The Stanford Daily Vol. 260 Issue 5 (10.22.21)

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FRIDAY October 22, 2021

Volume 260 Issue 5

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“Profound changes” CIA director discusses future of U.S. security, intelligence

By JED NGALANDE BEAT REPORTER

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director William Burns warned that the United States is in a period of flux due to “profound changes” in relations between world powers at a Wednesday discussion in Encina Hall.

Burns joined his former colleague and Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Director Michael McFaul for a discussion on national security and Burn’s vision for the CIA. Burns, a career diplomat and former U.S. ambassador to Russia and Jordan, became the eighth director of the CIA in March.

Burns said that the present-day “is one of those moments of transition for the United States that comes along two or three times a century.”

He attributed this transitional period to “profound changes” in relationships between world powers, especially given the recent rise of China, though Burns said that it is critical for U.S. intelligence efforts not to neglect more familiar challenges such as those involving Russia, Iran, North Korea and terrorism.

Climate change, Burns added, poses an existential threat to humanity. He also said that the technological revolution will affect the CIA’s overseas operations and national defense.

Burns described his plans to establish a CIA mission center focused on China and launch

18,000 boosters in arms Drop-ins, appointments readily available

By CHRISTOPHER SHIN

NIKOLAS LIEPINS/The Stanford Daily

CIA Director William J. Burns speaks with Michael McFaul, director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, in Encina Hall’s Bechtel Conference Center. weekly meetings exclusively focused on this, just as his predecessors did for issues pertaining to counterterrorism over the past two decades.

A second mission center will focus on transnational issues and technology, he said.

Burns said that although his previous diplomatic roles allowed him to “shape policy” in the

State Department, his current one requires him to support policymakers.

“I have to tell my colleagues around the White House Situation Room table to kick me under the table if I start to stray in the other di-

Please see CIA, page 2

ACADEMICS

Why do Stanford math professors still use chalk?

By SHERRY XIE When mathematics lecturer Christine Taylor asked her Math 51 students in class whether they prefer she write on chalkboards or project her lecture notes, the students were in lockstep: chalkboards are better. And the students are not alone in their preference.

Mathematics professor Brian Conrad, the director of undergraduate studies for the Mathematics Department, said that nearly 100% of math faculty members at Stanford teach using chalk and chalkboards.

This partiality for chalk, according to fourth-year Mathematics Ph.D. student Libby Taylor, is shared by graduate students and teaching assistants.

Since the invention of colored chalk and chalkboards in the early 1800s, the instruments have been widely used in educational settings.

In fact, many mathematicians today have even developed brand loyalty for a specific type of chalk — Japanese Hagoromo chalk, which is the brand preferred by many math faculty at Stanford.

When Conrad heard about the bankruptcy of the Japanese company which produced Hagoromo chalk a few years ago, he described the situation as a “chalk apocalypse” and started stockpiling chalk as much as he could. The news that a Korean company bought the Hagoromo for-

HEALTH

TOM QUACH/The Stanford Daily

Fourth-year mathematics Ph.D. student Libby Taylor teaches algebraic curves and Riemann surfaces to Ryan Catullo ’25. mula relaxed the sense of urgency but did not diminish mathematicians’ fervor for the chalk. Libby Taylor even said that there was hardly any non-Hagoromo chalk in her office.

While the use of chalk is a cultural element for most mathematicians, Conrad also noted several distinct features of chalk in comparison with slides or projections. The nature of mathematical derivations and the step-by-step process is hard to capture through slides, he said.

Although using slides is more useful when giving a “popular audience talk,” chalk and chalkboards are much more effective for class-

room instruction, Conrad said.

Echoing Conrad’s sentiment, Christine Taylor said that “if the speaker tried to use slides, people don’t retain as much because [the speaker] goes much faster. Whereas if you write on the chalk, you are forced to slow down.”

The more spacious chalkboard versus the limited screen size, Conrad said, is conducive to students’ learning as they can constantly go back and forth on mathematical derivations. The layout in Room 380C of Sloan Hall, for instance, has two levels of chalkboards, which allow for enhanced flexibility.

Even when compared to white-

boards, chalkboards still have many benefits. One always knows how much they have left with a piece of chalk, according to Conrad. With whiteboard markers, however, one never knows when the markers are going to run out — a phenomenon jocularly described by Libby Taylor as “whiteboard marker roulette.”

With regard to teaching, Christine Taylor noted that an individual’s “penmanship is not as good with markers,” and that when circling with markers, “the writing tends to get smaller,” which tends to make it more difficult for students to discern. On a more practical level, Libby Taylor said that “whiteboards do deteriorate much faster, [and] then you have to replace them much more often and mounting these boards is an enormous pain.”

Chalkboards, on the other hand, can still work perfectly even when they are 20 or 30 years old. Conrad also pointed out that if one accidentally applies permanent markers on a whiteboard, then the board would be “instantly dead,” a nightmare not applicable to chalkboards.

Even though assistant mathematics professor Zhenkun Li has no particular preference for chalkboards or whiteboards for personal use, when meeting with a student or colleague, he still prefers the chalkboard.

Please see CHALK, page 2

Stanford Health Care (SHC) is offering Pfizer-BioNTech COVID19 booster shots as of Sept. 27 in line with new vaccination guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last month. 17,864 total doses have been administered as of Tuesday, according to SHC spokesperson Julie Greicius.

The booster shots are being offered to established SHC patients who received their second dose of the Pfizer vaccine at least six months ago and are either over the age of 65, residents of long-term care facilities, work in high-risk occupational settings or immunocompromised, according to the SHC COVID-19 vaccination website.

“There is no wait list for the Pfizer/BioNTech booster shot; appointments are readily available and drop-ins are welcome,” Greicius wrote in a statement to The Daily.

On Wednesday, the FDA also authorized the use of the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines as booster doses through a “mix and match” approach, though SHC has not yet released information on the offering of these boosters.

The Pfizer-BioNTech booster shot is identical in makeup to the original vaccine and serves to strengthen the body’s resistance to infection, according to medicine professor Dean Winslow.

“The immune system in healthy individuals responds more robustly after being initially ‘primed’ by either natural infection or an earlier dose of a vaccine,” Winslow wrote in an email to The Daily. “A booster results in augmentation of the initial immune response.”

Winslow said that while patients under the age of 65 who are immunocompromised or work in high-risk occupational settings are receiving the booster at SHC, he does not recommend the booster for healthy patients under 65.

“Since the threat of disease is very rare in otherwise healthy people under 65, I am not recommending that younger people get a booster at this time unless they fall into one of these high risk categories,” Winslow wrote.

University spokesperson E.J. Miranda declined to comment on how many Stanford students, faculty and staff have received the booster shot thus far. Miranda wrote in a statement that “the University will continue to monitor CDC, state and county guidance and adjust health and safety protocols as conditions

Please see BOOSTER, page 3

CAMPUS LIFE

Bidding farewell to the 2019-20 Dollies

By MARIA CORREA When you hear the drums, trumpets and energy of the University’s marching band, odds are the twirls and high kicks of five Dollies in their iconic red dresses, white boots and pom poms will not be far behind.

Charlotte Brewer ’22, Jasmine Rodriguez ’22, Tiffany Liu ’22, Julia Raven ’21 M.A. ’22 and Savannah Payne ’22 accompanied the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band (LSJUMB) at football games, school events and band trips throughout the 2019-2020 academic year. They returned for one final

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rally last Saturday — over a year and a half after their last performance.

Stanford Dollies dance and partake in many iconic events, including festivities surrounding the Big Game, which is when the Stanford football team faces its rival, the University of California, Berkeley.

All five of the 2019-2020 Dollies agreed, however, that their favorite event was Band Run, during which they picked up frosh from across campus for a grand performance alongside the marching band in Main Quad. Rodriguez said that the

Please see DOLLIES, page 4

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On Saturday, Oct. 16, the five 2019-20 Dollies performed around campus for their final rally, returning after a year and a half to partake in this long-honored Dollie tradition.

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Recycle Me

2 N Friday, October 22, 2021

The Stanford Daily UNIVERSITY

Why all the abandoned bikes?

By CLAUDIA MOSES

By ILA MATHUR

THOMAS YIM/The Stanford Daily

Firemen from Palo Alto Fire Department inspect the eighth floor of EVGR-A. According to authorities, the fire was caused by a minor accident in a resident’s room involving incense and a trashcan.

CAMPUS LIFE

Small fire sets off alarm in EVGR-A Burning incense leads to evacuation of residents

By CAROLYN STEIN BEAT REPORTER

At 5:15 p.m. on Tuesday, residents of Escondido Village Graduate Residence Building A (EVGRA) were partially evacuated from the building in response to a fire on the eighth floor. The Palo Alto Fire Department (PAFD) and the Stanford University Department of Public Safety told students that it was safe to return to their rooms about an hour later.

PAFD spokesperson William Dale confirmed that the fire was caused by a minor accident in a resident’s room on the eighth floor.

“It appears someone was burning incense and it fell into a small can causing the paper to ignite and smolder,” Dale said. The incident did not cause any injuries or damage to the building.

Rachel Leou ’23, who lives on the eighth floor, had to go down the stairwell and evacuate from her room.

“The hallway is kind of smoky,” she said. Leou also said that as she was waiting for word from her Resident Assistant to go back upstairs, she saw other students entering the

building while the alarm was still going off.

While Dale told The Daily that “the incident and evacuation was only limited” to the eighth floor, the fire alarms for the floors above and below the affected floor are also usually set off. The EVGR fire alarm does not typically activate the entire building.

Rachel Greene ’21 M.S. ’22 was sitting in her room on the seventh floor when suddenly, “an intercom came over and said that we needed to leave and that the elevators were not to be used,” she said. “Some of us smelled smoke, but at that point we still thought it was just a drill.”

Brandon Jaimes ’22, who lives on the seventh floor, recounted a similar experience. “The alarm started going off, they told us to evacuate down the stairwell, so everyone got evacuated,” he said. Jaimes and his friends also walked around the entire building and could not see any fire from the outside.

“It doesn’t seem like there’s much lockdown, apart from the seventh and eighth floors,” he said.

The fire department arrived about 15 to 20 minutes after students were evacuated, Greene said.

After the incident, it took about one and a half hours to “turn the building back over to the students and repopulate,” Dale said.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Stanford’s campus has become a graveyard of sorts.

Below the blue skies and palm trees lie the rusting remains of “dead bikes.”

They are estimated to number in the thousands and can be found at parking spots near Main Quad, Tresidder and student dorms.

Students estimate that the bulk were abandoned at the start of the pandemic, only for their respective owners to forget about them or never return. “When COVID hit, people didn’t expect to be gone so long, so they just went home and left their bikes on campus,” speculated Allen Huang ’21 M.A. ’22.

The problem is exacerbated by Stanford University Department of Public Safety’s (SUDPS) reduced capacity to impound bikes and is beginning to affect current campus residents who hope to use the bike racks.

SUDPS wrote in a statement to The Daily that if a bike is left in a spot for over 14 days, it is impounded by cutting the lock and placing it into secure storage. However, the tags that SUDPS affixes to bikes before they are impounded indicates that some bikes have been left sitting for far longer. Salma Kalni ’24 observed that “some have tickets that say that they’re going to be impounded but have been there for two years.”

SUDPS officer Jody Daggs, who coordinates bike impoundment, says the impoundment process has several limitations, some as a direct result of the pandemic.

REBECCA PIZZITOLA/The Stanford Daily

Over 1,000 abandoned bikes remain on campus, and they’re filling up parking spaces. The Department of Public Safety said the impoundment lot is full and time is needed for the issue to be solved.

For instance, the secure lot that SUDPS uses to hold impounded bikes can only hold 500 and recently reached its maximum capacity. But Daggs estimates that there are “over a thousand bikes” on campus that are in need of impoundment.

SUDPS is also facing constraints in discarding bikes that have made it to the storage lot. Bikes are only supposed to remain in the lot for 90 days, according to Daggs, but some have been languishing there for much longer. This is partially because organizations that used to pick up donated bikes before the pandemic have limited operations.

The pandemic introduced a new challenge to removing bikes: Daggs said he was not informed of when students would return to campus or what student housing would look like in the future, leading SUDPS to struggle to determine whether bikes should be removed. Daggs said, “The campus was flooded with bikes, and there were no students.”

The consequences of students leaving their bikes behind has begun to af-

fect campus residents hoping to lock their bikes in convenient locations close to residences, dining halls and classrooms.

Ethan Bernheim ’25 said that he would rather keep his bike with him when eating at Tresidder Memorial Union than lock it to a bike rack.

