We’re halfway through the quarter, and it’s your last chance to submit your nominations for this year’s student “Politicos.” Happy Week 5!
2018-19 Politicos deadline extended
Each spring, Stanford Politics highlights 10 undergraduates of impact, the "Politicos." In previous years, these Politicos have hailed from campus media organizations, activist groups, student government, and more.
As in the past, we will be taking nominations from the public for which students to consider before our staff conducts interviews and our editorial board selects the final list. Please use this form to nominate yourself, a friend, or an organization who you think has made a significant impact on campus politics at Stanford during the 2018-2019 school year. (Please note that our recognition of political "impact" is not based on whether that impact is perceived as good or bad.) Politico profiles will be available in our final print issue of the year!
The deadline to nominate has been extended to Friday, May 3, 2019 at 12 p.m. PT.
Stanford proposes cutting subsidy for publishing press
Description: Stanford University Provost Persis Drell.
Image Credit: Stanford School of Engineering
Stanford University Provost Persis Drell has informed humanities and social sciences department chairs of a proposal to discontinue the “$1.7-million subsidy ... that the administration had allotted” to the Stanford University publishing press each of the past three years. An end to those funds could spell the end of the Press. The benefits of the Press largely fall on the humanities and social sciences. When Drell proposed discontinuing the Press’s subsidy, she “asked those present if they thought the money would be better spent if it went instead to graduate fellowships.” If re-allocated to graduate fellowships, the $1.7 million dollars formerly budgeted to the publishing press could support three additional graduate students.
With its $26.5 billion dollar endowment, Stanford has ample funds to support its publishing press should it choose. The publishing press facilitates Stanford professors’ circulation of their ideas, signals to the academic community that Stanford is committed to fostering the humanities and social sciences, and enhances Stanford’s relevance in those disciplines.
Comparative literature professor David Palumbo-Liu, an advocate for the Press, worries that “If we follow the logic of the market and wish to use a financial metric, the academy is gone. Presses will publish only profitable books, graduate students will write only profitable dissertations, and tenure will be awarded based on scholarship that is profitable. Reforming a university press under the mandate that it be financially solvent and, by extension, awarding it value based on profit is a direct attack on academic freedom, free inquiry, free speech.”
In response Provost Drell’s proposal, both Stanford affiliates and non-Stanford supporters of the press have issued open letter. Each has garnered over 700 signatures thus far.
Stanford’s proposal to strip funding from its publishing press suggests that its leadership has adopted a corporate vision for the university, a role in which the university serves a profit maximizer for the university and its students. Upcoming budgeting decisions will be informative as to how far the university is willing to carry the logic that may shutter its publishing press.
Stanford to replace draw with neighborhood assignments
Stanford has announced a new neighborhood housing model that will replace the draw as part of a new vision of residential life that will be implemented over the next century. The specific timing on this change is unclear. The Stanford Daily reports that “Campus will be divided into 10 to 14 neighborhoods that group together existing dorm communities, giving them shared ‘facilities for learning, arts, recreation and dining.’ Students will be ‘citizens’ of these individual clusters for four years. Self-ops, co-ops, and Greek and Row houses will be subsumed into neighborhoods, along with ethnic theme dorms and other themed housing.” To read the ResX taskforce report, click here. And to read the rest of the Stanford Daily’s coverage of the report, click here.
Fossil Free Stanford Marches for Divestment
Description: Members of Fossil Free Stanford marching on Friday.
Image Credit: The Stanford Daily
On Friday afternoon, members of the student group Fossil Free Stanford along with supporters from the Stanford community, including incoming ASSU president Erica Scott, marched from Columbae lawn to the front of the Bookstore and Main Quad, calling for Stanford’s full divestment from fossil fuels. The rally took place during the admit weekend activities fair and concluded with a reading of the formal report and proposal to Vice Provost for Student Affairs, Susie Brubaker-Cole. The report and its supporters cite climate change, the unethical behavior of the fossil fuel industry, and the disproportionate effect on historically disadvantaged communities as reasons for divestment. Read the Daily’s coverage of the story here, and the full report by Fossil Free Stanford here.
And In Case You Missed It…
Q&A: Erica Scott ’20 and Isaiah Drummond ’20, incoming ASSU executives (Liao / Stanford Daily)
Stanford history lesson: When sororities were banned (Chesley / Stanford News)
In plea for grassroots organizing, Steyer attacks Trump, Bush, Koch brothers (Foreman / Stanford Daily)
Bryce Love picked by Washington in 4th round (FitzGerald / San Francisco Chronicle)
Former Stanford CS Department Chair passes away (Myers / Stanford News)
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