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Index 
Features/3 •Opinions/4 •Sports/5 •Classifieds/6
Recycle Me
SPORTS/5
HOME SWEEP
Wazzu dominated atSunken Diamond
FEATURES/3
ESPERANTO
Learning the universallanguage
Tomorrow 
Sunny 
7451
Today 
Sunny 
7047
 An Independent Publication
 www.stanforddaily.com
 The Stanford Daily T
MONDAY Volume 241
May 14, 2012Issue 59
By JOSEPH BEYDA 
DESK EDITOR
The last time that the Stanford and USCwomen’s water polo teams met at AztecAquaplex in San Diego, the Trojans swamaway with a 10-9 victory over the top-seededCardinal in the 2010 national championshipgame.But when the two squads met yesterdaywith another title on the line, No. 1 Stanfordwasn’t going to let another title slip away.The defending-champion Cardinal (26-2)got a late goal from senior driver PallaviMenon and 15 saves from junior goalie KateBaldoni to edge the Trojans 6-4 and captureStanford’s third national championship inwomen’s water polo and 103rd overall. Bal-doni’s 29 saves to just nine goals allowed overthe tournament won her MVP honors, whileMenon capped her Stanford career withseven goals over the weekend.“We definitely have some bad memoriesfrom being here two years ago, but this group,this team has an incredible spirit about themand this amazing attitude,” said head coachJohn Tanner. “They were relentless today.”Neither squad led by more than a goal be-fore Menon’s bad-angle shot found the backof the cage with just 1:11 left in the game.Menon and sophomore driver Kaley Dod-son each had two goals, with Trojan goalieFlora Bolonyai stifling Menon on a latebreakaway in the first half.“We were really frustrated with some of our missed opportunities,” Tanner said. “Wethought 0we could’ve gotten ourselves a two,three, four-goal cushion, and we just strug-gled to stay up by one. But Kate was ab-solutely phenomenal, and finally Pallavi withthat last goal to give us some breathing roomat a critical time.”Despite the adversity it faced in the finals,the Cardinal’s road to Sunday’s showdownwas a relatively smooth one. Stanfordopened its weekend with a 17-5 win over No.8 Pomona-Pitzer on Friday and a 12-3 victo-ry over fourth-seeded UC-Irvine in the semi-finals on Saturday.Against the Anteaters, freshman AshleyGrossman had a hat trick while Menon andfreshman Cory Dodson each tacked on twogoals of their own, and the Cardinal held theAnteaters scoreless over a 12:56 stretch of the first half after they had taken an early 1-0 lead.
No students to be accepted from wait list following yield jump
IAN GARCIA-DOTY/The Stanford Daily
Junior goalkeeper Kate Baldoni was named the tournament MVP after she stopped 15 USCshots in Sunday’s national title game in San Diego. Baldoni and the Cardinal have now cap-tured two consecutive NCAA crowns.
National champions
WATER POLO GOES BACK-TO-BACK
CARD WINS SECOND STRAIGHT
Please see
 WPOLO
, page 2
University braces forlarge incoming class
STUDENT LIFE
XOX plansmarch forautonomy 
By MARSHALL WATKINS
DESK EDITOR
Chi Theta Chi (XOX) residentsand members of the Stanford com-munity will march on the office of the Vice Provost of Student Affairsthis morning in protest of the Uni-versity’s decision to terminate thehouse’s lease and in support of thehouse’s continued independence.“The [University] has repeated-ly ignored and evaded the residentsof Chi Theta Chi during the processof their takeover,” said a Facebookevent page dedicated to the march.“The residents of Chi Theta Chiand all those in solidarity willmarch . . . to make their voicesheard.”According to the event page,which listed 85 attendees at thetime of publication, protestors willmarch on the office of Student Af-fairs and make a direct case for thehouse’s continued independence.“With a forceful and passionateturnout . . . we can show the Uni-versity that this cause will not goaway,” wrote George Malkin ’13, aformer XOX resident, in a post onThe Unofficial Stanford Blog.Administrators first moved toterminate Chi Theta Chi’s lease onFeb. 