Program Recordings
May 22, 2018 | Video
In 1968, the very concept of transplanting a beating heart from one human to another seemed like science fiction. A visionary Stanford cardiothoracic surgeon named Dr. Norman E. Shumway set about to change that; and in the process created the standard by which nearly 2,000 life-saving surgeries are performed annually today. However Shumway’s legacy is cemented not only for those three hours of surgery in January 1968, but in his team’s decades-long commitment to further transforming transplant protocols and the translational science to lower patient rejection and increase...
April 19, 2018 | Video
Gerhard Casper, President, Emeritus; Peter & Helen Bing Professor in Undergraduate Education, Emeritus; Professor of Law, Emeritus; Senior Fellow at FSI and SIEPR
Susan Schofield, Academic Secretary to the University, Emerita
Peter Stansky, Frances and Charles Field Professor of History, Emeritus
Ethan Ris, Assistant Professor of Higher Education Leadership, University of Nevada, Reno
The Stanford Faculty Senate had its first meeting in September, 1968. To celebrate its first fifty years, ...
March 13, 2018 | Video
As part of its centennial celebrations, the Stanford Graduate School of Education convenes a distinguished panel of faculty and alumnae to discuss the school's post-World War II ascent to eminence in research, policy and practitioner training. Martin Carnoy, Vida Jacks Professor of Education; Rachel Lotan, MA '81, MA '83, PhD '85, Professor Emerita of Education; ...
February 20, 2018 | Video
Stanford Travel/Study began in 1968, at a time when Stanford, like many universities, was the site of student unrest. Rixford Snyder, ’30, MA ’34, PhD ’40, historian and retired dean of admissions, had recently taken over programming for the alumni summer college. He had the idea to hold the summer program on a riverboat in Europe—alumni and their families would listen to lectures while cruising the Rhine River. That trip inspired a whole program of international travel led by Stanford faculty. Combining travel with continuing education, it was different from anything that...
November 15, 2017 | Audio
For much of the last 50 years, Stanford University Press (SUP) has publicly traced its founding back to 1925—and yet, evidence of the Press’s existence before this date exists in abundance. For instance, in 1917 Stanford erected a building custom-built for the Press on Lomita and Panama; meanwhile, books bearing the Stanford University Press imprint surface as far back as the 1890s. Through some archival...
October 26, 2017 | Audio
Alexander Kerensky was the charismatic leader of the Provisional Government that held a tenuous grip on power in Russia between the fall of the Romanovs in February 1917 and the storming to power of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution. Kerensky first visited Stanford in 1955 and spent much of the next ten years on campus, conducting research in the Hoover Library & Archives, teaching seminars, giving guest lectures, and appearing on panel discussions devoted to the latest developments in the USSR. He left lasting impressions on Stanford students and faculty—and is even alleged to...
September 19, 2017 | Video
Leland Stanford Jr., only son of Governor and railroad tycoon Leland Stanford Sr. and heiress Jane Lathrop Stanford, died suddenly in 1884, just shy of his 16th birthday. It is no secret that the Leland Stanford Junior University and Museum were created in memoriam for Leland Jr., but much less is said about how these institutions, and in particular the museum, emerged. The museum’s early collections reflect Leland Jr.’s curatorial interests, nurtured by his doting parents’ great wealth, class tastes, and social connections. Renowned curators even reckoned Leland Jr.’s early death...
Stanford University’s Central Energy Facility: Celebrating 125 Years of Innovation in Energy Systems
June 15, 2017 | Audio
Presentations by Laura Jones, Joseph Stagner and James L. Sweeney on Stanford’s innovative new Central Energy Facility that transformed the university’s energy supply from a 100% fossil fuel-based system to an electrically...
May 23, 2017 | Video
Stanford’s “Old Chem” opened its doors in 1902 and was home to the Department of Chemistry until 1989. Severe damage in the Loma Prieta earthquake required that “Old Chem” be closed. Surrounded by a tall hurricane fence for almost 30 years, “Old Chem” remained a much-admired historical building. A thorough renovation was finally undertaken and “Old Chem” reopened in 2016 as the Sapp Center for Science Teaching and Learning. With great care, the renovation retained the historic architectural character of this important building.
Remarks | Richard Sapp, Member,...
April 19, 2017 | Video
In this talk, Paul Wesling brings us back to early Stanford engineers, campus faculty kids around 1915, local Hams (amateur radio operators) trying to break RCA's tube patents, the sinking of the Titanic, angel investments, Fred Terman and Stanford University, local invention of high-power tubes (gammatron, klystron), WWII and radar, new approaches to running companies, and the San Francisco Bay Area...
March 15, 2017 | Video
- Computers in Love: Date Matching at Stanford, Sandstone & Tile, Vol. 26, No. 2-3. 2002.
The seeds of Stanford’s currently most popular undergraduate major, computer science, grew from the university’s administrative needs, and those of science and engineering research. Provost Fred Terman’s prescient vision of an emerging discipline—the science and engineering of computation—led to the 1957 hiring of George Forsythe to fill a Math Department...
February 7, 2017 | Audio
It all happened with the speed of a start-up. Right after being hired as Stanford University's founding president in March 1891, David Starr Jordan recruited energetic faculty like math professor Joseph Swain, who in turn quickly brought promising students to the still unfinished campus. Swain was impressed by a 17 year old orphan from Oregon, Herbert Hoover, who showed great talent on the math entrance exam. ...
