Darling-Hammond, Haertel discuss flaws in VAMsystem

NEWS BRIEFS
Tomorrow
Sunny
73 49
Today
Sunny
76 57
FEATURES/3
MODELING
INNOVATION
SPORTS/6
CARD HEADS
NORTHWEST
THURSDAY Volume 240
September 29, 2011 Issue 5
A n I n d e p e n d e n t P u b l i c a t i o n
www.stanforddaily.com
The Stanford Daily
JOIN THE DAILY: DAILY 101X, OCT. 3, 7 P.M., LOKEY BUILDING
Profs brief Congress on
teacher evaluations
WORLD & NATION
Hennessy
comments
on NYC bid
STUDENT GOVT
New mini
microscope
views brain
By ERIN INMAN
SENIOR STAFF WRITER
A new, portable miniature mi-
croscope designed by Stanford re-
searchers, standing at less than
three-quarters of an inch tall, prom-
ises to expand the field of neuro-
science research by recording the
neural activity of mice.
Computers can then process the
neural activity data into brain imag-
ing data. Details of the microscopes
development were announced in a
paper in Nature this month.
This microscope builds off previ-
ous work by associate professor of
biology and co-author Mark
Schnitzer, who focuses on the devel-
opment of fiber-optic microscopes.
In the fiber-optic model, the optical
head of the microscope is mounted
to the mouse, while a fiber optic
cable relays information to an ex-
ternal imaging system.
Though innovative, this prede-
cessor microscope was costly to
produce and imposed physical limi-
tations for mice research studies, ac-
cording to Abbas El Gamal, profes-
sor of electrical engineering and co-
author of the paper. The rigid na-
ture of fiber optics restricted the
mobility of the mouse and hence
the nature of the neural data col-
lected.
Weighing 1.9 grams, the new mi-
croscopes main advantage is its
portability. To improve mobility,
Stanford researchers traded fiber
optics for thin wires, similar to those
commonly used for hearing aids.
The miniature microscope still at-
taches to the mouses head, but now
these flexible cables allow the
mouse to move while still collecting
a stream of neural data.
To improve the imaging technol-
ogy of the microscope, researchers
piggybacked off cell phone imag-
ing research. Gamal said this is the
same technology that allows indi-
viduals to take pictures on their cell
phones.
By using existing imaging tech-
nology and its mass-produced ma-
terial components, the group was
able to reduce the manufacturing
price. Because of this manufactur-
ing capability, Gamal is confident
that the microscopes will be well
commercializedand widely used
by labs. He stated that the miniature
microscope would be used as an
enablerinstead of a research tool.
This is not a prototype; its
something that you use. Thats the
By IVY NGUYEN
MANAGING EDITOR
University President John Hen-
nessy emphasized Stanfords com-
mitment to its proposal for a New
York City (NYC) applied sciences
campus in a recent, joint interview
with the Stanford Report, Stanford
magazine and The Daily.
The interview came just days be-
fore Purdue University dropped its
bid on Monday, citing insufficient fi-
nancial backing from the city. The
Bloomberg administration has
pledged $100 million so far to help
support infrastructure upgrades at
the site. However, the Wall Street
Journal (WSJ) estimates a new
school would cost hundreds of mil-
lions more.
Purdue is the first institution to
drop from the bid, according to the
WSJ.
Hennessy estimated that the bid
could cost as much as $1 million and
that he expects presidential discre-
tionary funds to cover most of the
cost; should Stanford be chosen, the
University will need to raise money
in the form of endowment gifts and
capital contributions.
Acknowledging concerns that
NYC might economically retrench
in the decades during which the
campus would be built, Hennessy
said he believed that Mayor
Michael Bloomberg is set on invest-
ing now to promote prosperity in
the future.
If we decide were going to
solve all our budget problems by
slashing discretionary spending, by
cutting our investments in research
and education, the long-term im-
pact on our economic growth will
make that a penny-wise, pound-
foolish decision, he said.
Hennessy and University
Spokesperson Lisa Lapin both in-
dependently said the amount of
funding the University plans to allo-
cate to public relations firm Edel-
man and political consulting firm
Tusk, recently hired to assist with
the bid, is negligible.
In a speech at IBMs THINK
Forum on Sept. 22, Bloomberg
noted that NYC has surpassed
Boston in becoming the second
largest recipient of venture capital
funding and that NYC has ambi-
tions to surpass Silicon Valleys
lead.
The country needs another
By JENNY THAI
DESK EDITOR
At a Sept. 14 Capitol Hill briefing, School of Educa-
tion professors Linda Darling-Hammond and Edward
H. Haertel, among other leading education re-
searchers, presented their findings on a central concern
in federal and state policy how teacher perform-
ance should be evaluated.
One popular type of teacher evaluation is the value-
added method (VAM) system, which uses statistical
methods to measure gains in student achievement.The
VAM system measures changes in student test scores
over time, while taking into account other factors that
are found to influence achievement.
According to Haertel, who also serves as chair of
the National Research Council Board on Testing and
Assessment, one major flaw of the VAM system is that
it gives policymakers the illusion of a quick fixfor im-
proving student performance by identifying teachers
level of competency through their VAM scores.
Theres a hope that [problems will be solved] by
funding poor teachers that need to either be given
some remedial assistance or discouraged from contin-
uing to teach, Haertel said. Ive not been surprised
that these models have been caught on and have been
so popular among policymakers.
Surprisingly, the problem with the VAM system is
not with its reliance of standardized testing scores, he
continued.
Index Features/3 Opinions/4 Sports/6 Classifieds/9
Recycle Me
Stanford Daily File Photo
School of Education professor Linda Darling-Hammond delivered the keynote address at a 2008 forum on
education. She and prof. Edward Haertel briefed Capitol Hill on measuring teacher performance Sept. 14.
Endowment increases
by 19.5 percent
By THE DAILY NEWS STAFF
Stanfords endowment grew by
19.5 percent over the past year, an in-
crease that has been attributed to re-
turns on investments, endowment
gifts and other funds that have been
rolled into the endowment, accord-
ing to a University statement.
On Aug. 31, the last day of Stan-
fords previous fiscal year, the Uni-
versitys endowment stood at $16.5
billion. In comparison, Harvard
Universitys endowment, reported
a 21 percent increase for the 2011
fiscal year and currently claims the
largest endowment in the world at
$32 billion.
Stanfords investment returns
have also seen an uptick, achieving a
12-month return of 22 percent for a
period that ended on June 30.The in-
vestment pool which is controlled
by the Stanford Management Com-
pany (SMC), a division of the Uni-
versity includes most of the en-
dowment, as well as funds from Stan-
ford Hospital & Clinics and Lucile
Packard Childrens Hospital.
This is the Universitys second
straight year of investment gains.
Last year, Stanford posted a 14.4
percent return on its investments,
following a 25.9 investment loss in
2009, which has been credited to the
stock market crash and the bank-
ruptcy of the Lehman Brothers
Holding Inc. However, even with
these gains, the endowment still
trails the $17.2 billion it was valued
at on Aug. 31.
We are pleased with our returns
for fiscal 2011. But we remain con-
cerned about the uncertain macro-
economic climate and its impact on
global financial markets,John Pow-
ers, CEO of SMC, said in a Universi-
ty statement.
Kurt Chirbas
Physics prof. honored
by Pres. Obama
By THE DAILY NEWS STAFF
Benjamin Lev, assistant professor
of applied physics, will be honored in
Washington, D.C., on Oct. 14, as one
of the nations most outstanding
Cell phones inspire
portable, neural cam
Purdue drops out of
race, citing high costs
UNIVERSITY
SPRIE moves to
GSB for global focus
By MARWA FARAG
DESK EDITOR
The Stanford Program on Re-
gions of Innovation and Entrepre-
neurship (SPRIE) announced its
move from the Walter H. Shoren-
stein Asia-Pacific Research Cen-
ter (APARC) to the Graduate
School of Business (GSB) on
Sept. 13. The privately and inde-
pendently funded SPRIE, estab-
lished in 1998, is an interdiscipli-
nary, international research pro-
gram focused on how high-tech re-
gions grow and are sustained over
time.
