Stanford University, located between San Francisco and San Jose in the heart of California's Silicon Valley, is one of the world's leading teaching and research universities. Since its opening in 1891, Stanford has been dedicated to finding solutions to big challenges and to preparing students for leadership in a complex world.Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University,is a private research university in Stanford, California, and one of the world's most prestigious institutions,with the top position in numerous rankings and measures in the United States.
Stanford was founded in 1885 by Leland Stanford, former Governor of and U.S. Senator from California and leading railroad tycoon, and his wife, Jane Lathrop Stanford, in memory of their only child, Leland Stanford, Jr., who had died of typhoid fever at age 15 the previous year. Stanford admitted its first students on October 1, 1891 as a coeducational and non-denominational institution. Tuition was free until 1920.The university struggled financially after Leland Stanford's 1893 death and again after much of the campus was damaged by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Following World War II, Provost Frederick Terman supported faculty and graduates' entrepreneurialism to build self-sufficient local industry in what would later be known as Silicon Valley. By 1970, Stanford was home to a linear accelerator, and was one of the original four ARPANET nodes
The main campus is in northern Santa Clara Valley adjacent to Palo Alto and between San Jose and San Francisco. Stanford also has land and facilities elsewhere.Its 8,180-acre (3,310 ha)[ campus is one of the largest in the United States.The university is also one of the top fundraising institutions in the country, becoming the first school to raise more than a billion dollars in a year.[
Stanford's academic strength is broad with 40 departments in the three academic schools that have undergraduate students and another four professional schools. Students compete in 36 varsity sports, and the university is one of two private institutions in the Division I FBS Pacific-12 Conference. It has gained 108 NCAA team championships, the second-most for a university, 476 individual championships, the most in Division I,and has won the NACDA Directors' Cup, recognizing the university with the best overall athletic team achievement, every year since 1994-1995.
Stanford faculty and alumni have founded many companies including Google, Hewlett-Packard, Nike, Sun Microsystems, Instagram and Yahoo!, and companies founded by Stanford alumni generate more than $2.7 trillion in annual revenue, equivalent to the 10th-largest economy in the world. It is the alma mater of 30 living billionaires, 17 astronauts, and 18 Turing Award laureates.[note 2] It is also one of the leading producers of members of the United States Congress.[The University has affiliated with 59 Nobel laureates and 2 Fields Medalists (when awarded).
Stanford was founded in 1885 by Leland Stanford, former Governor of and U.S. Senator from California and leading railroad tycoon, and his wife, Jane Lathrop Stanford, in memory of their only child, Leland Stanford, Jr., who had died of typhoid fever at age 15 the previous year. Stanford admitted its first students on October 1, 1891 as a coeducational and non-denominational institution. Tuition was free until 1920.The university struggled financially after Leland Stanford's 1893 death and again after much of the campus was damaged by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Following World War II, Provost Frederick Terman supported faculty and graduates' entrepreneurialism to build self-sufficient local industry in what would later be known as Silicon Valley. By 1970, Stanford was home to a linear accelerator, and was one of the original four ARPANET nodes
The main campus is in northern Santa Clara Valley adjacent to Palo Alto and between San Jose and San Francisco. Stanford also has land and facilities elsewhere.Its 8,180-acre (3,310 ha)[ campus is one of the largest in the United States.The university is also one of the top fundraising institutions in the country, becoming the first school to raise more than a billion dollars in a year.[
Stanford's academic strength is broad with 40 departments in the three academic schools that have undergraduate students and another four professional schools. Students compete in 36 varsity sports, and the university is one of two private institutions in the Division I FBS Pacific-12 Conference. It has gained 108 NCAA team championships, the second-most for a university, 476 individual championships, the most in Division I,and has won the NACDA Directors' Cup, recognizing the university with the best overall athletic team achievement, every year since 1994-1995.
Stanford faculty and alumni have founded many companies including Google, Hewlett-Packard, Nike, Sun Microsystems, Instagram and Yahoo!, and companies founded by Stanford alumni generate more than $2.7 trillion in annual revenue, equivalent to the 10th-largest economy in the world. It is the alma mater of 30 living billionaires, 17 astronauts, and 18 Turing Award laureates.[note 2] It is also one of the leading producers of members of the United States Congress.[The University has affiliated with 59 Nobel laureates and 2 Fields Medalists (when awarded).
STANFORD FACTS AT A GLANCE
OPENED 1891
STUDENT ENROLLMENT
Undergraduates: 6,994
Graduates: 9,128
CAMPUS
8,180 contiguous acres in six governmental jurisdictions
700 major buildings
97% of undergraduates live on campus
RESEARCH
5,300 externally sponsored projects
$1.33 billion total budget
FACULTY
2,118 faculty members
21 Nobel laureates are currently members of the Stanford community
4:1 student to faculty ratio
Over the years, the duties of a university president have expanded dramatically. Stanford's president remains focused on and rooted in academics, but the job entails much more. Raising money, making decisions about future land use and addressing the needs of a medical center are just a few of the responsibilities of Stanford's tenth president, John L. Hennessy.
