Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an 8,180-acre (3,310 ha) campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately 20 miles (32 km) northwest of San Jose and 37 miles (60 km) southeast of San Francisco.

Leland Stanford, a Californian railroad tycoon and politician, founded the university in 1891 in honor of his son, Leland Stanford, Jr. who died of typhoid two months before his 16th birthday. The university was established as a coeducational and nondenominational institution, but struggled financially after the senior Stanford's 1893 death and 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 become known as Silicon Valley. By 1970, Stanford was home to a linear accelerator, one of the original four ARPANET nodes, and had transformed itself into a major research university in computer science, mathematics, natural sciences, and social sciences. More than 50 Stanford faculty, staff and alumni have won the Nobel Prize (list of Nobel Laureates by university affiliation). Stanford also boasts the largest number of Turing award winners for a single institution. Stanford faculty and alumni have founded many prominent technology companies; according to Forbes Magazine "it is almost impossible to name a leading-edge company in Silicon Valley that isn't closely associated with Stanford;" examples include Cisco Systems, Google, Hewlett-Packard, LinkedIn, Netscape Communications, Rambus, Silicon Graphics, Sun Microsystems, Varian Associates, and Yahoo!.


The university is organized into seven schools including academic schools of Humanities and Sciences and Earth Sciences as well as professional schools of Business, Education, Engineering, Law, and Medicine. Stanford has a student body of approximately 6,900 undergraduate and 8,400 graduate students. Stanford is a founding member of the Association of American Universities and in 2010 managed US$1.15 billion in research funding and $15.9 billion in endowment support, with $21.4 billion in consolidated net assets.

Stanford competes in 34 varsity sports and is one of two private universities in the NCAA Division I-A Pacific-10 Conference. Stanford's athletic program has won the NACDA Directors' Cup every year since 1995. In the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Stanford athletes won 25 medals, including 8 gold medals, more than any other university in the United States.

History Origins Stanford was founded by Leland Stanford, a railroad magnate, United States Senator, and former California Governor, and his wife, Jane Stanford. It is named in honor of their only child, Leland Stanford, Jr., who died in 1884 just before his 16th birthday. His parents decided to dedicate a university to their only son, and Leland Stanford told his wife, "The children of California shall be our children."


Leland Stanford, the university's founder, as painted by Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier in 1881 and now on display at the Cantor centerSenator and Mrs. Stanford visited Harvard's President Eliot and asked how much it would cost to duplicate Harvard in California. Eliot replied that he supposed $15 million would be enough. David Starr Jordan, the president of Indiana University, was their eventual choice to direct Stanford, after several leaders of the Ivy League turned them down. Locals and members of the university community are known to refer to the school as The Farm, a nod to the fact that the university is located on the former site of Leland Stanford's horse farm.

The motto of Stanford University, selected by President Jordan, is "Die Luft der Freiheit weht." Translated from the German, this quotation from Ulrich von Hutten means "The wind of freedom blows." The motto was controversial during World War I, when anything in German was suspect; at that time the university disavowed that this motto was official.

The university's founding Grant of Endowment from the Stanfords came in November, 1885. Besides defining the operational structure of the University, it made several specific stipulations: "The Trustees ... shall have the power and it shall be their duty:

To establish and maintain at such University an educational system, which will, if followed, fit the graduate for some useful pursuit, and to this end to cause the pupils, as easily as may be, to declare the particular calling, which, in life, they may desire to pursue; ...

To prohibit sectarian instruction, but to have taught in the University the immortality of the soul, the existence of an all-wise and benevolent Creator, and that obedience to His laws is the highest duty of man.

To have taught in the University the right and advantages of association and co-operation.

To afford equal facilities and give equal advantages in the University to both sexes.

To maintain on the Palo Alto estate a farm for instruction in agriculture in all its branches."

The original 'inner quad' buildings (1887–91) were designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Francis A. Walker, Charles Allerton Coolidge, and Leland Stanford himself. After six years of planning and building, the university officially opened on October 1, 1891, to 559 students and 15 faculty members, seven of them from Cornell. Tuition was free until the 1930s. Herbert Hoover and his future wife Lou Hoover were in the first class; the Hoovers maintained close lifetime ties to the school.

CoeducationThe school was established as a coeducational institution. However, Jane Stanford soon put a policy in place limiting female enrollment to 500 students because of the large number of women students enrolling. She did not want the school to become "the Vassar of the West" because she felt that would not be an appropriate memorial for her son. In 1933 the policy was modified to specify an undergraduate male:female ratio of 3:1. The "Stanford ratio" of 3:1 remained in place until the early 1960s. By the late 1960s the "ratio" was about 2:1 for undergraduates, but much more skewed at the graduate level, except in the humanities. As of 2005, undergraduate enrollment is split nearly evenly between the sexes, but males outnumber females about 2:1 at the graduate level.

Early financesWhen Senator Stanford died in 1893, the continued existence of the university was in jeopardy. A $15 million government lawsuit against Senator Stanford's estate, combined with the Panic of 1893, made it extremely difficult to meet expenses. Most of the Board of Trustees advised a temporary closing until finances could be sorted out. However, Jane Stanford insisted that the university remain in operation. Faced with the possibility of financial ruin for the University she took charge of financial, administrative, and development matters at the university 1893-1905; from her experience as a mother and housewife, she ran the institution as a household. For the next several years, she paid salaries out of her personal resources, even pawning her jewelry to keep the university going. When the lawsuit was finally dropped in 1895, a university holiday was declared.

Edward Alsworth Ross gained fame as a founding father of American sociology; in 1900 Jane Stanford fired him for radicalism and racism, unleashing a major academic freedom case.

Jane Stanford's actions were sometimes eccentric. In 1897, she directed the board of trustees "that the students be taught that everyone born on earth has a soul germ, and that on its development depends much in life here and everything in Life Eternal". She forbade students from sketching nude models in life-drawing class, banned automobiles from campus, and did not allow a hospital to be constructed so that people would not form an impression that Stanford was unhealthy. Between 1899 and 1905, she spent $3 million on a grand construction scheme building lavish memorials to the Stanford family, while university faculty and self-supporting students were living in poverty.

20th century
The ruins of Stanford Library after the 1906 San Francisco earthquakeThe 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed parts of the Main Quad (including the original iteration of Memorial Church) as well as the gate that first marked the entrance of the school; rebuilding on a somewhat less grandiose scale began immediately.