The program has five research
focus areas: China 2.0, Japanese
Entrepreneurship, Smart Green
Cities, Telecom Regulation in
India and the Silicon Valley Pro-
ject. SPRIE Directors, all of whom
have been or are affiliated with
Please see BRIEFS, page 9
Please see MINI, page 2
Please see EDU, page 2
Please see SPRIE, page 2
Please see NYC, page 2
The Stanford Daily
the GSB, cited the programs global
focus as a major reason for its move.
The immediate environment
will have an effect, and the immedi-
ate environment will be global,
said one SPRIE Faculty Director
Henry Rowen. Asia is a pretty big
place, but the world is even bigger
and thats the big difference.
Research will be targeted to-
ward academic audiences, policy
makers and business leaders, ac-
cording to SPRIE Associate Direc-
tor Marguerite Gong Hancock. In
the past week, SPRIE hosted a Chi-
nese delegation of over two dozen
policy makers from national min-
istries, provinces and major cities.
We conduct training programs
for senior policy makers from other
regions and national-level govern-
ments, Hancock said. We either
bring our research to them in their
countries or they come and spend
time with us here at Stanford.
SPRIE researches how innova-
tion and entrepreneurship help cre-
ate economic value. The regional
focus is what Hancock believes dif-
ferentiates the program from oth-
ers.
Some programs focus on the
national level and some on the firm
level, and we do the regional level,
Hancock said. Its explicitly re-
gional and explicitly international
and comparative.
Interviews, drawing on expertise
from other regions, workshops and
other forms of research provide the
basic framework of operation.
Our role is to integrate all the
forms of research to pull it all to-
gether, based on our experience in
different regions, and this becomes
the basis for our findings, said a
SPRIE Faculty Director William
Miller.
SPRIE has ties in its focus re-
gions, as well as on the Stanford
campus.
We will continue to expand our
programs but our goal is to link
them with other activities at Stan-
ford we progress by being col-
laborative with other groups,
Miller said.
Among these groups are univer-
sities, government agencies and
companies in the programs focus
regions, including Tokyo University
and the Japanese Ministry of Econ-
omy, Trade and Industry. On cam-
pus, SPRIE collaborates with the
Department of Management Sci-
ence and Engineering and faculty
who teach entrepreneurship in the
School of Engineering. The pro-
gram is also a co-sponsor of Entre-
preneurship Week.
On Sept. 30, SPRIE will host the
first of four major conferences
scheduled for this academic year.
The China 2.0 conference, the
third in a series on the rise of the In-
ternet industry in China, will ad-
dress media and commerce.
We have a lineup of alums from
the venture capital world, entrepre-
neurs and people who are actively
leading growth in Chinas Internet
industry, Hancock said.
Theres a flow of talent and
ideas between the United States
and China, and we research what is
happening there, what kind of inno-
vation is coming out of China and
what the implications will be for
global players, she added.
The conference, as well as
SPRIEs seminars and events
throughout the year, are open and
free to students.
Contact Marwa Farag at mfarag@
stanford.edu.
SPRIE
Continued from front page
major innovation center that would
have some of the dynamism and ca-
pability and impact that Silicon Val-
ley has had,Hennessy said.Thats
in the best interests of the country.
Hennessy added that being at
the right place at the right time is
key to successful innovation. Hav-
ing students and faculty in NYC
could significantly shape the Uni-
versitys ability to contribute to
solving urban problems.
Twenty-five other schools re-
main in the running, including New
York University (NYU), Cornell
University and Columbia Universi-
ty. NYU and Columbia are both
based in the city, and Cornells med-
ical school is also housed there.
Hennessy cited Stanfords 3,000-
mile distance as one of the unique
hurdles the University faces in com-
parison to other runners. One po-
tential way for Stanford to over-
come that distance is to partner
with various universities and indus-
try partners. A Sept. 20 WSJ report
stated that Stanford is in talks with
the City University of New York
(CUNY) about collaborating to
some degree in creating the center.
Hennessy confirmed the University
has engaged in preliminary talks
with CUNY.
When asked about the chal-
lenges that such a distance might
present if Stanford were to win the
bid, however, Hennessy expressed
confidence in the potential for
groundbreaking collaboration be-
tween the two campuses.
A New York campus offers us
an opportunity to develop a new
model for a multi-campus universi-
ty, one that allows us to maintain the
excellence of Stanford, he said.
A presence on the East Coast will
allow the University to attract facul-
ty who might not otherwise join
Stanford for geographical reasons.
He also predicted that the need
for better long-distance communi-
cation will give rise to the develop-
ment of new conferencing tech-
nologies bridging geographic barri-
ers that can be used by other uni-
versities, businesses and institu-
tions.
As you know, flying is no longer
a great experience, Hennessy said.
There is too much overhead; it is
extremely inefficient, and it is bad
for the environment. So if we can
find a way to work virtually, I think
you can justify very large expendi-
tures in return for eliminating small
numbers of trips.
Hennessy likened the NYC bid
to several landmark decisions in
the Universitys history, from its
foundation to move the medical
school to Palo Alto and build one of
the worlds leading medical re-
search institutions.
These and many other ground-
breaking decisions transformed the
shape and direction of the Universi-
ty over the years, Hennessy said.
Having a presence in New York
would be comparable it would
offer Stanford new opportunities to
evolve.
The deadline for universities re-
sponses to the Request for Propos-
als (RFP) is Oct. 28. The New York
City Economic Development Cor-
poration (NYCEDC) committee
assessing the responses expects to
make a decision by the end of this
year.
Contact Ivy Nguyen at iknguyen@
stanford.edu.
Kathleen Chaykowski contributed to
this report.
NYC
Continued from front page
2 NThursday, September 29, 2011 The Stanford Daily
value of it, Gamal said.
In neuroscience labs, the micro-
scopes are used in pre-clinical trials
on developmental drugs for neural
disorders. Researchers can deter-
mine the effect of drugs on mice,
particularly via image processing,
using particular dyes.
From a global perspective,
Gamal mentioned that the micro-
scope could potentially be used as a
hand-held, diagnostic instrument in
developing countries. Both
portable and inexpensive, the mi-
croscope is an ideal tool for field-
work applications, such as screen-
ing for tuberculosis in places where
labs and traditional microscopes
are costly to maintain.
Researchers are currently look-
ing ahead, envisioning a wireless
version of the microscope, as well as
improved depth for field imaging.
Contact Erin Inman at einman@
stanford.edu.
MINI
Continued from front page
Its not the tests, per se,Haertel
said. Its easy to say we need better
tests, but that has been tried again
and again.The tests we have are pret-
ty good at what they do.
Because the VAM system does
not account for factors such as the
amount of teacher infrastructural
support,class sizes and individual stu-
dent learning needs, an important
side-effect of the system is an in-
crease in competition between teach-
ers to perform well. This side effect
may result in teacher neglect of the
population of students who may
need the most help, such as low-in-
come students from non-English-
speaking backgrounds.
We create incentives with these
value-added systems with teachers
who try to avoid students who might
do poorly on the tests or students
who might not make rapid gains in
the test scores,Haertel said.
The VAM systems measurement
of teacher effectiveness has proven
unstable and unreliable. One study
showed that out of teachers who
scored in the bottom 20 percent of
rankings in one year, only 20 to 30
percent had similar ratings the next
year. These results suggest that
teacher evaluations should focus
more on measuring and expanding
professional development.
We need both professional de-
velopment and accountability, and
right now, the equation is out of bal-
ance, Haertel said. We have much
more focus on accountability and
much less on giving teachers the re-
sources they need to develop skills
and do a better job of accomplishing
their work.
Darling-Hammond proposed al-
ternatives to the VAM system, calling
for performance-based assessments
and standards-based evaluations.
This alternative system will combine
evaluations on different fronts in dif-
ferent mediums into a portfolio that
reliably tracks the teachers growth in
his or her teaching craft.
Its a pretty big job to assemble
that evidence, which has to be scored
by trained evaluators to produce a re-
liable score, Darling-Hammond
said. That kind of evaluation can be
done at certain key junctures, such as
when you first enter the teaching pro-
fession, during tenure-based deci-
sions, at evaluations where teachers
can become mentor teachers . . . it is
a very time-consuming and rigorous
process.
