Those who ignore the past . . .
The Russian empire that President Vladimir Putin aspires to simply can’t exist without Ukraine, said Norman Naimark, ’66, MA ’68, PhD ’72, professor of history. It’s true, he told the Stanford News Service, that the two states have a complicated history going back to the 17th century. But Putin’s version of that history is “both distorted and pernicious,” Naimark said, and Ukraine’s emergence as a thriving young democracy is a threat to Putin’s sense of the larger Russian mission. “[Ukraine] shares the Russians’ own Soviet and Imperial past and therefore should be complicit, in Putin’s view, in Moscow’s anti-democratic ideology.”
As for the international consequences Putin’s aggression may have, Chile Eboe-Osuji, a visiting professor at Stanford Law School and former judge at, and president of, the International Criminal Court (ICC), is hopeful we’ll ultimately see new opportunities for lasting peace. It was World War I, he explained in Stanford Law’s Legal Aggregate blog, that led to a revolutionary amendment to international law by which any head of state who unleashes a war must be punished personally by an international court. “Perhaps international law has a phoenix yet in the ashes of this latest conflagration,” he writes. “In that sense, the one thing that this invasion can do for humanity is engage the importance of adjusting international law once more, in order to save humanity from one avoidable reality that makes no sense in the realms of good faith.” Eboe-Osuji says the Rome Statute (the treaty that created the ICC) must be amended to empower the U.N. General Assembly to refer cases to the ICC when it has become clear that the veto power of U.N. member sates has been abused to block such referrals.
Ukrainian students share their experiences.
Last week, the Stanford Daily spoke with international students affected by Russia’s war on Ukraine. Just a month ago, MBA student Kate Slunkova and her parents and loved ones in Ukraine were “discussing their plans to come to visit me during graduation,” she said. “This weekend, we are discussing whether the basement in their house has cellular connection, in case they would need to wait in the basement.”
Junior Anastasiia Malenko, who hails from Cherkasy, wrote in Stanford magazine that she now feels every moment of the 24/7 news cycle. “In the blur of text, colors matter. Red means air raid warning, green means temporary safety for people back home. Red means a new casualty report, green means my family is back online.”
Slunkova and Malenko were among the student panelists at Invasion On Ukraine: Student Voices, hosted by Stanford in Government last week. Members of the Stanford community gathered in White Plaza on Friday for Stand in Solidarity with Ukraine.
A student death on campus.
Senior Katie Meyer, team captain and goalkeeper on the women’s soccer team, died by suicide in a campus residence last week. “There are no words to express the emptiness that we feel at this moment,” vice provost for student affairs Susie Brubaker-Cole and director of athletics Bernard Muir said in a statement. As news of Meyer’s death spread across the nation, a number of stories called out the pressure that many college students, especially those also competing in athletics, feel to succeed. In a USA Today story, Daniel Eisenberg, ’97, PhD ’02, professor of health policy and management at UCLA, said that the rate of depression and anxiety among college students has doubled over the past decade.
I feel the earth move under my feet.
Where do mountains come from? Not earthquakes, say Stanford Earth researchers. A new 3D tectonic model of the Santa Cruz Mountains is rocking the world of geoscientists everywhere, suggesting that the majority of permanent uplift (i.e., mountain building)—until now attributed to the immense force of quakes—actually takes place in the quiet periods between earthquakes. Talk about shaking things up.
All in the family.
Photo: Andrew Brodhead/Stanford News Service
Last month, loved ones (including a pup or two) from around the globe visited undergraduates on campus and virtually for Family Weekend, where they shared in a few days of California winter, palm trees and an abundance of Cardinal paraphernalia. Students got a dose of home while their guests had the chance to attend faculty lectures, get a taste of dining hall fare and explore iconic campus destinations in person after last year’s entirely virtual event.
A sweets story.
Ernest “Sticky” Wilson, Class of 1900, earned his nickname a couple of ways. He never gave up; and he plied a sticky trade. Even before graduating, Wilson ran his own campus sweet shop. Later, he sold his “Candy with a College Education” across California, notably at his own Wilson's Restaurant and Candies, a mainstay of downtown Palo Alto for decades. His great-granddaughter Heidi Mickelsen, MA ’96, and her husband, Brady, ’96, recently funded an endowment at Stanford Libraries that celebrates Wilson’s legacy by focusing on the history of Stanford and its neighboring communities. “The Stanford campus and nearby towns have well-known recent histories but less familiar beginnings,” Brady Mickelsen said. “The stories like Sticky’s of the faculty, student body, men and women of Stanford’s early days should be recorded in an accessible and archival way.”
Don’t hate. Deliberate.
If you dress as Princess Leia to avoid jury duty and get your election news from Taylor Swift, unfortunately you’re not alone. “It’s a collective action problem,” says professor of communication James Fishkin. Essentially, why should anyone spend a lot of time learning about political issues when the impact of one person’s vote is so small? Now, Stanford’s Center for Deliberative Democracy is trying to bolster our political foundation using the “magic sauce” of democracy: deliberation.
Deliberative polling, created by Fishkin in the 1980s, provides a representative group of voters with vetted information and then asks them to discuss policy proposals with fellow voters of different backgrounds and political ideologies. Before-and-after surveys show that participants on both sides of the aisle end up closer to the center after in-depth, thoughtful discussion. The March issue of Stanford magazine explores the merits of, and challenges with, deliberative polling, as well as what K-12 and Stanford educators are doing to boost civic literacy and engagement in the U.S.
But wait, there’s more.
How can you spot misleading social media news about the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Shelby Grossman, a research scholar at the Stanford Internet Observatory, offers seven tips, including this starting point: Check for the source of claims about the war. If there aren’t any, that’s a red flag. In a thread on Twitter, Kate Starbird, ’97, a professor of human-centered design and engineering at the University of Washington (and former Cardinal basketball player) who studies fake news and online conspiracy theorists, offers advice on how to avoid spreading disinformation about the war in Ukraine. Among her tips: Check the profile the post is coming from, and if you’ve got a TikTok user in the house, examine their feed for violent content and propaganda.
Roman Skaskiw, ’00, a former U.S. Army infantry officer living in Ukraine, evacuated to Slovakia with his family after fighting began. He chronicled his experience and relayed the stories of relatives still in Ukraine in a recent video.
It was a “Twosday” to remember at Stanford Children’s Health maternity unit. Among the 15 babies born there on 2/22/22 were twins Mihika and Mishika Adlakha. They arrived a week early, and yet right on time.
A new study from the School of Medicine shows differences in brain organization between boys and girls with autism. The research helps explain why autism symptoms differ between the sexes and may pave the way for better diagnostics for girls.
Earth’s crust. It may look like simple minerals and stuff to most of us, but oh, the stories it can tell. Researchers at SLAC have been working to mimic the impact of meteorites on the planet’s crust in order to better understand how meteorites transform minerals on good ol’ Gaia. Their latest experiments could lead to more accurate models for learning about meteoritic impacts, including how fast meteors were traveling and the pressure they produced upon collision.
Success in basketball, like business, hinges on a winning team. In a new Graduate School of Business podcast, All Else Equal, finance professor Jonathan Berk asks former NBA general manager Billy King for his thoughts on evaluating talent. “I always look at who is willing to sacrifice for the good of the team,” King says.
Stressed? Try taking a page out of the 1500s. Stanford Libraries offers uncommon finds in their 2022 coloring book.
Summer Moore Batte, ’99, is the editor of Stanfordmag.org and the Loop. Email her at summerm@stanford.edu.
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