FootballFrom 1906 to 1919, in response to the crisis caused by numerous injuries, intercollegiate football was in jeopardy. While some colleges dropped football entirely, a few, such as the University of California and Stanford University, replaced it with English rugby. From 1906 to 1914, the two schools played rugby as their major sport, but they soon found that the objectionable practices they saw in football were introduced into rugby. Finally, when the football rules were changed, a move developed to return to football, reviving intercollegiate sports and enabling students and alumni to identify with football, an American sport.


Hoover InstitutionThe Hoover Institution (full name: the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace) at Stanford was set up by Herbert C. Hoover, one of Stanford's first graduates. He had been in charge of American relief efforts in Europe after World War I before his election as president of the United States in 1928. Hoover's express purpose was to collect the records of contemporary history as it was happening. Hoover's helpers frequently risked their lives to rescue documentary and rare printed material, especially from countries under Nazi or Communist rule. Their many successes included the papers of Rosa Luxemburg, the Goebbels diaries, and the records of the Russian secret police in Paris. Research institutes were also set up under Hoover's influence, though inevitably there were to be clashes between the moving force, Hoover, and the host university. In 1960, W. Glenn Campbell was appointed director and substantial budget increases soon led to corresponding increases in acquisitions and related research projects. Despite student unrest in the 1960s, the institution continued to thrive and develop closer relations with Stanford. In particular, the Chinese and Russian collections grew considerably. The Institute increasingly became a conservative think tank, with ties to Washington, especially since 1980. It continues as an integral component of the University.

Post 1945BiologyThe biological sciences department evolved rapidly from 1946 to 1972 as its research focus changed, due to the Cold War and other historically significant conditions external to academia. Stanford science went through three phases of experimental direction during that time. In the early 1950s the department remained fixed in the classical independent and self-directed research mode, shunning interdisciplinary collaboration and excessive government funding. Between the 1950s and mid-1960s biological research shifted focus to the molecular level. Then, from the late 1960s onward, Stanford's goal became applying research and findings toward humanistic ends. Each phase was preempted by larger social issues, such as the escalation of the Cold War, the launch of Sputnik, and public concern over medical abuses.

High techA powerful sense of regional solidarity accompanied the rise of Silicon Valley. From the 1890s, the university's leaders saw its mission as service to the West and shaped the school accordingly. At the same time, the perceived exploitation of the West at the hands of eastern interests fueled booster-like attempts to build self-sufficient indigenous local industry. Thus, regionalism helped align Stanford's interests with those of the area's high-tech firms for the first fifty years of Silicon Valley's development. The distinctive regional ethos of the West during the first half of the 20th century is an ingredient of Silicon Valley's already prepared environment, an ingredient that would-be replicators ignore at their peril.

During the 1940s and 1950s, Frederick Terman, as dean of engineering and provost, encouraged faculty and graduates to start their own companies. He is credited with nurturing Hewlett-Packard, Varian Associates, and other high-tech firms, until what would become Silicon Valley grew up around the Stanford campus. Terman is often called "the father of Silicon Valley." Terman encouraged William B. Shockley, co-inventor of the transistor, to return to his hometown of Palo Alto. In 1956 he established the Shockley Transistor Laboratory.

The spark that set off the explosive boom of “Silicon startups” in Stanford Industrial Park was a personal dispute in 1957 between employees of Shockley Semiconductor and the company’s namesake and founder, Nobel laureate and co-inventor of the transistor William Shockley... (His employees) formed Fairchild Semiconductor immediately following their departure... After several years, Fairchild gained its footing, becoming a formidable presence in this sector. Its founders began to leave to start companies based on their own, latest ideas and were followed on this path by their own former leading employees... The process gained momentum and what had once began in a Stanford’s research park became a veritable startup avalanche... Thus, over the course of just 20 years, a mere eight of Shockley’s former employees gave forth 65 new enterprises, which then went on to do the same...

PhysicsIn 1962-70 negotiations took place between the Cambridge Electron Accelerator Laboratory (shared by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, and the US Atomic Energy Commission over the proposed 1970 construction of the Stanford Positron Electron Asymmetric Ring (SPEAR). It would be the first US electron-positron colliding beam storage ring. Paris (2001) explores the competition and cooperation between the two university laboratories and presents diagrams of the proposed facilities, charts detailing location factors, and the parameters of different project proposals between 1967 and 1970. Several rings were built in Europe during the five years that it took to obtain funding for the project, but the extensive project revisions resulted in a superior design that was quickly constructed and paved the way for Nobel Prizes in 1976 for Burton Richter and in 1995 for Martin Perl. During 1955-85, solid state technology research and development at Stanford University followed three waves of industrial innovation made possible by support from private corporations, mainly Bell Telephone Laboratories, Shockley Semiconductor, Fairchild Semiconductor, and Xerox PARC. In 1969 the Stanford Research Institute operated one of the four original nodes that comprised ARPANET, predecessor to the Internet.

Campus
An aerial photograph of the Stanford University campusStanford University is located on an 8,180-acre (3,310 ha) campus on the San Francisco Peninsula, in the northwest part of the Santa Clara Valley (Silicon Valley) approximately 37 miles (60 km) southeast of San Francisco and approximately 20 miles (32 km) northwest of San Jose. The main campus is adjacent to Palo Alto, bounded by El Camino Real, Stanford Avenue, Junipero Serra Boulevard, and Sand Hill Road. The university also operates the several remote locations (see below).

Stanford's main campus is actually its own census-designated place within unincorporated Santa Clara County, although some of the university land (including the Stanford Shopping Center and the Stanford Research Park) is within the city limits of Palo Alto. The campus also includes much land in unincorporated San Mateo County (including the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve), as well as in the city limits of Menlo Park (Stanford Hills neighborhood), Woodside, and Portola Valley. The United States Postal Service has assigned Stanford two ZIP codes: 94305 for campus mail and 94309 for P.O. box mail. It lies within area code 650.
History of campus developmentIn the summer of 1886, when the campus was first being planned, Stanford brought the president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Francis Amasa Walker, and prominent Boston landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted westward for consultations. Olmsted worked out the general concept for the campus and its buildings, rejecting a hillside site in favor of the more practical flatlands. Charles Allerton Coolidge then developed this concept in the style of his late mentor, Henry Hobson Richardson, in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, characterized by rectangular stone buildings linked by arcades of half-circle arches. The original campus was also designed in the Spanish-colonial style common to California known as Mission Revival. The red tile roofs and solid sandstone masonry are distinctly Californian in appearance and famously complementary to the bright blue skies common to the region, and most of the subsequently erected buildings have maintained consistent exteriors.