Despite the cost of implementing
a more stringent teacher evaluation
system, Darling-Hammond is opti-
mistic that policymakers will be more
enthusiastic about seeking teacher
evaluation assessments that are more
reflective of teacher effectiveness.
Theres an appetite in investing
[in] teacher evaluation, Darling-
Hammond said. These value-added
models are themselves quite costly,
though they dont actually end up
being very reliable, stable or valid.
If you want to improve teaching,
making investments in these pro-
grams that provide solid evaluation
and more teacher assistance, it will
probably prove to be less expensive
and more productive,she added.
Contact Jenny Thai at jthai1@stan-
ford.edu.
EDU
Continued from front page
Its a pretty big
job to assemble
the evidence
LINDA DARLING-
HAMMOND,
education professor
The Stanford Daily Thursday, September 29, 2011 N3
FEATURES
SERENITY NGUYEN/
The Stanford Daily
By TYLER BROWN
MANAGING EDITOR
I
nnovation is a quintessential
Stanford buzzword after all, its
the alma mater of countless entrepre-
neurs over the years. The research
generated by its intellectual ferment
has been one of the largest driving forces for the
Bay Areas high-tech industry. Not to downplay its
significance, establishing a comparable environ-
ment is no easy task, and the word serves as a bea-
con for those who dream of similar academic and
economic successes.
Denmarks Science Minister, Charlotte Sahl-
Madsen, with a group of Danish university presi-
dents and administrators, visited Silicon Valley this
summer. They spent their visit touring Stanford,
meeting with BASES leaders, visiting StartX, an or-
ganization that helps young Stanford-affiliated en-
trepreneurs get off the ground, and hearing from
management science and engineering lecturer
Steve Blank.
The Danes goal was to learn how to sharpen the
focus on entrepreneurship and innovation at their
universities, according to a statement by the Min-
istry of Science, Technology and Innovation.
In Silicon Valley,weve been drinking the Kool-
Aid, Sahl-Madsen said, keen to bring the mindset
back to Denmark. We all share the vision to in-
spire and promote the entrepreneurial mindset.
The young entrepreneurs, they produce growth
both personally and financially,she added a po-
tential boon for the unremarkable Danish econo-
my.
But how are these young entrepreneurscreat-
ed in the first place? Blank, a serial entrepreneur,
offered his take.
I will contest that Silicon Valley is a state of
mind, he said in remarks to the Minister and her
associates. The real thing we make here now is in-
novation.
To sustain innovation, Blank pointed to the
need for disruptive innovations,which redefine a
market and are most often the product of start-ups.
In a large company, they execute, he said.
No one ever uses the word innovation with
Microsoft anymore, he added.
Even Facebook or Google, which are still con-
sidered by many to be on the cutting edge of soft-
ware technology, arent disruptive start-ups any-
more both have established themselves as semi-
permanent fixtures in the local
and world economies.
Blank defined a start-up as a temporary
vehicle in search of a scalable business model.
Start-ups need a business model, not a business
plan, Blank said. No business plan survives first
contact with customers theyre just hypotheses.
Outside Stanford, he added, theyre actually
called guesses. Most start-ups are wrong on day
one.
And founders are not everybody, he said.
Theyre artistsor composerswho create some-
thing from nothing. And the infrastructure is here
to support them.According to Blank, a 22-year-old
with the right presentation can get $4 million from
a venture capitalist a comment that seemed to
surprise the Danes.
But what about failure? In Silicon Valley, a
failed entrepreneur is experienced, Blank said.
Among circles of failed entrepreneurs, the ques-
tion is always, What company are you doing
next?
After hearing from Blank, Sahl-Madsen and
the rest of the group moved on to AOLs headquar-
ters on Page Mill Road. There, they heard from
StartX founder Cameron Teitelman 10 and then
from venture capitalist Vinod Khosla.
In many ways, Khosla struck a tone similar to
Blanks.
My willingness to fail gives me the ability to
succeed, Khosla said in prepared remarks to the
Danish group, the StartX and community mem-
bers in the audience.
He added that innovation is irreverent, in a way,
taking an unusual or underappreciated approach
to a problem, which was why disruptive innova-
tions take markets by surprise.
The inability to predict innovation causes
these forecasts to be wrong, Khosla said.
I truly believe process depends on unreason-
able people, he added.
A Stanford education, among other things, is
designed to equip graduates with the skills to find
the right way to both follow the founders vision
and market a viable product the key is to in-
form an artists opinion,Blank said in his remarks,
and to give Khoslas unreasonable people a
framework for building and pushing their ideas.
Soon, maybe Danish educations will do the
same.
Contact Tyler Brown at tbbrown@stanford.edu.
Entrepreneurial
ferment a
draw for
Danish
visitors
A STANFORD
STATE OF MIND
4 NThursday, September 29, 2011 The Stanford Daily
OPINIONS
A
lright, friends. I wanted to
give you a little advice to
help you get through an al-
ways awkward, first week of classes.
Do: Get to know your friends.
Doo-Doo: Hook up with your
friends.
We all know first impressions
and interactions with new house-
mates can be a quick indicator of
the future type and quality of rela-
tionship you will have.
So naturally I was excited when
the super attractive girl down the
hall popped into my room to ask if I
had a screwdriver. While I was
empty-handed in the tool depart-
ment (I bet theres a self-deprecat-
ing joke in there somewhere), I did
contribute some witty banter and
navigated the standard, How-was-
your-summer?questions.After the
laughter and conversation sub-
sided, I extended my hand and said
all smooth-like, By the way, I dont
think weve met yet. My names
Chase. It was soooo smooth.
She batted her eyes, blushed a bit
and with her mouth slightly ajar re-
sponded, Are you [cuss]ing seri-
ous! [Cuss] you Chase! Not so
smooth.
It turns out I had spent my entire
freshman year on Frosh Council
with this girl an entire year
and had forgotten her name. Not so
smooth at all. After the embarrass-
ment withdrew from my face and
the feeling of being a complete ass-
hole settled firmly into the pit of my
stomach, I apologized and prom-
ised I would make it up to her.
(Phase one of making it up to her,
calling her super attractive in a
school-wide publication. Smooth.)
Im learning theres a difference
between knowing people and really
knowing people. Its one thing to
ask, Whats your major? to fill
small talk. Its another to ask, Why
do you want to major in that? be-
cause you really want to get to know
a person. And when others ask how
youre doing, youre allowed to an-
swer something other than, Pretty
good, you?
Theres a difference between
loving people and loving yourself
through people. In my two years at
Stanford, Ive primarily been guilty
of the latter. I was making efforts to
befriend people, but not to be a
good friend. It was so I could feel
comfortable. I could stop into
rooms and have surface-level con-
versations. I could go to parties with
people and then recount all the
shenanigans the next morning at
brunch. I was getting to know peo-
ple so that I wouldnt feel alone at
Stanford, and once they stopped
serving that purpose, they were re-
placed. Gone. Forgotten.
They say theres no dating cul-
ture at Stanford. They say people
dont have time to date. The under-
lying statement is that people dont
have the time or energy to spare
from preparing for school and ca-
reers to spend loving or caring
about another person. The result is
harmless hook-ups, which is
rarely loving another person and
more often than not loving yourself
through another person.
But back to business; this is an
article on friendship, not dating.
(You win again, rambling, ADD
brain.) I am realizing how selfish I
have been with my friendships.
Rather than spending time and en-
ergy genuinely getting to know peo-
ple, I have settled for hooking up
with friends and by that I mean
developing and maintaining friend-
ships only when it is comfortable
and convenient for me. I have
friends who I call when I want to
talk music, go to the gym, play
sports or borrow a car. But that is
often the extent of it. Our paths are
merely intersecting, rather than
running parallel to each other (for
you techies out there. I think that
makes sense).
Maybe its because I dont want
to sacrifice the time I dedicate to
truly important things (sleeping
through class, deleting spam
emails, watching YouTube videos,
sending spam emails, etc . . . ).
Maybe Im afraid of depending on
someone for fear they will let me
down (like the Angels this season
another lonely postseason Oc-
tober ahead). Maybe Im afraid of
those friends getting too close to
me and realizing that Im not the
put-together Stanford student I
work so hard to display. I dont
know. Maybe I should read some
Freud. I bet he could diagnose me
and figure it out. (On second
thought, lets not go there).
