8/3/2019 DAILY 01.10.12

1/10

Index Features/4 Opinions/6 Sports/7 Classifieds/9 Recycle Me

WORLD & NATION

High-speedrail meetsroadblocks

By JAMIE KIM

Concerns about the feasibility of funding Cal-ifornias high-speed rail (HSR) project led a peerreview group to conclude last Tuesday that thestate legislature should not approve the release of

billions of dollars of state bond money to fund thefirst phase of construction.

The California High-Speed Rail Peer ReviewGroup, consisting of renowned transportation andfinancial experts, was commissioned by Proposi-tion 1A to advise lawmakers on the rail plan,which would connect Northern and Southern Cal-ifornia by a 520-mile-long high-speed bullet trainthat would travel between San Francisco and LosAngeles in two hours and 40 minutes.

Since first being approved by voters in 2008,the rail plan has come under increasing fire for in-accurate estimates of cost and potential ridership.Last November, Californias High-Speed RailAuthority released a new business plan, which es-timated that the train would cost around $98 bil-lion, almost triple the $33 billion estimate thatvoters were given when the plan was first ap-proved.

A study published in October 2010 by Stan-ford management professor Alain Enthoven,former World Bank analyst William Grindleyand Silicon Valley financial consultant WilliamWarren concluded that based on the history ofhigh speed rail projects around the world, thereis little if any chance the system will pay for it-self. The study further reported that the trainwould be lucky to draw 10 million riders, a merefraction of the 90 million figure that was initial-

Research links

protein complex with

pancreaticcancer

By THE DAILY NEWS STAFF

A recent study by researchers at the StanfordSchool of Medicine indicates that a protein com-plex called SWI/SNF could play a previously un-suspected role in slowing the growth of pancreaticcancer cells.

The study, which was published on Monday inthe Proceedings of the National Academy of Sci-ences, used samples of 70 different pancreatic can-cers, which were provided by the Sol GoldmanPancreatic Cancer Research Center at the JohnsHopkins University School of Medicine. In one-third of these 70 cases, at least one subunit of themultiunit SWI/SNF protein complex was deleted,mutated or rearranged.

Forty-eight of the cancer cases used in thestudy were primary samples from human patients,then implanted into immune-deficient mice. Theother 22 cases were grown in the laboratory.

Using a technique called array-comparativegenomic hybridization, which involves using asingle-stranded DNA to seek and bind to its mir-ror image, researchers were able to pinpoint allthe disparities in the genome between normal andcancerous pancreatic epithelial cells. Researchersdiscovered that genes for individual subunits ofSWI/SNF were altered 5 to 10 percent of the time.

CCNY partnership will absolutely continueBy CATHERINE ZAWCONTRIBUTING WRITER

In spite of Stanfords decision to withdraw itsapplication from the competition to build an ap-

plied science campus in New York City, the Uni-versitys partnership with the City College of New York (CCNY) will absolutely continue,according to a recent University press release,which also stated the two schools would be mov-ing forward with a joint development of an under-graduate curriculum in entrepreneurship.

Stanford submitted a bid to build a $2.5 billiongraduate school of applied science and engineer-ing on Roosevelt Island at the end of last October,responding to the New York City Economic De-velopment Corporations (NYCEDC) requestfor proposals. Two weeks before Stanford un-veiled its final proposal, the University an-

nounced that it had partnered with CCNY, whichwould have temporarily hosted Stanfords aca-demic program by providing space for facultyand classes until the proposed Roosevelt Islandcampus was completed.

Instead, Stanford withdrew from the contest inmid-December. Three days later, Mayor MichaelBloomberg announced that NYCEDC had select-ed a joint proposal prepared by Cornell Universi-ty and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology asthe winner.

CCNY was not involved in Stanfords deci-sion to withdraw its application, according toCCNY officials. CCNY President Lisa Coico joined Stanford President John Hennessy andother Stanford administrators in the first-roundinterview with NYCEDC, but CCNY was not in-volved in the subsequent negotiation process withthe city, which was handled by a smaller Stanford

team. Stanford also prepared its final proposal in-dependently from CCNY.

CCNY officials said they are disappointedthat the partnership as initially envisionedthrough the Roosevelt Island bid could not go for-

ward, but also said that they are prepared to playa significant role in enabling Stanford to create arobust presence in New York City through othermeans, stating that CCNY would be willing toprovide on-campus space and other amenitiesnecessary for Stanford to accomplish that goal.

Mary Edmondson, the vice president for com-munications at CCNY, said that the continuedpartnership [with Stanford] will provide trans-formational opportunities for our students and ourfaculty scholars. Reciprocally, we will be able toprovide research opportunities for Stanford stu-dents and faculty in New York City.

Stanford and CCNY have built a strong part-

nership that isnt directly related to the proposalfor the Roosevelt Island campus, according to of-ficials at both universities, who said a by-productof this collaboration is the continued develop-ment of a joint curriculum. Like all university cur-

ricula, the curriculum of this program would bedeveloped by faculty and then reviewed by theappropriate faculty senate and senior institutionalleaders at each of the respective institutions.

We are still having conversations about howthat might be possible without a Stanford facultypresence in New York City, said Lisa Lapin, as-sistant vice president for university communica-tions at Stanford, in an email to The Daily.

Under the Roosevelt Island bid, the best un-dergraduate engineering students at CCNYwould have been able to apply during their junior

UNIVERSITY

Fiesta Bowl sells out ticket allotment

UNIVERSITY

SMC continues to diversify its portfolioBy MARSHALL WATKINS

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The Stanford Management Company(SMC) has continued to re-align its portfolioin response to losses sustained during the re-cent recession, according to SMC presidentand chief executive John Powers.

The SMC has attained an annualized re-turn of 9.3 percent over the past 10 years,with its merged poolincluding most ofthe Universitys endowment, as well as capi-tal reserves from Stanford Hospital & Clinicsand Lucile Packard Childrens Hospitalgrowing to $19.5 billion as of June 30, 2011.

However, the height of the recession sawthe SMC sustain heavy losses, with themerged pool shrinking by 25.9 percent in thefiscal year ending June 30, 2009. As of the2011 fiscal year, Stanfords endowment hasnot yet returned to pre-recession levels.

What was really singular about that fis-cal period was that, with the exception oftreasuries, there really was no safe haven,Powers said. All asset classes got pum-meled.

Since then, the SMC has sought to lessenits exposure in private equity and real estate,two asset classes that were principal contrib-utors to losses sustained, in the aftermath ofthe recession. The SMCs real estate invest-ments had reached a plateau in the years be-fore the economic crisis.

Powers stated that the SMC was lookingto gradually reduce the pace of new commit-ments to both assets until their share of theportfolio was re-aligned appropriately, but heemphasized the incremental nature of the ad-justment and the potential for future invest-ments.