“There wasn’t space, so we didn’t want to deal with it,” he said. “There’s so many dead bikes there.”

Students also feel there is little they can do to abate the problem.

Huang, who is a Resident Assistant (RA) in West Lagunita, said that he and other RAs submitted a request to remove the bikes before the start of fall quarter. The request has not yet been fulfilled.

“There’s a form you can fill out to try to get the Department of Public Safety to come impound the bikes that are supposed to be impounded. But we’ve tried to fill that out and they just still haven’t impounded all the bikes yet,” Huang said.

“Why didn’t [SUDPS] get rid of

Please see BIKES, page 3

UNIVERSITY

Thankgiving plans complicated

By ENKHJIN MUNKHBAYAR This Thanksgiving, many Stanford students with families living in the U.S. will choose to return home for the week-long break. However, traveling out of the U.S. may prove difficult for international students affected by new travel policies released

by Stanford administrators.

Raghad Asiri ’25, an international student from Saudi Arabia, said that she does not plan to return home for Thanksgiving due to the brevity of the break. Nonetheless, she recognizes the difficulty that the new travel policy is causing for the international students who were previously looking forward to being reunited with their families and seeing their hometowns again toward the end of the fall quarter.

The Friday email from Dean of Students Mona Hicks and Executive

Director of Vaden Health Services Jim Jacobs stated that “students who are not fully vaccinated and all students returning from international travel on or after Nov. 27, 2021, are required to restrict their activities.”

Students under conditions of restricted activity may only leave their residences for COVID-19 testing, medical care, laundry and trash, solo outdoor exercise, picking up meals and for grocery and food deliveries.

Until specific testing procedures are satisfied, they cannot attend in-person classes during the last week of the fall quarter. There will be no special arrangements for students who cannot attend classes because of a Thanksgiving travel, Hicks and Jacobs wrote.

Like Asiri, other students said they understood the reasoning behind the University’s travel decisions. However, they also raised con-

cerns that international students who do decide to travel will be disadvantaged upon their return.

Jose Luis Sabau ’22 said he believes the lack of accommodations for students under restricted activity is not fully addressing the needs of international students.

But, he also said he found it fair that people should restrict their on-campus activities until they prove that they do not have COVID-19, which could affect the rest of the Stanford community.

“I think the University should try to support students who have made plans beforehand to travel internationally and at least try to ensure that there’s an online opportunity for those who have to restrict activities,” Sabau said. “That’s what I believe would be ideal.”

CHALK

to speak there, he said. In one of his Math 51 classes in 2018, he added, “almost none” of the students “had been in a chalk lecture before coming to Stanford.”

Li remarked that with this phenomenon, when coupled with the recent pandemic which led to the prevalence of online seminars, it’s possible that technology will be used more often in math classrooms. However, others interviewed by The Daily all seem to think that chalk and chalkboards will remain a fixture in mathematics education for years to come.

Whether it be because of “the tradition of using chalk,” as Conrad noted or the “nice clickety clack noise” that Libby Taylor mentioned, chalk and chalkboards are here to stay.

Continued from page 1 Using chalk and chalkboards is not only conducive to teaching and learning, but it also has environmental benefits. Conrad said that “chalk is more biodegradable” and that chalkboards, unlike whiteboards, do not require chemicals when cleaning.

Despite the many benefits chalk and chalkboards have, they are slowly disappearing. Conrad mentioned that “many, many, many high schools have completely gotten rid of ” chalkboards.

Chalkboards were long gone at Palo Alto High School when he went

CIA Continued from page 1 rection,” Burns said.

Burns said there are many connections between diplomacy and intelligence despite surface-level differences. One administrative overlap, Burns said, is efforts within both the State Department and CIA to foster more diverse institutions.

“We’re an agency with global reach,” Burns said. “That means we’ve got to reflect the diversity of our own society if we’re going to have an effect around the world.”

During the question-answer period, a student asked Burns about the challenges Asian Americans face entering public service because of suspicions of foreign loyalties — a reality Burns said he does all he can to counter.

“One of the things I’ve tried hardest to do over the last seven months in notes to our workforce and walking around and talking to people is to make absolutely clear that our understandable focus on the challenge posed by China is about the Chinese leadership.”

Burns said. “It’s not about the people of China, and it certainly is not

Please see TRAVEL, page 3

about Asian Americans or Americans of Chinese descent.”

Burns also emphasized the value of public service, saying that he is a “believer in the virtues of public service and what it means to our country.”

In his pitch for Stanford students joining government service, Burns highlighted his plans to expedite the CIA application process.

“It takes way too long today — as long as two years — from application to final clearance,” Burns said. “We have a plan now to cut that to about half a year, which is easier said than done, but it’s absolutely essential to create a more diverse workforce.”

Burns attributed much of his value of government service to his father, the late Major Gen. William F. Burns, who according to Burns told him that “nothing can make you prouder than to serve your country with honor.”

Burns described his own life career in diplomacy as a remarkable opportunity, and said his primary motivation as both a diplomat and CIA director is to work with intelligent and committed people on complicated challenges during pivotal global moments.

“It can be incredibly rewarding,” Burns said. “I hope some of you will consider it.”

Friday, October 22, 2021 N 3

The Stanford Daily

Q&A

A LOOK AT CAMPUS QUARANTINE ANNA MCNULTY ’24 REFLECTS ON HER TIME IN ISOLATION AFTER TESTING POSITIVE

By MARLI BOSLER BEAT REPORTER

Anna McNulty ’24 returned to her dorm room in Toyon Hall last Tuesday, after a week of isolation in Munger Graduate Residences due to a positive COVID-19 test. Having tested negative on the previous Wednesday and Saturday, McNulty said Vaden Health deemed it safe for her to leave. Back inside her poster-speckled room, McNulty sat down with The Daily to give the inside scoop on what it’s like to be quarantined on campus. Along the way, she took self-portraits, which are included in this article.

Students who test positive for COVID19 are placed in temporary isolation as soon as possible, according to Vice Provost for Student Affairs spokesperson Pat Harris. If students share their dorm space with other students, the University sends them an email with instructions on where to isolate and what to bring for their quarantine period of up to 10 days. University policy requires high-risk close contacts, or those exposed to a positive case unmasked for more than 15 minutes, to review University policy regarding testing, dining and missing class. Students in isolation can view the University’s Managing Course Absences document for guidance on missing classes.

The Stanford Daily [TSD]: What was going through your head when you saw your posi-

Courtesy of Anna McNulty

A self-portrait taken by Anna McNulty ’24 during her six-day stint isolating in Munger Graduate Residences after a positive COVID-19 test. McNulty has since tested negative and left quarantine.

tive test result?

Anna McNulty [AM]: My first thought was, what is the protocol? I was nervous about notifying everyone I’d been in contact with, I was nervous about making sure I had all my things, I was nervous about keeping up with my classes, moving to isolation and being alone — there were so many pieces to how I felt. It was all hitting me at once.

TSD: Did you receive any advice from the University about what to do after testing positive?

AM: I called Vaden, since my positive test was from urgent care in Palo Alto and my results

weren’t in Stanford’s system. They emailed me information about how to go into isolation, and then I packed a small suitcase and picked up my key to my room in Munger.

TSD: What was your quarantine room like?

AM: I had a kitchen, a twin bed, my own bathroom. Things were good. The only issue was there was not a single thing in the kitchen cabinets — not a fork, not a spoon. For everyone who is quarantining in the future (bless your heart) please bring some kitchen appliances — a pot and silverware at least — so you can cook.

TSD: How did you get food while in isolation?

AM: I had two meals a day delivered to my door, but there’s an option to get three. I am a big fan of the dining hall, but there were only three vegetarian options, so I transitioned from vegan burrito to chickpea wrap to tofu skewers. I wish there were more options, but I don’t know if that’s feasible. My friend brought me a pot and I also made a lot of mac and cheese.

TSD: How did you deal with missing classes?

AM: I emailed all my professors and told them I had Covid and was in isolation. All of them

Please see ISOLATION, page 4

GRADUATE STUDENTS

UNIVERSITY

Child care discounts shrink

Faculty Senate talks vaccines, grad students

Student-parents express frustration, shock

By ISAAC LOZANO When Boris Beltinoff M.S. ’21 and his wife received word in July that their son was taken off the waitlist for Stanford’s on-campus daycare services, the couple let out a sigh of relief. They had been on the waitlist since early 2020. But when they saw the discount rates, their relief turned to shock: the discounts weren’t the same as those of their friends and neighbors.

Stanford is home to hundreds of graduate students with families, many of whom rely on the University’s child care centers, which offer daylong daycare services for children of students and faculty. For parents living on a graduate studentworker salary, financial aid for oncampus daycare can be monumental, and in some cases, a necessity.

In July, the University announced two new child care support programs, the Tuition Reduction Program (TRP) and Tuition Assistance Program (TAP), for graduate students and their families. Beginning in September, the programs replaced the University’s previous on-

TRAVEL Continued from page 2 The restricted activity will also make it difficult for international students to plan their Thanksgiving break, said Vernita Zhai ’25, who is from Shanghai. Zhai will stay on campus over Thanksgiving break, citing China’s current twoweek mandatory quarantine policy for travelers as her reason for not returning home.

“Students are deciding between choosing to spend time back at home with their family and then having to miss out on classes versus missing out on the opportunity to return home and not being affected academically,” Zhai said. “I understand why the policy specifically differentiates between domestic and international travel, since I think that one’s risk of being exposed to COVID-19 would be greater the longer the distance they travel.”

Despite the difficulties it presents, Zhai said that the policy seems reasonable overall, as it aims to ensure the collective well-being of everyone in the Stanford community.

BOOSTER Continued from page 1 evolve and provide updates to the university community.”

Appointments for the booster shot can be scheduled online through SHC’s MyHealth portal.

Beyond SHC, booster shots are also available at various locations across Santa Clara County, including clinics and pharmacies in San Jose, Livermore, Morgan Hill, Cupertino, Sunnyvale and Mountain View.

site child care support program.

TRP provides all graduate and postdoctoral families, regardless of income, with a five percent discount on-campus daycare, while TAP provides families making under $150,000 with discounts of up to 10, 15 and 20%, depending on household income. When the University transitioned to the new daycare programs, new families seeking financial assistance saw their discount rates decrease from the previous program’s rates, which offered some families discounts of up to 32, 42 and 48%, according to a graduate student who requested anonymity to protect the status of their daycare plan.

Families already enrolled in the pre-July program, however, were allowed to continue using the former system and did not see their discounts change.

According to Stanford spokesperson E.J. Miranda, prior to the TAP and TRP programs, child care tuition discounts were not available across all the University’s daycare centers and depended on “a more constrained funding source.”

“We took the opportunity to redesign the financial support programs to ensure that we support as many families as possible, while also focusing on those with the greatest need,” Miranda wrote. “We were very intentional in the transition from one program to another, as we did not want to negatively impact families who had been enrolled under the old program.”

The University declined to offer specific information about the financial aid rates.

Still, for some graduate students who have had to pay higher rates for the new program, the change feels like a bait-and-switch. Beltinoff said that he had no choice but to enroll his son in the University’s daycare system. With his wife currently searching for employment and an annual household income of approximately $2,000, Beltinoff said the University’s lower discount rates could harm families like his.

“We have zero alternatives because unlike other people who, let’s say, work in Palo Alto, they can move to Mountain View and work,” Beltinoff said. “But for people who go to classes, it is very difficult.”

Beltinoff is currently enrolled in the TRP, which grants his family a five percent discount on daycare due to a leave of absence he took for the fall quarter to serve in the National Guard. Beltinoff said that the sudden change demonstrates a lack of care and consideration for Stanford families on campus. “[The] University knows they have unilateral power,” Beltinoff said. “It is abuse of power because students cannot do anything.”

While multiple graduate students said that they were not included in the decision-making process, Miranda said the new programs were de-

BIKES Continued from page 2 these bikes when there was nobody on campus? That was an oversight that was supposed to be taken care of, but it’s not at the front of any-

By CASSIDY DALVA

By ZOE EDELMAN

veloped “in consultation” with input from a child care working group that included graduate student and postdoctoral community representatives.

Sanna Ali, a Graduate Student Council co-chair and fifth-year Ph.D. student in communication, said that despite not knowing the details of the daycare policy change, the University should be wary of introducing an “equity issue” for new families enrolling in daycare.

“It creates this culture where people don’t want to have kids while they’re in grad school, so they delay having children, or they decide, ‘I don’t want to go to grad school because I want to have kids,’” Ali said.

“Often [it] affects mothers more than other people, which is a very clear gender issue.”

