The first draft of history.
More than three weeks into nonstop news of the war in Ukraine, many have asked about the contrast between media coverage of this crisis and those happening in other parts of the world. Janine Zacharia, a longtime international journalist and a lecturer in Stanford’s department of communication, talked with Stanford News Service about what sets coverage of the war in Ukraine apart—including ease of access for foreign reporters, prolific images and video from civilians, and the possibility of NATO nations being drawn into the conflict. “Seeing real foreign policy reporters get airtime highlights how little serious international reporting you see daily on domestic U.S. news channels,” Zacharia said.
On the other side of the media coin, of course, is Russia, where seeking accurate information about the invasion is difficult—even dangerous. Philip Taubman, ’70, lecturer at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, and Felicity Barringer, ’72, the writer in residence at the Bill Lane Center for the American West, know something about that. In the 1980s, they served as the Moscow bureau chief and a Moscow correspondent, respectively, for the New York Times. In Stanford magazine, they write about the end of the “brief but glorious season” for news coverage that began under Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev—one that they witnessed and chronicled, albeit under heavy surveillance and no small amount of KGB intimidation. As they watch the crackdown on news and information in Russia today, their experiences give them a glimmer of hope for the future: “We take small comfort knowing that in the 1980s, the heavy hand of Soviet rule did not keep many Russians from understanding that they lived in a dysfunctional society.”
Is it bedtime yet?
Time changes are so awful, even the U.S. Senate agrees that they need to go. Last week, the Senate unanimously passed the Sunshine Protection Act, which would keep us on daylight saving time 365. Stanford sleep scientist Rafael Pelayo agrees that we should “stop playing with the clocks” and gives sleep tips on Stanford Medicine’s Scope blog. Whether you’re trying to acclimate to a new time zone or just become a better sleeper, one easy step is to turn down the heat. “People fall asleep before they freeze to death,” Pelayo said in a disconcerting but informative reminder that cool environments help us nod off faster. To help reset your sleep schedule after a disruption, lock in your wake-up time and expose yourself to as much light as possible during the day. And if you need a nap, you might want to set an alarm. “Naps are like snacks,” he said. “Try to nap for an hour or less—sometimes 15 minutes can feel great.” As for snoring? Pelayo says it’s never normal. (It is, however, normal to forward emails to snorers with nothing but “I told you so” in the subject line.)
Stanford women have been making history since day one.
From a “constellation” of alumnae astronauts to a justice of the highest court in the nation, and from the first woman to win a Fields Medal to the CEO of General Motors, meet trailblazing Stanford alumnae in a new collection of stories assembled by Stanford News Service.
Women at Stanford haven’t just been making history—they’ve been transforming the field of history itself. In January, history professor Londa Schiebinger co-authored a paper about the impact of women on historical research. When women conduct research, she found, they open previously underexplored historical topics, such as the U.S. civil rights movement, music, family and the least studied topic of all—you guessed it—women.
To see some of those faces of history in action, check out the PBS series UNLADYLIKE2020, which profiles “diverse and little-known American women from the turn of the 20th century.” The entire 26-part series has been translated into Spanish by Stanford lecturer Maria Cristina Urruela’s second-year Spanish students.
We’re big fans.
Photo: Marina Luccioni, ’21
Stanford’s Winter Performing Arts Festival returned in person on Thursday, February 24. The festival brought together more than 20 student arts groups, including the Stanford Chinese Dance (above), to celebrate art forms including poetry, music, theater and dance.
Stanford pledges more mental health resources.
The tragic death of senior Katie Meyer, a resident assistant and women’s soccer captain who died by suicide on March 1, has put a spotlight on student mental health. Since February 2021, three other Stanford students have passed away: law student Dylan Simmons, ’17, MS ’17; coterminal electrical engineering student Jacob Meisel, ’20; and medical student Rose Wong. “All were accomplished, loving students we will always remember,” the university said in a statement. “We want to acknowledge that these tragedies, against the backdrop of the pandemic and the outbreak of war in Ukraine, can feel especially overwhelming and unbearable.” Among the university’s efforts is recruiting additional clinical therapists for the campus as a whole and for the department of athletics. Stanford is also offering facilitated grief processing groups. A list of university services for those seeking help is available here.
COVID’s terrible twos.
We all want to know what the future holds for the pandemic, but like any 2-year-old, COVID-19 is going to change a lot in the coming years. “Right now, the virus is trying to arrive at a successful strategy,” said David Relman, a professor of medicine and of microbiology and immunology and a former president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. “Viruses just want to replicate and persist in a population, and what this virus looks like three years from now is probably still different from what it will look like in five to 10 years.” So will it become endemic? Maybe. But there’s still work to do to improve global vaccine equity and to put long-term solutions—like improved air filtration in offices and schools—into place. “I don’t know many people who think that this virus will end human civilization,” Relman said. “But everyone who latches on to the idea that the virus will fade away is forgetting that there are almost certainly going to be major bumps in the road, and those bumps could be painful. Two years is not long enough to know how this story ends.”
