Stanford community updated on progress, concerns in Campus Conversation

With the academic year underway, several exciting key university initiatives are moving forward in support of the university’s Long-Range Vision, such as the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, research support, and the COLLEGE program, Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne told the university community on Wednesday.

In particular, the university is focused on advancing its IDEAL initiative, as well as campuswide efforts in support of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB), said Patrick Dunkley, vice provost for institutional equity, access, and community.

In the first Campus Conversation of the academic year, which was livestreamed to an audience of community members, Tessier-Lavigne and Dunkley were joined by Provost Persis Drell, who discussed concerns about sexual assault and campus safety, among other issues facing the university.

Campus Conversations began several years ago to provide updates to the university community, answer questions, and hear what’s on community members’ minds. While the event initially took place in person, it was held virtually and largely focused on COVID during the height of the pandemic, Tessier-Lavigne said.

“Though we’re transitioning back to broader topics, we are keeping the online format for now,” Tessier-Lavigne said. “We’ll continue to assess what forum works best for these conversations.”

The conversations will be held once per quarter.

2022-23 Academic Year

Looking ahead, Tessier-Lavigne highlighted the new Doerr School of Sustainability, which has a three-part structure of traditional departments, interdisciplinary institutes, and a Sustainability Accelerator that already funded its first cohort of 30 projects.

The school is “oriented toward creating a sustainable future, and it’s deeply rooted in Stanford’s tradition of pursuing knowledge for the benefit of humanity,” Tessier-Lavigne said. “I also believe the school provides a new model for how universities can take on major challenges, a model that we hope will be helpful to others as well around the country and around the world.”

Also, the Civic, Liberal and Global Education (COLLEGE) program – a first-year shared experience focused on active citizenship – has expanded from one to two quarters, moving toward a full-year experience, Tessier Lavigne said. Organizers are working with campus partners, such as ResEd and Cardinal Service, to embed values of citizenship and the public good throughout the Stanford experience.

In the past year, faculty and staff have made progress across initiatives that support fundamental research. Four accelerators are empowering faculty to move ideas toward impact in social problem solving, medicine, learning, and sustainability, Tessier-Lavigne said.

He praised the work of Carolyn Bertozzi, who just won the Nobel Prize in chemistry, as “a wonderful example of both fundamental scholarship and applied research, and how our two research aims reinforce one another.”

There are also several issues and concerns facing the university community.

Earlier this month, a task force released its report detailing how Stanford suppressed the admission of Jewish students in the 1950s and denied for years that this occurred, resulting in long-lasting effects. Tessier-Lavigne issued an institutional apology for these actions and said the university is embracing the task force’s recommendations.

Campus safety

Many community members remain concerned about campus security and sexual violence following two recent sexual assaults that were subjects of Timely Warnings, Drell said.

Echoing comments made at the Faculty Senate meeting on Thursday, Drell said, “We remain steadfast in our efforts to prevent sexual violence and to respond effectively when it does occur.”

Stanford encourages survivors to reach out for support, including through its confidential services. The university has also expanded its education and prevention efforts and support resources, and has been working to ensure a fair and effective adjudication process, Drell said. “These remain the centerpiece of our efforts, but we are continually learning and working to strengthen what we do in this area,” she said.

A committee is developing a strategy to expand the number of cameras on campus and is exploring development of a safety application for smartphones and smart watches.

The university is also evaluating potential exterior lighting enhancements and considering expanding coverage of the 5-SURE evening escort resource, as well as reinstating evening transportation from the Stanford Shopping Center and the Caltrain station to campus.

Drell also provided a COVID update, saying that the university is in a much better place now than in the past. Last Monday, masking requirements on campus were lifted, and the university continues to monitor the COVID situation with its Public Health Committee advising in the event public health conditions change, Drell said. She encouraged community members to get their COVID boosters and flu shots if they haven’t already, and emphasized that those concerned about their health are encouraged to continue wearing a high-quality mask. “Normalizing mask wearing in our community is absolutely what we want to do.”

Steps toward a better future

Drell said the university’s IDEAL initiative, which began in 2018, continues to make progress on creating an “environment where everyone can thrive.”

Dunkley summarized some of that progress. For example, the IDEAL DEI Survey was conducted in May 2021, and results were released in the 2021-22 academic year. In the first of a four-step goal-setting process, feedback was shared in the survey’s qualitative portion, which was then synthesized into themes as part of the second step. In the third step, hundreds of staff, students, faculty, and alumni participated in focus groups.

The university is in the fourth and final step, Dunkley said, which includes consultation with an advisory group of DEIB professionals from each school and around campus to establish goals, objectives, and strategies. This process is aimed at creating institutional goals that unify the campus in the DEIB space, and develop strategies, objectives, and metrics to measure success.

Other progress includes the ongoing IDEAL Learning Journey, piloting of the Talent Acquisition program to bring additional recruiting expertise and support to hiring managers, and the launch of the Gender Data Enablement Project, Dunkley said.

In response to community concerns, a Disability Task Force has launched, and its report will be released this fall, Dunkley said.

He also cited the Supplier Diversity Initiative, which develops programs to improve vendor diversity; the IDEAL Provostial Fellows second cohort and inaugural conference; and University Human Resources DEIB’s first practitioner conference and work to establish DEIB Communities of Practice to support staff conducting DEIB work.

“There is so much more going on, but I’m hoping this gives a sense of some of the great work that’s being done by the IDEAL team and the broader community,” Dunkley said in thanking everyone contributing to the university’s DEIB progress.

On community members’ minds: remote work, inflation, and social life

Several community members asked questions regarding remote work during the question-and-answer portion.

“We have given a lot of latitude to individual divisions within the university, because each of them has different requirements for the needs of having staff or employees on campus,” Tessier-Lavigne said.

He added that the university is balancing the benefit of remote work for many employees with the need for certain tasks to be done on campus, as well as the importance of creating community and cohesion within units and in onboarding new employees.

Regarding remote workers’ health benefits, Tessier-Lavigne said the university is evaluating national program options, which has been challenging since the remote population is spread out geographically.

Asked whether Stanford will be revising salary increases to align with the current inflation rate of 8%, Drell said everyone is watching the inflation indicators, and staff compensation is very much on the minds of Human Resources and those working on the budget for fiscal year 2024.

“I can’t comment where it’s going to land because I just don’t know yet, but it is very much an active topic of conversation, and we will not be successful as an institution if we cannot stay competitive and retain our wonderful staff,” she said.

Another question centered on what is being done to provide a social atmosphere for students while keeping them safe, in reference to recent allegations that the university is restricting social life.

Social activities have been slow to ramp up coming out of the pandemic restrictions, Tessier-Lavigne said, adding that over the summer, there was a lot of planning that went into creating neighborhood and university-wide events for students, including Cardinal Nights and events at the Arbor. The Social Life Accelerator Task Force is also working on the issue, and the university is working to address student concerns that it should be simpler to organize events on their own, he said.

In her response, Drell noted that the campus events happening every weekend that do not rely on alcohol as a source of fun have been very well received.

“If our students can’t thrive, if they don’t feel that they belong at Stanford, they’re not going to be in the right frame to learn,” Drell said. “We are very focused on how can we help our students to thrive, and we have had an enormous challenge over the last few years with the pandemic.”