8, citing “pressing life safety is-sues,” with the intent of assumingcontrol of the house on April 2. TheUniversity later postponed thetakeover until Aug. 31, when theannually renewed lease will expire.XOX Alumni Board represen-tatives and University officials arecurrently close to an agreementthat will provide for joint oversightof the house for a “minimum of twoyears.”XOX residents protested theUniversity’s Feb. 8 announcementvociferously, disputing various ra-tionales put forward by administra-tors as grounds for the lease’s ter-mination and criticizing the lack of notice provided in advance of theannouncement. In subsequentweeks, a petition supporting thehouse’s independence gatheredmore than 2,000 signatures, and theASSU Undergraduate Senateunanimously approved a resolu-tion advocating the lease’s renew-al.“We believe the University isbeginning to understand why inde-pendence is critical to the house’sunique character, thanks to the out-pouring of support from alumniand the community at large,” wrote
UNIVERSITY
VPSA establishes mentalhealth advisory board
By ALICE PHILLIPS
DESK EDITOR
After implementing 18 recom-mendations from a 2008 report oncampus mental health resources, theUniversity oversight committee onthe subject will now give way to anewly-created advisory board.Counseling and Psychological Serv-ices (CAPS) director Ron Albucherand Associate Vice Provost for Stu-dent Affairs Sally Dickson will co-chair the advisory board, which isexpected to convene formally forthe first time this fall.In 2006, Provost JohnEtchemendy Ph.D. ’82 convened amental health task force, which wascharged with studying the campusclimate and culture surroundingmental health. The task force pub-lished a report in November 2008,which included 18 recommenda-tions that were to be implementedby an oversight committee.Now that the recommendationshave been implemented, Albuchersaid the committee is no longer auseful body.“[The advisory board] will kindof take over from the oversight com-mittee and continue to keep mentalhealth, well-being, resiliency, even is-sues around substance use, all on thefront burner, if you will, so that wekeep refining what we’re doing andoffering to meet student needs,” Al-bucher said. “We’ll have studentrepresentation on that advisoryboard; we’ll have faculty and staff aswell.”According to Albucher, the newboard will use the next few monthsbefore fall quarter to solidify itsmembership, making sure a broadspectrum of groups on campus arerepresented. The board will alsowork to clarify and cement its pur-pose, and its scope of inquiry.The mental health advisoryboard is one of several such groupsthat report to Vice Provost for Stu-dent Affairs Greg Boardman, in-cluding advisory boards on sexualviolence and alcohol use on campus.One undergraduate and onegraduate student will sit on theboard, according to ASSU Presi-dent Robbie Zimbroff ’12, who saidBoardman has asked him to recom-mend students for the posts.“I want kids who are going to be— not just by resume — good can-didates but also candidates who canconsider lots of sides of any issue,”Zimbroff said. “We’re all for mentalhealth and wellness, but that doesn’tmean anything when it’s such a neb-ulous term. You have to be able tosee how things cut both ways.”Zimbroff cited as an examplethat when Resident Assistants(RAs) are trained to help studentswho are stressed or slipping throughthe cracks in getting support, there isa cost for the RAs as well that mustbe considered.“What are the implications of theRA, who’s also a student, doingthis?” he asked. Zimbroff himself iscurrently serving his second year asan RA in Ujamaa.According to Zimbroff, he and
A Mother’s Day tradition
MADELINE SIDES/The Stanford Daily
Dancers performed during the 41st annual Stanford Powwow heldat the Eucalyptus Grove. The powwow, sponsored by the Native American Cultural Center, occurs every Mother’s Day weekend.