Much of this first construction was destroyed by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, but the university retains the Quad, the old Chemistry Building (which is not in use and has been boarded up since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake),[34] and Encina Hall (the residence of Herbert Hoover, John Steinbeck, and Anthony Kennedy during their times at Stanford). After the 1989 earthquake inflicted further damage, the university implemented a billion-dollar capital improvement plan to retrofit and renovate older buildings for new, up-to-date uses.
LandmarksOrthographic panorama of the Main Quad, located in the heart of the Stanford University campusContemporary campus landmarks include the Main Quad and 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 listed on the National Historic Register.

Stanford Memorial ChurchLou Henry and Herbert Hoover HouseHoover TowerThe DishFaculty residencesOne of the benefits of being a Stanford faculty member is the "Faculty Ghetto", where faculty members can live within walking or biking distance of campus. The Faculty Ghetto is composed of land owned entirely by Stanford. Similar to a condominium, the houses can be bought and sold but the land under the houses is rented on a 99-year lease. Houses in the "Ghetto" appreciate and depreciate, but not as rapidly as overall Silicon Valley values. However, it remains an expensive area in which to own property, and the average price of single-family homes on campus is actually higher than in Palo Alto. Stanford itself enjoys the rapid capital gains of Silicon Valley landowners, although by the terms of its founding the university cannot sell the land.

Non-main campusStanford currently operates or intends to operate in various locations outside of its main campus.

On the founding grant but away from the main campus:

Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve is a 1200-acre nature reserve owned by the university and used by wildlife biologists for research, located south of the main campus.

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is a facility located south of main campus and originally owned by Stanford but now operated by the university for the Department of Energy. It contains the longest linear particle accelerator in the world (2 miles on 426 acres of land).

Off the founding grant:

Hopkins Marine Station, located in Pacific Grove, California, is a marine biology research center owned by the university since 1892.

Study abroad locations: unlike typical study abroad programs, Stanford itself operates in locations around the globe; thus, each location, which ranges from Beijing to Cape Town, has Stanford faculty-in-residence and staff in addition to students, creating a "mini Stanford."

Locations in development:

Redwood City: in 2005, the university purchased a small, 35-acre campus in Midpoint Technology Park intended for staff offices, although it remains undeveloped.

China: the university is currently building a small campus for researchers and students in collaboration with Peking University.

New York: the university has submitted a "formal expression of interest" in response to the city of New York's call for proposals to build an engineering campus as a partnership between the city and a "world-class institution." If selected, Stanford would build a satellite campus on Roosevelt Island for engineering, with a focus on information technology, and would also draw on Stanford's Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, the Graduate School of Business and the Technology Ventures Program.

The university also has its own golf course and a seasonal lake (Lake Lagunita, actually an irrigation reservoir), both home to the endangered California Tiger Salamander. Lake Lagunita is often dry now, but the university has no plans to artificially fill it.

Lake Lagunita in early spring; the Dish is visible in the foothills behind the lake.SustainabilitySustainable Stanford is a university-wide effort to reduce environmental impact, preserve resources and show sustainability in action. Administrators, faculty, staff, and students throughout the university are working to research and implement sustainability. Central to this effort is the Initiative on the Environment and Sustainability, a campaign launched to support interdisciplinary research and teaching in all seven of Stanford’s schools and key institutes. Through the initiative, the Stanford community is working to ensure future generations can live well on the planet.

The Department of Sustainability and Energy Management (SEM) leads initiatives in campus infrastructure and programs in the areas of energy and climate, water, transportation, green buildings, and sustainable information technology, as well as various special initiatives. The Office of Sustainability connects campus organizations and entities and works collaboratively with them to steer sustainability initiatives to fulfill President Hennessy’s vision that sustainability will, "become a core value in everything we do." The office works on long-range sustainability analysis and planning, evaluations and reporting, communication and outreach, academic integration, conservation behavior and training, and sustainability governance strategy. For the third consecutive year, Stanford received designation of an Overall Campus Sustainability Leader from the Sustainable Endowments Institute’s College Sustainability Report Card. Stanford earned straight “A” grades in the following topic areas: administration, climate change & energy, food & recycling, green building, student involvement, transportation, investment priorities, and shareholder engagement. The 2009 – 2010 Year in Review provides an overview of the most recent sustainability efforts on campus. The Sustainable Stanford program continues to improve sustainable practices on campus:

In 2009, Stanford announced a Climate and Energy Plan that exceeds California's AB 32 Global Warming Solutions Act.

Since 1993, energy retrofits of older buildings have resulted in an estimated savings of more than 240 million kilowatt-hours of electricity—about 15 months of the university’s current use.

More than a million square feet of new construction has come online with high energy and water efficiency.

Achieved a 21% reduction in domestic water use on campus in 2010 compared with 2000, despite more than 1 million additional GSF added to the building portfolio.

The recycling program diverts 65 percent of waste from landfills.

About 40 percent of produce purchased is organic and/or regionally grown, and Stanford helps support about 30 small farms that grow organic produce.

Designated a Gold-Level “Bicycle Friendly Community,” Stanford boasts 13,000 bikes on campus daily and 11.7 miles (18.8 km) of bike lanes.

Employee drive-alone rate has been reduced from 72 percent in 2002 to 48 percent in 2010—compared to the national rate of 77 percent—and transit ridership has increased from 8 to 26 percent.

The award-winning transportation program includes the free 41-bus, 15-route Marguerite system running on biodiesel with two diesel-electric hybrid buses; the 7,500-member Commute Club; free transit on Caltrain, VTA, Dumbarton Express and AC Transit’s Line U; Zipcar car sharing; commute planning; charter services; and a bicycle program. Ridership on Marguerite buses climbed to 1,416,508 in 2009. Shuttle ridership at the Caltrain commuter rail stations increased an estimated 30 percent between 2004 and 2009. In 2010, 52 percent of employees used alternative transportation to commute, compared with 24 percent in Santa Clara County

Administration and organizationStanford University is a tax-exempt corporate trust owned and governed by a privately appointed 35-member Board of Trustees. Trustees serve five-year terms (not more than two consecutive terms) and meet five times annually. 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 organized into seven schools: School of Humanities and Sciences, School of Engineering, School of Earth Sciences, School of Education, Graduate School of Business, Stanford Law School and the Stanford University School of Medicine. 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.