The spouse of a graduate student, who preferred to remain anonymous to protect their relationships with their peers and the University, said that despite the lower discount rates, they feel grateful for the University’s daycare costs relative to the region. Under the TRP, they pay approximately $16 an hour for daycare services, while average child care rates in Palo Alto hover at $21.50 an hour.

“That’s an amazing rate in the Bay Area. The alternative would be having someone come to our home, and then I’d be paying $25 an hour.

So I feel like we’re getting a steal of a deal,” they said. “And these are some of the best child care places in the world. They have lots of outdoor spaces, they feed the children organic snacks. It’s amazing.”

Despite their appreciation, the parent said that the University has a long way to go to better support families going forward.

“I think their handling of the COVID pandemic was terrible for parents last summer. It just always feels like married students and students with kids are thought of last,” they said. “I’ve been really impressed with the daycares [but] I think Stanford has a lot to do to help families. We’re not a priority, for sure.”

Despite high numbers of vaccinations among community members, a small number of unvaccinated Stanford healthcare employees have been placed on unpaid leave, School of Medicine Dean Lloyd Minor said in an update on the COVID-19 pandemic to the Faculty Senate.

In a separate report at the Thursday meeting, Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Affairs Stacey Bent Ph.D. ’92, discussed the University’s initiatives to boost the diversity, accessibility and affordability of graduate education.

After University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne’s remarks to the Senate, he was asked but refused to condemn Stanford affiliates who spread COVID-19 misinformation.

The request made by epidemiologist and professor of medicine Julie Parsonnet came a month after over 100 faculty members sent a letter to Tessier-Lavigne urging the University to call out its professors who spread misinformation.

“We’d like to ask you now at the Faculty Senate, when will the University stand up for public health vocally, in the United States, and denounce those who instead of contributing productively to the fight against this deadly virus, utilize their affiliation with Stanford to sow dissent and distrust about the public health response, ultimately contributing to our country’s tragically high death toll,” Parsonnet said.

Tessier-Lavigne responded by touting the measures the University has taken to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, including being one of the first colleges to require students to be vaccinated in order to come back to campus this fall.

This is not the first time TessierLavigne or Stanford has been confronted over this issue. Last year, over 105 School of Medicine physicians and researchers condemned Hoover fellow Scott Atlas in an open letter after the University refused to denounce his controversial views.

“I believe we have taken a very clear standard at Stanford on public health by virtue of the actions we have taken for our community and the messaging that we’ve put around that,” Tessier-Lavigne said, caveating that he also believes that “if the University were to start denouncing individual faculty members for the views they hold, we would enter very troubling territory.”

In his report, Minor gave an overview of the pandemic in California, which he said has the lowest number of cases per 100,000 in the U.S. Bay Area counties, he added, have some of the lowest numbers of infections in the state. Stanford Hospital is currently treating 14 patients for

body’s mind because the administration doesn’t have to deal with locking their bikes,” Eric Montez ’25 added.

Daggs confirmed that SUDPS has received such calls. “We get calls from building managers every day who request we take the old bikes,” Daggs said.

However, SUDPS is brainstorming remedies. SUDPS hopes to clean

out the storage lot so that bike parking can open up again, according to Daggs. He also mentioned several ideas to help scale up impoundment operations, including expanding into a larger lot and organizing a “bigbrother program” where seniors would donate their old bikes to incoming students who may want a bike for a lower cost.

ANANYA NAVALE/The Stanford Daily

Changes to the financial aid structures are putting additional stress on families, graduate students say.

COVID-19, most of whom have underlying medical conditions that make them more susceptible to the virus, he said.

Minor also explained how Stanford employees will be required to get vaccinated by Dec. 8 in compliance with President Joe Biden’s Sept. 9 executive order pertaining to federal employees and contractors. Since Stanford receives federal funding, the rule will mandate vaccination for all Stanford employees, including those “who are not coming to the campus environment.”

The medical school dean said that 98% of Stanford Medicine employees have been vaccinated. The California Department of Public Health required all healthcare providers to be vaccinated by Oct. 1.

“As of today, less than 0.3% of the workforce is on unpaid leave, and that number continues to fall as more and more people achieve vaccination status,” he said.

Minor added that over 97% of affiliates completing daily health checks have provided documentation of vaccination and that the University is actively reaching out to those not completing health checks.

Graduate student diversity, affordability Bent updated the Senate on how graduate students have been impacted by COVID-19 and diversity within graduate programs.

“Grad students and postdocs experienced significant disruption due to the pandemic,” Bent explained, adding that they faced challenges with research delays, job insecurity and childcare access. However, graduate degree conferral was not significantly impacted in the 2020-21 academic year despite the challenges of the pandemic.

According to Bent, women in STEM and students who identify as underrepresented minorities (URM) are the fastest growing demographic in graduate student and postdoc populations, and the University is set to matriculate the largest cohorts of URM and women in STEM graduate students yet at the University.

Bent also announced the Research, Action, and Impact for Strategic Engagement (RAISE) Doctoral Fellowship Program, which aims to help graduate students have a positive public impact with their research, and the new PRISM-Baker Fellowships, which seek to support postdoctoral scholar diversity by providing financial support for fellows and faculty.

Fourth-year Ph.D. student Emily Schell, the Graduate Student Council’s representative to the Faculty Senate, raised concerns voiced by members of the graduate student community about housing insecurity and the cost of healthcare. Schell pointed out that the cost of Cardinal Care, Stanford’s University-sponsored health insurance option, is “notably higher” than the cost of analogous options at peer institutions.

In light of these concerns, Bent shared resources such as expanded family grants for graduate students and postdocs with dependent children, as well as the five-year funding commitment to doctoral students recommended by the Affordability Task Force.

4 N Friday, October 22, 2021

The Stanford Daily

OPINIONS The Stanford Daily

Nadav Ziv Established 1892

The case for faster COVID-19 test results

Executive Team Kate Selig Editor in Chief

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S

tended periods of time.

Assume this person has 10 close contacts every 24 hours. If they find out they are positive within a day, they have maximally infected 10 people. Two days, 20 people. Four days, 40 people. Each day that they continue normal interactions increases the potential number of people infected. The sooner someone finds out they are positive, the sooner they can self-isolate.

People who feel sick may isolate themselves before receiving test results as a precaution. In these cases, lengthy wait times for test results are less likely to produce communal spread. But the prolonged uncertainty is damaging in itself. Do I have the common cold or do I have COVID? Whatever the answer, anxiety thrives in this indeterminacy — an indeterminacy that is resolved only when test results come back.

It seems a lot of students on campus aren’t feeling well right now. I hear sniffles and coughs in my classes that were nonexistent several weeks ago, but there have been very few positive COVID cases on campus recently — meaning it’s more likely those sniffles and coughs are the product of the common cold and congestion of communal college life than of COVID. We don’t know that for sure, however. We do have a way of finding out. But testing is valuable only in proportion to the speed that results become available.

Stanford should be commended for the steps they are taking to increase how quickly students get their test results. Miranda said in an email that the University is adding more courier pickups to bring tests from drop-off locations to labs. Additionally, Color, Stanford’s COVID testing partner, “has increased their staffing and production capacity, as well as rerouted Stanford tests to labs that are closer to Stanford, allowing for shorter turnaround times.”

But those steps will be insufficient until they can substantially

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cut the 44-hour median time for test results and ensure that no one — rather than hundreds of people each week — has to wait longer than 72 hours to receive results. Results should be available ideally within 24 hours. Tests should also take around the same amount of time so that people can develop clear expectations about when they will find out their test status.

Stanford should consider taking the following additional steps: First, Stanford should make rapid tests widely available for symptomatic people who fear they may have COVID. Rapid tests return results within half an hour.

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests processed at a lab are more accurate. But rapid tests are a crucial

Uni overcharges graduate RAs undergrad housing. Indeed, it places an undue financial burden on coterm RAs staffing undergraduate dorms. We are treated as graduate students with respect to tuition, but we must pay full undergraduate housing and dining fees — and we are no longer eligible for financial aid. To compensate for the additional $1200 we are paying, many of us are juggling multiple part-time jobs.

Coterm RAs are getting the short end of the stick: no financial aid, higher meal plan fees.

We spoke with a manager of Stanford Dining who said this policy was enacted for the sake of consistency and also to ensure that RAs eat with their residents. We sympathize with these motives. As leaders of our dorm communities, we understand the importance of treating all residents in a consistent manner. We get that it’s a pain to change a policy, especially when that policy affects a minority of the population. And we see eating with our residents as a crucial part of our job.

Yet the impact of the meal plan policy is quite harmful, and the “consistency” argument collapses under scrutiny. Purchasing a graduate meal plan does not preclude us from eating with our residents. In fact, it would give us more time to do so by freeing up time spent on other jobs. As we learned in RA training, it’s always important to tease apart the “intent” versus “impact” of the situation, especially when power dynamics are involved. The intention of the meal policy may be sound, but the impact is stressing our already-thin budgets.

The $1200 difference in meal plans would perhaps be less noticeable had Stanford not also reduced RA pay and increased the cost of housing this year. For the 20212022 academic year, Stanford reduced RA pay by $925, while increasing the cost of Housing by $591. Our room and board costs

Lorenzo Del Rosario

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fter struggling to find enough Resident Assistants to staff undergraduate dorms, Stanford opened the position to coterminal students this year. We are some of the many coterm RAs who are the beneficiaries of this policy change and we are delighted we get to create the welcoming communities we once enjoyed as frosh. As the quarter begins, we are energized by our daily interactions with residents. Their vibrance and optimism offer keen reminders of the reasons we loved our undergraduate years: deep conversations with people of differing backgrounds, late-night adventures to new parts of campus and the feeling that Stanford has your back, no matter what happens outside the bubble.

Unfortunately, it no longer feels this way. Through a hurtful but fixable policy, Stanford is putting coterms in a financial squeeze: R&DE is requiring us to purchase an undergraduate meal plan when the cost of a comparable graduate meal plan is about $1200 cheaper.

Traditionally, meal plans are determined by residence. All students living in undergraduate dorms enroll in the undergraduate meal plan; all students in graduate dorms can buy a graduate meal plan or opt out altogether. We don’t understand why undergraduate students have to pay $1200 more for a near-identical meal plan, but we do understand that, in practice, this policy has not hurt most students. Because undergraduate students are eligible for financial aid, those who cannot pay the full cost of the $6693 meal plan can receive funds to cover it. Graduate students, meanwhile, are not eligible for financial aid, but they can save money through the cheaper meal plan, or opt out and cook for themselves in apartments outfitted with kitchens.

Yet the logic of the housingbased meal plan falls apart in the case of the grad student living in

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tanford’s vaccine requirement and regular testing have mostly kept coronavirus case counts low. Our test-positivity rate is 10 times lower than Santa Clara County’s and 22 times lower than California’s. But slow turnarounds for COVID tests may put that success at risk. Stanford should take immediate steps to speed up the results time of its testing program.

I have taken six tests since arriving on campus. Three tests produced results within a day. Two tests came back in three days. And one test took four days to return results. One of my friends recently waited six days.

According to Stanford University spokesperson E.J. Miranda, in September and October 2021, “the median time between kit activation and lab results received was 44 hours.” Five percent of tests in the past two months have taken longer than the 72 hours within which Stanford says people should expect results. When thousands of tests are being run each week, even a low delay rate can yield hundreds of late tests.

For example, Stanford’s COVID dashboard reported over 13,000 tests the week of Oct. 4. Using waittime data for September and October, that means 5% of the total number of tests — corresponding to 670 people — took longer than 72 hours to produce results. Over 6,000 people, or 45 percent of the total number of tests, waited longer than the median of 44 hours and less than 72 hours.

Slow tests aren’t very useful. We test to inform decisions. All else being equal, faster information means we can make faster decisions. When it comes to preventing the spread of COVID through testing, faster decisions are better ones.

Take someone who is asymptomatic and positive for the coronavirus but doesn’t know it yet. They take a mandatory weekly test per Stanford’s policies. Because they have no symptoms, they continue their daily lives. They visit dining halls, go to class and see their friends indoors, unmasked, for ex-

A N I N D E P E N D E N T N E W S PA P E R

$7,133 more than our stipend as RAs. As a result, we are essentially paying to work. A collective of students is currently striking to fight for a common-sense pay raise. In the meantime, we propose a simple solution that would not require a budget overhaul: Allow coterm RAs to purchase a graduate meal plan.

We have been offered loans to cover the cost of dining. We believe it’s unreasonable to incur debt when the solution is as simple as an OK from a Stanford administrator.

Over 170 students and alumni support this policy change.

We believe our unique situation warrants reassessing the meal plan policy so that coterms living in undergraduate dorms are not forced into unnecessary financial distress.