By MARY HARRISON
STAFF WRITER
Due to a three percent increase from lastyear’s yield rate, the Class of 2016 will haveabout 50 more students than anticipated by theOffice of Admission.Administrators across undergraduate de-partments are taking steps to accommodate thislarger entering class, including keeping Gavilanas an all-frosh dorm, hiring more Pre-Major Ad-visors (PMAs) and potentially hiring more Pro-gram in Writing and Rhetoric (PWR) profes-sors and Thinking Matters teaching fellows.Freshman class size has steadily increasedover the past three years from 1,675 to 1,709 to1,766 entering students, which is the current ap-proximation for the Class of 2016, according toDean of Admission Richard Shaw.“Right now, the count is 1,786 [students], butsome will withdraw over summer,” Shaw wrotein an email to The Daily.The class of 2014 and 2015 will also gain 27transfer students next year, according to Shaw.Stanford’s yield rate has been consistentlyincreasing from 64 percent in 2002 to this year’s73 percent rate.Because so many students accepted their
M.J MA/The Stanford Daily
Please see
 YIELD
, page 2Please see
BOARD
, page 2Please see
 XOX 
, page 2
 
offer of admission, Shaw said thatall students who were placed onthe waitlist were released and ad-mission for the Class of 2016 is of-ficially closed.Although Stanford StudentHousing was planning to convertGavilan in Florence Moore Hall(FloMo) into a four-class dorm forthe 2012-13 academic year, the res-idence will have to remain all-frosh in order to accommodate thelarge freshman class.Fran’Cee Brown-McClure, stu-dent affairs officer for ResEd,wrote in an email to The Daily thatdorms in FloMo often changetheir class composition from yearto year.“FloMo is the type of dorm thatcan accommodate a wide distribu-tion of students depending on theneeds of that year,” Brown-Mc-Clure wrote.Brown-McClure added that al-though the number of incomingfreshmen will be higher next year,there is adequate residential staff in place to meet their needs.In addition to the strain on stu-dent housing, the office of Under-graduate Advising and Research(UAR) will also see effects of thelarger incoming class.Freshmen are normally as-signed to Pre-Major Advisors(PMAs) in groups of four to sixother students. UAR has hired ad-ditional PMAs for next year inorder to maintain the intimate sizeof PMA groups.In an email to The Daily, Deanof Freshmen and UndergraduateAdvising Julie Lythcott-Haims ’89wrote that UAR is ready for theincoming class.“Luckily, our recruitment ef-forts this year already yielded thelargest number of PMAs ever, sowe’re in good shape on that front,”Lythcott-Haims wrote.Vice Provost of Undergradu-ate Education Harry Elam wrotein an email to The Daily that UARis developing a new online advis-ing tool in addition to the PMAprogram. The new tool, called“Productive Pathways,” wouldhelp freshmen select courses andmake sure they feel supportedduring their freshman year.UAR has also been planning tohire two new Academic Directors(ADs), independent of the Classof 2016 increased yield, as part of an effort to bring the overall AD-to-student ratio down, Lythcott-Haims wrote.Elam added that more PWRinstructors are needed, and thatthe new required freshman pro-gram, Thinking Matters, may haveto hire more post-doctoral fellowsto lead discussion sections in orderto maintain small class sizes.Despite these necessary adjust-ments, administrators said theywere thrilled with the larger-than-usual size of the incoming class.“On top of the obvious things— the academic excellence and in-finite possibility — I imagine thegenuine affection we all feel forthe place comes through and mat-ters to admits,” Lythcott-Haimswrote about why the yield rate wasso high this year.“It is good news that Stanfordhas had such a strong response,”Shaw wrote. “The University hasthe capacity to manage this over-age.”Lythcott-Haims added thatthere is only one potential prob-lem with the freshman class sizeincreasing.“In UAR, we love freshmen, sothere is no such thing as too manyof them, except to the extent wecan’t fit them all in MemAud,” shesaid, referring to New StudentOrientation events held in Memo-rial Auditorium.
Contact Mary Harrison at mharri- son15@stanford.edu.
 YIELD
Continued from front page
Abel Allison ’08, president of theAlumni Board, in a March 12email to The Daily.In recent weeks, residents havebeen much more muted in theirprotests. According to GeraldHanono ’12, XOX house manager,the shift was prompted by requestsfrom administrators and theAlumni Board to create a lessstrained atmosphere for ongoingnegotiations.However, as details of the pro-posed resolution emerge, resi-dents and supporters have re-turned to a more vocal posture inan effort to more directly conveytheir displeasure with the settle-ment. Protest organizers singledout an alleged lack of clarity onhow the house can regain its lease,as well as the loss of XOX’s singu-lar autonomy under joint over-sight, as particular sticking points.“Residential and Dining En-terprises and the Vice Provost’sOffice have continuously dis-played a fundamental lack of un-derstanding of [XOX’s] culture,”Malkin wrote. “XOX’s culture isrooted in its independence.”Event organizers have alsosought to portray the debate asone with implications beyond ChiTheta Chi, arguing that the deci-sion to let the lease expire is simplya manifestation of sustained Uni-versity efforts to “homogenize”residential life.“We ask you to stand with us(literally) to show . . . that Stan-ford is one community, that the in- justices faced by one house affectus all,” the event page read.Following an all-campus break-fast at Chi Theta Chi at 9 a.m. onMonday, marchers will depart for theoffice of Student Affairs at 9.30 a.m.