Academics

Walkway to the School of Education, near the QuadStanford University is a large, highly residential research university with a majority of enrollments coming from graduate and professional students.[50] The full-time, four-year undergraduate program is classified as "more selective, lower transfer-in" and has an arts and sciences focus with high graduate student coexistence. Stanford University is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. Full-time undergraduate tuition was $38,700 for 2010-2011.

Research centers and institutes

View of Hoover Tower from Main Quad.Other Stanford-affiliated institutions include the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (originally the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center) and the Stanford Research Institute, a now independent institution which originated at the university, in addition to the Stanford Humanities Center.

Stanford also houses the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, a major public policy think tank that attracts visiting scholars from around the world, and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, which is dedicated to the more specific study of international relations. Unable to locate a copy in any of its libraries, the Soviet Union was obliged to ask the Hoover Institution for a microfilm copy of its original edition of the first issue of Pravda (dated March 5, 1917).

Stanford is home to the John S. Knight Fellowships for Professional Journalist and the Center for Ocean Solutions, which brings together marine science and policy to develop solutions to challenges facing the ocean.

Libraries and digital resourcesThe Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (SULAIR) hold a collection of nearly 9 million volumes, 260,000 rare or special books, 1.5 million e-books, 1.5 million audiovisual materials, 75,000 serials, 6 million microform holdings, and thousands of other digital resources, making it one of the largest and most diverse academic library systems in the world. The main library in the SU library system is Green Library, which also contains various meeting and conference rooms, study spaces, and reading rooms. Meyer Library, a 24-hour library slated for demolition in 2012, holds various student-accessible media resources and has housed one of the largest East Asia collections, whose 540,000 volumes are being transported to an interim location while a new library is rebuilt.[56] Other significant collections include the Lane Medical Library, Terman Engineering Library, Jackson Business Library, Falconer Biology Library, Cubberley Education Library, Branner Earth Sciences Library, Swain Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Library, Jonsson Government Documents collection, Crown Law Library, Center for Ocean Solutions Research Library, Stanford Auxiliary Library (SAL), SLAC Library, Hoover library, Miller Marine Biology Library at Hopkins Marine Station, Music Library, and the university's special collections. There are 20 libraries in all. Several academic departments and some residences also have their own libraries.

Digital libraries and text services include digital image collections, the Humanities Digital Information Services group, and the Media Microtext Center. HighWire Press, the university ePublishing platform, produces and hosts some 1,400 journals and receives over 600 billion requests every month. The Stanford University Press also produces over 175 books each year.

The vast computing resources include some 150,000 computers on the Stanford University Network (SUNet, one of the first to connect to the internet), including clusters of printer-enabled computers in every undergraduate residence (the first residential computing program), as well as high-performance computer clusters for general use throughout the campus.

Stanford is a founding and charter member of CENIC, the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California, the nonprofit organization that provides extremely high-performance Internet-based networking to California's K-20 research and education community.

Student bodyDemographics of student body Undergraduate Graduate California U.S. Census

African American 10% 3% 6.2% 12.1%

Asian American 23% 13% 12.3% 4.3%

White American 36% 35% 59.8% 65.8%

Hispanic American 13% 5% 35.9% 14.5%

Native American 2.8% <1% 0.7% 0.9%

International student 7% 33% N/A N/A

View from Hoover Tower observation deck of the Quad and surrounding area, facing westStanford enrolled 6,887 undergraduate and 8,779 graduate students[60] in the 2010-2011 year. Women comprised 48% of undergraduates and 37% of professional and graduate students. The freshman retention rate for 2010 was 98%, the four-year graduation rate is 78.4%, and the six-year rate is 95%. The relatively low four-year graduation rate is a function of the university's coterminal degree (or "coterm") program, which allows students to earn a Master's degree as an extension of their undergraduate program.

Stanford awarded 1,671 undergraduate degrees, 2,068 Master's degrees, 708 doctoral degrees, and 270 professional degrees in 2010. The most popular Bachelor's degrees were in the social sciences, interdisciplinary studies, and engineering.

For the class of 2014, Stanford received 32,022 applications and accepted 2300 or 7.2%, the lowest in the university's history and among the lowest in the country. For the class of 2015, Stanford received 5,929 single-choice early action applications and accepted 754 of them, for an early admission rate of 12.7%. This application season Stanford received more than 34,200 total applications from both the regular and early rounds.

The cost of attendance in 2010-2011 is $54,947. Stanford's admission process is need-blind for US citizens and permanent residents; while it is not need-blind for international students, 64% are on need-based aid, with an average aid package of $31,411. In 2010, the university awarded $117 million in financial aid to 3,530 students, with an average aid package of $40,593. total external and internal aid (including jobs and optional loans) amounted to $172.3 million to undergraduate students. 80% of students are on some form of financial aid. Stanford's no-loan policy waives tuition, room, and board for families with incomes below $60,000, and families with incomes below $100,000 are not required to pay tuition (those with incomes up to $150,000 will have tuition significantly reduced). 17% of students receive Pell Grants, a common measure of low-income students at a college. 15% of the undergraduates are first-generation students.

RankingsUniversity rankings (overall) ARWU World 3rd

ARWU National 3rd

Forbes 6th

QS World 13th

Times Higher Education 4th

USNWR National University 5th

WM National University 4th

Stanford is consistently ranked among the top universities in the world, both for undergraduate teaching and graduate-level research. The U.S. News and World Report (USNWR) ranks it fifth among large universities for its undergraduate program in 2009. In the 2011 U.S. News graduate school rankings, Stanford also placed in the top 5 for every discipline in which it was ranked, except bioengineering, where it placed 8th.