Consistency is convenient for bureaucracy, but it is causing real pain for grad students.

As coterm RAs, we bring to our role our unique perspectives informed by four years of navigating Stanford’s quirks, joys and challenges. We believe our knowledge and experiences make us invaluable resources for our residents as they begin their Stanford journeys in person. And yet because our current salary does not cover the cost of the undergraduate meal plan, many of us are having to choose between spending time with residents and clocking hours with one of our other part-time jobs.

Stanford, please let your coterm RAs opt into the graduate meal plan.

Signed, SHIRIEL KING ABRAMSON B.A. ’20 M.A. ’22 WILL GUTZMAN B.A. ’20 M.A. ’22 HANNAH HOWELL B.A. ’20 M.A. ’22 EUNICE JUNG B.A. ’21 M.S. ’22 ERICA OLSEN B.S. ’21 M.S. ’22 THEA ROSENBERG B.S. ’21 M.S. ’22 GEORGIA GABRIELA SAMPAIO B.S. ’20 M.S. ’22

complement to PCR tests for people who are sick and reasonably suspect that they may have COVID. Second, if Color isn’t able to quickly reduce test turnaround times, Stanford should consider hiring an additional vendor to carry out testing. Working with a single vendor has advantages: Stanford can develop a single system for collecting, transporting and tracking test results. An increase in test speed, however, is worth the financial and logistical challenges associated with hiring another vendor.

Finally, Stanford should encourage some people to return their tests earlier in the week or earlier in the day. Miranda said that tests returned on Friday generally take

longer to produce results. Similarly, tests returned at the end of the day may take longer to process. Sharing that information widely with the campus community may be sufficient to make some people take their test on a different day or return it earlier in the day.

COVID is likely to become endemic: it isn’t going away anytime soon. Many experts suggest that testing, when combined with vaccination and other measures, will continue to be critical in efforts to fight the pandemic and protect public health. For Stanford, that means COVID testing may be a part of campus life for the foreseeable future. The entire campus community will be safer and less anxious if those tests consistently come back quickly.

DOLLIES

come to Paradise,” the Dollies graced onlookers with their precise turns and coordination at Meyer Green, and they eventually brought their fans to White Plaza.

They drew in onlookers as they danced, with the crowd getting bigger at every succeeding location. It was not until the last dance at Terman Fountain, however, that community members were able to witness the Dollies end their year by, quite literally, making a splash.

The Dollies finished their run with a dance to the Stanford Fight Song that ended with them jumping in Terman Fountain.

Rodriguez said that the Dollies were “uncertain of whether [they] would ever perform again.”

The Dollies therefore all agreed that this final opportunity to perform together was “a surreal and exhilarating experience,” Raven said.

Continued from page 1 frosh crowd is “one of the most dynamic crowds” she’s danced for.

Raven said the Dollies were grateful for the opportunity to participate in many events before their year was abruptly cut short in March 2020.

“It’s a bummer that we didn’t get to do some of our more lighthearted spring rallies, but I’m glad we got ten out of the twelve months of Dollie year,” she said.

But they never got to experience their last rally, a final performance where Dollies formally conclude their year-long gig and pass the torch onto a new group of Dollies.

Traditionally, the event takes place in May, but “nothing about this year is traditional,” Brewer said.

The rally began in front of Memorial Auditorium and included features from the LSJUMB, which performed alongside the Dollies.

After dancing to Green Day’s “Wel-

ISOLATION Continued from page 3 provided a Zoom option and I wasn’t behind in class at all. I’m really grateful for that.

All of my classes also got an email that someone had tested positive. I had a friend text me from one of my classes saying, “who do you think tested positive?” I had to break the news — it was me!

TSD: What did you bring with you into isolation? Do you have any advice as to what people should take with them?

AM: School stuff, of course. Bringing books was vital. Bringing my own pillow was huge. The pillow they gave me was, shall I say, a pathetic attempt at a pillow. Definitely get some DayQuil, Advil and cough drops, too.

TSD: How did you entertain yourself?

AM: I have wonderful friends who

A previous version of the article stated that Julia Raven is in the Class of 2022. The article has been updated to reflect Julia Raven was part of the Class of 2021. The Daily regrets this error. made a FaceTime calendar for me. I also did some Netflix watch parties with my roommate. I played some guitar and took some self-portraits for my photography class. I know during Covid, photographers would do these photo-a-day photography projects. I wanted to practice for my class and try and encapsulate what it’s like to feel restless in one room. I was so cooped up, but wanted to represent how my mind felt like it was spinning in all different directions but I was limited to this one space.

TSD: You’re free! How does it feel?

AM: To be honest, the first few days [in quarantine] were kind of nice. It was a refreshing change of pace to take a step away and just focus on self-care. But when I got over it, what got me through it was knowing that I had really supportive and amazing friends who were checking in on me and excited to see me.

When I finally walked out of quarantine, I played this song: “I’m Set Free,” by the Velvet Underground. I had to.

Friday, October 22, 2021 N 5

The Stanford Daily

CULTURE MUSIC

Frost hosts Ric Wilson SCN had its first live show since before COVID-19

By SOFIA GONZALEZ-RODRIGUEZ

I

t’s 9 p.m. on the roof of Frost Amphitheater, and everything is a celebration. A smiling, playful voice raps a cascading flow, driven by the spirited twangs of a guitar and contoured by a trumpet’s brazen melody. Speakers pound a bass line into the core of each audience member.

The sounds linger within the red-lit concrete walls of the venue for a euphoric moment before soaking into the cool darkness of the surrounding oak trees.

Last Thursday, the Stanford Concert Network (SCN) put on its first live concert on campus since the beginning of the pandemic. COVID-19 has long made large inperson gatherings unfeasible, forcing student performers to think creatively about ways to deliver productions. As a result, the past two years have seen one innovative Zoom performance after another.

Exercising caution, SCN only admitted the first 250 students. Still, excitement built as more students trickled into the event.

Opener and DJ Jessica Yeung ’21, also known as Vertigo, took the stage with enthusiasm, expertly transitioning between electronic dance songs like Yaeji’s “Raingurl” and PinkPantheress’ crowd-favorite “Pain.”

Once the audience loosened up, students close to the stage started to dance and occasionally sing along. Farther out, they stood

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Wilson kept the audience engaged with playful banter and call-and-response chants. His concert format was inspired by his work as a community organizer and political activist focused on empowering Black, brown and trans people. in circles — reconnecting, hugging and taking group pictures.

When Ric Wilson bounded onto the stage for his opening song “Wake Up, Get Down,” a characteristically upbeat pop track on which his punchy rap roams free, the energy in the room started ramping up.

His second song, “We Love Us,” was one of the highlights of the night; everything about the performance was infectious.

Within seconds, the live trumpet accompaniment played by Charles Ryan, also known as Charlie Trumpet, had surprised the audience — the spunky complement of the brass instrument enhanced the music that pumped through the speakers. When the song wrapped up, Wilson addressed the crowd, introducing himself and his accom-

panists. He took a few minutes to unite audience members in a call-and-response chant: “No racists, no sexists, no homophobic, no transphobic, no bullshit!” Students matched his enthusiasm and waved their fists in the air.

Wilson made it a point to engage the audience like this throughout the concert, professing his goal to make folks in the crowd more comfortable and to get them to dance.

In between songs he told stories, initiated more call-and-response chants and gave moments of spotlight to the guitar and trumpet musicians who had joined him on stage for the night. Indeed, as the night wore on, audience members became increasingly invested in the performance, clustering more closely to the stage and

cheering passionately at insightful lines in his freestyle.

Much of Wilson’s music centers around the Black experience, particularly as it relates to his roots in Chicago. His song “Banba” — an acronym for “Black art not bad art” — is a quintessential rendition of his perspective. It is upbeat and celebratory, acknowledging struggles the Black community faces but in the same breath looking forward to a more equitable future.

Wilson raps on the track, “Rolled through a lemon, I swallowed that bitch whole; Struggle made me gold, and black made me bold.”

Being a musician is only half of Wilson’s

Please see FROST, page 6

MUSIC

READS

Indie folk duo hones harmonies

Afterlives of ‘Howl’ in AI imagery

By ADITEYA SHUKLA

HOWLoween event bridges poetry and tech

COLUMNIST

Welcome to Slept-on Songs. In this column you will find recommendations of songs and artists that you have never heard of but will undoubtedly love.

Whether it be music released by an unknown artist last week or underrated songs from major artists that passed under your radar, this series will make sure you have your weekly dose of fresh indie music.

I

t was a Saturday afternoon in 2016, and the YouTube algorithm had recently found out that I was a novice guitar player trying to learn something new.

Apart from the multitude of tutorials for “Sweet Child O Mine,” I found a rather messy thumbnail of a college student playing his guitar with the title “Sultans Of Swing — Dire Straits (Josh Turner Cover).” The video was different from any other cover I’d ever seen; there was no introduction, no talking, no plea for subscribing — just music. The clip started and so did the song, featuring a 20ish year old in a quarter zip and bed hair, playing beautiful guitar in a messy dorm room. I was left enamored by how easy he made the music seem. And even though I still can’t play as well as he could five years ago, I’m still a fan of him and his music.

This is how the internet introduced me to Josh Turner.

I met Turner through his music tutorials. It started with me watching his covers of songs by The Beatles, Frankie Valli or gypsy jazz renditions of standards like “All of Me.” But soon I found out that Turner made his own music, specifically through his indie-folk duo, The Other Favorites, with partner Carson McKee. In 2017, Turner and McKee released the EP “Fools,” and it shortly became home to a few of my favorite songs to date. The entire EP is a perfect combination of guitars, banjos and sweet vocal harmonies, representing sheer

By LEYLA YILMAZ Graphic: ANGELA WEI/The Stanford Daily

Columnist Aditeya Shukla found The Other Favorites while watching YouTube guitar tutorials and was impressed with their easy mechanics and rustic sound. talent and passion for the art they create.

“Fools” opens with “The Levee,” and you’re invited to a new world evoking nostalgia for memories that Turner and McKee create for you. With its short verse, the song quickly moves into its catchy and powerful hook. On one side you have the guitar acting as a support, giving the song its rhythm and percussion and providing the track with steady movement. On the other side, you have the banjo giving the track a rather complicated and dynamic feeling. These instruments, matched with the song’s vocals, flawlessly express the feeling of watching someone you love fall into a baseless relationship.

“The Levee” is one strong track among many; every song on this EP is unique and embraces you with its warmth and inviting presence. Take the third song on the record, “Angelina.” The song’s smooth, long vocal phrases and comforting guitar chords will make you want to spend hours staring out the window with the music on a loop. In the end, the guitar solo is what steals the show in “Angelina.” Maybe it’s the nostalgia talking, but listening to that exquisite solo takes me back to that first YouTube tutorial with Turner teaching me “Sultans of Swing,” making each guitar lick seem so sweet and easy. I promise, this solo will take you on an exploration of Turner’s world, with its hills of silky arpeggios and field of saccharine intervals.

The record is a striking accomplish-

ment, especially since all of the songs use at most two instruments. There are hidden gems of sweet melodies in every song if you look hard enough. A perfect example of this is the fourth song in this EP, “Flawed Recording.” I recommend watching the song’s video for a visual element. The clip cuts between the track’s first recording session in 2007 and a much older iteration.

This video creates a special connection between the viewer and the artists, showing the audience how much the pair has grown in their musical abilities over the years.

McKee’s rustic voice matched with the lush falsettos and harmonies of Turner makes for an experience to remember. While many musicians try to soften falsetto vocals in mixes, giving them a presence in the background, The Other Favorites deviates from the expected by leaning into their simplicity and giving us both singers’ vocals under the same spotlight.

This EP is almost its own person, a friend you don’t meet often but spend hours listening to their stories when you do.

Every phrase, whether produced from the mouth or the guitar, is as moving as the next.

The duo of Mckee and Turner works perfectly, both complementing each other while giving the other the space to shine. And even though some days I hate YouTube for recommending me distracting videos when I have an assignment due within the hour, I’m so glad its algorithm led me to the microcosm of The Other Favorites.

T

he first event of HOWLoween Wolf Awareness Week, “The Beats Within: Comparing AI & Human Adaptations of ‘Howl,’” took place on Zoom this Monday.

Organized by Stanford Libraries, the presentation explored different interpretations of Allen Ginsberg’s iconic poem “Howl” by both foreign language translators and artificial intelligence (AI) systems.

“It’s an incredibly difficult poem to translate. It makes use of references, colloquialism, vernacular and different illusions. It’s an immensely challenging poem,” said Stanford Libraries Curator of Germanic Collections and Medieval Studies Kathleen Smith.