Contact Marshall Watkins at mt-watkins@stanford.edu.
 XOX 
Continued from front page
Trailing for the first time in thetournament, the Cardinal grabbeda 7-2 halftime advantage with a 6-0run over that same time period, andthe squad was perfect on its threepenalty shots and went 6-for-10 onthe power-play to advance to thefinal.USC scored 5:12 minutes intothe game to take its only lead, butMenon struck back with a power-play goal just 33 seconds later.Freshman Kiley Neushul, theMPSF Newcomer of the Year,added her third tally of the week-end to grab a 2-1 advantage forStanford.Each team tallied in the finalminute of the first period, but theback-and-forth affair gave way to ascoreless second frame that sawboth goalies make key saves andseveral Trojan shots bounce safelyoff the goal post.The Trojans drew even a minuteinto the second half, but Kaley Dod-son responded with a goal of herown just 10 seconds later to grab a 4-3 lead for Stanford. A minute intothe final period USC tied the gameagain, and yet again it was KaleyDodson who came up in the clutchwith a power-play goal at the 4:13mark that would end up being thegame-winner.Then it was up to Menon to sealthe deal in the final minute and ahalf.“I had taken that lob earlierfrom five [meters], and I waspleased with it, so I just fired it inand really just threw it as hard as Icould,” she said. “I saw a little open-ing, and I was so happy. I lookedback and the first person I saw wasKate, out to her waist, so excited. Itwas great to see that energy fromeverybody.”The Cardinal’s senior class of Menon, driver Alyssa Lo, driverCassie Churnside and defenderMonica Coughlan was instrumen-tal in setting the tone for the repeatchampions all season long.“There’s so much vitality,” Tan-ner said. “Usually the seniors arelooking at grad school or their ca-reer, and the freshmen add the en-ergy. Our freshmen did have awhole lot of energy, believe me, butour seniors are every bit exuberant,and that really is uncommon in myexperience.”And while the seniors’ contribu-tions were certainly remarkable,Stanford will likely be the odds-onfavorite to win a third straight na-tional championship next season.Along with a strong class of in-coming freshmen, the Cardinalwill get back junior Annika Driesand senior Melissa Seidemann,who both redshirted this season inorder to train with the U.S. Nation-al Team before this summer’sOlympics.After the game, Menon wasasked how strong the Cardinal willbe next year despite the absence of her fellow seniors.“Oh my gosh, unstoppable,”she said. “They’re only getting bet-ter. I’m so excited to watch this teamflourish, there’s so much talent.”Until the 2013 campaign,though, Stanford can be contentwith the team’s third national title.“What I’ll remember is just theexcitement that these guys createdevery workout, every chance to bearound each other,” Tanner said.“We’re looking forward to the factthat we’re not flying home until to-morrow. We get to spend anotherevening together.”And what’s even better — theyget to spend it with a brand new tro-phy.
Contact Joseph Beyda at jbeyda@
WPOLO
Continued from front page
2
N
Monday, May 14, 2012
 The Stanford Daily
NEWS BRIEFS
Study finds learning outlook affected by environment
By THE DAILY NEWS STAFF
Students’ outlook toward learning is stronglyinfluenced by their environment, according to arecent study co-authored by Stanford psycholo-gist Paul O’Keefe.The study, published online in the journal Mo-tivation and Emotion, divides motivation forlearning into two distinct categories: mastery andperformance. Students who learn for mastery areinterested in developing new skills for their ownsake, while those who learn for performance arefocused on displaying their abilities to others.Psychologists tend to favor mastery-orientedlearning since it emphasizes being motivated in-trinsically and seeking out new challenges. Mostschools, however, focus on performance-orient-ed learning, since students must demonstrateknowledge to others on tests and exams.O’Keefe — along with his fellow researchersAdar Ben-Eliyahu of the University of Pitts-burgh and Lisa Linnenbrink-Garcia of DukeUniversity — sought to explore the effects of being exposed to environments that favor mas-tery-based learning.“We know a mastery environment is great,”O’Keefe recently told the Stanford News Serv-ice. “We know mastery goals are great. Studyafter study shows this, so what we wanted to ex-amine was how a purely mastery-oriented envi-ronment affected goal orientations and whetherthese changes would endure when people re-turned to less ideal learning environments.”The researchers surveyed a group of eighth-to tenth-grade students three times over a nine-month period. These students were asked if theyagreed with statements that aligned either withmastery- or performance-oriented learning, suchas “It’s important to me that I learn a lot of newconcepts in science” or “One of my goals is toshow others that I’m good at science.”In the first survey, taken while participantswere still in school, students scored high in per-formance-oriented learning. By the time of thesecond survey, however, students were placed ina mastery-oriented environment — a summerenrichment program — and their responseschanged accordingly.The largest surprise, according to the re-searchers, occurred six months later when thestudents took a third survey. Students had re-turned to school, but they continued to scorehigh for mastery-oriented learning.The study’s authors concluded that these re-sults suggest that mastery-oriented environ-ments have a lasting impact. According to O’-Keefe, the study indicates that teachers and em-ployers should take steps to foster a mastery-ori-ented environment.