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) ranked Stanford 3rd in the world in 2010. ARWU ranked Stanford 7th in Natural Sciences and Mathematics, 2nd in Engineering/Technology and Computer Sciences, 5th in Life and Agriculture Sciences, 12th in Clinical Medicine and Pharmacy, and 3rd in Social Sciences worldwide. In its subject rankings, ARWU placed Stanford 4th in mathematics, 6th in physics, 4th in chemistry, 1st in computer science, and 4th in economics and business. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranked Stanford 4th best research university in the world in 2010. The Times also ranked Stanford 3rd in engineering and technology, 3rd in life sciences, 5th in physical sciences, 2nd in arts & humanities, 3rd in social sciences, and 2nd in clinical, pre-clinical and health sciences; no other university places in the top 5 across all broad disciplines studied. The QS World University Rankings placed Stanford 8th in arts & humanities, 2nd in engineering & technology, 6th in social sciences & management, 6th in natural sciences, 4th in life sciences & medicine, and 13th overall.

Stanford places fourth among national universities by The Washington Monthly, second among "global universities" by Newsweek,, and tied for 1st with MIT and Columbia University in the first tier among national universities by the Center for Measuring University Performance. In the MINE ParisTech rankings in 2008 measuring the number of Chief Executive Officers among the Fortune Global 500, Stanford is ranked third in the world. According to Forbes, Stanford has produced the second highest number of billionaires of all universities.

Among professional schools, the Stanford Law School is ranked 3rd in the nation while its School of Education is ranked 4th. The Stanford Graduate School of Business is ranked 1st according to U.S. News and World Report. Forbes ranked the business school at the top in its 2009 "Best Business Schools" list. In the 2010 QS Global 200 Business Schools Report Stanford placed 4th in North America. The School of Medicine is currently ranked 5th in the nation according to U.S. News and World Report 2010.

From a 2010 poll done by the Princeton Review, Stanford is the most commonly named "dream college," both for students and for parents, a title it has held in previous years. According to the 2011 Times Higher Education World Reputation ranking (based on a survey of 13,388 academics over 131 countries, the largest evaluation of academic reputation to date), Stanford is 4th in the world. A 2003 Gallup poll, which asked about the best colleges in the U.S., found that Stanford is the second-most prestigious university (behind Harvard) in the eyes of the general American public and roughly equal in prestige to Harvard among college-education people.

Arts

Bronze statues by Auguste Rodin are scattered through the campus, including these Burghers of Calais.Stanford University is home to the Cantor Center for Visual Arts museum with 24 galleries, sculpture gardens, terraces, and a courtyard first established in 1891 by Jane and Leland Stanford as a memorial to their only child. Notably, the Center possesses the largest collection of Rodin works outside of Paris, France. There are also a large number of outdoor art installations throughout the campus, primarily sculptures, but some murals as well. The Papua New Guinea Sculpture Garden near Roble Hall features handmade wood carvings and "totem poles."

Stanford has a thriving artistic and musical community. Extracurricular activities include theater groups such as Ram's Head Theatrical Society and the Stanford Shakespeare Society, award-winning a cappella music groups such as the Mendicants, Counterpoint, the Stanford Fleet Street Singers, Harmonics, Mixed Company, Testimony, Talisman, Everyday People, Raagapella, and a group dedicated to performing the works of Gilbert and Sullivan, the Stanford Savoyards. Beyond these, the music department sponsors many ensembles including five choirs, the Stanford Symphony Orchestra, Stanford Taiko, and the Stanford Wind Ensemble.

Stanford's dance community is one of the most vibrant in the country, with an active dance division in the Drama Department and over 30 different dance-related student groups, including the Stanford Band's Dollie dance troupe.

Perhaps most distinctive of all is its social and vintage dance community, cultivated by dance historian Richard Powers and enjoyed by hundreds of students and thousands of alumni. Stanford hosts monthly informal dances (called Jammix) and large quarterly dance events, including Ragtime Ball (fall), the Stanford Viennese Ball (winter), and Big Dance (spring). Stanford also boasts a student-run swing performance troupe called Swingtime and several alumni performance groups, including Decadance and the Academy of Danse Libre.

The creative writing program brings young writers to campus via the Stegner Fellowships and other graduate scholarship programs. This Boy's Life author Tobias Wolff teaches writing to undergraduates and graduate students. Knight Journalism Fellows are invited to spend a year at the campus taking seminars and courses of their choice. There is also an extracurricular writing and performance group called the Stanford Spoken Word Collective, which also serves as the school's poetry slam team.

Stanford also hosts various publishing courses for professionals. Stanford Professional Publishing Course, which has been offered on campus since the late 1970s, brings together international publishing professionals to discuss changing business models in magazine and book publishing.

Endowment and fundraisingThe university's endowment, managed by the Stanford Management Company, was valued at $17.2 billion in 2008 and had achieved an annualized rate of return of 15.1% since 1998. In the economic downturn of January 2009, however, the endowment has dropped 20 to 30 percent. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "Stanford's endowment has lost approximately $4 billion to $5 billion, or 20 to 30 percent of its value" since 2008. As a result, all campus units are cutting their budgets by 15 percent in 2009.

Stanford has been the top fundraising university in the United States for several years, sometimes doubling the fundraising amounts of its top competitors. It raised $911 million in 2006, $832 million in 2007, $785 million in 2008, $640 million in 2009, and $599 million in 2010.

In 2006, President Hennessy launched the Stanford Challenge, a $4.3 billion fundraising campaign focusing on three components: multidisciplinary research initiatives, initiatives to improve education, and core support. In 2009, Stanford surpassed that goal two years ahead of time, despite the economic downturn, making it the most successful collegiate fundraising effort in history; however, Stanford has continued with the campaign for its final two years in order to meet all its initial goals fully.

Student life

Many students use bicycles to get around the large campus.Dormitories and student housingEighty-nine percent of undergraduate students live in on-campus university housing, partially because first-year students are required to live on campus, and because students are guaranteed housing for all four years of their undergraduate careers. According to the Stanford Housing Assignments Office, undergraduates live in 80 different houses, including dormitories, co-ops, row houses, fraternities and sororities. At Manzanita Park, 118 mobile homes were installed as "temporary" housing from 1969 to 1991, but it is now the site of modern dorms Castano, Kimball, and Lantana. Most student residences are located just outside the campus core, within ten minutes (on foot or bike) of most classrooms and libraries. Some are for freshmen only; others give priority to sophomores, others to both freshmen and sophomores; some are for upperclass students only, and some are open to all four classes. Most residences are co-ed; seven are all-male fraternities, three are all-female sororities, and there is also one all-female non-sorority house, Roth House. In most residences, men and women live on the same floor, but a few dorms are configured for men and women to live on separate floors (single-gender floors), including all Wilbur dorms except for Arroyo and Okada. Beginning in 2009-10, the University's housing plan anticipates that all freshmen desiring to live in all-freshman dorms will be accommodated. In the 2009-10 year, almost two-thirds of freshmen will be housed in Stern and Wilbur Halls. The one-third who requested four-class housing will be located in other dormitories throughout campus, including Florence Moore (FloMo). In April 2008, Stanford unveiled a new pilot plan to test out gender-neutral housing in five campus residences, allowing males and females to live in the same room. This was after concerted student pressure, as well as the institution of similar policies at peer institutions such as Wesleyan, Oberlin, Clark, Dartmouth, Brown, and UPenn.