Endowment managers at peer universitieshave also sought to limit their exposure to

risk. Last November, Bloomberg Business-week reported that Harvard ManagementCompany, which manages the $32 billion en-dowment of Harvard University, was seekingto sell $1.5 billion of its holdings in privateequity funds.

If the question is whether weve lost ourenthusiasm for private equity or real estate,in the case of private equity, no, Powerssaid. In the case of real estate, were chang-ing the risk profile of our real estate portfolio,which probably will never be as large [as thestake held before the recession], and thenfrom time to time well opportunistically in-crease exposure when the time seems right.

Losses sustained in the recession have af-fected the SMCs portfolio composition andinvestment philosophies in the years since.Powers noted a renewed emphasis on invest-

Peer group advises state legislature tonot approve the release of funds

By JULIA ENTHOVENCONTRIBUTING WRITER

Ticket sales for this years Fiesta Bowl farexceeded those from last years Orange Bowl,echoing the desire of Stanford fans to see An-drew Luck play his last college game, as he ledthe No. 4 Cardinal against No. 3 OklahomaState.

We got the same allotment of tickets17,500from each bowl, said Brian Talbott,senior associate director and CFO for StanfordAthletics. We sold out in less than a week forthe Fiesta Bowl, and last year, for the OrangeBowl, we actually did not sell out. Ever.

Since Stanford sells bowl tickets for thesame price that it purchases them, any amountof unsold tickets represents a net cost for theathletic department.

There is some reimbursement that the con-

ference offers us for unsold tickets, Talbottsaid. So we are able to recover some of themoney that way. This year, obviously, we did-nt need to do that since we sold all of the tick-ets...but we dont make a profit on [ticketsales for bowl games].

Talbott said he wasnt sure why there wassuch a difference between the amount of ticketssold for these two bowls.

I would think mostly its proximity, hesaid. The Orange Bowl is a lot farther away,and we have a smaller concentration of alumsupporters out there. [For] the Fiesta Bowl,some people could even drive.

The Cardinal fell in the Jan. 2 Fiesta Bowl toOklahoma State, 41-38 in overtime. Last year,the Cardinal beat Virginia Tech 40-12 in the Or-ange Bowl in Miami, which is more than 2,000miles farther from Stanford than Phoenix.

Talbott also inferred that the assumptionthat it is Andrew Lucks last year caused somepeople to want to see that game, leading to in-creased ticket sales in two consecutive years.

Our season ticket sales went up...more

than 50 percent this year as compared to lastyear, Talbott said. Not only were the bowlsales up, but ticket sales in general for our sea-son were up.

The Fiesta Bowls success, however, wasnot due to a dramatic increase in student ticketpurchases. Talbott said that a little fewer than1,500 students bought tickets out of the 17,500 provided, adding that the bowl tickets wentmostly [to] general supporters: season ticketholders, other interested parties...[and] gen-eral fans.

Overall, Talbott said, It ended up beingabout as expensive to go to the Fiesta Bowl asto go to the Orange Bowl. It was a roughly sim-ilar experience for us financially.

Although he said that it was too early totell, Talbott is optimistic about next years sea-soneven with a new quarterback. Wehave some [new season ticket] interest in de-posits for next year, which is obviously posi-tive, he said.

Contact Julia Enthoven at jjejje@stanford.edu.

Please see SMC, page 2

A n I n d e p e n d e n t P u b l i c a t i o nwww.stanforddaily.com

FEATURES/4

OLD CHEMS MYSTERY

DEBUNKED

Tomorrow

Mostly Sunny

60 40

Today

Partly Sunny

56 42

TUESDAY Volume 240January 10, 2012 Issue 48The Stanford Daily

SPORTS/7

STRONG OPENINGCardinal cruises to win its first

matches of season

MICHAEL LIU/The Stanford Daily

Stanford sold out its allotment of 17,500 tickets for this years Fiesta Bowl, a feat that the University was unable to accomplish lastyear with the Orange Bowl. Many have attributed this rise in attendance to fans desire to see Andrew Luck play his final college game.

NEWS BRIEFS

Ticket sales grow from last year,but Fiesta not more profitable

Please see HSR, page 9

Please see CCNY, page 2

Please see BRIEFS, page 9

8/3/2019 DAILY 01.10.12

2/10

2N Tuesday, January 10, 2012 The Stanford Daily

MTE Studios

Located inTresidderMemorial Union(650) 721-1234

The image of writing

ALISA ROYER/The Stanford Daily

Lydia Liu, professor in the humanities at Columbia University, spoke in the Philippines Conference Room at Encina Hall about how the appearanceof different writing forms affects the way we look at both ourselves and other cultures, analyzing the distinctions we make between pictography,ideography and alphabetical writing. Liu also connected her analysis to current work on digitial writing.

or senior year to co-term and earn aStanford masters degree, accordingto Lapin in a follow-up email. Shesaid those students would have at-tended classes at the new applied sci-ence campus in NYC.

The idea was that they would at-tend Stanford classes in NYC, sowithout those classes being held therewe need to rethink how such a pro-gram would work, Lapin said.

Lapin added that now that Stan-ford has withdrawn its bid, CCNYstudents would likely need to comehere for the masters degrees.

The collaboration process on thejoint curriculum has already begun.Lapin cited the Stanford TechnologyVentures Program (STVP) as an ex-ample of a similar collaboration proj-ect.

STVP, which is located in Stan-ford Universitys School of Engineer-ing, is made up of entrepreneurshipeducators, faculty and staff. The pro-

gram was given a five-year, $10 mil-lion grant by the National ScienceFoundation and is dedicated to accel-erating high-technology entrepre-neurship research and education forengineers and scientists worldwide,according to its brochure.

However, Lapin noted thatCCNY will be the first campus wework with, and that partnership is al-ready under way.

As a first step, [we] are looking tosend a cohort of our most talented stu-dents to the summer research experi-ence for undergraduates or the Sum-mer Institute for General Manage-ment [SIGM] at Stanford, Edmon-son said.

College juniors, seniors and recentgraduates can apply to SIGM, which

is a summer program hosted by theStanford Graduate School of Busi-ness. Select students receive the aca-demic instruction, professional guid-ance and leadership training essentialfor making an immediate impact inthe workplace, according to the pro-grams website.

Lapin said the exact number ofCCNY students participating in theprogram is not yet known.

Our partnership remains strong,and we anticipate that elements of thecollaborations that we have been dis-cussing will ultimately go forward,Edmonson said.

Contact Catherine Zaw at czaw13@stanford.edu.