The Birth of the University
In 1876, former California Governor Leland Stanford purchased 650 acres of Rancho San Francisquito for a country home and began the development of his famous Palo Alto Stock Farm. He later bought adjoining properties totaling more than 8,000 acres.
The little town that was beginning to emerge near the land took the name Palo Alto (tall tree) after a giant California redwood on the bank of San Francisquito Creek. The tree itself is still there and would later become the university's symbol and centerpiece of its official seal.
Leland Stanford, who grew up and studied law in New York, moved West after the gold rush and, like many of his wealthy contemporaries, made his fortune in the railroads. He was a leader of the Republican Party, governor of California and later a U.S. senator. He and Jane had one son, who died of typhoid fever in 1884 when the family was traveling in Italy. Leland Jr. was just 15. Within weeks of his death, the Stanfords decided that, because they no longer could do anything for their own child, "the children of California shall be our children." They quickly set about to find a lasting way to memorialize their beloved son.
The Stanfords considered several possibilities – a university, a technical school, a museum. While on the East Coast, they visited Harvard, MIT, Cornell and Johns Hopkins to seek advice on starting a new university in California. (See note regarding accounts of the Stanfords visit with Harvard President Charles W. Eliot.) Ultimately, they decided to establish two institutions in Leland Junior's name - the University and a museum. From the outset they made some untraditional choices: the university would be coeducational, in a time when most were all-male; non-denominational, when most were associated with a religious organization; and avowedly practical, producing "cultured and useful citizens."
On October 1, 1891, Stanford University opened its doors after six years of planning and building. The prediction of a New York newspaper that Stanford professors would "lecture in marble halls to empty benches" was quickly disproved. The first student body consisted of 555 men and women, and the original faculty of 15 was expanded to 49 for the second year. The university’s first president was David Starr Jordan, a graduate of Cornell, who left his post as president of Indiana University to join the adventure out West.
The Stanfords engaged Frederick Law Olmsted, the famed landscape architect who created New York’s Central Park, to design the physical plan for the university. The collaboration was contentious, but finally resulted in an organization of quadrangles on an east-west axis. Today, as Stanford continues to expand, the university’s architects attempt to respect those original university plans.
Admission
Stanford students come from across the United States and throughout the world, representing diverse perspectives, experiences, backgrounds and cultures. U.S. undergraduate applicants are admitted on a need-blind basis, and the university offers substantial financial aid to help families manage the costs. Once here, Stanford students discover extraordinary freedom of opportunity — to explore, to collaborate and to challenge themselves.
Administration and organization
Stanford University is a tax-exempt corporate trust governed by a privately appointed 34-member Board of Trustees. Trustees serve five-year terms (not more than two consecutive terms) and meet five times annually.A new trustee is chosen by the remaining Trustees by ballot. The Stanford trustees also oversee the Stanford Research Park, the Stanford Shopping Center, the Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University Medical Center, and many associated medical facilities (including the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital).
The Board appoints a President to serve as the chief executive officer of the university and prescribe the duties of professors and course of study, manage financial and business affairs, and appoint nine vice presidents. John L. Hennessy was appointed the 10th President of the University in October 2000. The Provost is the chief academic and budget officer, to whom the deans of each of the seven schools report. John Etchemendy was named the 12th Provost in September 2000.
The University is currently organized into seven academic schools.The schools of Humanities and Sciences (27 departments), Engineering (9 departments), and Earth Sciences (4 departments) have both graduate and undergraduate programs while the Schools of Law, Medicine, Education and Business have graduate programs only. The powers and authority of the faculty are vested in the Academic Council, which is made up of tenure and non-tenure line faculty, research faculty, senior fellows in some policy centers and institutes, the president of the university, and some other academic administrators, but most matters are handled by the Faculty Senate, made up of 55 elected representatives of the faculty.
The Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) is the student government for Stanford University and all registered students are members. Its elected leadership consists of the Undergraduate Senate elected by the undergraduate students, the Graduate Student Council elected by the graduate students, and the President and Vice President elected as a ticket by the entire student body.
Stanford is the beneficiary of a special clause in the California Constitution, which explicitly exempts Stanford property from taxation so long as the property is used for educational purposes.
Endowment and fundraising
The university's endowment, managed by the Stanford Management Company, was valued at $21.4 billion in August 2014, with an annualized rate of return of 14.8% over the previous year.The endowment fell 25% in 2009 as a result of the late-2000s recession, but posted gains of 14.4% in 2010 and 22.4% in 2011, when it was valued at $16.5 billion.