The difficulty of interpreting this poem is perhaps best displayed in how AI systems process the poem. Academic technology specialist Quinn Dombrowski showed attendees an ambiguous amalgamation of colors and creatures, and explained that it was an effort

by AI to decipher the poem. It is a translation of the poem by a non-human entity that presents a completely different perspective on the work.

Similarly to how AI puts the poem in a new light, spoken language differences also uniquely frame the work. Even the translation of the poem’s title differs depending on language; in some, howl is translated as a verb, and in others, as a noun, the event speakers said. The German translation is “The Howl,” which Smith said “has a distancing effect and raises questions about how we interpret the original language of the poem.” In addition, the Hebrew translation adds a biblical aspect to the poem that cannot be found in the English

Please see HOWL, page 6

6 N Friday, October 22, 2021

The Stanford Daily

CULTURE

FROST

Comics come to life in musical

Continued from page 5

By CHLOE CHOW CONTRIBUTING WRITER

F

or decades, comics have lived in children’s imagination — shaping their ideas of heroism, adventure and community. In those small panels exist some of our greatest role models, drawn in spectacular detail. These heroes have made it onto the big screen — but what if one could bring them to the stage?

That is exactly what Justin Huertas set out to do in 2011 with his original musical, “Lizard Boy,” now playing in-person at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley for the company’s 51st anniversary.

The production centers on Trevor (played by Huertas), a recluse living in Seattle who feels defined by his lizard skin — obtained via a childhood encounter with a magical dragon. He comes out only once a year for Monsterfest, a holiday during which people dress up as magical creatures — Trevor can blend in with confidence. One year, Trevor meets Cary (William A. Williams), a Seattle newbie, on Grindr. As Trevor navigates his newfound relationship with Cary, he encounters Siren (Kirsten “Kiki” deLohr Helland), who tells him of a prophecy: dragons will end the world the next day, and he must help her stop them.

Not only does “Lizard Boy” feature an immensely talented three-person cast, but it also skillfully incorporates musical instruments into its blocking. Huertas, Williams and deLohr Helland play guitar, piano, cello, ukelele, kazoo, egg shaker and various percussion instruments, even using some as weapons. In an interview with The Stanford Daily, Director Brandon Ivie said that their skillful instrumental employing “adds to this sense of fun that Justin has in his

Courtesy of Kevin Berne

Justin Huertas’ TheatreWorks original production “Lizard Boy” honors the impact comics have had on readers for decades by bringing our favorite heroes to the stage. writing and allows the show to really embrace the imagination that has gone into the story.”

There are not many shows in the American musical theater repertoire that are based on comic-book structure and storytelling. Productions such as “Spiderman: Turn off the Dark” were cut short due to performer injury and high-risk stunts attempted onstage. “Lizard Boy” finds its comic book connection outside these anatomical planes — through its meticulous character development.

“Comic books and the characters and stories in comics actually lend themselves remarkably well to musical theater, because at its core, [telling stories through comics] is about people searching for identity and hope. A lot of it is about family and [characters] finding who they are. They have a lot of things to sing about,” Ivie mused in our discussion. He perfectly described comic books as “American mythology,” encompassing their timelessness and universal appeal.

From the audience’s point of view, the simplicity of Ivie’s staging and minimal theatrical effects put all the focus on the actors themselves. Each performer dazzled with their vocal versatility and ability to sing while dancing and playing myriad instruments. Ivie wanted to em-

phasize the characters’ journey because it is more rewarding than the temporary theatrical spectacle on which film and TV often focus in superhero storytelling.

Personally, this show hit home. Having grown up in Seattle myself, I immediately recognized the projections of famous Seattle landmarks such as the Space Needle, Olympic Sculpture Park and even the Dick’s Drive-In sign. On the phone, Ivie and I joked about how he is sending TheatreWorks actually used Dick’s Drive-In wrappers for props. Furthermore, I grew up going to the same theater (Village Theater) where Huertas and Ivie first met years ago when they were in school.

“Lizard Boy” is an endearing and grounded story for the masses; incorporating elements from traditional comic book structure and musical theater-style spectacle, this production is the perfect in-person theatrical experience after a year and a half of being isolated from the theater community.

“Lizard Boy” is available to watch in-person between Oct. 6 and Oct. 31, 2021, or via on-demand streaming from Oct. 19 through Nov. 7, 2021. For more information, please visit the TheatreWorks Silicon Valley website.

work; he is also an avid community organizer and activist. In 2014, he was a delegate on the We Charge Genocide coalition, which presented a shadow report and testified to the United Nations on the brutality of the Chicago Police Department.

Another song from the concert, “Fight Like Ida B & Marsha P,” takes on a more emboldened tone and explicitly calls out many barriers imposed on marginalized people. Wilson especially highlights the role of police and prisons in oppressing Black, brown and trans communities. At the same time, he names several iconic fighters of the civil rights movement to give his message an almost hopeful call to action. The chorus calls, “Everybody up, up, up, up, up, up,” declaring change is possible if we mobilize for it.

Wilson’s buoyant, inspired performance energy is also compounded by his spontaneity. According to SCN organizer Carly Taylor ’22, the rapper decides which songs to play when he is on stage rather than creating a setlist in advance — yet another instance of his intuition when it comes to reading the audience.

The highest point of the concert was Wilson’s signature soul train.

As he told the crowd, each of his concerts includes this dance break, which originated from Black creators and musicians. He split the crowd into two, creating an aisle down the middle. Audience members danced down the floor to his song “Splash;” Wilson and his trumpet player even joined at the end.

Wilson’s optimistic performance was the perfect herald to the new school year. From his focus on audience involvement to the upbeat and forward-looking music, it marked a step in Stanford’s return to in-person community building.

SCREEN

‘No Time to Die’ disappoints

By MARK HUERTA CONTRIBUTING WRITER

F

ans of the series know the formula: Bond receives word of a megalomaniacal villain with an evil plot to destroy the world; Bond meets said villain and several women who will accompany him, support him or betray him on his mission; Bond gets caught in the villain’s trap; the villain explains the entire scheme to Bond, giving him enough time to escape from the trap and foil the evil plot; Bond rides off into the sunset in the arms of a pretty woman. All the while, we are entertained by grand action scenes, Aston Martins, comedic one-liners and Bond looking sharp in a tuxedo.

The latest flick in the Bond franchise, “No Time to Die,” does not fit the mold, working hard to differentiate itself from the Bond legacy. However, this break from tradition is not enough to save the film from falling into a gimmicky hole.

As the 25th film in the franchise and final outing for Daniel Craig as James

Bond, “No Time to Die” does dare to be different. Atypically, the film picks up where the prior entry in the series, 2015’s “Spectre,” left off. Even more unusual, at the start of the movie Bond is with a long term romantic partner, Madeleine Swann, played by Lea Seydoux. Right from the start, this latest installment seems to be failing in terms of believable and consistent characterizations. Making unique creative decisions can be helpful for revitalizing the spy film storyline, but the skeleton of Bond must remain. Instead, this film felt like vultures had scavenged the James Bond we have known and loved for almost sixty years.

One large step away from the “traditional” Bond world is Nomi, played by Lashana Lynch. When Bond comes back to join MI6 towards the beginning of the film, there is a hiccup — his title of 007 belongs to a Black woman named Nomi.

While it is fantastic to see more women of color in secret agent roles, Nomi’s incorporation as 007 feels forced and adds little to the story or the promotion of meaningful representation. Bond gets his 007 co-

Courtesy of Nicola Dove

In his fifth film as James Bond, Daniel Craig is an unbelievable hero, though diversions from old tropes give new light to the franchise.

dename back relatively quickly, making Nomi’s stint as 007 feel like a cheap gimmick rather than a step forward for women and people of color in the series. If the filmmakers had made the bold choice to prioritize Nomi’s role over Bond’s, then giving Nomi the 007 codename would have been more impactful. However, the inclusion of Nomi as 007 is so quick and meaningless to the story that it should have been left out altogether.

And Nomi wasn’t the only female agent introduced in the film. The audience also meets Paloma, a helpful agent in Cuba who is played with humor and earnestness by Ana de Armas. Although this new character was a breath of fresh air in a film dominated by returners, Paloma disappears after only a few minutes of screen time, disappointing audiences. It seems like “No Time to Die” had two separate opportunities to introduce engaging, representative characters, but it fell short both times.

Unfortunately, it seems like weak character choices were a fatal flaw for the new film; the villain, Safin, played by Rami Malek, falls flat. While Safin’s scheme involving a biological weapon is within the iconic Bond style of global-scale evil, Malek’s performance lacks the bravado and charm that made previous enemies of 007 so memorable. Malek mumbles his way through the film, making his villainous role somewhat numbing.

But the real problem of “No Time to Die” is not the relative weakness of its characters — it’s the lack of originality mixed with gimmicks. Although the film tries to add a new spin to James Bond, it falls back on itself by revisiting old characters from “Spectre.” Returning to the same supporting cast, especially Swann, was a mistake. The filmmakers seem to hope that Swann will serve as a gateway to showing a kinder, gentler Bond, but this plan fails. Bond’s latest romance is simply not credible, especially in comparison to the strength of Bond’s love in both “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” (1969) and “Casino Royale” (2006). Although “No Time to Die” tries to claim a fresh take by showing a humanized 007, it fails to convince the viewer that Bond would ever change his ways.

Altogether, this film does not read as “Bond.” It leans on tropes and branches out in all of the wrong places. Where returns to tradition would be especially appreciated, “No Time to Die” repeatedly makes wrong turns. This is exemplified

by Craig’s send off; after five films in the franchise, one would expect a grand finale. Instead, the audience receives a confusing character reinterpretation that is off-base in a story that is not truly Bond.

Tragically, this latest film disappoints its legacy by landing as a flop. Its creators worked too hard to develop a “fresh” James Bond, undermining the nostalgia that makes the series so beloved in the first place. Is this a good film? Debate will rage on. But is this a proper Bond film?

Absolutely not.

Screenshot: LEYLA YILMAZ/The Stanford Daily

Experts compared various translations of Allen Ginsburg’s iconic poem “Howl” on Monday.

HOWL Continued from page 5 version.

Smith also mentioned how the cultural context and identity of a translator can affect the translation.

For example, readers interpret the first ever translation of the poem by Fernando Alegria with underlying political meaning, because Alegria was an activist and the leading voice of the Chilean community in exile in the US. Other examples of culturally-informed translations are Fernanda Pivano’s Italian translation, which created a sentiment of anti-fascist resistance, and the Polish translation, in which the word queer was translated as “odd,” rather than “gay,” to reclaim an insulting term and create a poem of LGBTQ+ pride, Smith said. Smith added that translations are not static — even translations of the poem in the same language can shift in meaning throughout time.

The myriad of different interpretations of “Howl” generated through language translation were what inspired Dombrowski to explore computer analysis of the text.

“It takes all the knowledge that it has of English text and then fine-tunes the probabilities of different words based on the text that you retrain it on,” Dombrowski said, explaining the software analysis process. Programs like GPT-2, VQGAN and CLIP were used to analyze the poem.

Trained using texts of other poets or television shows, AI generated its own translation and illustration of “Howl.” Some AI translations retained the poetic nature of the text, some added comical elements and one even produced a lyrical speech spoken by Jabba the Hutt.

But not all of the AI interpretations were engaging — some were repetitive or nonsensical. Others reflected human bias and discrimination. These versions occurred because the training data had human “biases baked into the algorithms,” Dombrowski said.

These biased iterations showed that although we live in a society that is becoming increasingly reliant on AI, it is important to remember that our systems can be faulty. The computer does not actually know anything other than what it has been fed.

“While AI can be hilarious to laugh at, it’s worth being wary and thoughtful before adopting it in any way as a substitute for human judgement or even as a supplement to it,” Dombrowski said.

Even then, it is fascinating to see the many afterlives of one iconic poem, now even being produced by technology that allows for interpretation beyond human capabilities. The intricacies of Ginsberg’s poem allow both human and non-human readers to translate it uniquely and yield a sense of immortality to the work.

Friday, October 22, 2021 N 7

The Stanford Daily

THE GRIND

Still, carrying on

By NESTOR WALTERS DESK EDITOR

This past August, I received an email from the Military Community director: “If anyone needs support through these times,” he said, “here are some resources.” America was pulling out of Afghanistan on a tight timeline, I found out, and things were happening as a result. Schools were closing, American allies were being hunted, people were hanging onto airplane wheels to escape the country.