CCNYContinued from front page

8/3/2019 DAILY 01.10.12

3/10

The Stanford Daily Tuesday, January 10, 2012 N 3

ment diversification and an aversionto certain asset classes.

Weve increased our exposureto hedge fund strategies that havehistorically shown low correlationwith equities, and we are overweightwith our market allocations in natu-ral resources, Powers said.

The SMCs speedy recoveryfrom the recessionit recorded again of 14.4 percent in the 2010 fis-cal yearcan be attributed to bothmarket conditions and SMC invest-ment decisions. Powers stated thatthe development of a very heavyvalue credit exposure was a criticalcomponent in profits generated dur-ing the economic recovery.

Powers said that negative experi-ences with illiquid assets during therecession had increased the valuethat the SMC puts on flexibilitywithin the portfolio. He acknowl-edged, however, that the SMC isstill in the process of getting back to

the level of liquidity that we wouldlike to have.Extensive exposure to equities,

however, may be necessary to satis-

fy the SMCs objectives, Powerssaid. The SMC aims to enable theendowment to pay off approximate-ly 5.5 percent to the University tocover inflation and to then grow theendowments real value. The highlevels of growth expected necessi-tates significant equity exposure, ac-cording to Powers.

The portfolio will always have asignificant equity component to it,Powers stated. That was the case be-fore the market mess, and that will bethe case going forward too. Withinthat, we think we can prudently di-versify and lower our risk, but we willalways have a significant amount oflong-run equity exposure.

While the SMC currently has alittle over half of its portfolio invest-ed in the United States, Powers stat-ed that in the long run investmentswould become increasingly tilted to-wards Asia and other emerging mar-kets.

Well look to be broadly reflec-tive of global market capitalization,Powers said. We will continue toslowly become less and less U.S.-centric, while recognizing that therewill [still] always be, from time to

time, opportunities.

Contact Marshall Watkins at mt-watkins@stanford.edu.

SMCContinued from front page

8/3/2019 DAILY 01.10.12

4/10

4N Tuesday, January 10, 2012 The Stanford Daily

It was a little weird but it was really cool. I would put

it as one of my happiest moments because it was

cool to see that Sports Illustrated was finally caring

about Stanford.

By LANA HO &

SUZANNE STATHATOS

Stanfords campus is known for,among other things, its aesthetic beauty, its rich history and its for-ward-thinking modernity. But the oldchemistry building, with boarded-up

windows and doors, surrounded by a tall chain-link fence tagged with No Trespassing signs,doesnt quite fit with the last of those three. Thebuilding has been unused since 1987, when theUniversity deemed it a structural and fire haz-ard, and when other old buildings were re-

paired after the Loma Prieta earthquake in1989, Stanford left it a relic. But it may not staythat way for long.

The old chemistry building, built in 1900,was the first reinforced concrete building westof the Mississippi River. It was built on Lomi-ta Drive away from the Main Quad to preventthe rest of the Quad from being affected by po-tential explosions, according to chemistry pro-fessor Michael Fayer. In its golden days, ithoused beautiful wooden lecture halls, spiralstaircases, student and research laboratories, alibrary and administrative offices.

The old chemistry building had real char-acter, Fayer said.

Then the University built more buildings.By 1974, when Fayer arrived at Stanford, thechemistry department had expanded into thethree Stauffer Laboratory buildings west of theold chemistry building.

Fayer conducts his research using lasers,which require very stable conditions. When hearrived at the University, his team was placedin the basement of the old chemistry building,where its antiquity proved useful: there wereno vibrations from air conditioners or elevatorsto disrupt the tranquil environment needed forhis work. At the same time, the building alsoshowed signs of deterioration. Asbestos-cov-ered steam pipes lay exposed, and when thecarcinogenic material would occasionally fall

off the pipes, people in HAZMAT suits had toremove it. The pipes also leaked and Fayer andhis team shared their space with rats, whichscampered across the floor above.

He recalled one particular game that he andhis team played with the rats. Youd hear thisrat running from one side of the ceiling to theother, he said. Youd hear the rat runningalong, and at just the right time, you jumped upand pushed the ceiling up whoom the ratcouldnt stop and would just come falling outthere and would be running around on theground.

To end the rodent infestation, the depart-ment tried rattraps. These failed, so they chose

to poison the rats. However, the end of one in-festation led to the beginning of another.All the rats died, and then the flies came,

Fayer said. We had weeks of dense flies with-in all the rooms . . . thousands of flies.

Many faculty moved their offices to theMudd Chemistry Building, the Chemistry De-partments new headquarters built in 1977, toavoid such conditions. However, Fayer stayedin the old chemistry building until 1987, whenthe University drilled into the building andfound that the rebar that initially supported thebuildings frame had corroded to tubes of rust,making it structurally hazardous. The Univer-sity deemed the building unfit for earthquakeregulations, and shortly thereafter constructedthe Keck Science Building, where Fayer nowconducts his research. Their findings provedserendipitous, as two years later, the Loma Pri-eta Earthquake struck the Bay Area.

Bob Wheeler, the facility manager for ZoneB (the region of the University where the oldchemistry building is located), and his teamwork to keep the public from accessing the oldchemistry building. Occasionally, his teamfinds compromised windows and doors, andthey work to secure these access points.Wheeler believes Stanford hasnt madechanges to the building because the Universi-ty hasnt identified the funding to make the re-pairs that need to be made to do the seismic up-grade, he said.

Some, like Wheeler, would move to main-tain the buildings appearance and reconditionit.

Ive always thought that restoring a build-ing from that era would be a wonderful chal-lenge and great fun, Wheeler said. It is apiece of history and the architecture then ismuch different from the architecture now.

According to Andrew Herkovic, director of

communications and development at StanfordUniversity Libraries, the University has dis-cussed turning the old chemistry building intoa library, but no specific plans have been made.

Indeed, Stanfords 2011-2012 capital budg-et and three-year capital plan lists Old Chem-istry Classrooms with Library as a delayedproject for the School of Humanities and Sci-ences.

To the best of my knowledge, there hasbeen no architectural programming done onthat prospective library, other than that it wouldbe poured somehow within the shell of OldChem, Herkovic said.

The cost, however, poses a major obstacle

to that path forward. In 1999, University plan-ners and administrators estimated that it wouldcost at least $35 million to renovate the build-ing to adhere to earthquake safety standards,

FEATURES

Ryan Mayfield 13 has been featuredon Sports Illustrated and ESPNswebsites as the football fan of theweek. Every Saturday last quarter,he could be found covered in Cardi-

nal gear at Stanford Stadium, and over winterbreak, he made his national television debut atthe Fiesta Bowl. The Dailys Kimberly Baconcaught up with Mayfield to talk about his life asStanfords superfan.