So Ive resolved to do my best to
truly love the people around me, for
their sake. I dont know about you.
Maybe youre getting an A+ in
Friendship and you just think I
suck. Maybe you feel betrayed be-
cause you expected a crazy Friends
With Benefits or No Strings At-
tached story and wound up with a
whiny, emo confessional about
friendship. But maybe its some-
thing for you to think about.
If you have embarrassing forgetting-
peoples-names stories, email Chase
at ninjaish@stanford.edu.
DOS AND DOO-DOOS
Hooking up with friends
F
or most of us, the sound of an
alarm clock is tantamount to
impending doom. Who does-
nt shudder at the thought of the
synthesized marimba chime of an
iPhone? or at the alarm clock
that grins obnoxiously and chirps
Good morning! when all you
want to do is beat its little electric
cogs into a pile of scrap metal? Sure,
it can smile; youre still the one who
has to face the day.
Its a hot mess: you stumble or
trip out of bed and over your book
bag, pull on a pair of Nike running
shorts and a Stanford sweatshirt,
grab an apple if youre lucky and
bike to class, where you sit in a stu-
por until you can spare a moment to
buy coffee. The mess, of course, gets
even hotter if special dinner from
the night before resulted in your
waking up and rolling into a Stats
class still wearing your Scooby Doo
costume from CarToyon Network,
but lets not go there.
That said, Im going to make a
heretical statement.
Im a recent morning convert.
Nothing grounds me better than
the serene sense of calm that wash-
es over me in the still, crisp morn-
ing air. I have come to cherish my
morning ritual. After six months
abroad, I spent the past month at
home indulging in much-needed
recuperation. Every morning, Id
wake up early, put in my iPod ear-
buds and walk over to my neigh-
borhood cafe for a cup of their
vanilla nut coffee. Now, Ive always
wanted to be the kind of person
who takes her coffee black. I mean,
think about it: black coffee
drinkers just radiate the kind of
super intense, no nonsense, go-get-
ter energy that I thrive on. Cream
and sugar were for wusses; sur-
vivors drank black coffee. It was
sort of a Im-hardcore-therefore-
my-coffee-must-also-be-a-symbol-
of-my-intensity mentality.
But after almost five years of en-
during the foul bitter liquid, I want
to make something very clear: I do
not like my coffee black. In fact,
there is nothing better than a cup of
vanilla nut or hazelnut coffee with
whole milk (gasp!) or dare I say
it? half and half with Splenda
(okay, I havent quite gotten to
using real sugar yet, but Im taking
baby steps). I realize my coffee
doesnt scream intense,but to me,
it is perfect. I like the blend so much
that I brought a huge bag of it with
me back to Stanford. From the feel-
ing of the French press as it yields
ever so gently to the firm push of my
palm, to the aroma that accompa-
nies its preparation, to the tendrils
M
eet the Startup Kid. The
Startup Kid is the Organi-
zation Kid that speed-
reads The Organization Kid
Organization Kid 2.0, if you will.
The Startup Kid pursues his life
with a kind of intellectual, deliber-
ate interest, somehow emotionally
detached even as he runs charity
5Ks and takes pottery. You get the
feeling that somewhere theres a
list where he needs to cross off:
Enjoy various athletic and artistic
pursuits and Achieve minimum
viable soul.
The Startup Kids heroes are
Steve Jobs, Gandhi and the Insta-
gram guys.The Startup Kid, like the
Organization Kid, wants to be in
the top one percent, but a .01 per-
cent implementer, or a .01 percent-
design thinker or a .01 percent-par-
adigm shifter. His brain seems to
have, by and large, become a white-
board covered in graphs going up-
wards, and everything and every-
one has their own color-coded post-
it. Startup Kids are creative and
therefore dont need the more ob-
vious gold stickers of their Wall
Street or consultancy counterparts,
but dont think theyre not ambi-
tious. By striving for the nebulous,
the Startup Kid aims to be ubiqui-
tous; he doesnt want to be the Man
he wants to be the System, the
Platform, the context for every-
thing his smaller-minded class-
mates will do.
The Startup Kid believes in data
and metrics. Nothing is unquantifi-
able, and at the very least theres
some data visualization software
for it. Self-discovery? Theres an
app for that. Empathy? It can be
learned in a workshop. His view of
history is profoundly teleological,
not that he thinks much of history.
The Startup Kid doesnt have
enough time for history. The Start-
up Kid feeds history, national fla-
vor, cultural quirks, into the same
lean, mean winning-machine as
whimsy, romance, spontaneity, ges-
ture, immaturity, joy, personal de-
velopment these are sacrificed
for ambition presented so whole-
somely we often fail to appreciate
its ferocity.
This certain kind of ambition is,
I believe, currently being ex-
pressed in the ASSU Executive.
This is not to say The Startup Kid is
a real person or that he is part of
the ASSU but the attitude is
real, and present.
The Project Management and
Implementation team aims to
make the ASSU an omnipresent,
ultra-efficient powerhouse, ac-
cording to its official blueprint.
Everyone from the Health and
Wellness team to the Asian and
Pacific Islander community team
wants to use or build a new kind of
app, as stated in their blueprints.
The Food team is holding a
hackathon. The Co-Chairs of En-
trepreneurship want to identify
qualifying student entrepreneurs
and treat them like athletes
giving them excused absences
when travelling to business-relat-
ed events, as quoted in the Chair
of Entrepreneurship E 2.0 out-
line.
According to the Chair of Tech-
nologys outline, the team wants to
gamify your Stanford experi-
ence, giving you, say,turn in home-
work +10.
Design thinking is given its own
chair and seems to be a slice of
everyones plan, as does hyper-ag-
gressive marketing (question: does
good government need to be mar-
keted?). Several teams mention
using the ASSUs email capabilities
to send out mass event promotions.
The ASSU hopes to establish a
strategy that sends targeted
emails to, say, Nebraskan ath-
letes, according to the Project
Management and Implementation
blueprint.
But this is not just about the
sanctity of my inbox. This is about
the fact that in response to com-
plaints about the length of his
emails, the VP created the position
of Director of Internal Review, ac-
cording to Co-Chair of Entrepre-
neurship Dan Thompson in a previ-
ous interview with The Daily. This
sounds to me like creating a sound-
pollution task force because your
neighbor asked you to use head-
phones.
But what bothers me most about
the ASSU is the vagueness of
everything it wants to accomplish. I
know vagueness doesnt sound
very nefarious, but the more vague
the goal, the fewer limits an organi-
zation has upon it. Take the war on
poverty for instance never going
to end, so can justify anything.
Might not the ASSU declare a war
on apathy? Loneliness? Non-entre-
preneurialism?
Entrepreneurship is a word so
DONT SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF
OP-ED
A new strain of
techie evangelism
A morning jolt
Leslie
Brian
Tiffany Li
Managing Editors
The Stanford Daily
Es t abl i s he d 1892 A N I N D E P E N D E N T N E W S P A P E R I nc or por at e d 1973
Nate Adams
Deputy Editor
Ivy Nguyen
Managing Editor of News
Miles Bennett-Smith
Managing Editor of Sports
Tyler Brown
Managing Editor of Features
Lauren Wilson
Managing Editor of Intermission
Mehmet Inonu
Managing 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 Caselli,
Staff Development
Board of Directors
Kathleen Chaykowski
President and Editor in Chief
Anna Schuessler
Chief Operating Officer
Sam Svoboda
Vice 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 be
reached at (650) 721-5803, and the Classified Advertising Department can be reached at (650) 721-5801 during normal business hours.
Send letters to the editor to eic@stanforddaily.com, op-eds to editorial@stanforddaily.com and photos or videos to multimedia@stanford
daily.com. Op-eds are capped at 700 words and letters are capped at 500 words.
Tonights Desk Editors
Marianne LeVine
News Editor
Jack Blanchat
Sports Editor
Jenny Thai
Features Editor
Shadi Bushra
Photo Editor
Willa Brock
Copy Editor
Chase
Ishii
Please see BRIAN, page 5
You cannot
hack life.You
cannot conjure
community. And
you cant fake
selflessness.