I was in Greece at the time, overwhelmed with summer classes: “Aprendiendo Espanol,” “combinatorics” and “real analysis.” The analysis, especially, was getting to me. “Here is a sequence of objects,” the problems would say, “where each object is a sequence of objects,” and I was supposed to prove things about it. So I decided, even though I had been deployed to Afghanistan myself more than a decade ago, that the news didn’t concern me.

Then 13 people died. I say 13, even though people die all over the world every second, because these 13 were service members, and I felt like I knew them. It was sunny that day in Afghanistan, I imagined. The sky was a crackling blue, the air hot and thick like something someone exhaled. They were standing at a checkpoint, sweating, passing water bottles, dip cans, curse words and packs of skittles — and then they weren’t anymore. They were scratching their chafed waistbands, rolling their cracking necks, adjusting their helmet straps to ease that constant headache — and then they were dead. The bomber caused their flesh to scatter — each bit still screaming for the salinity, darkness, and warmth of a body, but the body was no longer there.

I read about the deaths in an article one afternoon — a simple tribute to the service members. Each had a picture, name, age, hometown and a short paragraph. But I didn’t make it past the first one. He was a Hospital Corpsman Third Class, 20 years old, which is exactly what I was when I was deployed. In the picture — his boot camp graduation

picture — the corpsman sat in his dress blues with his half-jaunted dixie hat, hands folded in front of him. He had the same fixed gaze that I had in my wallet-sized picture (that my uncle has on his refrigerator), and I saw him and said, “That’s me.”

It was sunny that afternoon, and I was on my mother’s front porch, but it felt dark. On the news, there were wildfires and Delta variant deaths. My family had just received another notice of debt. And when I saw the corpsman’s picture in the article on my phone, I felt a way I had never felt about other fallen service members — that I was there, on that front porch, and that he was being gone.

I only briefly remember being deployed, like a recurring dream that I have to convince myself was mine. I remember trudging through hot mud, eating cold MREs at dawn and falling asleep to gunfire lullabies. I remember writing in a journal, but not much: the food was good or it wasn’t; the place was hot and dusty; that sort of thing. But I remember a song I liked, “Carry on my wayward son,” it went. “There will be peace when you are done.”

It’s a party song to many people, but it meant a lot to me. And along with it came this feeling: a resignation, a willingness — almost eagerness — to sacrifice, to give it all, to die what some call an honorable death and to relinquish all care about the rest. To never worry about getting old and feeble, about hair loss and aching joints, about watching your parents get old and your relatives die, about responsibility and true, heart-wrenching failure.

And I understood then, when I saw that picture that afternoon, something that perhaps I knew but had forgotten: I was alive. I was alive and stuck with everything behind me, everything I had done and learned and failed at and lived through, along with an unfolding future governed by natural laws and conditions over which I have no control. “You son of a gun,” I told the corpsman. “You did it. You became an icon, a saint, a plaque, a chant, a hero, while the rest of us are left be-

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Walters grapled with memories of his own deployment after seeing a photo of a 20-year-old service member who died in Afghanistan. hind in a world writhing with pandemics, cyber threats, burning skies and rising sea levels. You carried your rifle and your rucksack, you lifted the standard and stood at the gate, and now you’re done. You carried on, and now you’re at peace.”

I thought about these things, then forgot about them. Emotions surged, and then I lost touch with them. I made some notes and then put them away. Then, yesterday, I read a short story. In the story, a couple is woken up by a drunk caller at 3 a.m.: A woman looking for someone they’d never heard of.

They unhook the landline, but they can’t go back to sleep. They stay up smoking cigarettes and talking, and they get onto the subject of dying, dementia and terminal diseases.

“Would you want to be unplugged?” the partner asks and the narrator cannot answer. He stumbles

through work the next day, figures out the answer, but feels that something has changed, something that he can never go back from. And this morning, when I found and read the notes I’d written about the fallen Hospital Corpsman, I felt that something had changed too.

It is fall quarter at Stanford. The sun is shining, people are laughing, the leaves are about to burst with a million shades of gold. My brother’s wife is having a baby. I thought I should tell the corpsman, “Come back.” I wanted to tell him, “Come back and stay.” There will be cold, dark nights, yes, but also dewsoaked mornings with clouds blazed red like oceans on fire. You will be alone sometimes and hurt, need surgery or mental health support, you might lose your job or friends or family — but the seasons will change and all the grief incurs its own debt of beauty. “Don’t join,” I

wanted to tell him. “Do something, anything else at all.” But I knew neither of us would have listened, or had much choice in the matter.

And I thought that maybe something needed to be said. Something about sitting here, alone with this paper and pen, asking myself what right I have to be here or anywhere, or to reflect on this memory of a person I will never know. Something about being alive, a few billion specks on a rock, hurtling through empty space and irreversible time, and about each of us being at our own center of it all, an idea both absurd and divine. Something about wondering where we belong, about the chaos, the change, and the mess; the unbearable significance, the staggering unimportance, the fleeting moments of joy. Something about the lives moved on and the ones left behind. Something about carrying on.

HUMOR

Climate change report: Icebreaker supply falls

By SOFIE STORAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Editor’s Note: This article is purely satirical and fictitious. All attributions in this article are not genuine, and this story should be read in the context of pure entertainment only.

A concerning report published Monday warns that Stanford icebreaker levels are dipping into dangerously low territory — and are continuing to be depleted at unsustainable levels. The study, a joint effort by the Earth Systems and Sociology departments, finds that greenhouse gas buildup, ozone depletion, wildfires and a post-COVID return to in-person classes and clubs are all contributing to the rapid dwindling of icebreaker stores previously thought inexhaustible.

Faculty member Jessa Sturgeon reports seeing early signs of a coming shortage in her own classes.

“I’ve been teaching at Stanford since the 70s, when the supply of icebreakers seemed almost limitless,” Sturgeon said. “Sure, there were reports that we were working with a finite amount, but we brushed them off as fear-mongering. We’d do two, three, four icebreakers per class.

Now it takes me almost an hour every morning to find something I haven’t

used.”

Katie Xiao ’24 backed up Sturgeon’s claims, remembering a recent hall meeting. “[Xiao’s R.A.] Everett was clearly trying really hard to think of something original, something that would get us all jazzed up to socialize,” Xiao said. “Eventually, he just made us say who we thought would win in a battle between Batman and Superman.

When my roommate reminded him we did that last week, he looked really defeated.”

The report identifies icebreakers pertaining to pets, superheroes, coding languages, pop music and mental health as “critically endangered,” and also warns that new pop-culture touchstones are not producing potential icebreakers at a rate sufficient to replenish Stanford’s stores. Experts predict that “Squid Game”-based questions, for example, will be passe by the end of next week.

“It’s important to note that this problem isn’t limited to Stanford,” climate scientist Richard Stobell told the Daily. “Really, this is just one manifestation of a global problem.

That said, Californian institutions are particularly at risk because of our delicate coastal ecosystem — and our insistence that students can only understand each other by deciding to which farm animal they best relate.”

Wikimedia Commons

Remaining icebreaker ideas in an administrative office. This meager supply may have to sustain Stanford for upwards of two quarters.

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Now that Gheed El Bizri arrived at her dream school, an ocean away from Lebanon, she realizes she can’t distance her heart from her home country.

THE GRIND

Long lost melodies

By GHEED EL BIZRI It was week four of the Autumn quarter of my freshman year at Stanford University. As I trudged the same mile to Main Quad for my PWR class, I still managed to get lost. After opening Google Maps at Memorial Church and following the directions religiously, I found myself at Wallenberg. There, tired from what felt like a long journey, I couldn’t help but remember the way I knew every road, every street and every alley in my hometown, Saida. I didn’t need google maps to navigate it. I yearned for Saida like it yearned for me.

In times like these when I feel like there is a heavy weight growing its roots inside me and pressing against my chest, I try to remember that Saida isn’t Saida anymore. I remember how my government ruined my city, taking away its last breath and my chance to say goodbye. My government ruined Saida, Beirut, Jezzine, Jbeil ... They ruined all my happy places, my long-lost melodies that used to fit my poems like a perfect rhyme. I used to write poems, pieces of my heart, for these cities, their tall buildings and traffic lights, the sky above and the ground below.

After the Beirut blast on the 4th of August 2020, I stopped writing for a while, not because I didn’t have anything to say but because I couldn’t see anything but

ugliness in those cities. I only saw blood, only heard screams and storms. Dark shadows of grief hovered over me whenever I picked up any pen other than a black one. My home was reduced to ashes. I became homeless after 6:07 p.m. that day. Right before my eyes, Polaroid pictures of my friends, long nights on unknown rooftops and voice memos of unrecognizable laughs fell into the darkness, disappearing into the void.

As I get out of class, it all comes back to me in sharp unison: the view from my balcony; the smell of kebbeh, fassouliya and mloukhiye and the Lebanese flag. Home didn’t die, at least not inside me. Homestill existed.

I returned to my dorm room in Branner, my home at Stanford, to take a nap. As I lay down, I remembered my Audrey Hepburn wallpaper back in Lebanon, all the lights I bought to imitate the bedrooms on Pinterest and the carefully designed bed sheets I picked to fit the vibes of my room.

“What’s happening to me? Am I homesick?” I asked myself.

I had counted down the days before leaving Lebanon and everything behind to start fresh and get a stellar education alongside the world’s geniuses. My family worried that I would be so engulfed in that new lifestyle and my American dream that I’d forget about Lebanon. Since eighth grade, all I had dreamed of was

living in the U.S. I didn’t have any specific plan in mind — all I knew was that I wanted to get there.

Every time someone warned me about homesickness, I reassured them that I wouldn’t experience it.

Now that I am here and my dream has come true, miles away from Lebanon, I understand how much I love my country and can’t distract my heart from missing it.

It’s okay to feel homesick, right? A lot of people experience it. If I don’t miss Lebanon, where do I belong? If my heart doesn’t beat to the cedar trees, who deserves to own it? If my words can’t bring me back, where would they lead me?

I am Lebanese before being a Stanford student. I am Lebanese before being anything else, for I owe everything to my Lebanon.

Not the one my government created, but the one I know, love and adore. The one I call Home.

My Lebanese identity isn’t at odds with anything. On the contrary, it fuels my strength to overcome difficulties, my motivation to work harder and my vision of creating something bigger than my dreams. Living in a household with civil war survivors, listening to their stories and being inspired by their strength taught me so much about this life and beyond.

Surviving the Beirut blast taught me resilience, for when I saw war, life and death in front of me, I had

Please see LEBANON, page 8

8 N Friday, October 22, 2021

The Stanford Daily

HUMOR

Name it all

By MICHELLE FU STAFF WRITER

Editor’s Note: This article is purely satirical and fictitious.

All attributions in this article are not genuine, and this story should be read in the context of pure entertainment only.

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The equestrian team founded Stanford Pony Expressᵀᴹ to showcase their service to venture capital firms.

HUMOR

Equestrian team replaces UG2

By CASSIDY DALVA STAFF WRITER

Editor’s Note: This article is purely satirical and fictitious.

All attributions in this article are not genuine, and this story should be read in the context of pure entertainment only.

Delayed deliveries, hourlong wait times, and lost packages: Stanford students have grown restless and frustrated at the state of affairs in the Tresidder Package Center. However, a group of students from Stanford’s acclaimed equestrian team has taken matters into their own hands, launching a crowdfunded startup called Stanford Pony ExpressTM, designed to expedite delivery of students’ packages straight to their dorms.

“The mission of Stanford Pony Express is speed,” said Megan Stallione ’25, who created Stanford Pony Express after sleeping for weeks without the Pottery Barn comforter that was meant to arrive the day she moved in.

“A few days of sleeping on a barren mattress would be tolerable,” Stallione mused, “but after two weeks, I feel like SPOT never ended.”

Stallione, along with her equestrian couriers, have set a goal to surpass UG2’s delivery processing speed. Stanford Pony Express pledges that all packages will be processed within a week of their arrival, or sooner if your mom’s leftover ravioli ‘care package’ starts to stink up the barn.

Stallione and her team also promise that students will never have to venture farther than the outskirts of their dorms to pick up mail. The startup’s agile horses and messengers can navigate anywhere on campus, from the urban bustle of Crothers to the rural, remote corners of GovCo. Instead of waiting for a cryptically-worded, days-late email, students will know that their package has arrived when they hear a whinny outside their windows.

Precariously balancing your CoHo latte and a bubble-wrap-

cushioned microwave as you bike from Tresidder to your dorm will be an arm workout of the past.

It’s clear that Stanford Pony Express will be expeditious and convenient. However, for students whose packages have mysteriously vanished at the Tresidder Package Center, one looming question remains: Can Stanford Pony Express make sure that none of the packages go missing? According to Chief Operating Officer Britney Spurs, their promise of security is backed by empirics. In trials, the startup’s horses only mistook AirPods for peanuts about 10% of the time, and packaged Apple Pencils for carrots only 5% of the time.