The Stanford Daily (TSD): What inspired youto become such a big fan?Ryan Mayfield (RM): Ive really always beena huge football fan. My father is a huge footballfan, so when I was growing up I think I went to

several hundred high school games in myhometown. When I came to Stanford it waskind of just a natural progression.

TSD: Whats your normal routine before agame?RM: My sophomore roommate, Eddy Albar-ran 13, and I go to the game together. Its somuch fun going to the stadium because I havethe flag whipping behind me and . . . the olderfans milling about are laughing at me. Im usu-ally in line about three and half hours before thegame.

TSD: Do you think that Stanford fans have be-come more energetic in recent years?

RM: Oh, without a doubt. My best friendsbrother [Class of 06] . . . talks about how thisyear we won more games than his entire timehere. He is a football fan but he never evencared that much because they always lost. I wasreally inspired at the end of the Oregon game.With four minutes left [and] down by threetouchdowns, the student section was full. Iwould like to think that, even if we started los-ing, the fandom would continue at the samelevel.

TSD: How would you respond to a claim thatStanford fans are apathetic and fair-weatherfans?RM: I dont think we can know that for sure

yet. Obviously if you look at the past 10 yearsof Stanford football I would agree with that when we were terrible no one came and nowthat were good the student section is full. Weare just such a small school that we have a hardtime getting people to create a big following.So I dont think that question can be answeredyet. I think we are moving in the right direc-tion.

TSD: Were you at ESPN College GameDay?RM: Yes, I was. I went at about 3:30 in themorning. It was fun; it was a little crazy. I hadnever been to one before. It was cool to see thatmany people there, that much passion, thatmuch excitement for the team.

TSD: How did it feel to be voted a Sports Illus-trated Superfan?RM: It was a little weird but it was really cool.I would put it as one of my happiest momentsbecause it was cool to see that Sports Illustrat-ed was finally caring about Stanford. The factthat they care about our fans means . . . thatthey care about our team. And I think that thatis the bigger thing. I dont want it to get to myhead or anything because, whatever, Im a fan.

TSD: Have you received recognition from theteam?RM: No, no. I dont know, it would be coolmaybe, but I dont necessarily want it. Im afan. Were sitting in the stadium screaming

while theyre getting punched around on thefield. Lets put the tribute where its due.

Kimberly Bacon

Q&A

Ryan Mayfield, Stanford superfan

A glimmer of the future for a symbol of Stanfords past

OldChem

MEHMET INONU/The Stanford Daily

Please see OLD CHEM, page 9

Courtesy of Anadel Law

The old chemistry building stands separatelyand alone from the rest of the Quad next to

the Oval during the 1946-47 academicyear. The photo was taken with a Browniecamera and was likely shot from Hoover

Tower.

Courtesy of Laura Zehenderly

8/3/2019 DAILY 01.10.12

5/10

The Stanford Daily Tuesday, January 10, 2012 N 5

8/3/2019 DAILY 01.10.12

6/10

6N Tuesday, January 10, 2012 The Stanford Daily

This is going to be a simple col-umn. That is what I have to tellmyself as I sit down in front of

the keyboard and write this columnevery week. I know I could spiral ef-fortlessly into the black hole of unin-telligible hyper-intellectuality,something only possible when weremove ourselves from real life. Imtempted to be over-comprehensiveand cover all theoretical corners to

prevent potential criticisms againstmy ideas. But, more than that, I wantto write something clear. I want to beunderstandable, in the hopes thatyou, my reader, happen to relate tome. Its nerve-wracking sometimes.This column is around 800 words onan interior page of the Tuesday edi-tion of one schools newspaper alittle thing. Yet I still get remarkablynervous on Monday night about thenext mornings paper. Despite mydesire to express something honest,something fascinating, somethingthat I hope benefits everyone, its al-most too much to expect that I couldaccurately share any observation ofour lives in black and white type. Ourvery complex lives . . .

Heres what is not too complex:Taylor Swifts music, which filledmy car over winter break. Swift is aself-proclaimed boy-crazy countrystarlet that sings about Romeo and

Juliet, being 15, romantic momentsand enchanting first acquaintances.Her music is crush-heavy, exaggerat-edly dreamy and well-fancied by asurprising number of my guy-friendswho would love to be a Swift muse.Overall, though, most would only

blushingly admit to liking Swift, andshallowly at that. So why did I appre-ciate it so much over winter break?The past several weeks, I was with ayoung woman whom I love and re-gard as my little sister, a girl who has

been navigating certain pressures inlife Ill never know. Unexpectedly,that music provided random relief aswe held numerous karaoke sessionson the road. The subject didnt mat-ter it was easy listening. At a timewhen all else in her life was hitting

painful extremes, this kind of sim-plicity like board games, trips tofarmers markets, Zoolander, hand-made Christmas cards meanteverything. It was like interruptingones thoughts, often dark and self-destructive, by just breathing.

As we get older, we build increas-ingly lofty infrastructures out of ourlives as we pursue what we presumewill be a better one later. Its not al-ways intentional (unless one choosesto live apart from society). Like ourevolving schoolwork, from spellingtests to theses, our personal lives be-come frilled with higher stakes and

bigger consequences. We grow upfeeling obligated to other people andtheir standards and expectations. We

have the power to influence theirlives, as they do us. We overanalyzetheir opinions even while we muddlethrough our own. We make morechoices and supposedly get wiser aswe do. We think a lot, especiallyabout if and how others are thinkingabout us.

But I was thinking about it . . . andrealized that when Im happiest, Imnotthinking. In fact, while at peaceand/or laughing hysterically in tears,Im sort of mindless. It turns out con-tentment isnt complicated. Andmost of us would agree in words, be-fore we turn back to how we actuallylive. By now, experience has taughtus that the world is a convoluted

place. And so, voila! We expect com-plexity, so we make create it. And ina way, we feel thats the natural, ma-ture thing to do.

Complaining about busyness hasbecome a competition in disguise forso many of us students, when in factour greatest difficulty seems to be sit-

ting still, alone, quietly. By letting somany other voices into our heads, itsnow hard to be accompanied by ourown. But many of us have seen, in ourfriends and family, how uncontrol-lably this tendency leads to crisis.This column doesnt aim to explainall of the ways our lives in this mod-ern world are complicated theyundeniably are. This column justwants to re-appreciate the simplicitywe seem set on abandoning as wegrow older and more expectant ofourselves and others. I just wonder if,

before we get onto saving the world,we should recognize when we haveto be saved from ourselves, first.

Goodness, however our personal-ities and passions define it, is some-thing we pursue with every ounce of

academic and extracurricular energywe have. Thats commendable. Butwhat is true, noble, just, pure, lovely,virtuous, praiseworthy . . . is also thesmallest, most immaterial thing inthe world. Thats all I wanted to say.Its childlike, really which meansits crucial. As I recall my most des-

perate moments and those of thepeople I wish I could rescue, I realizewe have to return there to rememberwhy we choose to live for the nextmorning at all.