Several residences are considered theme houses. The Academic, Language and Culture Houses include EAST (East Asian Studies Theme), Hammarskjöld (International Theme), Haus Mitteleuropa (Central European Theme), La Casa Italiana (Italian Language and Culture), La Maison Française (French Language and Culture House), Slavianskii Dom (Slavic/East European Theme House), Storey (Human Biology Theme House), and Yost (Spanish Language and Culture).Cross-Cultural Theme Houses include Casa Zapata (Chicano/Latino Theme in Stern Hall), Muwekma-tah-ruk (American Indian/Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian Theme), Okada (Asian-American Theme in Wilbur Hall), and Ujamaa (Black/African-American Theme in Lagunita Court). Focus Houses include Freshman-Sophomore College (Freshman Focus), Branner Hall (Community Service), Kimball (Arts & Performing Arts), Crothers (Global Citizenship), and Toyon (Sophomore Priority).

Another famous style of housing at Stanford is the co-ops. These houses feature cooperative living, where residents and eating associates each contribute work to keep the house running, such as cooking meals or cleaning shared spaces. The co-ops on campus are Chi Theta Chi, Columbae, Enchanted Broccoli Forest (EBF), Hammarskjöld (which is also the International Theme House), Kairos, Terra, and Synergy.

At any time, around 50 percent of the graduate population lives on campus. Now that construction has concluded on the new Munger graduate residence, this percentage has probably increased. First-year graduate students are guaranteed housing.

Traditions

Vintage Stanford University postcardFull Moon on the Quad: A student gathering in the Main Quad of the university. Traditionally, seniors exchange kisses with freshmen, although students of all four classes (as well as the occasional graduate student or stranger) have been known to participate.

Sunday Flicks: A weekly Sunday night film screening in Memorial Auditorium. Usually, students are very loud and crazy during the screenings, and can be seen flying paper airplanes or simply throwing wads of newspaper at each other. Flicks ran into significant financial trouble in 2006 and after an ASSU bail-out became free for all students.

Steam-tunnelling: The act of exploring the steam tunnels under the Stanford campus.

Fountain-hopping: The act of running from one fountain on campus to another, or simply leaping/swimming around in any of Stanford's many fountains (such as the Stanford Claw fountain in White Plaza).

Big Game events: The events in the week leading up to the Big Game vs. UC Berkeley, including Gaieties (a musical written, composed, produced, and performed by the students of Ram's Head Theatrical Society), The Bearial (in which the Stanford Band performs a funeral-like procession and pierces a stuffed-animal bear on the tip of the Stanford Claw fountain), and an hourly train whistle that counts down the hours until Big Game, orchestrated by the Stanford Axe Committee.

Primal scream: Performed by stressed students at midnight during Dead Week (the week prior to finals).

Midnight Breakfast: During Winter quarter dead week, Stanford faculty serves breakfast to students in several locations on campus (you might see a vice-provost refilling orange juice, etc.)

Viennese Ball: a formal ball with waltzes that was started in the 1970s by students returning from the now-closed Stanford in Vienna overseas program.

The Stanford Powwow: Organized by the Stanford American Indian Organization since 1971 and held every Mother's Day weekend.

Mausoleum Party: An annual Halloween Party at the Stanford Mausoleum, which contains the corpses of Leland Stanford, Jr. and his parents. A 20-year tradition, the Mausoleum party was on hiatus from 2002 to 2005 due to a lack of funding from the alumni, but was revived in 2006. In 2008, it was hosted in Old Union rather than at the actual Mausoleum, because rain prohibited generators from being rented. In 2009, after fundraising efforts by the Junior Class Presidents and the ASSU Executive, the event was able to return to the Mausoleum despite facing budget cuts earlier in the year.

Stanford Charity Fashion Show: A large student-run diversity fashion show showcasing student, local, and international designers that was started in 1991.

Senior Pub Night: On most Thursdays during the school year, seniors gather at a bar in Palo Alto or San Francisco. The location rotates week to week, and chartered buses are organized to take the seniors safely between the bar and campus.

Uncommon Man/Uncommon Woman: Stanford does not award honorary degrees, but in 1953 the University created the degree of Uncommon Man/Uncommon Woman for individuals who give rare and extraordinary service to the University. The University's highest honor, the degree is not given at prescribed intervals, but only when appropriate to recognize extraordinary service. Recipients include Herbert Hoover, Bill Hewlett, Dave Packard, Lucile Packard, and John Gardner.

Birthday Showers: Students get thrown in the shower by their friends at midnight on their birthdays.

A Capella groups perform in student residences during New Student Orientation and throughout the year. Some of the most notable original songs include those by humor-focused Fleet Street Singers, such as "Everyone Pees in the Shower" and "Pray to the God of Partial Credit."
The Game: Is a scavenger hunt put on by dorm staff usually in the spring and summer quarters.

Secret Snowflake: Students are given three dares by anonymous residents within their dorm. These students have to perform these dares (one a night for three nights) in front of the whole dorm. These dare can range from tame activities (e.g. singing Like a Virgin in a wedding dress) to extreme (e.g. nudity, stunts). This week of dares is carried out near the end of fall quarter before Christmas Break.

Valentine's Day Serenade: In the freshmen dorms, all of the guys in the dorm wake up all of the girls very early in the morning on Valentine's Day. Each girl is given a single rose and is then brought to the dorm lounge where all of the guys serenade the girls with a love song.

Assassin: Participating students are assigned a target to "kill" with a water gun. A "kill" is only valid if no other person witnesses the "kill" and the target is "killed" outside of his/her dorm room and bathroom. Over a period of weeks, targets are eliminated until only one assassin victoriously remains.