Please see OP-ED, page 5
The Stanford Daily Thursday, September 29, 2011 N5
The Jean and Bill Lane
Lecture Series 20112012
Presents
Mary Oliver
FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Information: 650.723.0011 http://creativewriting.stanford.edu
Sponsored by Stanford Universitys Creative Writing Program
Reading
Monday, October 10, 2011, 8:00 p.m.
Cemex Auditorium
Knight Management Center
641 Knight Way, Stanford University
MARY OLIVERs poetry is ne and deep;
it reads like a blessing. - Stanley Kunitz
Photo by Rachel Giese Brown
APB2011
ALTERNATIVE PRE88 EXPO
COMIC8! BOOK8! 2INE8! ART! & MORE COOL 8T0FF!
OVER 400 EXHIBITOR8! + PROORAM8 & WORK8HOP8!
OCT.
1~2
St.t 11-2
Sum.t 11-6
CONCO0R8E
EXHIBITION CTR.
635 8th 8tzeet
8an FzancIsco
F E A T 0 R I N O
KATE BEATON DANIEL CLOWE8 CRAIO THOMP8ON
MATTHEW TH0RBER ADRIAN TOMINE
8HANNON WHEELER
ADVANCE TICKET8 AVAILABLE ONLINE!
ATTHE DOOR: $10 8INOLE DAY $15 BOTH DAY8
CA8H AND CREDIT CARD8 ACCEPTED
FREE ADMI88ION WITH COMIC-CON 2011 ATTENDEE BADOE
FREE ADMI88ION FOR RETAILER8 WITH C0RRENT 8TORE B08INE88 CARD
PRE8ENTED BY
COMPLETE INFO &
ADVANCE TICKET8: WWW.COMIC-CON.ORO/APE
ILL08TRATION 8HANNON WHEELER
PL08 100s OF COMIC8 OREATE8T ARTI8T8, CREATOR8 & P0BLI8HER8!
of white that unfurl in the mug as I
pour just enough creamer to turn
the coffee that wonderful shade of
milky brown, to the rich, hint-of-
sweet, nutty taste, it is perfection in
a mug. I close my eyes and exhale
deeply.That very first sip warms me
with the comfort that no matter
what has happened before its a
new day with new opportunities
just waiting to be explored. Life
goes on, as beautiful and abundant
as ever.
Sure, I make sacrifices. For a
Stanford senior, waking up at 7:30
a.m. is not exactly the recipe for a
wild night on the town. But even
with the craziness that comes with
fall classes and activities, Im fight-
ing to keep those mornings.
So heres a challenge for the rest
of you: consecrate mornings to
yourself. Maybe youre not a coffee
person, but find your favorite blend
of tea and cherish the process of
making and enjoying it. Prepare
and savor a good breakfast, what-
ever that may be for you truly,
being a breakfast person is awe-
some. Take that time to set a won-
derful tone for your day.
But more importantly, pause.
Look around, if only for a few
short seconds, to see how unbeliev-
ably amazing this world is, and how
beauty can be found in everything
if we take the time to notice and
appreciate it. Trust me, 10 or 15
minutes in the morning can put a
smile on your face for the rest of
the day.
Thats the kind of little moment
I cherish.Those small perfections of
life that remind you just how amaz-
ing the world is and cause the cor-
ners of your mouth to turn up ever
so slightly. The sights, smells,
sounds, tastes, noises and experi-
ences that make you pause and go,
God, life is just too good, isnt it?
This column is dedicated to
those moments. To the little things
in life. To taking the time to recog-
nize them and appreciate them
throughout the day. To that perfect
cup of coffee in the morning. Or to
how the gentle, crisp morning sun-
light differs from the harsher heat
of the afternoon. To the moment
when the pace of my feet match the
rhythm of my favorite song as I
walk along the tree-lined avenue
back to my home. In that moment, I
know that everything will be okay,
that Im okay and that the world is
okay. And that life, for all its ups
and downs, is still beautiful. Those
are the moments I live for.
Leslie wants to know if you enjoy the
little things, so email her at
labrian@stanford.edu.
BRIAN
Continued from page 4
vague that it alternates between
being totally meaningless and the
meaning of life. It encompasses
an activity, a methodology, a
mindset and even a lifestyle
wide-ranging in the problems it
can solve and, for many, com-
pletely absorbing. But its worth
remembering that this world of
whiteboards, sticky notes, jeans
and blazers, arrogant hashtags,
crowdsourced design-thinking-
in-Ikea-chairs-of-scalable-mini-
mum-fundabl e-awesome 2. 0
projects is very, very small and
very, very specific. We need per-
spective and humility.
You cant really make mistakes
living off of a to-do list. You cant
really get your hands dirty experi-
encing life through a computer
screen. You cannot hack life. You
cannot conjure community. And
you cant fake selflessness.
TIFFANY LI 13
OP-ED
Continued page 4
Moving is the best medicine. Keeping active
and losing weight are just two of the ways that
you can fight osteoarthritis pain. In fact, for every
pound you lose, thats four pounds less pressure
on each knee. For information on managing pain,
go to fightarthritispain.org.
6 NThursday, September 29, 2011 The Stanford Daily
SPORTS
Will Boise
block Card?
A
fter the first few weeks of the college foot-
ball season, some of the critical questions
that experts pondered all summer seemed
to be answered.
Will LSUs tough early schedule lead to a couple of
ugly losses? Nope.Will Alabama be that good after los-
ing their starting quarterback,running back and wide re-
ceiver? Oh,yeah.Will Andrew Luck struggle because of
the pressure that comes with being the preseason Heis-
man front-runner? Not one bit.
But now that the top-10 teams in the country appear
to have sorted themselves out (for the most part), fans
are already looking ahead to BCS bowl season and just
where their favorite teams might end up if their early-
season success continues.This picture, just like anything
that involves the BCS, is not so clear.
First, lets sort out just who the national title con-
tenders appear to be. In the SEC, Alabama and LSU
have set themselves atop the conference and the nation,
but they square off Nov.5.In the Big Ten,Nebraska and
Wisconsin are both undefeated,but will play one anoth-
er this weekend. In the Big 12, Oklahoma and Okla-
homa State are unblemished, and they will also play
each other in the last game of their seasons.
In the Pac-12, Stanford is the only undefeated team
left after four weeks,but the Oregon Ducks loom on the
Cardinals schedule, and their lone loss is to No. 1 LSU.
And, once again, Boise State is undefeated, and it looks
like the Broncos will remain that way, barring another
S
ports are wildly unpredictable. Its why we
love them. Its why we hate them. Its why
we watch them. But the hatred is always
rooted in intense competition we want to
beat the best team possible. We seek an
equal to conquer, and when things dont go our way
we curse, scream and vent. But this hatred is far better
than the empty feeling of despair and hopelessness
that comes with injuries.
The sadness and anger following a loss to a bitter
rival is tempered by its brevity the next week you
have the opportunity to beat another team,collect a W
and make it to the playoffsthe Corporate Sponsorship
Bowl.An injury is wildly different,especially a season-
ending one to a star player.
As Im sure you know by nowunless youre in
FroSoCo Shayne Skov is out for the season. But
out of this injury springs opportunity for several play-
SIMON WARBY/The Stanford Daily
Senior forward Lindsay Taylor (above) and the Stanford womens soccer team have reeled off seven wins in a row and have a shot at
eclipsing the Pac-12s longest conference-win streak this weekend on a trip to the Northwest, where they will play the Washington schools.
Jack Blanchat
Injuries
inspire
Billy Gallagher
By JOSEPH BEYDA
DESK EDITOR
After dismantling Arizona last Saturday
in its first-ever Pac-12 showdown, the Stan-
ford womens soccer team heads north this
weekend for two games against Washington
and Washington State.
The top-ranked Cardinal (9-0-1, 1-0 Pac-
12), riding a 21-game conference win streak
into the trip, has a shot at eclipsing UCLAs
conference record of 22 consecutive victo-
ries, a stretch ended by Stanford in 2009.
With a weekend sweep, the squad can also
continue its bid to become the first school in
Pac-10 (or 12) history to post three straight
unbeaten conference seasons.
Standing in the Cardinals way is a Husky
squad (4-4-2, 0-1) that was chosen to finish
fifth in conference by the coaches and a
Cougar team (7-3-1, 1-0) that has yet to lose
at home this season.