Like rolling a boulder uphill.
The idea of two genders is as old as rock, and that might be why it’s difficult to get away from. Ashley Martin, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Graduate School of Business, asked study participants to decorate rocks. Half were instructed to be as creative as possible; the rest were to anthropomorphize their rocks with “uniquely human qualities.” The results: both groups were more likely to ascribe gender to their rocks than other social categories such as race, age or sexual orientation. And the only characteristic that predicted how human a rock appeared was gender. The results are evidence that gender is “more central to conceptions of humanity than other social categories,” the study’s authors write. In fact, our reliance on gender is so ingrained that Martin believes the current movement toward genderlessness is bound to run into challenges. We may be more successful, she believes, at challenging or reshaping the gender schema than moving toward a “genderless” world. “I see a lot of differences in the way Gen Z understands gender. It’s been really exciting to learn from them,” she said.
Stereotypical gender roles are very much alive in the workforce; women still disproportionately carry the burdens of home caregiving along with their career duties, says Shelley Correll, MA ’96, PhD ’01, a professor of sociology and director of the Stanford VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab. The pandemic—and resulting changes in employer attitudes toward telecommuting—have provided an opportunity to transform the way we work, but we should be careful in how we proceed, she told the Stanford News Service. “We can create new norms, new cultures and new ways of working,” she said. “But if we’re not intentional about how we roll out hybrid work, we will likely just create a new version of the same old problem, where we allow employees to work remotely, but continue to implicitly value the ‘ideal worker’ who puts in long hours in the office.” Unregulated, the freedom of remote work can come at a high cost, including the sense of always being on call, a factor in high levels of burnout being reported by women in the workforce. “My big concern, in terms of gender equality, is that this high level of burnout is going to either drive women out of the paid workforce entirely or cause them to dial back their careers to something that is more manageable,” Correll said. “If we’re not careful, we could roll back gender equality by a generation.”
But wait, there’s more.
Knowing how to discuss what’s happening in Ukraine with children can be a challenge for parents. But engaging kids on such issues helps to ease anxiety, says Mari Kurahashi, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and co-director of the Stanford Parenting Center. “It’s important for children to know that it’s OK to talk about difficult topics with their parents,” she said. “With anxiety, there’s a common phrase that we use: ‘Name it, to tame it.’” She has tips for how to proceed.
Political science professor and director of Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Michael McFaul, ’86, MA ’86, former U.S. ambassador to Russia, talked with Stephen Colbert on March 9 about what a no-fly zone over Ukraine would really mean and his thoughts on Putin’s endgame. “Putin is turning Russia into North Korea right now,” he said.
On March 11, Hoover Institution director and professor of political science Condoleezza Rice, a former U.S. Secretary of State and an expert on the former Soviet Union, spoke with the Stanford Daily about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Stanford’s role in the response. In addition to supporting Stanford’s Ukrainian students, she said, “I’ve also asked us to remember that we have Russian students for whom Vladimir Putin is doing things that they had nothing to do with. Let’s make sure that we take care of them as well. And Stanford will continue to play its part, which is educating the best and brightest from around the world. Hopefully when this is over, we will bring even more students from Ukraine and from a different Russia one day.”
According to Stanford’s Center on Longevity, 100-year lives will soon become common, and society needs to make some changes. So start taking more walks and contemplate a second . . . or third . . . or fourth career. But also, maybe decrease the amount you’re saving since you’ll find new paid pursuits in your 70s. Stanford magazine has tips for making the most out of a longer life.
As part of a university strategy to reduce dangerous alcohol and drug use on campus, there’s a new theme house on the Row: Well House, a substance-free zone that emphasizes community and belonging, and that includes social events such as midnight mocktails and a stress-relieving petting zoo. A portion of students in the house are in recovery. For them, this is a vital resource, said Well House resident fellow Noel Vest, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative & Pain Medicine at the School of Medicine. Stanford magazine interviewed Vest in 2020 about his history of incarceration for drug use and his path to Stanford.
Conventional wisdom holds that the key to understanding Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of neurodegeneration lies within the brain’s neurons and synapses. New research from Stanford’s Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, however, suggests another potential culprit—the network of blood vessels that keeps the energy-hungry organ in business. Research from the lab of neurology professor Tony Wyss-Coray reveals that two-thirds of the most common genetic risk factors for Alzheimer's are expressed by vascular-associated cells.
Who keeps Grey’s Anatomy doctors from committing medical malpractice on our TVs each week? People like Adela Wu, a Stanford neurosurgery resident who recently served a six-month stint as an adviser helping the venerable medical drama’s writers keep their plotlines accurate. You can thank Wu and her fellow advisers for the “burst pupil” detail in December’s winter finale, a literal cliffhanger.
Summer Moore Batte, ’99, is the editor of Stanfordmag.org and the Loop. Email her at summerm@stanford.edu.
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