 — Kurt Chirbas
Committee formed to selectLaw School dean
By THE DAILY NEWS STAFF
Provost John Etchemendy has established acommittee to assist his search for a new Stan-ford Law School dean. Current Law SchoolDean Larry Kramer will leave the post on Sept.1 to become the president of The William andFlora Hewlett Foundation.The committee, chaired by Law ProfessorMark Kelman, is charged with evaluating can-didates and advising the President and Provostabout the candidates through an unranked list.Candidates currently at Stanford as well as out-side candidates will be considered, according toa Stanford Law School press release.Kelman will be joined on the committee byVice Provost for Academic Affairs StephanieKalfayan, Professor of History and Political Sci-ence Jack Rakove, Law School faculty mem-bers Rick Banks, Juliet Brodie, Dan Ho, PamKarlan and Mark Lemley, alumna MichelleGalloway ’87 J.D. ’89 and current student TeddyKider J.D. ’12.Members of the Law School community cancontact the committee with their input byemailing deansearch@stanford.edu.
 — Alice Phillips
ASSU Vice President WilliamWagstaff ’12 are talking to studentgroups that deal with mentalhealth and wellness on campus aspart of their search for candidates.“It’s the toughest thing to dealwith on campus when a peer dies,”Zimbroff said, referring to the re-cent deaths of student-athlete SamWopat on March 25 and juniorEnglish major Cady Hine on April1. “I didn’t know Sam or Cady, andit’s weighed on me . . . There needsto be dialogue about how you dealwith loss in a community and howyou respond to issues of mentalhealth on a university campus.”Zimbroff emphasized thatthese conversations should takeplace throughout the campus com-munity and not just in Senate oradvisory board meetings.“Two execs and 15 senators arenever going to represent the un-dergraduate body completely,” hesaid. “We’re individuals, and whenit comes to an issue like this, I thinkthis is one where more participa-tion rather than more representa-tion is probably a good thing, hav-ing people talk about this in theirdorms to their friends.”He added that the dialogue sur-rounding mental health needs tobe a continuing presence on cam-pus beyond individual conversa-tions or initiatives.“I don’t think you have a ducksyndrome conversation, and thenyou check it off and you move on,”he said, referencing the well-known phenomenon in which stu-dent stress or anxiety is masked bya deceivingly serene appearance.Zimbroff said he would like tosee the mental health advisoryboard address issues such as ducksyndrome and other academicmental health issues, directly inlight of the Study of Undergradu-ate Education at Stanford report.Zimbroff cited one example of academic-related stress as theregimented curricula of 100-plus-unit engineering majors, as com-pared to his 63-unit history major,in which students don’t have theflexibility to “figure out [their]passions.”“Having a really honest discus-sion in that area is something thatworks in conjunction with SUES,”he added.
Contact Alice Phillips at alicep1@ stanford.edu.