Its always tough on the road, and
theyre both really good teams; so we have
to stay humble, go and fight on,head coach
Paul Ratcliffe said.
A year ago, Stanford swept the Washing-
ton schools at home by a combined score of
Stanford trio called up to U.S. Under-
23 womens national team camp
The womens soccer team has
been on a roll of late the Cardi-
nal has won its last seven matches
and exploded for seven goals in last
weekends rout of Arizona and
USA Soccer has taken notice.
It was announced Wednesday
that three current members of the
team have been called into the U.S.
Under-23 womens national team
camp next week, the first step to
making the roster for the 2012
Olympic team that will compete in
London next summer.
Senior defender Camille Levin,
senior forward Lindsay Taylor and
sophomore goalie Emily Oliver will
all make the trip to Carson, Calif.
and the Home Depot Center to
train under the eye of national team
coach Pia Sundhage, U.S. Soccer
Womens Development Director
Jill Ellis and U.S. Soccer Womens
Technical Director April Heinrichs
from Oct. 2-7.
While the invite from the U.S.
national team is an exciting oppor-
tunity for the selected Stanford
players, the camp conflicts with the
Cardinals schedule at a very inop-
portune time. Levin, Oliver and
Taylor will all fly from Seattle to the
Home Depot Center after Stan-
fords match at Washington on Sun-
day afternoon, and are expected to
return to Stanford on Thursday in
time for two critical matchups Fri-
day, Oct. 7 against USC, and Sun-
day, Oct. 9 against No. 3 UCLA.
Its not a good thing because it
hurts our preparations, Stanford
coach Paul Ratcliffe said. But, ulti-
mately, its great for those players to
get the opportunity to play with the
full national team.
No.1 womens soccer looks to extend win streak
ROLLING ALONG
SIMON WARBY/The Stanford Daily
Junior Hannah Benjamin (above) and the Stanford womens volleyboll team
dropped a pair of games last weekend down in Los Angeles, and will try to
move above .500 in the Pac-12 this weekend against the Arizona schools.
SPORTS BRIEFS
TRYING TO
BOUNCE BACK
By CAROLINE CASELLI
DESK EDITOR
After stumbling with back-
to-back losses in Southern Cali-
fornia last weekend, the No. 6
Stanford womens volleyball
team returns home to Maples
Pavilion hoping for a pair of re-
demption wins against the Ari-
zona schools. The Cardinal (8-3,
2-3 Pac-12) looks to break .500
in league play and move up
from eighth place in the confer-
ence standings.
On Friday night, Stanford
will host Arizona State, one of
only two teams Colorado
being the other that remains
winless in the Pac-12. The Sun
Devils (4-9, 0-4) are currently
riding a six-match losing streak
and were swept by visiting
Washington last Sunday after
falling in a five-game match
against Washington State two
days prior.
On paper, Stanford out-
shines Arizona State all over the
court, with the Sun Devils rank-
ing in the bottom half of the con-
ference in every statistical cate-
gory, including dead last in hit-
ting percentage at .169. Its great-
est strength thus far has been
blocking, ranking seventh in the
conference with an average of
2.32 blocks per set, led by junior
middle blocker Erica Wilson
and freshman outside hitter
Nora Tuioti-Mariner with 46
overall blocks apiece thus far.
Redshirt sophomore Ashley
Kastl leads the offense in kills,
with 160 this season (an average
of 3.33 per set), while sopho-
more setter Sarah McGaffin
ranks seventh in the conference
with 10.31 assists per set. In
comparison, Stanfords offen-
sive leader, sophomore outside
hitter Rachel Williams, ranks
second in the conference with
192 total kills, or 4.68 kills per
set, while junior setter Karissa
Cook is fourth in the Pac-12
with 11.02 assists per set.
The following night, Stan-
ford will have a slightly tougher
test against the Arizona Wild-
cats (10-3, 2-2), who will travel
to Maples Pavilion after facing
No. 4 Cal on Friday. Currently
standing right above Stanford at
seventh in the Pac-12 with a .500
record, the Wildcats split both of
their opening conference series,
picking up victories against
Oregon State and Washington
State and falling to Oregon and
Washington.
Arizona and Stanfords front
lines are closely matched, with
the teams ranked fifth and sixth
respectively in hitting percent-
age and kills the Wildcats are
hitting .241 and 13.41 kills per
set while the Cardinal is tallying
.224 hitting and 13.29 kills per
set. The Stanford defense holds
the advantage, leading the con-
ference with 17.71 digs per set,
while Arizona is sixth with
14.84.
Senior middle blocker
Cursty Jackson and freshman
Please see GALLAGHER, page 7
Please see BLANCHAT, page 7
Please see WVBALL, page 7
Please see WSOCCER, page 7
Please see BRIEF, page 8
The Stanford Daily Thursday, September 29, 2011 N7
Join us at the
Sheraton Palo Alto Hotel
625 El Camino Real
Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2011 at 6:30 pm
Meet an admissions
representative and
learn what makes
MIT Sloan different.
MIT Sloan
MIT Sloan MBA
2-year innovative, rigorous program.
mitsloan-mba.mit.edu
14603_MIT MBA + M-Fin Ad_STANFD1.indd 1 9/16/11 4:49 PM
disaster loss like their loss to Nevada
last year. Once again, that means that
the Broncos are the ones complicating
everyone elses lives.
We know that half of the teams I
listed off earlier will definitely have
losses on their record because they
play one another so that will
most likely eliminate some of them
from title contention.And if a team
from the SEC goes undefeated,
theyll definitely be in the title
game (if history is any indication).
If Oklahoma goes undefeated,
theyll surely be in the title game
because theyll have a couple of
wins over top-10 teams.
But what about Stanford? If the
Cardinal goes undefeated, would it get
the call over an undefeated Boise State
team?
Ive personally been asked this
question several times in the past week,
and its a reasonable one because the
Pac-12 is not very deep this year. It
bears repeating that Stanford is the
only undefeated team left in the entire
conference, and its only week five.
Therefore, I wanted to make this
point in print: if Stanford goes unde-
feated and Boise goes undefeated, the
Cardinal would (and should) get the
call over the Broncos.
Stanfords resume would, without a
doubt, be better than Boises, and the
addition of a Pac-12 title game this sea-
son would add extra incentive for the
BCS to pick the Cardinal for New Or-
leans.
Just look at the numbers: if Boise
and Stanford both win out, the Cardi-
nal would have 13 wins to the Broncos
12. Stanford would have quality wins
over Oregon and the Pac-12 South
Champion. Stanfords best win would
be over Oregon,which would be signif-
icantly better than Boises best win,
which came against a suspect Georgia
team in week one.
Im not a Boise hater its a
great program and absolutely de-
serves to go to a BCS bowl if it goes
undefeated but it doesnt deserve
to go over any team that wins an
extra conference championship
game, be that undefeated team from
the Pac-12, Big Ten, SEC or ACC. If
its a one-loss major conference
team, perhaps an undefeated Boise
deserves to go to the title game, but I
wont get into that now.
I know arguments about Boise
have played out now that it has been in
title contention for several years now,
and I hate relying on the Boise-plays-
too-weak-a-schedule argument, but it
does apply in this case.Having Georgia
as your best win is not going to cut it this
year if it comes down to Stanford or
Boise. Sorry, Broncos. Sometimes the
truth hurts.
So take heart, Stanford fans just
remember how unpredictable college
football can be especially if the
Broncos are the ones who finally end
up holding that crystal football at the
end of this season.
If you give Jack Blanchat lemons, he
will make margaritas. If you give him
onions, he will also make margaritas.
So it comes as little surprise that he has
the Cardinal playing in the BCS title
game. Weigh in on his unending opti-
mism via Twitter @jmblanchat, or
drop him an email at blanchat@stan-
ford.edu for that margarita recipe.
BLANCHAT
Continued from page 6
ers, and this opportunity is rooted
deep in recent Cardinal history.
In 2006, the Cardinal struggled
through an injury-riddled campaign
to a 1-11 finish. During the season, a
starting wide receiver, a starting full-
back and star quarterback Trent Ed-
wards a future third-round pick in
the NFL Draft all went down with
season-ending injuries. A multitude
of other injuries at wide receiver got
then-freshman Richard Sherman
playing time at wide receiver. Sher-
man was a veteran leader of the Car-
dinal defense last year after switching
to defensive back.