As with any startup, time will tell whether Stanford Pony Express can live up to its lofty promises. Nevertheless, as students across Stanford nervously await the arrival of their Nicolas Cage body pillow or their Squid Game Halloween costume, they can sleep soundly knowing that oncampus deliveries have a steady hand at the reins.

Stanford Daily file photo

The scene of the crime, Wilbur Dining. Whether it be shrimp, chicken or chow mein, hungry students are always looking to get an edge.

All buildings on Stanford’s campus should be renamed Arrilaga.* There are already (at least) four buildings named for the esteemed John C. Arrilaga and his family: 1. Arrrillaga Family Dining Commons 2. Arrilllaga Center for Sports and Recreation 3. Arrillaggga Outdoor Education and Recreation Center 4. Frances C. Aarillaga Alumni Center 5. Maybe more?

Some (misinformed) people may think that this is too many. I argue that it isn’t enough. Let’s pick a building — the Gates Computer Science Building, for

To the guy before me in line for Wilbur Specials

By DAVID ZHANG CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Editor’s Note: This article is purely satirical and fictitious. All attributions in this article are not genuine, and this story should be read in the context of pure entertainment only.

After twenty minutes of waiting for the Wilbur Specials, you and I were finally ready to be dequeued. Although we hadn’t uttered a single word to each other, I felt we had a lot in common: the tenacity to wait despite the risk of missing afternoon classes, the anxious impatience when seeing somebody was taking too long to grab their share, and of course, the visible fear whenever someone was taking too many.

Finally, your turn. I stood behind you smiling, picturing the imminent happiness of placing some warm, golden, tasty shrimp on my plate.

You began. One spoon, two spoons, three spoons.

My smile faded.

Four spoons, five spoons. Now you had a mountain of shrimp on your plate. I found myself shaking due to anxiety. As if to justify yourself to the “Be Mindful To Share” sign, you murmured: “I’m taking extra for my friends.” Looking at your nauseatingly

greasy plate, I had no doubt that your many “friends” would appreciate the gesture.

You leaned over, trying to squeeze your shoulder and arm inside the glass cover to fetch the shrimps deep inside the tray. As you deformed, moaned and struggled to clamp food, I was impressed by your spirit to apply knowledge in human anatomy, physics, and mechanical engineering to solve real-life problems.

Finally, you left, leaving half a piece of shrimp on the tray. As I clamped up the broken shrimp, I was impressed by your kindness. You cared for me, ensuring that I could at least have a taste of the shrimp dish. It turned out to be tasty.

As I was leaving the dining hall, I saw you again, alone, pouring your mountain of shrimp into the compost bin. Your deep concern for waste sorting moved me.

How lucky I was to meet you today, a person who is popular among friends, a world-class innovative problem-solver, always thinking of others, and dedicated to protecting the Earth! Just make sure that you don’t limit your talent to grabbing Wilbur shrimp.

Best, David

*How do you spell Arrillaga?

HUMOR

Nobel Prize won for Cholula deficit

By SOSI DAY STAFF WRITER

Editor’s Note: This article is purely satirical and fictitious. All attributions in this article are not genuine, and this story should be read in the context of pure entertainment only.

Cholula is special: mild enough to highlight the taste of a meal without overpowering the flavor profile with spice. It is the perfect pick-me-up before facing Chem 31A in a NyQuilinduced fever dream. It is a precious resource. Last week, Stanford professor Guido Imbens won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his groundbreaking work using causal relationships to predict the Cholula hot sauce shortage at Lakeside Dining.

Imbens’ important research details multiple sources of the Cholula Deficit. Aside from the unusual size of the Class of 2025, Imbens also found that West Lag has a particularly high concentration of frosh with “sophisticated palettes.” Imbens predicted that Cholula, objectively the best hot sauce available*, would be the first to go.

Another contributing factor to the Cholula shortage is the influx of frosh from GovCo who miss Ricker’s early breakfast. Unable to wake up before 9 a.m., these stumbling, bleary-eyed students make their way to Lakeside to get in some calories before the 10-mile walk to their first classes.

The last cause — and arguably

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HUMOR

instance. What has Bill Gates done that esteemed real estate developer and philanthropist John Aarilaga has not? Now what has John Aaaarrillaga done that Bill Gates has not? Exactly.

Do you see what I mean? The Gates Computer Science Building should be renamed to the Areyaga Computer Science Building to reflect all of John Areighyahgah’s great contributions to society.

Apply this logic to all buildings and you’ll arrive at the same result. Lane Hall? It should be Areeyagah Hall. Wallenberg Hall? Also Arrillaga Hall. The Hoover Institution? The Yahriyagah Center for Bad Takes. Toyon Hall? Crothers (Editor’s Note: pronounced Aree-yah-ga?).

Now that my brilliant argument has touched your very soul, I hope that you’ll join me in my cause to rename every single building of Stanford University.

Or, should I say, Rrreyhaghah University?

Continued from page 7 the courage and willingness to choose life.

My government stole everything from me, but I won’t let it steal my future. My government wants me to say I am Lebanese while looking down, so I will look up, head held high, steadfast and fearless. The first thing I will mention about myself is that I am Lebanese. Every scrap of me is taken from my homeland, from the red linings on the Lebanese flag, from the national hymn, from my mother’s smile even when the blood in her veins was drained, even when gunshots were fired nearby.

I can’t sleep. I am sick. My mind, my body and my heart hurt. I miss home. Now that I can only think of the beauty in my Lebanon, I can finally write about it. I clutch a pink pen and find the right words, deeply considered verses and thrown-out speeches. I am not getting better. I still feel sick in my stomach. Yet it is an art that I am creating. Maybe that’s the way it is supposed to be.

Maybe the pain won’t go away and my heart will break over and over again with no one to pick it up. However, the wounds left in my heart have a unique beat to them, and I know how to listen.

I go back to my bed, 7,000 miles

the most worrying — is one anonymous student who has single-handedly stolen 10 bottles of Cholula from Lakeside since the start of the quarter. Before anyone else could anticipate this phenomenon, Imbens calculated that Stanford dining halls should maintain a 20-Cholula-bottle cushion at all times for such dire situations.

Imbens and his team conducted numerous data analyses proving the Cholula Deficit will only widen in coming months. As frosh settle into their routines and more and more students discover the wonder of Cholula, Imbens speculates the average intake per capita could skyrocket, reaching unrivaled consumption levels.

Luckily, all hope is not lost.

Thanks to Imbens’ meaningful work, we have a clearly outlined plan for Cholula redistribution. Arrillaga has had better luck, and appears to have an obscene Cholula excess.

“In trying times, we must share the resources that unite us, and I believe that it is Arrillaga Dining’s duty to aid its neighbor in need,” Imbens stated. “In the meantime, hungry GovCo frosh should consider making the trek to an Arrillaga brunch, where Cholula is plentiful.” *Joshua D. Angrist & Guido W. Imbens (1995) Two-Stage Least Squares Estimation of Average Causal Effects in Models with Variable Treatment Intensity, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 90:430, 431-442, DOI: 10.1080/ 01621459.1995.10476535

away from the home hanging in the air. It still feels strange, but I am not a stranger. I belong to Stanford like I belong to Lebanon. I look over my window at all these people with whom I am sharing the experience of a lifetime in a new place, away from where we used to be. My heart, my mind and my soul are split in half. Both halves belong home, whether that is at Stanford or in Lebanon.

Missing is a feeling I don’t want to get rid of. I am curious to see how hard I can miss, how far I can travel with my words, how my feelings find their way from my heart to the paper and from the paper to the hearts of others.

To my Lebanon, I am burning with desire to see you again, even when they put you under flames. So wait for me, wait for when I come back to watch all your sunsets while resting my head on my mom’s lap. I am waiting for you to tell me if I make you proud, if my eyes reflect the warmth you make me feel. Stanford gave me the safety you fail to give me, the right and the hope to dream you can’t lend me. I’ll come back and I’ll leave you again, my heart filled with pain and joy at once, traveling in time and space, from home to home. Please keep that glow I can’t stop turning to ...

A Lebanese student who made it to Stanford

Friday, October 22, 2021 N 9

The Stanford Daily

SPORTS VOLLEYBALL

STANFORD BESTS THE BUFFALOES

By ZACH ZAFRAN No. 18 Stanford women’s volleyball (11-5, 6-2 Pac-12) took care of business against Colorado (12-5, 3-5 Pac-12) on Sunday afternoon, sweeping the Buffaloes in three sets. After losing the first point of the match, Stanford never trailed again.

An all-around performance from Stanford propelled its offense to a staggering 52 kills on a .345 hitting percentage. In comparison, Colorado recorded just 26 kills and hit .149 for the match.

Four Cardinal players recorded nine or more kills, which head coach Kevin Hambly attributed to the team’s passing abilities.

“We passed really well, and then that put us in a situation where [we could] use the whole breadth of our offense,” Hambly said. “We were able to use all the weapons we have ... we’re lucky we have a lot.

Everyone on our team can score.”

From the get-go, the Cardinal’s wellrounded attack put them in the driver’s seat and prevented Colorado from gaining momentum.

After starting the first set down 1-0, the Cardinal went on a 10-2 run, anchored by redshirt sophomore outside hitter Caitie Baird and junior opposite Kendall Kipp. They finished the set with six kills apiece, hitting at an impressive .667 and .400, respectively.

Stanford’s advantage carried over into the second set, where the Cardinal started off on a 5-0 run. However, Colorado did not go down easily. A long rally that sent players from both sides diving onto the hardwood concluded with a kill from Colorado’s sophomore outside hitter Maya Tabron. This play gave the Buffaloes their fifth point of the set and enough momentum to make Stanford uncomfortable.

The two teams fought back and forth and found themselves in a 9-9 tie midway through the second set.

But the Cardinal offense prevailed once again. A 10-3 run gave them the cushion they needed to ultimately take the set

Please see VOLLEYBALL, page 10

BOB DREBIN/isiphotos.com

After seven games in a season of ups and downs, Stanford football sits 3-4 overall and 2-3 in conference play. Losses to No. 22/25 Arizona State and unranked Washington State are the most recent blemishes on the Cardinal’s schedule, with the team’s last victory on Oct. 2.

BYE WEEK BLUES FOOTBALL REGROUPS AT MIDSEASON MARK

By JIBRIEL TAHA DESK EDITOR

So how did we get here? Let’s break down the positives and negatives for the Cardinal over the first seven games.

It’s bye week.

After seven games, Stanford sits at 3-4, with a 2-3 record in conference play.

The season has been up and down for the Cardinal. More often than not, inconsistency has plagued the squad, which has struggled on multiple occasions to play consistent football for 60 minutes.

Just two weeks ago, Stanford had a winning record, just one conference loss and a head-tohead victory over Oregon. They seemed to be in a good position to take the Pac-12 North. But a lot has changed since then.

Now, the Cardinal sit under .500, have three conference losses and are in jeopardy of missing a bowl game.

OFFENSE The Good Tanner McKee After head coach David Shaw elected to rotate playing time under center between senior Jack West and sophomore Tanner McKee to open the season, McKee was named the starter for the Cardinal in Week 2. Since then, all he has done is impress.

Over the course of the season, the Corona, Calif. native posted a 143 touchdown-to-interception ratio and a 64.7% completion percentage. His QBR of 76.1 is good for 17th in the nation and third in the Pac-12. Now the leader of the second-best passing offense in the conference, the former highly-rated recruit is one of the best players on the squad and has

STAFF WRITER

By ELLS BOONE

emerged as a promising NFL prospect.

Pass-Catchers The second half of the prolific Stanford passing offense (that feels weird to write) are the wide receiving corps and the recent emergence of sophomore tight end Benjamin Yurosek. Even with Stanford’s top receiver, senior Michael Wilson, yet to see the field this season — he could potentially return against Washington next week, the rest of the wide receiver group has been excellent in his absence. Wide receivers coach Bobby Kennedy has developed quite the group of your typical Stanford receivers.

Junior Elijah Higgins, senior Brycen Tremayne and sophomore John Humpreys are all at least 6’3” and 200+ pounds. All three are in the top 25 in receiving yards in the Pac-12. It would be a major surprise if Tremayne

sees the field again this season after an ugly injury in the Oregon game, but getting Humphreys and Wilson back soon should mean that this group will continue the strong play the rest of the way. Add on the surging tight end Yurosek, who has collected 118 and 99 yards in the last two games, respectively, and you have a formidable passing attack.

