Hennessy, UC President Dynes each awarded $1 million Koret Foundation prize

BY RAY DELGADO

Although they delight in the playful posturing as occasional rivals, Stanford University President John Hennessy shared a moment of celebration with University of California President Robert Dynes as the two honorees each received $1 million grants from the Koret Foundation last week.

Koret Foundation President Tad Taube presented Hennessy with bookends to go with the Koret Prize. Photo: Thomas J. Gibbons

Hennessy and Dynes were awarded the Koret Prize at a special luncheon in San Francisco Friday afternoon for their work in education. It was the second time the foundation honored presidents of both universities in the same year, with former President Gerhard Casper and former UC President Richard Atkinson both receiving the award in 1999.

The money can be earmarked for any university-related projects, and Hennessy told the luncheon crowd that a portion of the grant will match funding from the Carnegie Corporation's "Teachers for a New Era" initiative at the university. The initiative will expand teacher training for secondary schools and establish a program for elementary teachers at the university. Stanford is one of seven universities participating in the five-year initiative, the goal of which is to use the findings to influence public policy makers on quality-of-education issues nationwide.

"We're going to have to attract better young people, and we're going to have to train them better," Hennessy said. "Most importantly, we have to change the way we view the teaching profession. We have to think of the teaching profession as professionals. We have to reward them that way, we have train them that way, and we have to get them committed to teaching as a lifelong career."

The remainder of the money will help endow a program in archaeology and fund two collaborative projects involving Israeli and Jordanian researchers, Hennessy said. Dynes said the grant will be used to fund outreach programs for underrepresented students in the university's graduate programs in science and engineering and also will help fund new programs at Boalt Hall School of Law.

Foundation President Tad Taube said the foundation has given more than $40 million in its 25-year existence to both universities. Last year's Koret Prize went to the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education, a joint education program between the Hoover Institution and the foundation.

"We have done this because we believe in these two institutions and their outstanding faculties who are the best of the best," Taube said. "Our Bay Area citizens are blessed to have these world-class institutions right in our own backyard."

Prior Stanford winners include Arnold M. Eisen, the Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture and Religion, and Steven Zipperstein, the Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture and History.

After Hennessy and Dynes were awarded the prizes, they participated in a short discussion on education moderated by Atkinson. Both presidents expressed concern over the quality of the state's K-12 education system and the budget constraints that affect it.

"One of the great ironies of our country is that we have a higher education system that is regarded as the very best in the world," Hennessy said. "Yet we have a K-12 system that struggles to get on the list of the 10 best, 15 best in the developing world."

Dynes also expressed concern with meeting the university's charter to admit the state's top high school seniors as the number of students continues to rise. "We have the responsibility to honor the master plan, which promises to offer admission to the top 10 to 12 percent of the high school class," Dynes said.

Hennessy said that after more than a decade of overhauling and improving undergraduate education, the university is in the midst of strengthening its graduate programs through initiatives in biological sciences, the environment and international issues.

"When you think about problems [such as global warming, infectious diseases, supplying fresh water], I think it becomes clear that you have to attack those problems by getting faculty together from a wide range of disciplines to address those problems," Hennessy said. "In my view, that's the thing that great research institutions do and will have to continue to do in the 21st century."