BOARD
Continued from front page
 
A
2008 article in the Times High-er Education supplement stat-ed, “School libraries are suf-fering, and even closing, as re-sources are cut, staff ‘rede-ployed’ and the Internet deemed moreimportant to learning than printed mat-ter.”Such a trend, however, has not materi-alized at Stanford, according to AndrewHerkovic, director of communicationsand development for the Stanford Li-braries.“[The idea of] ‘the end of the library’turns out to be completely untrue at Stan-ford,” Herkovic said. “We have not seenany net decrease [in users] over the yearsin each of the libraries, and I don’t thinkwe will.”Of the 20 libraries at Stanford, GreenLibrary is the most widely used, especial-ly by undergraduates. According to ChrisBourg, assistant university librarian,Green has averaged over 600,000 visitorsa year over the last five years.According to Hoover Library librari-an Paul Thomas, most undergraduatestend to use Green Library. He added that“fewer students use our collections be-cause [they’re] more geared towardscholars and graduate students.”Nevertheless, according to NickSierkierski, exhibits and outreach co-co-ordinator at the Hoover Institution, theHoover Library does not lack under-graduate visitors. He cites the presenta-tions and tours that he organizes for un-dergraduates, particularly for primarysource materials used in classes in theProgram in Writing and Rhetoric (PWR)and Structured Liberal Education(SLE).The libraries perform different func-tions on campus. Hoover Library, accord-ing to both Thomas and Sierkierski, isused primarily for primary source re-search, while Green and Meyer Librarieshave more multifunctional roles.Herkovic pointed out that many stu-dents do work at Green Library andMeyer Library that they could also do intheir dorm rooms or anywhere else.“[Students] choose to come to the li-brary because it’s the conducive place, it’sthe fitting setting for doing their researchand study and secondary reading,” hesaid.He held that the library provides a cer-tain atmosphere rather than just being arepository of books.“People do everything, most of thehuman functions with the exception of eating [in the library] . . . there’s studyand homework and sleep and love,” hesaid.Not surprisingly, the Stanford librari-ans report that the number of students inthe libraries increases tremendously dur-ing the last few weeks of the quarter.“It ebbs and flows, towards the end of each term, we tend to see more students;towards the end of the year, we tend to seemore students,” Thomas said.Although the possible demise of the li-brary has sometimes been closely linkedto the increase in the digital availability of information, the Stanford librarians dis-agree that libraries may become obsolete.“I think it’s a complementary thing,”Sierkierski said. “You still need librariansand archivists and specialists that reallyknow their way around the information toguide people to those places, so I think if anything having our stuff available onlineleads people to come here.”Herkovic noted the increasing role of the library on the web.“The libraries spend many millions of dollars a year paying for subscriptionsand online services,” Herkovic said. “Inthat sense, we become more and more im-portant to how people get and use infor-mation but we may be less visible doingit.”“The mediation that libraries have al-ways provided is still very much at play ina different form,” he added.
 — Elena Ayala-Hurtado
 The Stanford Daily
Monday, May 14, 2012
N
3
SNAPSHOT
Library use steady in uncertain times
By CATHERINE ZAW
STAFF WRITER
“P
ardonu min . . . ?
Ĉ
u vi parolas Es-peranton?” isEsperanto for“Excuse me, doyou speak Esperanto?” Whilemost people will not understandthis phrase, the language was cre-ated to be a universal tongue.In 1887, L. L. Zamenhof de-signed Esperanto as the “univer-sal language” in an attempt tobreak down the linguistic and cul-tural barriers that prevent cross-national conversations. In Za-menhof’s ideal world, everyonewould continue speaking his orher native tongue, but speak Es-peranto as a second “planned”language as a way to communi-cate with all people.Stanford offers a free drop-inclass called “Conversational Es-peranto, the International Lan-guage” on Tuesdays from 6:30p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Bechtel In-ternational Center. Students cantake the class for two credits aquarter through the LinguisticsDepartment. The class websiteguarantees that, following course-work requirements, students andcommunity members will learn thelanguage within a year.“Even four lessons are enoughto get more than just the basics,”the Esperanto at Stanford websitereads.The teacher of the class goes bythe name Trio, explaining that EdWilliger, his given name, just does-n’t work in some languages.“Trio is short and is pronounce-able, and as of right now, I haven’thad any sort of problem with it,” hesaid.He is reluctant to call himself ateacher, but since he has beenteaching the class for 21 years, he“guesses that he is a teacher justbecause he’s been doing it for solong.” Trio teaches voluntarily andhas been on the Stanford campusteaching Esperanto at the same lo-cation and time for the last 21years.Five students, ranging fromyoung undergraduates to olderalumni fill the small back room atthe Bechtel International Centerfor his class, which begins with acultural discussion as well as Es-peranto music of all genres —from rap to rock.One of the students in the classis Julie Spickler ’62, who started tolearn Esperanto in the summer of 1994 in a 10 lesson course. By fall,Spickler had finished the class andher teacher urged her to come tomonthly meetings of the local Es-peranto community in San Fran-cisco to converse with other Esper-antists.