Former campus traditions include the Big Game bonfire on Lake Lagunita (a seasonal lake usually dry in the fall), which is now inactive because of the presence of endangered salamanders in the lake bed.

Greek lifeFraternities and sororities have been active on the Stanford campus since 1891, when the University first opened. In 1944, University President Donald Tresidder banned all Stanford sororities due to extreme competition. However, following Title IX, the Board of Trustees lifted the 33-year ban on sororities in 1977. Stanford is now home to 29 Greek organizations, including 13 sororities and 16 fraternities, representing 13% of undergraduates. In contrast to many universities, nine of the ten housed Greek organizations live in University-owned houses, the exception being Sigma Chi, which owns its own house (but not the land) on The Row. Six chapters are members of the African American Fraternal and Sororal Association, 11 chapters are members of the Interfraternity Council, 6 chapters belong to the Intersorority Council, and 6 chapters belong to the Multicultural Greek Council.

Stanford is home to three unhoused historically NPHC (National Pan-Hellenic Council or "Divine Nine") three sororities (Alpha Kappa Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta, and Sigma Gamma Rho) and three unhoused NPHC fraternities (Alpha Phi Alpha, Kappa Alpha Psi, and Phi Beta Sigma). These fraternities and sororities operate under the AAFSA (African American Fraternal Sororal Association) at Stanford.

Seven historically NPC (National Panhellenic Conference) sororities, four of which are unhoused (Alpha Phi, Alpha Epsilon Phi, Chi Omega, and Kappa Kappa Gamma) and three of which are housed (Delta Delta Delta, Kappa Alpha Theta, and Pi Beta Phi) call Stanford home. These sororities operate under the Stanford Inter-sorority Council (ISC).

Eleven historically NIC (National Interfraternity Conference) fraternities are also represented at Stanford, including four unhoused fraternities (Alpha Epsilon Pi, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Delta Tau Delta, and Sigma Phi Epsilon), and seven housed fraternities (Kappa Alpha, Kappa Sigma, Phi Kappa Psi, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Sigma Chi, Sigma Nu, and Theta Delta Chi). These fraternities operate under the Stanford Inter-fraternity Council (IFC).

There are also four unhoused MGC (Multicultural Greek Council) sororities on campus (Alpha Kappa Delta Phi, Lambda Theta Nu, Sigma Psi Zeta, and Sigma Theta Psi), as well as two unhoused MGC fraternities (Gamma Zeta Alpha and Lambda Phi Epsilon). Lambda Phi Epsilon is recognized by the National Interfraternity Conference (NIC).

Student groupsStanford offers its students the opportunity to engage in over 650 groups. Groups are often, though not always, partially funded by the University via allocations directed by the student government organization, the ASSU. These funds include "special fees", which are decided by a Spring Quarter vote by the student body. Groups span from Athletic/Recreational, Careers/Pre-professional, Community Service, Ethnic/Cultural, Fraternities/Sororities, Health/Counseling, Media/Publications, Music/Dance/Creative Arts, Political/Social Awareness to Religious/Philosophical.

Groups include (but are not limited to):

The Stanford Daily is an independent organization located on campus, and is the daily newspaper serving Stanford University. It has been published since the University was founded in 1892.

The Stanford Axe Committee is the official guardian of the Stanford Axe and the rest of the time assists the Stanford Band as a supplementary spirit group.

The Stanford Pre-Business Association is the largest business-focused undergraduate organization. It plays an instrumental role in establishing an active link between the industry, alumni, and student communities.

The Stanford solar car project, where students build a solar-powered car every 2 years and race it in either the North American Solar Challenge or the World Solar Challenge.

Stanford Astronomical Society organizes viewings of meteor showers, lunar eclipses, and other astronomical events.

The Stanford Kite Flying Society (founded 2008), a group of undergraduates dedicated to flying kites. Society "meetings" are usually on Wilbur Field when it is windy out.

The Pilipino American Student Union (PASU), a culture-oriented community service and social activism group. Also integral to PASU is a traditional performing arts arm called Kayumanggi.

Stanford Finance is a pre-professional organization aimed at mentoring students who want to enter a career in finance, through mentors and internships.

BASES, the Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students is one of the largest professional organizations in Silicon Valley, with over 5,000 members. Its goal is to support the next generation of entrepreneurs.

The Stanford Fleet Street Singers is an all-male Acappella group specializing in comedic original compositions, jazz, and Stanford fight songs. Because Fleet Street maintains Stanford songs as a regular part of its performing repertoire, Stanford University used the group as ambassadors during the University's centennial celebration and commissioned an album, entitled Up Toward Mountains Higher (1999), of Stanford songs which were sent to alumni around the world.

The Stanford Martial Arts Program (SMAP) is an umbrella organization for 11 different martial arts groups on campus: Aikido, Capoeira, Eskrima, Judo, Jujitsu, Kenpo Karate, Muay Thai, Wing Chun, JKA Shotokan, Taekwondo, and Wushu.

The Stanford Women In Business (SWIB) is an on-campus business organization consisting of over a board of 40 and 100 active members. Each year, SWIB organizes over 25 events and workshops, hosts a winter and spring conference, and provides mentorship and spring quarter internships.

The Claw Magazine, named after the fountain in White Plaza, is an undergraduate publication that features humor, artwork, investigative reporting, and fiction.

AthleticsMain article: Stanford Cardinal

Stanford participates in the NCAA's Division I-A and is a member of the Pacific-10 Conference. Stanford has constantly won the NACDA Directors' Cup, The University of North Carolina won the award for best Division I collegiate athletics program in its inaugural year. Since then, Stanford University has won it sixteen straight years, winning sixteen out of the seventeen years it has been offered. It also participates in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation for indoor track (men and women), fencing (men and women), water polo (men and women), women's gymnastics, women's lacrosse, men's gymnastics, and men's volleyball. The women's field hockey team is part of the NorPac Conference. Stanford's traditional sports rival is the University of California, Berkeley, its neighbor to the north in the East Bay.

Stanford offers 34 varsity sports (18 female, 15 male, one coed), 19 club sports and 37 intramural sports — about 800 students participate in intercollegiate sports. The university offers about 300 athletic scholarships.