After the season, head coach Walt
Harris was fired and athletic director
Bob Bowlsby said that injuries were a
big factor in the teams performance
that season. The program hadnt had
a winning season since coach Tyrone
Willingham left for Notre Dame fol-
lowing the 2001 season. Harris re-
placement was Jim Harbaugh, then
the head coach of I-AA University of
San Diego.
Fast-forward a bit. Eight games
into the 2009 season, middle line-
backer Clinton Snyder, the defenses
best tackler and emotional leader,
went down for the season with a knee
injury (sound familiar?). Snyders re-
placement? Stanford fullback Owen
Marecic. When Snyder went down,
true freshman Shayne Skov took ad-
vantage of extra playing time to make
five tackles against then-No. 7 Ore-
gon. Skov started every game for the
rest of the season and finished third
on the team in tackles.
Last year, Skov missed the first
two games of the season with an in-
jury. Max Bergen filled in for him and
recorded eight tackles and a forced
fumble against Sacramento State and
three solo tackles against UCLA.
Let me be clear here the loss of
Skov is huge. But the Cardinal de-
fense is more than capable of weath-
ering the storm.
Redshirt junior Chase Thomas is
one of the best and most underrated
backers in the conference and leads
the team with 3.5 sacks.Thomas, now
the de facto leader of the LBs, said he
wont alter his play since Skovs in-
jury.
Bad things start to happen when
you feel like you have to do too many
jobs or do too much, Thomas said.
We have faith in Jarek Lancaster
stepping in. We have great depth at
linebacker, so there should be no
issue. I know [Shayne] is one of our
top leaders and best players so its
harder to replace him, but at the same
time we have full faith in Jarek and
weve just got to trust that hes going
to do his job and were going to do our
job and well be fine.
Joining Thomas at outside line-
backer is Trent Murphy,who has been
very solid thus far with three tackles
for a loss and two sacks.
Bergen won the open competition
for Marecics old starting spot in train-
ing camp this year and has played
well, recording 14 tackles and a sack.
Now, the task of replacing Skov falls
to a platoon of AJ Tarpley and Jarek
Lancaster. Sophomore Joe Hem-
schoot and true freshman James
Vaughters will also be in the mix.
Tarpley and Lancaster have al-
ready seen a good deal of playing time
this season, as they have rotated in for
Bergen and Skov and played late in
big wins. Both Tarpley and Lancaster
said the training camp battle for
Marecics spot helped the linebacker
corps grow closer together and push
each other every day to improve.
Molding this tight-knit group has
been the responsibility of first year
linebackers coach Jason Tarver. Tarv-
er was offered a position with the San
Francisco 49ers by Harbaugh, but
turned it down to work with new
Stanford head coach David Shaw.
Tarver has experienced this same
scenario with the Niners. In 2007,
starter Manny Lawson suffered a sea-
son-ending injury in the second week.
Tarver helped develop backup Parys
Haralson into a sack machine. Tarver
said the lessons he learned from the
Lawson injury have helped him guide
Skov through his injury and fill his
starting spot.
Tarver and several linebackers
spoke to Skovs intense preparation
both during the week and in games
and intensity on the field. Luckily
for the Cardinal, he has been helping
his replacements study film and
working with them at meetings.As for
his intensity, Tarver said this Skov-
nesshas rubbed off on other players.
For the Cardinal, devastating in-
jury is familiar territory. Its now up to
Tarpley and Lancaster to step up and
make the most of their opportunities,
as Marecic and Skov did before them.
For Billy Gallagher, the past is pro-
logue. Send him more gratuitous
Shakespeare references at wmg2014
@stanford.edu.
GALLAGHER
Continued from page 6 The loss of
Skov is huge,
but the Cardinal
defense can
weather the
storm.
outside hitter Madi Kingdon are
the Wildcats strongest offensive
threats, with Jackson ranking sixth
in the conference with her .363 hit-
ting percentage and tenth in block-
ing, while Kingdon currently ranks
eighth in kills, with 3.82 per set.
History does not bode well for
either the Sun Devils or the Wild-
cats chances. Stanford holds a 58-4
advantage in the series with Ari-
zona State, last falling to the Sun
Devils over a decade ago, and a 56-
6 overall record against Arizona.
The Card will take on Arizona
State on Sept. 30 at 7 p.m. in Maples
Pavilion.
Contact Caroline Caselli at caro-
linecaselli@stanford.edu.
WVBALL
Continued from page 6
7-1, forfeiting the only goal to the
Huskies in the final minute of play of
the weekend one of only two
scores the Cardinal gave up in con-
ference play last season.
Stanford outshot both teams by
over 20 attempts each in last sea-
sons matchups, including a domi-
nant 35-2 mark against the Huskies.
But while the Cardinal has allowed
just four goals through 10 games this
season, the squads defensive efforts
have not always been consistent
through the full 90 minutes Stan-
fords opponents have fired over
twice as many shots in the second
frame as in the first.
Obviously when we make a lot
of changes, that can disrupt the flow
a little bit, because theres a lot of
new faces that arent used to playing
together, Ratcliffe said. But other
than that, I think its just part of the
game. Were still getting a lot of
chances, and I think that the group
that went in for the second half
[against Arizona] did a great job.
The Cardinal will want to pick up
just where it left off in last Satur-
days contest, a 7-0 rout of the Wild-
cats that gave the coaching staff an
opportunity to insert 23 different
players none of whom played for
over 65 minutes into the match
and saw the squad explode with
four goals in a 10-minute span. Stan-
ford received contributions from six
different scorers, including sopho-
more forward Sydney Payne, who
got on the board for the first time
this season.
But Stanfords trip to the North-
west looks to be a tougher test. Ari-
zona, still looking for its first win of
the season, was picked to finish
dead last in the Pac-12 preseason
coaches poll.
Stanford does hold a clear statis-
tical advantage over both Washing-
ton schools in fact, the team is
ranked in the top-10 nationally in
goals for, goals against, save percent-
age and winning percentage, leading
the conference in each category.
Whats more, the Cardinals top four
scorers senior forward Lindsay
Taylor, senior midfielder Teresa
Noyola, junior forward Marjani
Hing-Glover and freshman forward
Chioma Ubogagu have com-
bined for more goals than either the
Cougars or the Huskies as a team.
Regardless, each group has
enough weapons to threaten the
Cardinal if it comes out flat. Wash-
ington State boasts recent Pac-12
Womens Soccer Player of the Week
Beau Bremer, as well as a host of
other talented freshmen who have
combined for five of the teams
goals in early play. The Huskies,
meanwhile, took No. 2 UCLA
surely Stanfords toughest competi-
tor in the Pac-12 to the brink last
week, finally allowing the games
only goal in the 79th minute of a 1-0
loss.
The Cardinals weekend will kick
off in Pullman Friday at 3 p.m., then
continue against the Huskies on
Sunday at 12 p.m.
Contact Joey Beyda at jbeyday@stan-
ford.edu.
WSOCCER
Continued from page 6
8 NThursday, September 29, 2011 The Stanford Daily
Welcome to Stanford University.
What Will You Be Doing
Next Summer?
During Stanford Summer Quarter, you can:
Take this summer to continue to grow, transform,
and discover who you want to be.
Register via Axess starting Sunday, April 15, 2012
CHoose lrom over /b courses ollered by over
3b departments
Comp|ete your 0enera| Lducat|on bequ|rements
lu|h|| your premed requ|rements:
pHys|cs or oran|c cHem|stry
lntens|ve|y study Human r|Hts, water eco|oy
and conservat|on or |oba| manaement
summersess|on@stanlord.edu bbC./Z3.3C9 summer.stanford.edu
Excellence in academics. Excellence in life.
SIMON WARBY/The Stanford Daily
Senior Camille Levin (above) was one of three current Cardinal players
called to try out for the U.S. Under-23 womens national team. The try out is
the first step to making the roster for the 2012 U.S. Olympic team.
Twenty-four players will attend
the camp, including 16 college play-
ers, six Womens Professional Soc-
cer players and two club players.
Stanford is sending the most cur-
rent players, with North Carolina
and Wake Forest each contributing
two athletes to the mix.