Think Nina has oversimplified life?Or is secretly into Swift? Nina wantsto talk to you. Email her at ninamc@stanford.edu.

OPINIONSManaging Editors

The Stanford DailyE s t a b l i s h e d 1 8 9 2 A N I N D E P E N D E N T N E W S P A P E R I n c o r p o r a t e d 1 9 7 3

Nate Adams

Deputy Editor

Billy Gallagher & Margaret Rawson

Managing Editors of News

Miles Bennett-Smith

Managing Editor of Sports

Tyler Brown

Managing Editor of Features

Lauren WilsonManaging Editor of Intermission

Mehmet InonuManaging Editor of Photography

Shane Savitsky

Columns Editor

Stephanie Weber

Head Copy Editor

Serenity Nguyen

Head Graphics Editor

Alex Alifimoff

Web and Multimedia Editor

Zach Zimmerman, Vivian Wong,Billy Gallagher, Kate Abbott &

Caroline CaselliStaff Development

Board of Directors

Kathleen ChaykowskiPresident and Editor in Chief

Anna SchuesslerChief Operating Officer

Sam SvobodaVice President of Advertising

Theodore L. Glasser

Michael Londgren

Robert Michitarian

Nate Adams

Tenzin Seldon

Rich Jaroslovsky

Contacting The Daily: Section editors can be reached at (650) 721-5815 from 7 p.m. to 12 a.m. The Advertising Department can bereached at (650) 721-5803, and the Classified Advertising Department can be reached at (650) 721-5801 during normal businesshours. Send letters to the editor to eic@stanforddaily.com, op-eds to editorial@stanforddaily.com and photos or videos to multi-media@stanforddaily.com. Op-eds are capped at 700 words and letters are capped at 500 words.

Tonights Desk Editors

Kurt ChirbasNews Editor

Jacob JaffeSports Editor

Suzanne StathatosFeatures Editor

Alisa RoyerPhoto Editor

Matt OlsonCopy Editor

THEYOUNG ADULT SECTION

Square one

NinaChung

You taught them how to dribble.

You taught them how to shoot.

You taught them to work hard on defense.

YOU CAN TEACH THEMabout the dangers of underage drinking.

8/3/2019 DAILY 01.10.12

7/10

The Stanford Daily Tuesday, January 10, 2012 N 7

By MILES BENNETT-SMITHMANAGING EDITOR

Fresh off a runner-up finish at the College Cupand just two years removed from leading theCharlotte mens soccer team to the programsfirst NCAA appearance a turnaround engi-neered in just five short years coach JeremyGunn was poised to turn the 49ers into perennial

NCAA contenders.But when Stanford Athletic Director Bob

Bowlsby came knocking, looking to find a re-placement for Bret Simon, who stepped down inNovember after 11 years as head of the Stanfordprogram, Gunn couldnt say no.

In the 40-year-old Gunn, Bowlsby hired a vet-eran coach with plenty of wins and postseasonsuccess on his resume, although he does not havemuch experience.

Jeremy Gunn has a proven track record ofwinning and developing student-athletes and

programs everywhere he has coached, Bowlsbysaid. We are very excited to welcome JeremyGunn as our new mens soccer coach. His teamsare known to be extremely well-organized, deter-

mined, hard-working and well-coached.And conversely, the allure of coaching on the

Farm, despite the Cardinals spate of up-and-down years since the teams last sustained run of

postseason success in the early 2000s, was ulti-mately too much for Gunn to pass up Char-lotte reportedly made several attempts to extendGunns contract and retain the English national.

I am truly honored to accept the position asthe new head mens soccer coach at StanfordUniversity, Gunn said. I am excited to begin anew era of Stanford mens soccer and am thrilledto be given the opportunity to become a part ofone of the most prestigious universities in theworld.

Growing up in North Yorkshire, England,Gunn was outstanding at both cricket and soccer.A member of Englands U-17 national team incricket, he was also a youth player at GromsbyTown F.C. and Scunthorpe United F.C. beforecoming to the United States to play soccer for CalState Bakersfield he went on to become a firstteam All-American for the Roadrunners.

After graduating from Bakersfield, Gunnbegan his coaching career as an assistant at his

alma mater while continuing to play soccer pro-fessionally in the United States he spent sev-eral years with the Chico Rooks Pro Soccer Clubin Chico, Calif. and the North Bay Breakers ofRohnert Park, Calif. before playing in the UnitedSoccer League for Nashville and laterCharleston.

He served on both the mens and womenscoaching staffs during his seven-year stint atBakersfield, helping the Roadrunners to the 1997

NCAA Division II national championship and anappearance in the 1995 national semifinal.

The success propelled him to accept his firsthead coaching job with Fort Lewis College inDurango, Colo. There he built a D-II juggernaut,winning the Rocky Mountain Conference fivetimes and playing in three NCAA Champi-onships in eight years with the Skyhawks. Ineight seasons, Gunn won an average of 15 gameseach year, going 22-0-1 en route to the 2005

NCAA championship.He picked up right where he left off after ac-

cepting the job at Charlotte. During the five sea-

CARD CRUSHES CANADA

Stanford baseball trio named presea-

son All-Americans

The junior trio of pitcher Mark Appel, thirdbaseman Stephen Piscotty and shortstop KennyDiekroeger were all named preseason All-Amer-

icans over the break, leaving the Cardinal with

lofty expectations heading into the 2012 season.Appel who many analysts have predictedwill be a top-five pick in Junes MLB Draft and Diekroeger who is a potential first-round

pick were both selected to Collegiate Base-

balls All-American teams, with Appel earning

first team honors and Diekroeger finding his wayonto the second team.They join Piscotty, who was named a first

team All-American by the National CollegiateBaseball Writers Association.

After losing to North Carolina in the NCAASuper Regional last season, the Cardinal fig-ures to be a mainstay in the national title pic-ture this year after returning seven positionalstarters and the majority of its weekend rota-tion. Pollsters have certainly taken notice Stanford is ranked No. 3 in Collegiate Base-

balls preseason poll, the highest ranking forthe program since being No. 1 in the 2002 pre-season.

The team will face several stiff tests early on,as No. 5 Texas and No. 7 Rice are both on the Car-dinals non-conference schedule, as well as No.23 Vanderbilt.

Stanfords season kicks off on Feb. 17, when

the Commodores visit the Farm for a three-gameseries at Sunken Diamond.

Miles Bennett-Smith

Both fencing teams finish in top threein season opener

At Sundays Western Invitational in ColoradoSprings, Colo., the Stanford womens fencingteam placed second and the mens team placedthird.

