So, there was an election.
“Following Tuesday’s vote, it now seems that it was the Biden presidency that was the anomaly, and that Trump is inaugurating a new era in U.S. politics and perhaps for the world as a whole,” wrote Francis Fukuyama, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He argued in the Financial Times that last week’s election signified “a decisive rejection by American voters of liberalism and the particular way that the understanding of a ‘free society’ has evolved since the 1980s.”
Scholars will continue to dissect what happened last week and what comes next. In an article in the Wall Street Journal about changes in Latino voting, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences Keith Humphreys said Democrats have fallen into “out-group homogeneity”—essentially, lumping together people who are different from you, assuming that they must all be alike. Economically, the word of the day is uncertainty, according to professor of economics Nick Bloom. Many companies are “holding their breath,” he told the New York Times, and will likely continue to delay investment and hiring decisions until policy decisions become clearer. Want to go deeper? Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law hosted America Votes 2024, a four-part series on the election’s most critical questions. Part four, hosted earlier today, examined what was on the minds of Americans as they voted and the strengths and limitations of attempts to understand those things through polling.
Graduate workers set to strike.
In November 2023, the Stanford Graduate Workers Union (UE-SGWU) initiated contract negotiations with the university, asking for higher pay, improved benefits, and guaranteed funding. The union represents PhD, master’s (excluding MBA), and JD students who provide instructional and/or research services for the university, such as in research or teaching assistant roles. A year and 18 tentative agreements later, members of the UE-SGWU voted to strike beginning today if the university did not substantially improve its offer. However, last night, the Daily reported that progress had been made, and the strike has been postponed. The union is currently demanding a pay increase of 14 to 16 percent in the first year of the contract and additional increases in subsequent years, citing inflation and the high cost of living. The university has put forward a salary increase of 12 percent over a three-year period and expanded benefits. In a statement last week, Stanford provost Jenny Martinez and vice provost for graduate education and postdoctoral affairs Stacey Bent, PhD ’92, said Stanford’s salary levels are the highest among its peer institutions. “Stanford’s guiding philosophy is to provide support sufficient to allow the very best candidates for graduate study to choose Stanford. Most importantly, students get the lifelong benefit of a Stanford education, mentoring, and graduate degree,” they wrote. If a strike does occur, say Martinez and Bent, classes and other university operations will continue.
Farm framer.
Photo: David Gonzales, ’93
In October, 9,289 alumni and guests returned to the Farm for their reunion or for the all-new All Alumni Day. Attendees included Stanford’s new president, Jonathan Levin, ’94, who was celebrating his 30th reunion. You can live the weekend vicariously in 90 seconds with this video or simply watch this moment, when the men’s swim team turned a fountain into a whirlpool.
Our holiday gift guide is here.
This holiday season, your fellow alums are delivering. Stanford magazine has options for everyone on your list. Is your bestie a baker? Check out Sophie’s Patchwork Apron, designed by Ellie Chen and Jensen Neff, both ’20. Know someone addicted to chaos? (Ouch. Too soon?) The Extreme Weather Page-a-Day Calendar from climate scientist Daniel Swain, PhD ’16, will fill their year with fire tornadoes, atmospheric rivers, and good old Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. Whether you want a sleek hand weight for an elegant athlete or a chew toy variety pack for a dog who can’t make up his mind, the Cardinal clan can help you stuff some stockings.
How to pick a problem.
To create a great solution, you first need a great problem. Professor of bioengineering Michael Fischbach is a pundit of problems and a connoisseur of quandaries. In science, he says, identifying a good problem is the first step to finding a good solution. “In every discipline, you find people who have good taste in problems. They work on things that are important, with great opportunities, that have tremendous impact. That’s treated as a rare trait,” said Fischbach. But it doesn’t have to be. To help people pick the best problems, Fischbach has created a framework, simplified into 10 practical pointers. They include slowing down (take months to brainstorm and strategize before settling on a problem), remaining flexible (don’t force a process or type of solution if it doesn’t best serve your main goal), and getting comfortable with risk. “Sometimes you feel like you need to find something that is sure to succeed,” Fischbach said. “But nothing worth doing has that profile—nothing in life.”
Speaking of problems, if you love cryptic crossword puzzles (that is, those in which each clue is itself a puzzle to be solved—i.e., SLE alum material), George Yates, ’86, has one for you. The solution reveals a Big Game message along the outer edge. Everyone else, return to the simple pleasures of Wordle.
Spotted on campus: puppy power.
Photo: Jennifer Dostalek
Last Wednesday, very good boys sat on picnic blankets and provided relaxation and stress relief for students as part of a Terman Engineering Library program.
But wait, there’s more.
Eight alums are expected to head back to Congress after all November election results are tabulated: Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, ’82, will now represent California in the Senate, and Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, ’02, will continue to represent Missouri. Democratic Reps. Joaquin Castro, ’96, of Texas; Josh Harder, ’08, Mike Levin, ’01, Ted Lieu, ’91, and Zoe Lofgren, ’70, all of California; and Chrissy Houlahan, ’89, of Pennsylvania are expected to return to the House.
Check out scenes from Stanford’s fourth annual Democracy Day, which featured 30 student-planned events and was the first in a presidential general election year.
A 2021 California law requires counties to remove racially restrictive covenants in property deeds—which have been unenforceable since 1948. But in Santa Clara County alone, finding them meant manually combing through 24 million deed documents. Now, thanks to a partnership with Stanford’s Regulation, Evaluation, and Governance Lab, artificial intelligence is being deployed to help.
It’s not déjà vu—Carissa Yip, ’26, just became the U.S. Women’s Chess Champion for the third time, after winning eight straight games in the 11-round tournament.
Need a time out? Watch pianists Taide Ding, ’17, MS ’18, and Elbert Yue Gong, MS ’26, perform a bit of Béla Bartók’s “Dance Suite” at Reunion Homecoming.
They’re calling it the “miracle from midfield.” Watch Dylan Hooper, ’26, the human mood-booster, deliver an astounding goal to secure victory over Notre Dame in the final seconds of last week’s men’s soccer game.
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