Joining them will be former Car-
dinal forward Christen Press 11,
who holds several of Stanfords ca-
reer-scoring records and was re-
cently named the Womens Profes-
sional Soccer Rookie of the Year
after scoring eight goals for the
Florida MagicJack.
The Olympic qualifying tourna-
ment begins in Vancouver, with
final roster cuts not expected until a
few weeks before qualifying begins.
Miles Bennett-Smith
BRIEF
Continued from page 6
The Stanford Daily Thursday, September 29, 2011 N9
AUTO
2000 Lexus RX300 Low Miles
ewthomas@stanford.edu
SERVICES
SEEKING PART-TIME,OCCASSIONAL
CHILDCARE
The Stanford University WorkLife Office
is seeking individuals interested in pro-
viding occasional evening and weekend
childcare. Please call (650) 723-2660
MATH TUTOR
Stanford faculty family looking for a math
tutor for 9th grader/advanced math/
Gunn HS.
Meeting during week days ONLY before
5pm on campus
650 814 9309
FOR RENT
Atherton Guest Cottage
Small bedroom, furnished. Queen-
sized hide-a-bed, bookshelf, dresser,
walk-in closet, bath/shower,
kitchen/laundry, utilities included. Inter-
net access, separate gate/parking.
Four miles from stadium, five minutes
from hospital, seven minutes from stu-
dent union. First/last month, damage
deposit, references required. $1200.
650-321-1233.
ROOM FOR RENT 10/1/11
Internet, HBO, Laundry, Light Kitchen
Becky 650-493-7060
Email beckysroth@yahoo.com
WANTED
$$ SPERM DONORS WANTED $$
Earn up to $1,200/month. Give the gift
of family through California Cryobanks
donor program. Apply online:
SPERMBANK.com
EGG DONOR WANTED
Gay Stanford grad and husband looking
for egg donor for our surrogacy process.
Would love to hear from donors (19-25)
who are happy, confident, empathetic,
tenacious, and athletic. Email: Seek-
ingStanfordDonor@comcast.net
STANFORD FLU VACCINE STUDY
Seeking 18-30 year olds!
The Stanford-LPCH Vaccine Program is
seeking adults for a seasonal flu vaccine
research study. Licensed, FDA ap-
proved flu vaccines given. You must be
18-30 yrs old, in good health and did not
get a flu vaccination last year. Partici-
pants will be compensated.
Call Stanford-LPCH Vaccine Program,
650-498-7284 or http://vaccines.stan-
ford.edu/clinical_trials.html
Email vaccines_program@stanford.
edu
PLEASE CALL
JOHN DODINI (13): Please call
Dad/Grandparents. 707-422-5195/707-
425-3830
CLASSIFIEDS
GET NOTICED
BY
THOUSANDS.
(650) 721-5803
www.stanforddaily.
com/classifieds
Jenna
early-career scientists.
President Obama named him a
recipient of the Presidential Early
Career Award for Scientists and En-
gineers on Monday.
The Office of Science and Tech-
nology Policy, a subset of the Execu-
tive Office of the President, confers
the award each year to 94 scientists
or engineers based on nominations
from 16 different federal depart-
ments and agencies.The office looks
for individuals who are pursuing in-
dependent research at the frontiers
of their fields and who are commit-
ted to community service based on
scientific leadership, public educa-
tion and outreach. The National Sci-
ence Foundation nominated Lev.
President Clinton established the
award in 1996 with the stated pur-
pose of recogniz[ing] and
nurtur[ing] some of the finest scien-
tists and engineers who, while early
in their research careers, show ex-
ceptional potential for leadership at
the frontiers of scientific knowledge
during the 21st century.
Lev adds this honor to others in-
cluding an $875,000 Packard Fellow-
ship in 2010 and the National Sci-
ence Foundation Career Award in
2008. Lev is a recent addition to the
Stanford faculty, transferring to the
Farm earlier this month after work-
ing at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign.
His studies are focused on under-
standing the behavior of quantum
matter.
It is inspiring to see the innova-
tive work being done by these scien-
tists and engineers as they ramp up
their careers careers that I know
will be not only personally reward-
ing but also invaluable to the na-
tion,Obama said in a press release.
That so many of them are also de-
voting time to mentoring and other
forms of community service speaks
volumes about their potential for
leadership, not only as scientists, but
as model citizens.
Kurt Chirbas
Precourt Institute
and Tomkat Center
award research
grants
By THE DAILY NEWS STAFF
Stanfords Precourt Institue for
Energy and TomKat Center for Sus-
tainable Energy are awarding $2.2
million in research grants to faculty
for eight renewable energy projects.
The grants are designed as funding
for early-stage work that will be po-
tentially influential and has good
prospects for future funding.
The grants are spread between
the Materials Science and Engi-
neering, Civil and Environmental
Engineering, Chemical Engineer-
ing and Environmental Earth Sys-
tem Science Departments and the
Graduate School of Business
(GSB).
The projects that the Precourt
Institute is funding include lithium-
air battery development; design of a
novel micro-combined cooling,
heating and power system, which
uses solar energy to cool, heat and
power homes and commercial de-
velopments and more efficient dye-
sensitized solar cells, which involve
the synthesis of dyes that act as bet-
ter charge carriers.
The TomKat Centers awards
focus on research that aims to make
solar installations more efficient
and cost-effective. They include
solar cells with upconverters, which
add layers that allow the cells to ab-
sorb more sunlight; a study on how
to better handle the variability of
power; a new type of alkaline fuel
cell that can be tied to solar installa-
tions; a new method to calculate the
effects of solar installations on
ecosystems and a proposal that ex-
amines the effects of and possible
mitigation for the construction of
solar plants on resources in the
American Southwest.
Tyler Brown
Study suggests life
began in serpentine
rock
By THE DAILY NEWS STAFF
After careful examination of the
geology and environment of Earth
in its early days, a group of Stanford
geologists theorized that life may
have originated above serpentinite
rock at the bottom of the ocean.The
theory was published in a paper co-
authored by geophysics professor
Norm Sleep, geological and environ-
mental sciences professor Dennis
bird and former graduate Emily
Pope in the Philosophical Transac-
tions of the Royal Society B.
Deep sea, serpentinite deposits,
which form white smoker chim-
neys or hydrothermal vents, are
sites where alkaline vent fluid inter-
acts with acidic seawater. The nucle-
ic acids that make up RNA could
have occurred naturally in those
vent fluids, making it more likely
that complete strands of RNA spon-
taneously formed. Tiny pores in the
rock would have allowed for the
strands to survive without cell mem-
branes.
The difference in pH could also
have served as an energy supply for
the organisms. Hydrogen forms
when serpentinite is oxidized by sea-
water, and microbes can react hy-
drogen with carbon dioxide to form
methane or acetate for chemical en-
ergy.
While hydrogen can still be seen
bubbling off of serpentinite rock all
throughout the state, evidence of
membrane-less, rock-dwelling mi-
crobes have yet to be found.
Its conceivable that a biologist
might get lucky, Sleep said to the
Stanford Report. But Im not hold-
ing my breath.
Ivy Nguyen
Study finds better-
dressed individuals
perceived as more
white
By THE DAILY NEWS STAFF
Individuals who were better
dressed are perceived as more
white, according to a study by
Stanford researchers in collabora-
tion with scientists at Tufts Universi-
ty and the University of California,
Irvine.
The researchers asked partici-
pants to determine the race of indi-
viduals with different skin tones.The
individuals depicted were dressed
either in business attire or janitor at-
tire. Researchers found that when
race was more ambiguous, partici-
pants relied on the clothing of the in-
dividuals in the images.When the in-
dividuals depicted were dressed in-
formally, participants were more
likely to classify the individual as
black.
[The study shows] very simply,
that race is about more than a per-
sons physical features, said Stan-
ford sociologist Aliya Saperstein in
an interview with Stanford Knowl-
edgebase, a sector of the Graduate
School of Business news service. If
you can change how people per-
ceive your race by changing your
clothes, or by getting a promotion or
demotion in your job, then race is
not an essence that we hold in our
bodies; it is a category we get as-
signed to socially through interac-
tions with other people.
Marianne LeVine
BRIEFS
Continued from front page
10 NThursday, September 29, 2011 The Stanford Daily
12/1/11