The tournament used a best-of-six-match for-mat, and the Cardinal teams went 5-1 and 4-2, re-spectively.

SPORTS

SIMON WARBY/The Stanford Daily

Senior libero Erik Shoji is one of Stanfords two first-team All-Americans, along with senior

outside hitter Brad Lawson. The No. 4 Cardinal won its first two matches this weekend.

All is not lost.

A week after the Fiesta Bowl, I

know it still hurts. Those missed kicks,those chances lost, a depressing 12-hour drive home from Arizona in de-feat. But this is sports. When you godown you dont stay down. You get upfighting and move on.

I dont mean to trivialize what itfeels like to lose, let alone to lose in thatway. Winning would be meaningless iflosing wasnt so painful. The greatthing about sports, though, is that thereis always another chance. Anothergame, another season or even a differ-ent athletic discipline. College footballis dead at least for the next ninemonths. Long live college basketball!

The Pac-12 season is already fourgames old and Stanfords mens andwomens teams are tied for second andfirst, respectively. The women are also

ranked No. 4 in the nation, and thoughunranked, the men have been receivingvotes in both the AP Top 25 and coach-es polls. But Im going to avoid the ob-vious and not write about the mensteam from here on, partly becausetheyll get their fair share of coveragefrom other sources and partly personal

bias; I do report on the womens team,after all.

The cruel reality of the sports worldis that some get all the attention, and soit is on the Farm with football andmens basketball. The core of Stanfordfans, the students, rarely make it to anyof the other varsity or club activities oncampus rival students might proba-

bly claim we hardly make it to those ei-ther. Perhaps this is because you are ac-ademic overachievers and struggle tofind the time outside of classes and as-signments, but that doesnt really feellike a good excuse.

Many of the athletes on campus areprofessional in all but name, and we getto go watch them in our backyard forfree. Take senior womens basketballforward Nnemkadi Ogwumike for ex-ample. Over the break, when most ofyou were relaxing with family, shescored 174 points in seven games and

just 209 minutes of play; thats just over0.8 points per minute. She broke intothe exclusive 2,000-point club last Sat-urday against Oregon State, and she ison pace to finish second on the all-timeStanford scoring list by the end of theregular season, behind guard CandiceWiggins school record of 2,629

points.Many people expect undefeatedNo. 1 Baylor to sweep this year, in large part because of its Naismith CollegePlayer of the Year favorite, 6-foot-8

junior forward Brittney Griner, a play-er who is already on the USA Basket-

ball roster. And can dunk. But if anyonecan upset that apple cart, it might just

be Ogwumike. She was named theUnited States Basketball Writers Asso-ciation National Player of the Week fora 42-point, 17-rebound destruction of

No. 6 Tennessee in the final days of2011 and just seems to be getting bet-ter. Even in the last two contests againstthe Oregon schools, in which Stanfordhead coach Tara VanDerveer claimedOgwumike might not have been on herA-game, she averaged more than 30

points per game. But perhaps the best-placed people to comment on her abil-ities are those who have to come toMaples Pavilion and face her.

Shes obviously an incredible ath-lete, said Oregon State head coachScott Rueck after his teams recent lossto Stanford. Shes got the combina-tion that the greatest players in her sporthave. People come to watch her be-cause she does things no one else cando. Its not only athleticism and skill,

but shes got this fire and drive in her.This passion that her whole team can

just jump on.And to make matters worse for the

Cardinals opponents, she has ayounger sister on the team, sophomoreforward Chiney.

So when you need a break from

homework this quarter and youremissing being able to watch the na-tions best college football player struthis stuff on Stanfords field everyweekend, come on down to Maples. Intight games the Cardinal could certain-ly do with your support, and playerslike the Ogwumikes deserve it withtheir skill and commitment. But morethan that, you can erase the pain of theFiesta Bowl with the dream of NCAAglory.

Tom Taylor is really a ladies man atheart. Catch some other womens

sports with him at tom.taylor@stan-ford.edu.

STANFORD WINS

FIRST TWO MATCHES

By JORDAN GUNNINGCONTRIBUTING WRITER

The No. 4 Stanford mens volleyball team (2-0)started off its season with two wins this weekendagainst the Thompson Rivers WolfPack of Canada(0-2).

With six of seven starters returning includingfirst-team All-American seniors Erik Shoji and BradLawson the Cardinal went into the weekend

poised to win its two exhibition matches.MENS VOLLEYBALL

THOMPSON RIVERS 0

STANFORD 3

1/7, Burnham Pavilion

The two teams met for the first match at MaplesPavilion. As the heavy favorites it was no surprisethat the Cardinal won the match, but it was a surprisewhen the Cardinal lost the first set to the WolfPack.

In the first set of the match, Thompson Riverswent nearly point-for-point with Stanford and tookadvantage of the Cardinals five service errors andeight attack errors. A kill from Thompson RiversKrzysztof Orman ended the set and resulted in a 25-23 Cardinal loss.

With the first set of the season going down as adisappointing loss, the team came back to win thefollowing three sets convincingly.

The Cardinal came out swinging in the secondset, easily trouncing the WolfPack 25-13. The Cardi-nal had 15 kills in the set to Thompson Rivers four.Sophomores Brian Cook, outside hitter, and DennyFalls, middle blocker, each had four kills in the set.The Cardinal also managed to hold the WolfPack toa .000 hitting percentage.

The third set was also dominated by Stanfordwith a 25-18 score and only one Cardinal serviceerror.

The final set of the match was another 25-18 vic-tory to net the Cardinal its first win of the season,three sets to one.

Even with the rocky start, the match was a strongshowing of Stanfords skill. The Cardinal was led byCooks 16 kills and Lawsons 12.

On Saturday the teams met again at BurnhamPavilion for their second exhibition match. The Car-dinal swept the match with wins of 25-21, 25-16 and

GUNN NAMED HEAD COACH

Tom Taylor

Please see MVBALL, page 8

Move on to

womens

basketball

SPORTS BRIEFS

IAN GARCIA-DOTY/The Stanford Daily

Junior shortstop Kenny Diekroeger was one of three Stanford baseball players to be named apreseason All-American, along with pitcher Mark Appel and third baseman Stephen Piscotty. Please see BRIEFS, page 8

Please see GUNN, page 8

8/3/2019 DAILY 01.10.12

8/10

8N Tuesday, January 10, 2012 The Stanford Daily

Jahn caps season with All-Far West honors

SIMON WARBY/The Stanford Daily

After scoring four goals and tallying two assists, finishing second on the team in scoring, junior Adam Jahn wasnamed to the National Soccer Coaches Association of Americas All-Far West Third Team. The Davis, Calif.,

native has scored 11 goals in three years on the Farm, and was also named second team All-Pac-12 this year.

sons he spent with the 49ers, Gunncompiled a 64-26-14 record, includ-ing a 5-2 mark in the NCAA Tourna-ment his teams also won a pairAtlantic-10 conference titles in 2010and 2011.

