Stanford , CA - A Story of Parental Love

May 03, 2008 this is my fifth visit to Stanford University till date and this time it was to go up the Hoover Tower and also to try out my new camera. My first visit was with a friend and from then on the campus is one of the must see places for any family and friends who have visited us . The campus is home not only to some of the smartest minds in the world (which is what makes it the premier education institution) but is also a nestles some great architectural building and scenic landscapes.

During each visit I have returned awed by the sheer energy of the place which is difficult to explain . I finally gave in to my curiosity to know more about this institution and stumbled upon this amazing tale of parental love as stated on the official site of "The Farm".

Origin:

The university which opened on October 1,1891 was founded by former California Governor Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane Stanford in honor of their only child, Leland Stanford, Jr., who died of typhoid just before his 16th birthday. Stanford Sr., fell into a troubled sleep the morning the boy died and when he awakened he turned to his wife and said, “The children of California shall be our children.” These words were the real beginning of Stanford University.

The Stanford’s were determined from the outset on creating a great university, one that, was untraditional: co-educational, in a time when most were all-male; non-denominational, when most were associated with a religious organization; avowedly practical, producing “cultured and useful citizens” when most were concerned only with the former.

Some of the snippets mentioned below indicate the legacy which these selfless parents strived to leave behind :

• Motto - Die Luft der Freiheit weht (In German translated it means– The Wind of freedom blows)
• In a statement of the case for a liberal education, Stanford wrote -I attach great importance to general literature for the enlargement of the mind and for giving business capacity. I think I have noticed that technically educated boys do not make the most successful businessmen. The imagination needs to be cultivated and developed to assure success in life. A man will never construct anything he cannot conceive.
• Guiding objective - to qualify students for personal success and direct usefulness in life; and to promote the public welfare by exercising an influence on behalf of humanity and civilization, teaching the blessings of liberty regulated by law, and inculcating love and reverence for the great principles of government as derived from the inalienable rights of man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
• Inaugural address: On the opening day Dr. Jordan the first president told the attendees that “ it is upon us as teachers and students to lay the foundations of a school which may last as long as human civilization and which is hallowed by no traditions; it is hampered by none”

No wonder that the visitors like me get swept by the positive energy of love which surrounds this institution. I hope that one day someone from the extended family of Pai's, Nayak or Bhandarkar's make it to this great institution not merely as visitors but as a student .

Stanford University

Campus landmarks:

• The Main Quad
• Memorial Church
• The Cantor Center for Visual Arts and art gallery
• The Stanford Mausoleum and the Angel of Grief
• Hoover Tower
• The Rodin sculpture garden
• The Papua New Guinea Sculpture Garden, the Arizona Cactus Garden
• The Stanford University Arboretum, Green Library and the Dish
• Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1937 Hanna-Honeycomb House and the 1919 Lou Henry and Herbert Hoover House are both National Historic Landmarks now on university grounds

Some famous alumni:

• John Harsanyi (Ph.D. 1958), Nobel prize winner in economics (1994) Computer science and electrical engineering
• Eric Allin Cornell (B.S. 1985), Nobel prize winner in physics
• Jerome Friedman (postdoc), Nobel prize winner in physics (1990)
• Minoru "Sam" Araki (B.S. 1954, M.S. 1955)), former president of Lockheed's space and missiles division, designer of the 1st space based earth observation system
• Bradford Parkinson (Ph.D. 1966), inventor of global positioning system (GPS), inducted into National Inventors Hall of Fame
• Kumar Patel, (MS, Ph.d., EE), inventor of carbon dioxide laser (the most widely used laser), national medal of science winner
• James L. Adams (ph.D, ME, 1961), co-designer of Stanford CART, the first computer-controlled robot cart
• Andy Bechtolsheim (Ph.D. dropout), designer of the first networked SUN workstation
• Sergey Brin and Larry Page (M.S.), developer of Google search engine, Marconi prize winner
• Dave Boggs (Ph.D.), co-inventor of Ethernet
• Vint Cerf (B.S. 1965, former prof.), Internet pioneer, co-inventor of TCP/IP internet protocol, Turing award and Marconi prize winning computer scientist, inducted into National Inventors Hall of Fame
• Donald D. Chamberlin (M.S., Ph.D in EE), coinventor of SQL (Structured Query Language)
• John Cioffi (M.S., Ph.D.), father of DSL (broad band internet connection), Marconi prize winner
• Sigourney Weaver, actress