Stanford has been the top fundraising university in the United States for several years. It raised $911 million in 2006,[141] $832 million in 2007,[142] $785 million in 2008,[143] $640 million in 2009,[144] $599 million in 2010,[145] $709 million in 2011,[146] and $1.035 billion in 2012, becoming the first school to raise more than a billion dollars in a year.[27] In 2013 and 2014 it raised $932 million and $928 million.[146] Payouts from the Stanford endowment covered approximately 23% of University expenses in the 2014 fiscal year, compared to Princeton at 55% and Harvard at 35%.
In 2006, President Hennessy launched a five-year campaign called the Stanford Challenge, which reached its $4.3 billion fundraising goal in 2009, two years ahead of time, but continued fundraising for the duration of the campaign. It concluded on December 31, 2011, having raised a total of $6.23 billion and breaking the previous campaign fundraising record of $3.88 billion held by Yale.[148] Specifically, the campaign raised $253.7 million for undergraduate financial aid, as well as $2.33 billion for its initiative in "Seeking Solutions" to global problems, $1.61 billion for "Educating Leaders" by improving K-12 education, and $2.11 billion for "Foundation of Excellence" aimed at providing academic support for Stanford students and faculty. Funds supported 366 new fellowships for graduate students, 139 new endowed chairs for faculty, and 38 new or renovated buildings. Over 10,000 volunteers helped in raising 560,000 gifts from more than 166,000 donors.
Stanford students come from across the United States and throughout the world, representing diverse perspectives, experiences, backgrounds and cultures. U.S. undergraduate applicants are admitted on a need-blind basis, and the university offers substantial financial aid to help families manage the costs. Once here, Stanford students discover extraordinary freedom of opportunity — to explore, to collaborate and to challenge themselves.
Administration and organization
Stanford University is a tax-exempt corporate trust governed by a privately appointed 34-member Board of Trustees. Trustees serve five-year terms (not more than two consecutive terms) and meet five times annually.A new trustee is chosen by the remaining Trustees by ballot. The Stanford trustees also oversee the Stanford Research Park, the Stanford Shopping Center, the Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University Medical Center, and many associated medical facilities (including the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital).
The Board appoints a President to serve as the chief executive officer of the university and prescribe the duties of professors and course of study, manage financial and business affairs, and appoint nine vice presidents. John L. Hennessy was appointed the 10th President of the University in October 2000. The Provost is the chief academic and budget officer, to whom the deans of each of the seven schools report. John Etchemendy was named the 12th Provost in September 2000.
The University is currently organized into seven academic schools.The schools of Humanities and Sciences (27 departments), Engineering (9 departments), and Earth Sciences (4 departments) have both graduate and undergraduate programs while the Schools of Law, Medicine, Education and Business have graduate programs only. The powers and authority of the faculty are vested in the Academic Council, which is made up of tenure and non-tenure line faculty, research faculty, senior fellows in some policy centers and institutes, the president of the university, and some other academic administrators, but most matters are handled by the Faculty Senate, made up of 55 elected representatives of the faculty.
The Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) is the student government for Stanford University and all registered students are members. Its elected leadership consists of the Undergraduate Senate elected by the undergraduate students, the Graduate Student Council elected by the graduate students, and the President and Vice President elected as a ticket by the entire student body.
Stanford is the beneficiary of a special clause in the California Constitution, which explicitly exempts Stanford property from taxation so long as the property is used for educational purposes.
Endowment and fundraising
The university's endowment, managed by the Stanford Management Company, was valued at $21.4 billion in August 2014, with an annualized rate of return of 14.8% over the previous year.The endowment fell 25% in 2009 as a result of the late-2000s recession, but posted gains of 14.4% in 2010 and 22.4% in 2011, when it was valued at $16.5 billion.
Stanford has been the top fundraising university in the United States for several years. It raised $911 million in 2006,[141] $832 million in 2007,[142] $785 million in 2008,[143] $640 million in 2009,[144] $599 million in 2010,[145] $709 million in 2011,[146] and $1.035 billion in 2012, becoming the first school to raise more than a billion dollars in a year.[27] In 2013 and 2014 it raised $932 million and $928 million.[146] Payouts from the Stanford endowment covered approximately 23% of University expenses in the 2014 fiscal year, compared to Princeton at 55% and Harvard at 35%.
In 2006, President Hennessy launched a five-year campaign called the Stanford Challenge, which reached its $4.3 billion fundraising goal in 2009, two years ahead of time, but continued fundraising for the duration of the campaign. It concluded on December 31, 2011, having raised a total of $6.23 billion and breaking the previous campaign fundraising record of $3.88 billion held by Yale.[148] Specifically, the campaign raised $253.7 million for undergraduate financial aid, as well as $2.33 billion for its initiative in "Seeking Solutions" to global problems, $1.61 billion for "Educating Leaders" by improving K-12 education, and $2.11 billion for "Foundation of Excellence" aimed at providing academic support for Stanford students and faculty. Funds supported 366 new fellowships for graduate students, 139 new endowed chairs for faculty, and 38 new or renovated buildings. Over 10,000 volunteers helped in raising 560,000 gifts from more than 166,000 donors.
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