Bowlsby hopes Gunn can bring aspark to the Stanford program,which has made the NCAA Tourna-ment just one time in the past nineseasons after three College Cup ap-

pearances in five years from 1998-2002.

Gunn is passionate about teach-ing and developing his student-ath-letes as soccer players and youngmen, Bowlsby said. With Jeremyat the helm, we look forward to re-turning Stanford mens soccer to na-tional prominence year in and yearout.

The mens team will have severalmonths to train before the Cardinalsees its first action under Gunn whenthe spring schedule opens in April.

Contact Miles Bennett-Smith atmilesbs@stanford.edu.

GUNNContinued from page 7

25-20.In the first set the Cardinal and

the WolfPack stayed even for quite awhile. Then when Stanford trailed21-20, the team rallied for fivestraight points, with two key blocksfrom sophomores Denny Falls andSteven Irvin to win the set.

The Cardinal never let its oppo-nent win points on serve. Irvin ledthe team with seven kills in the 25-16 set. Stanford finished off theWolfPack with a 25-20 win in thethird set.

After the early non-conferencematches, Stanford will open MPSF

play with a road match at Pacific onWednesday at 7 p.m.

Contact Jordan Gunning at gun-ning@stanford.edu.

MVBALLContinued from page 7

On the womens side, all fivewins were fairly comfortable, asStanford won the first five best-of-27 matches by at least nine-pointmargins. However, in the title match,the Cardinal ran into a buzz saw in

Northwestern, with the Wildcatswinning 25-2 to take the title.

The men had the closest match ofthe tournament, barely edging out

UC-San Diego 14-13 after three blowout wins. Stanford lost twice,though: once to host Air Force andonce to eventual champion NotreDame.

Freshmen led the way for bothteams, as Cameron Lindsay went14-4 and Jonathan Lee went 13-5 onthe mens side, while Katya Savitskywas 11-4, Julia Klepner was 12-5and Lily McElwee was 14-3.

Stanford does not compete againuntil the Midwestern Invitational onFeb. 4.

Jacob Jaffe

BRIEFSContinued from page 7

Is this your idea of a healthy heart?

8/3/2019 DAILY 01.10.12

9/10

The Stanford Daily Tuesday, January 10, 2012 N 9

WANTED

$$ SPERM DONORS WANTED $$Earn up to $1,200/month. Give thegift of family through California Cry-obanks donor program. Apply on-line: SPERMBANK.com

ISO Babysitter for campus facultyfamily; chwest@gmail.com

WANTED:After school care onWednesdaysI am looking for a responsible stu-dent to help with after school care onWednesdays during the winter quar-ter. You will need to have a car. I have

2 girls, aged 5 and 8, who need pick-ing up from Barron Park school inPalo Alto and bringing to our housein college terrace. You will need tostay with them until 4.30 or 5.Email joboaler@stanford.edu

SERVICES

ELECTRICAL SERVICESD.M. Eshelman Electric is focusedon providing quality commercial andresidential electrical services.David M. Eshelman Owner / Lic#C10-820622

(650) 520-8989 /www.dmeelectric.com

CLASSIFIEDSGET NOTICED

BY THOUSANDS.

(650) 721-5803

www.stanforddaily. com/classifieds

ly sold to voters.According to Enthoven, in an

email to The Daily, the CaliforniaHigh-Speed Rail Authority recentlypublished a 2012 draft business planthat raised their estimated costs forthe segment connecting San Francis-co to Los Angeles from $43 billionto some $98.5 to $117 billion. En-thoven wrote that this is based on 15 percent completion of engineeringwork, far from enough to have a trulyreliable estimate. Histories of othermega projects suggest the total even-tual costs could exceed $150 bil-lion.

Enthoven is currently studyingthe 2012 business plan and aims tocomplete an analysis by Jan. 16.

Last November, Palo Alto CityCouncil members were unanimousin their opposition to the proposedhigh-speed rail. The council voted 8-1 to charge its Rail Committee withdrafting a request to the state legisla-

ture to either abandon the project orput it in the Nov. 2012 ballot for re-consideration.

According to an article in the SanJose Mercury News, Larry Klein, aPalo Alto city councilman and thesole dissenting vote, said that thecouncil knew enough and that fur-ther input from the Rail Committeewasnt necessary to take a formalstand.

Klein, who chairs the city coun-cils Rail Committee, wrote in anemail to The Daily that he voted indissent because he wanted the fullcouncil, which was already unani-mously against the rail plan, itself totake action rather than refer the mat-ter back to the state legislature.

Klein said that voters now real-

ize that what they voted for was a mi-rage. As the recent field poll shows,the voters would today overwhelm-ingly reject the HSR proposal. Theestimated cost hasnt really in-creased. Many people knew the orig-inal estimated costsusing theHSR Authoritys own internal num-berswere unrealistically low.What has changed is that the HSRAuthority, faced with a barrage ofcriticism, finally acknowledgedmore reasonable cost numbers.

The city council last acted on thematter at a meeting on Dec. 19, whenits Rail Committee drafted a formalwritten opposition to the rail project.The position, adopted by the full citycouncil, was transmitted to state leg-islators and Governor Jerry Brown,among others.

It basically cites HSRs exorbi-tant cost, its overestimated ridership,the misleading information providedthe voters in 2008 and the environ-mental damage HSR would cause asthe reasons for our opposition,Klein wrote.

The project has encounteredother setbacks as well. In November,a state judge ruled that that the High-

Speed Rail Authority would have toreopen and revise its environmentalanalysis after a lawsuit was broughtforth by a coalition that includedMenlo Park, Atherton and Palo Alto.

The cities, in coalition with vari-ous nonprofit groups, first chal-lenged the Rail Authoritys selectionof the Pacheco Pass as the placementof the San Francisco-Los Angelesline three years ago, contending thatthat the rail authority failed to suffi-ciently analyze the traffic impacts ofthe proposed line at Monterey High-way south of San Jose.

The ruling created an additionalsetback for the rail authority, whichwas forced to further revise its pro-gram-level Environmental ImpactReport.

The high-speed train project is ofparticular interest to Stanford, whichowns 36.2 acres of land along the railcorridor in Menlo Park and PaloAlto. A statement issued by the Uni-versity in June 2010 details Stan-fords various interests in the align-ment of the train. Primary amongthose concerns are improved opera-tion and viability of Caltrain, theeconomic effect of taking or impact-ing University lands and the trans-portation effect/impact of any newlycreated physical barriers betweenStanford and the surrounding com-munities.