The new Stanford Stadium, site of home football games.The winner of the annual "Big Game" between the Cal and Stanford football teams gains custody of the Stanford Axe. The first "Big Game", played at Haight Street Park in San Francisco on March 19, 1892, established football on the west coast. Stanford won 14 to 10 in front of 8 thousand spectators. Stanford's football team played in the first Rose Bowl in 1902. However, the violence of the sport at the time, coupled with the post-game rioting of drunken spectators, led San Francisco to bar further "Big Games" in the city in 1905. In 1906, David Starr Jordan banned football from Stanford. The 1906–1914 "Big Game" contests featured rugby instead of football. Stanford football was resumed in 1919. Stanford won back-to-back Rose Bowls in 1971 and 1972. Stanford has played in 12 Rose Bowls, most recently in 2000. Stanford's Jim Plunkett won the Heisman Trophy in 1970.

Club sports, while not officially a part of Stanford athletics, are numerous at Stanford. Sports include archery, badminton, cheerleading, cricket, cycling, equestrian, hurling, ice hockey, judo, kayaking, men's lacrosse, polo, racquetball, rugby union, squash, skiing, taekwondo, tennis, triathlon and Ultimate. The men's Ultimate team won national championships in 1984 and 2002, the women's Ultimate team in 1997, 1998, 1999, 2003, 2005, 2006, and 2007, the women's rugby team in 1999, 2005, 2006 and 2008. The cycling team won the 2007 Division I USA Cycling Collegiate Road National Championships.

Until 1930, Stanford did not have a "mascot" name for its athletic teams. In that year, the athletic department adopted the name "Indians." In 1972, "Indians" was dropped after a complaint of racial insensitivity was lodged by Native American students.
The Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band rallies football fans with arrangements of "All Right Now" and other contemporary music.The Stanford sports teams are now officially referred to as the Stanford Cardinal, referring to the deep red color, not the cardinal bird. Cardinal, and later cardinal and white has been the university's official color since the 19th century. The Band's mascot, "The Tree", has become associated with the school in general. Part of the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band (LSJUMB), the tree symbol derives from the El Palo Alto redwood tree on the Stanford and City of Palo Alto seals.

Stanford hosts an annual U.S. Open Series tennis tournament, the Bank of the West Classic, at Taube Stadium. Cobb Track, Angell Field, and Avery Stadium Pool are considered world-class athletic facilities. Stanford Stadium hosted Super Bowl XIX on January 20, 1985, featuring the local San Francisco 49ers defeating the Miami Dolphins by a score of 38–16 and several group stage matches in the 1994 FIFA World Cup.

Stanford has won the award for the top ranked collegiate athletic program — the NACDA Director's Cup, formerly known as the Sears Cup — every year for the past sixteen years. Stanford has had at least one NCAA team champion every year since the 1976-77 school year.

NCAA achievements: Stanford has earned 100 National Collegiate Athletic Association national team titles since its establishment, second most behind the University of California, Los Angeles, and 465 individual NCAA championships, the most by any university. The 100th championship was won by the 2010-2011 Stanford Men's Gymnastics team.

Olympic achievements: According to the Stanford Daily, "Stanford has been represented in every summer Olympiad since 1908." As of 2004, Stanford athletes had won 182 Olympic medals at the summer games; "In fact, in every Olympiad since 1912, Stanford athletes have won at least one and as many as 17 gold medals." Stanford athletes won 24 medals at the 2008 Summer Games–8 gold, 12 silver and 4 bronze.[13Notable alumni, faculty, and staffMain article: List of Stanford University people

Vinton Cerf, the "father of the Internet", graduated from Stanford.

Stanford alumni have started many companies including Hewlett-Packard (William Hewlett and David Packard), Cisco Systems (Sandra Lerner and Leonard Bosack), NVIDIA, SGI, VMware, MIPS Technologies, Yahoo! (Chih-Yuan Yang and David Filo), Google (Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page), Wipro Technologies (Azim Premji), Nike, Gap (Doris Fisher), Logitech, and Sun Microsystems Vinod Khosla. The Sun in Sun Microsystems originally stood for "Stanford University Network."

Stanford's current community of scholars includes:

16 Nobel Prize laureates;

137 members of the National Academy of Sciences;

95 members of National Academy of Engineering;

62 members of Institute of Medicine;

258 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences;

19 recipients of the National Medal of Science;

2 recipients of the National Medal of Technology;

30 members of the National Academy of Education;

43 members of American Philosophical Society;

56 fellows of the American Physics Society (since 1995);

4 Pulitzer Prize winners;

24 MacArthur Fellows;

7 Wolf Foundation Prize winners;

6 Koret Foundation Prize winners;

2 ACL Lifetime Achievement Award winners;

14 AAAI fellows;

3 Presidential Medal of Freedom winners.

Stanford has been affiliated with over 50 Nobel laureates, as well as 19 recipients (mostly as faculty) of the Turing Award, the so-called "Nobel Prize in computer science," comprising nearly half of the awards given in its 44-year history. The university is also affiliated with 4 Gödel Prize and 4 Knuth Prize recipients, for their work in the foundations of computer science.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, former U.S. President Herbert Hoover, former U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo are alumni.

NBA guard Landry Fields, NFL quarterbacks Jim Plunkett, Trent Edwards and John Elway, NFL receivers Gordon Banks and Ed McCaffrey, NFL Fullback Jon Ritchie, runner Ryan Hall, MLB starting pitcher Mike Mussina, MLB left-fielder Carlos Quentin, MLB infielder Jed Lowrie, Grand Slam winning tennis players John McEnroe (did not graduate) (singles and doubles) and (doubles) Bob and Mike Bryan, professional golfer Tiger Woods (did not graduate), New Zealand Football and Blackburn Rovers Defender Ryan Nelsen, Olympic swimmers Jenny Thompson, Summer Sanders and Pablo Morales, Olympic figure skater Debi Thomas, Olympic water polo players Tony Azevedo and Brenda Villa, Olympic softball player Jessica Mendoza, Olympic volleyball player Kerri Walsh, Heisman finalist Toby Gerhart, and actress Reese Witherspoon (did not graduate) are alumni.

Actresses Jennifer Connelly and Sigourney Weaver (her alumna status was featured in the 2009 film Avatar), actor Ben Savage, and political commentator Rachel Maddow are prominent graduates. 21st President of Pacific Union College, Heather Knight did her doctoral studies at Stanford