“I didn’t want to go at first be-cause I thought it would be too dif-ficult,” Spickler said. “But myteacher said to try it . . . you’ll findit is easier than you think . . . andsure enough I could understandhalf to three quarters of what theothers were saying after just study-ing four or five months on my ownwithout hearing anyone speak it.”She brought a book to class,“Konciza Etimologia Vortaro,” aconcise etymological Esperantodictionary, explaining that Es-peranto is rooted in multiple lan-guages. Mostly, Esperanto borrowsfrom Romance languages becauseof Zamenhof’s own background.“He was very idealistic andlived in a town in Poland underRussian rule where there werefour or five language groups whichwere not always friendly to eachother,” Spickler said. “He decidedthat to help decrease misunder-standings, they needed a commonlanguage. Though it’s true a com-mon language doesn’t preventconflict, it definitely helps.”Spickler has been attending theStanford Esperanto class for thepast 10 years and says that thenumber of students in the classfluctuates widely. According toher, some students come in foronly a few classes and then leave,thanking everyone for helpingthem learn Esperanto so quickly.What she finds curious is that newstudents come in periodically, butthe new male students never seemto meet the new female studentsbecause they come in at differenttimes, a trend that Trio also noted.“We tell the guys, ‘Oh yeah, girlstake this class. There are girls thatspeak Esperanto. You just neversee them,’” Trio said. “This hap-pens all the time — it’s a running joke among us old farts.”Trio is a computer consultantwho uses Esperanto almost everyday. He said that he sometimesplays online Go, a board game thatoriginated in ancient China, withother Esperantists around theworld.“Esperanto is my politicalwork,” Trio said. “I believe in theideals of it, and I believe thateveryone can work together if everyone decides to keep Es-peranto as a common language.”“Esperanto really levels every-one out, since we all come in on thesame ground, having it as our sec-ond language,” he said. “There areonly a few native speakers of Es-peranto, but they don’t dominate.”Native Esperanto speakers arethose born into families that speakEsperanto and acquire the lan-guage from childhood.Trio became interested in Es-peranto when he was studying eco-nomics in the 1970s. He had want-ed to live in China, Sweden andYugoslavia but realized that hewould have to learn quite a few dif-ferent and difficult languages.While reading the book “One Lan-guage for the World” by Mario Pei,Trio first encountered Esperantoand thought that it might solve theobstacle he was facing.According to Trio, the Esperan-to community around the worldforms a unique and global bond.“When the war in Yugoslaviabroke out, I had stayed with Esper-antists, who also took in other Es-perantists who needed shelter,”Trio said. “You wouldn’t just dothat with someone else if you bothspoke English.
Samideano 
—that’s what we call each other. Ittranslates to ‘same idea person,’but what it means is that we’re onthe same planet on the same level.”One of his other memorable ex-periences with the language waswhen he applied for citizenship inHungary, and Esperantists trans-lated the application for him.Esperanto is the most widelyspoken invented language in theworld. While no definitive numberof Esperanto speakers exists, theBBC reports between 500,000 andtwo million speakers worldwide. Ithas a national organization that setslinguistic standards and is the onlyinvented language for which speak-ers can be certified. Many musicallyrics and works of literature fromdifferent languages have beentranslated into Esperanto for theEsperanto-speaking internationalcommunity to enjoy. For example,Trio finds the Winnie the Pooh Es-peranto translation “fantastic.”At Stanford, Scott Parks ’13 co-founded the Esperanto Club.Parks became interested in learn-ing Esperanto during the summerbetween his high school senioryear and his freshman year, findingit “really, really easy.”“We decided we wanted tomake a student group with thelocal Esperanto community andwe have been meeting since then,”Parks said.Although many of the clubmembers were interested in Es-peranto, many were also interestedin what Parks called “conlinging,”or constructive languages.“So we changed our focus toconlinging and linguistics in gener-al and are working on learningMandarin specifically this quar-ter,” he said.Parks noted that the local Es-peranto community is strong butaging. According to him, notenough members in the studentcommunity or the younger genera-tion are engaged in the effort tolearn and spread the language.“Esperanto isn’t doing as wellas it was 20 years ago,” he said.“But it isn’t going to die out any-time soon either — it still has aninternational standing. Esperantogatherings . . . are still goingstrong.”
Contact Catherine Zaw at czaw13@stanford.edu.
The Stanford Daily file photo
M.J MA/The Stanford Daily
Universal language finds dedicated following on Stanford campus
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