On the possibility of a high-speedtrain station in Palo Alto, the state-ment, while acknowledging the po-tential economic benefits and in-creased ease of travel to Palo Altobusinesses and to some of the busi-nesses currently on Stanford-ownedlands, brings up that Palo Alto and itsneighboring areas have very littleavailable traffic and parking capacityfor such a facility. The statement ex- pressly states, a station for HSRwould not, in our view, constitute a priority justifying further reductionof this limited capacity.

Stanford Director of Land Useand Environmental Planning CharlesCarter, who represents Stanford onthe City of Palo Alto Rail CorridorTask Force, said that the Universitysfundamental position remains un-changed.

Protecting residential uses, im-proving connections through the cor-ridor and identifying opportunities todevelop supporting civic and com-mercial uses in the corridor were the big ideas, along with design en-hancements to the primary roadwaysin the corridor to make them com-plete streets that serve all modes oftravel, Carter said.

Contact Jamie Kim at jbkim1@stan-ford.edu.

HSRContinued from front page

According to the study, the link between the mutations in theSWI/SNF protein complex and pan-creatic cancer had not been encoun-tered in the past because these genet-ic differences are spread amongst thefive different subunits of the proteincomplex. Researchers said it was notuntil the data was considered togeth-er that they realized more than a thirdof the cancer samples contained adeletion, mutation or rearrangementin at least one of the five subunits inthe protein complex.

This is really strong genetic evi-dence that this complex plays a role inpancreatic cancer, said Jonathan Pol-lack, associate professor of pathologyand senior author of the research, in apress release by the School of Medi-cine. It suggests the influence of theSWI/SNF complex is on par with thatof other well-known tumor suppres-sors, such as p53.

Upon this discovery, researchers

then experimented by engineeringthe pancreatic cancer cell to re-ex-press the altered subunit. They foundthat the artificial expression slowedthe growth of the cancer cellsandeven caused them to enter a perma-nent suspended state instead of divid-ing wildly.

According to the press release, theresearchers now plan on working toidentify which particular genes areresponsible for the growth of pancre-atic cells by experimenting with theexpression of genes on the SWI/SNFsubunits.

Graduate student Hunter Shain isthe first author of the study. Othercontributors include graduate studentCraig Giacomini and former patholo-gy resident Karen Matsukuma.

Melody Wong

Chaykowski

awarded 2012 Pearl

internship

By THE DAILY NEWS STAFF

Kathleen Chaykowski 13, cur-rent editor in chief of The StanfordDaily, has been awarded the 2012Daniel Pearl Memorial JournalismInternship, which funds an internshipin a foreign bureau of The Wall StreetJournal.

The internship was founded in

2003 to commemorate the work ofDaniel Pearl 85, a communicationmajor at Stanford. Pearl was kid-napped and killed in Pakistan in 2002while working as a foreign corre-spondent for The Wall Street Journal.He was 38.

Chaykowski, an English major

from Fort Wayne, Ind., previouslyworked for The Chautauquan Dailyin New York and the Mail &Guardian in Johannesburg, SouthAfrica, where she covered refugees,migrants and human rights issues.She will return to Johannesburg thisspring for her work with The WallStreet Journal.

In her application essay titledWriting in Shades of Gray,Chaykowski wrote that Pearls at-tention to the ambiguity and surpriseshe encountered yielded stories thatdelve far beyond the black and white.It is the graythe small, humanmoments, the contradictionsthat Iaspire to capture through my own re-porting.

Chaykowski was selected from anapplicant pool of undergraduates andgraduate students by Stanford com-munication faculty and Wall StreetJournal staff.

Margaret Rawson

Stanford libraries

help

digitize papers of

Europes first female

professor

By THE DAILY NEWS STAFF

The Stanford Libraries have part-nered with the principal municipal li-brary of Bologna, Italy, and the Istitu-to per i beni culturali della RegioneEmilia-Romagna to grant public ac-cess to the papers of Europes first fe-male professor, Laura Bassi, an 18th-century Italian scientist. The institu-tions will work together to scanBassis archives, which include6,000 pages documenting her life andwork.

The documents, which are now inthe archives of the Biblioteca Comu-nale dellArchiginnasio in Bologna,will become accessible online laterthis year. Stanford will assist in cre-ating an easily searchable website togrant public access to the documents,which will be translated and ex-plained.

The second woman to receive auniversity degree in Europe, Bassilived from 1711 to 1778 and wasknown for conducting experimentsin her home with her husband, alsoa scientist. Bassi was the firstwoman to be offered an officialteaching position in a Europeanuniversity.

As an erstwhile student of Italianarchival material, I am very pleasedthat Stanford is working with theArchiginnasio to bring the Bassi ma-terial to a wider audience, said Stan-ford University librarian Michael A.Keller in a statement to The StanfordReport.

Margaret Rawson

BRIEFSContinued from front page

Others, like Fayer, argue that keep-ing the building itself intact isntnecessarily a priority.

It would be much cheaper to justtear down the old chemistry buildingand build a new modern building,Fayer said. It would never be usefulas a science building. That would befabulously expensive, because it justdoesnt have the systems for air han-dling, water and electricity.

Fayer also identified the potentiallytoxic problems related to Old Chem. Inthe early 1900s, scientists poured rawchemicals down the drains (a forbid-den practice in modern labs). Thesechemicals festered in the pipes, andover a long period of time, began to

permeate the entire building.Its my guess that it would be al-

most a toxic waste disposal problemto get rid of whats in the contami-

nated wood and all of the stuff thatsin this building . . . the place is sopolluted with 75 years or more of

chemicals.Instead of trying to save the

building or leave it untouched, Fayersuggested replacing it with a new

joint chemistry-biology library oranother administrative building, op-timizing the use of the 60,000 squarefeet the current structure covers. Al-ternatively, Fayer said he wouldntmind if they just tore it down andmade it into a new grass field. Afterwatching it for almost a quarter ofcentury just sit there, it just seems tome like something should happen.

However, it is unlikely that theUniversity would demolish this

building since it has historical sig-nificance, said Craig Tanaka, direc-tor of the Department of CapitalPlanning and Space Management.

No plans have been approved forthe old chemistry buildings future,Tanaka said, but senior administra-tion officials will discuss it duringthe upcoming capital plan cycle.

Until then, Old Chem is caught inlimbo.

Contact Suzanne Stathatos at sstat@stanford.edu or Lana Ho atlanaho@stanford.edu.

OLD CHEMContinued from page 4

8/3/2019 DAILY 01.10.12

10/10

10NTuesday, January 10, 2012 The Stanford Daily