemera and Selected Letters of Famous Writers. It’s the culmination of a life devoted to writing, and it will teach you to write any letter you want, whether spurred by love, gossip, or even bitchiness. Ultimately, Syme wanted to create a madcap, energetic book that makes people excited to connect with others. “For a long time, I thought I had to be a different kind of writer so people would take me seriously,” she told Stanford magazine. “But there’s something really serious about doing something silly well.”
Families visit the Farm.
Photo: Andrew Brodhead
No doubt a record amount of dishware was excavated from rooms and returned to dining halls on campus ahead of Family Weekend, held on Friday and Saturday and chock-filled with events for eager relatives. Kicking things off was a talk by President Jonathan Levin, ’94, Provost Jenny Martinez, and vice provost for student affairs Michele Rasmussen, who discussed ways Stanford is supporting undergraduates, the challenges facing higher education, and their vision for Stanford’s future.
Mind the gap.
Researchers at Stanford and Harvard have found widening achievement gaps and extreme variation in pandemic recovery after mapping trends in the school districts of 43 U.S. states, representing 35 million students. By the spring of 2024, the average student remained nearly half a grade level behind 2019 scores in math and reading. Furthermore, “the overall decline masks a pernicious inequality,” said Sean Reardon, a professor of education who co-led the analysis. The highest-income districts were nearly four times as likely to recover as the poorest districts; Black and Hispanic students lost more ground than their white peers in the same district; and girls fell about a third of a grade level behind boys in math after a decade of equal performance. One silver lining: The researchers found 102 medium and large districts performing above prepandemic levels, including high-poverty communities in Louisiana and Alabama. With federal relief dollars gone, the researchers say it’s time to pivot from short-term recovery to long-term plans. Their suggestions include interventions like tutoring and summer learning programs, as well as getting community leaders (such as mayors and employers) to join schools in efforts to lower absenteeism.
A new data base.
Photo: Andrew Brodhead
With a ribbon-cutting ceremony scheduled for April 15, Stanford’s new Computer and Data Science (or CoDa) building is nearly ready for its close-up. CoDa will be the new home of the department of computer science, the department of statistics, and the Stanford data science initiative. It will also support teaching and research in all seven schools. The building’s east wing features traditional tan facade and red tile roof, while its west wing has a cylindrical glass exterior, blending the old and new in architecture and in thought. “When you change physical space,” said Emmanuel Candès, PhD ’98, a professor of mathematics and of statistics, “you tend to change the way you think.”
But wait, there’s more.
Katie Ledecky, ’20, the most decorated U.S. female Olympian, will be Stanford’s 134th Commencement speaker. Husband-and-wife team Rishi Sunak, MBA ’06, the former U.K. prime minister, and Akshata Murty, MBA ’06, an investor and businesswoman, will deliver the address at the Graduate School of Business diploma ceremony.
Is your job hazardous to your health? On the If/Then podcast, Jeffrey Pfeffer, PhD ’72, a professor at the Graduate School of Business, talks about why employers should care.
Some parents see their children off to college. Illana Zauderer, ’93, sees her child at college. Zauderer, a student in the Graduate School of Education, and her son, sophomore Jacob Parker, ’27, even starred in the music department’s production of Into the Woods together.
A new study found that when kids die in mass shootings, it’s more often at the hands of family members than by a school shooter.
Stem cell biologist Helen Blau has written hundreds of scientific papers, but when she wanted to pass her love of stem cells on to her grandchildren, the professor of microbiology and immunology tried a different type of literature: a children’s book.
Need a new read? Stanford magazine’s March Book Nook offerings are here.
L’oops! In the last Loop, we misspelled the name of James Lofton, ’78, the first Cardinal athlete to play in three consecutive Super Bowls.
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