The Bad The Offensive Line Oh boy, here we go. Let’s take a look back at our season preview article: “The Cardinal offensive line has had some moving pieces this offseason but may arguably be the deepest position group on the team heading into the season ... the junior class has a remarkable amount of experience.”

We could not have been more wrong. What we predicted to be

Please see BYE, page 10

MEN’S WATER POLO

NO. 4 BACK ON TRACK Cardinal rebounds from UCLA loss

By NOAH MALTZMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

MIKE RASAY/isiphotos.com

Rose Zhang (above) became the first Stanford golfer to win each of the first three tournaments. Zhang finished first out of 90 golfers.

WOMEN’S GOLF

On Sunday, No. 4 Stanford (14-3, 0-1 MPSF) bounced back from last week’s loss to defeat No. 8 UC Davis (12-6, 4-0 WWPA) in dominant fashion.

Eight Cardinal players scored — including five who scored multiple times — illustrating Stanford’s balanced, deep attack.

Stanford was strong on both sides of the ball throughout the game. Early goals by grad student driver Tyler Abramson, junior driv-

er Larsen Weigle, junior 2M Beck Jurasius and senior driver Quinn Woodhead led the Cardinal to an early 4-0 lead by the end of the first quarter.

The Aggies only goal came in the second quarter, when, on a power play, Michael Plastino scored off of Spencer Towill’s assist. Immediately after, however, Stanford regained momentum and sophomore driver Jackson Painter found the back of the net. Soon after, redshirt sophomore utility Troy Gleason scored twice, leading Stanford into the half at a 7-1 lead.

For the rest of the game, the Cardinal remained in control. Early in the third quarter, redshirt sophomore driver Walker Seymour scored with help from Abramson. A few minutes later, on a power play, senior 2MD AJ Rossman found the

back of the cage, and then Jurasius did, too. With 0:04 left in the quarter, Painter scored again, giving the Cardinal a 11-1 lead into the fourth quarter.

Stanford scored twice more in the fourth quarter unanswered to extend their lead even more.

The Cardinal’s high-scoring output was equally matched by the strong defense. Most notably, Stanford’s goalies, sophomore Nolan Krutonog and freshman Liam Harrison, only allowed a 0.040 shot percentage. Krutonog had seven saves.

Sunday’s game is the most lopsided win for Stanford against a top-ten team since the Cardinal beat No. 10 Harvard, 21-5, in 2017.

The Cardinal now look to carry their momentum into a high-stakes MPSF match-up versus USC on the Farm on Saturday.

THREE FOR THREE: GOLF DOMINATES AT HOME

By GAVIN MCDONELL DESK EDITOR

Three events, three emphatic wins. To begin its season, the No. 1-ranked Stanford women’s golf team has lapped the field each time it has stepped on the course.

At the Stanford Intercollegiate this weekend, the story was the same: the Cardinal cruised to a 22stroke victory, while first-year student Rose Zhang brought home medalist honors.

In its first two tournaments, Stanford competed away from home at long and challenging golf courses. At both the Molly Collegiate Invitational and the Windy City Collegiate Classic, the Cardinal won the team competition with a 14-over-par score.

At the Stanford Golf Course on

Friday, the skies were clear, and the conditions were ripe for scoring. In the opening round, the Cardinal took advantage, posting the fourth-lowest round in program history, an 11-under-par 273.

Competing in her first round on the Stanford Golf Course on Friday, Zhang played nearly flawless golf. She made seven birdies and just a single bogey to shoot 65.

Her six-under-par total gave her a three-stroke lead over Texas’s Sara Kouskova on the individual side.

Senior Aline Krauter torched the front nine for a four-under-par 31 and finished with a 68. Sophomore Rachel Heck shot 69, and freshman Caroline Sturdza rounded out Stanford’s scoring with an

Please see GOLF, page 10

RICHARD ERSTERD/isiphotos.com

Senior 2MD AJ Rossman (above) was one of eight scorers for men’s water polo in the Cardinal’s dominant 13-1 defeat of UC Davis on Saturday. It was Stanford’s largest margin of victory since September 2017.

10 N Friday, October 22, 2021

The Stanford Daily

MEN’S SOCCER

DRAW AGAINST DENVER

By MURTAZA HUSSAIN Things were looking slow in the first half for the Cardinal men’s soccer team (4-5-3, 1-3-1 Pac-12) and the Denver Pioneers (8-2-2, 3-0-0 Pac12), with no goals scored on either end of the field. However, while the start of the second half was solid for Stanford with one goal under its belt early on, the Pioneers were able to secure a draw with a goal of their own in the 78th minute. Saturday’s result marks the third draw for the

men’s soccer program this season.

Throughout the first half, both teams were presented with chances to get ahead, with three shot attempts for Stanford and two for Denver. When the Pioneers had the right opportunity to score a goal near the end of the first half, it was redshirt junior goalkeeper Matt Frank who made a direct save away from the net and allowed the Cardinal to head into the second half still with a clean slate.

The momentum after the 45minute mark leaned towards the

JOHN LOZANO/isiphotos.com

Junior defender Keegan Hughes (above) scored Stanford’s lone goal against Denver on Saturday. It was the Cardinal’s third draw of the year.

Cardinal’s favor. Just over six minutes into the second period, junior forward Ousseni Bouda found his chance as he saw his teammate, junior defender Keegan Hughes, run toward the box. Bouda launched the ball forward to the bottom corner, assisting Hughes in a goal scored at the 51:17 mark. This gave Hughes his first goal and Bouda his ninth assist of the season.

The opening goal gave the Cardinal the lead, but the Pioneers continued to play tough. While Stanford continued to hold possession of the ball, the Pioneers counter-attacked on an opportunity that led them to earn a penalty kick in the 78th minute. Denver senior midfielder Stefan Deleone at first was unsuccessful as his penalty shot was deflected off the hands of Frank. However, a rebound from Frank’s save allowed a second chance for Deleone.

He would not be denied a second time and scored a goal for the Pioneers.

“I thought it was very unfortunate to give away a penalty at that point in time because Denver didn’t really look like they were going to break through to equalize,” said head coach Jeremy Gunn. “In a tough moment the team continued to battle on and came away with a very honorable tie.”

This was the first time the Cardinal men’s soccer team tied with the Denver Pioneers. In the team’s 22year history, Stanford has never lost against Denver.

The Cardinal will return home to Cagan Stadium for a Thursday night game against San Diego State on Oct. 21 at 8 p.m. PT.

WOMEN’S SOCCER

STAFF WRITER

Continued from page 9 the second best position group on the team — with the running backs at the top — has been arguably the worst. Looking at the big picture (that is, aside from the calamitous final drive against Washington State), the offensive line has been alright in pass protection: nothing impressive by any means but acceptable enough to allow the Cardinal to have one of the top passing offenses in the conference.

On the other hand, the run blocking has been miserable. Stanford has the worst rushing offense in the Pac-12, averaging a mere 84.2 yards-per-game on the ground in conference games — the next closest is Washington State at 93.8 yards-per-game. The majority of the time, the talented Cardinal running backs are running into brick walls.

Every single player on the current offensive line was solid to very good when they saw playing time last year, so what happened? It’s hard to tell, but their struggles are absolutely killing the Cardinal.

DEFENSE The Good Unproven players stepping up in the secondary Heading into the season, we

Continued from page 9 25-16.

Through two sets, Stanford posted an impressive hitting percentage of .342 compared to Colorado’s .090.

The story of the third set was more of the same, highlighted by six service aces from the Cardinal.

Hambly noted that the team “put a lot of service pressure on [Colorado],” which was a major factor in the victory.

Ultimately, Stanford won the third set 25-17 to take the match in straight sets.

Stanford entered the matchup with an all-time record of 22-1 against the Buffaloes, including nine straight victories. However,

Continued from page 9

By JENNA RUZEKOWICZ

BYE

VOLLEYBALL

GOLF

CARDINAL TIES WITH COLORADO No. 13 Stanford women’s soccer (10-3-1, 4-1-1 Pac-12) tied Colorado (6-6-2, 1-3-2 Pac-12) 2-2 after two overtime periods on the road this Sunday. The Cardinal started the match off strong, going up 2-0, but were eventually matched before fulltime.

Stanford got the scoring started with an early goal from junior midfielder Maya Doms. Doms had a sliding seventh minute goal after a beautiful cross from sophomore midfielder Amy Sayer. The goal appeared to be an early momentum shift as the Cardinal took control of the game.

Just over 10 minutes later, redshirt junior midfielder Sierra Enge launched a rocket into the net, unassisted from outside the 18 mark.

After the second goal, most fans assumed Stanford had the game within its grasp.

The Cardinal went into halftime with a 2-0 lead over the Buffaloes and much of the momentum. Colorado

KAREN HICKEY/isiphotos.com

Redshirt sophomore outside hitter Caitie Baird (above) led Stanford with 14 kills and four service aces in the Cardinal’s win over Colorado on Saturday.

MACIEK GUDRYMOWICZ/isiphotos.com

Junior midfielder Sierra Enge (above) put the Cardinal up 2-0 over the Buffaloes on Sunday, but it was not enough to secure a Stanford victory. was limited to a single shot in the first half, whereas Stanford racked up 12. Redshirt junior keeper Katie Meyer was responsible for the save that kept the Cardinal up by 2.

Going into the second half, Stanford still remained somewhat dominant with a total of nine shots to Colorado’s four. However, in the 64th minute, Colorado senior midfielder Shanade Hopcroft got one back for the Buffaloes. And moments later, in the 66th minute, junior midfielder

Jade Babcock-Chi evened the score.

The first 90 minutes ended 2-2 and sent the teams into overtime.

Despite Stanford dominating both overtime periods with a cumulative seven shots to Colorado’s one, neither team was able to put together another goal. Stanford traveled home with a 2-2 draw toward its record.

Up next for the Cardinal is Arizona State on Thursday at Cagan Stadium.

talked about how, outside of the starters at corner and safety, there was a lot of unproven depth in Stanford’s secondary. Without junior Salim Turner-Muhammad and only limited play from senior Ethan Bonner, freshmen Jimmy Wyrick and Jaden Slocum and juniors Zahran Manley and Nicolas Toomer have stepped in and impressed at crucial moments.

Wyrick started his first ever game at nickelback against USC and has been a key part of the defense since, totaling 17 tackles, an interception and five pass breakups.

Toomer had his breakout game against Oregon, finishing with a team-leading 10 tackles. These players stepping up has definitely been a welcome sign for defensive backs coach Duane Akina and bodes well for the Cardinal when the unit can retur n to full strength.

As for the outside linebackers, sixth year Gabe Reid is in the midst of a fine season for Stanford. He has been responsible for 35 tackles (four and a half for a loss), half a sack and an interception. Junior OLB Stephon Herron leads the team in sacks with three.

Linebacker durability Another question coming into the season: could the linebackers stay healthy, and, in particular, could the chronically injured trio of senior Ricky Miezan, senior Jacob Mangum-Ferrar and junior Tristan Sinclair stay healthy?

Those three have generally been able to stay healthy — as has the rest of the position group generally, playing a large role for the Cardinal defense to date. Miezan has made 44 tackles and two sacks so far and is the star of the bunch.

The Bad Rushing Defense For the past few years, the Cardinal have struggled against the run — both from the traditional run game and from dual threat quarterbacks. UCLA quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson found the end zone with his legs twice against Stanford and utilized the read-option well, while his running back Zach Charbonnet ran for 118 yards and a touchdown versus Stanford. At Arizona State, quarterback Jayden Daniels ran for 76 yards, including a 51 yard touchdown run where he essentially walked into the endzone untouched.

Meanwhile, Sun Devils’ running back Rachaad White averaged 7.4 yards per carry.

A big part of the Cardinal’s struggle has been missed tackles.

Time and time again we have seen an opposing team’s runner seemingly get wrapped up, only for them to break free and gain extra yards. Stanford ranks 10th in the conference in rush defense and dead last in total defense. This bye week is a great opportunity to improve.

even-par 71.

For the day, Stanford’s 11under-par total was nine shots better than the nearest competitors, USC and Arizona State.

On Saturday, Zhang and the team continued their stellar play and expanded their leads.

For the second consecutive round, Zhang posted a six-underpar 65. She blitzed the front nine, making birdies on the first, third, fifth, seventh and ninth holes for a five-under-par 30. Sturdza shot a two-under-par 69, while Heck and Krauter both registered rounds of 70.

Entering the final round on Sunday, Stanford sat at 21-under-par, 20 strokes clear of the field. While the team victory was all but guaranteed, the Cardinal stayed focused and shot a seven-under-par 277.

Sturdza carded her second consecutive round of 69 on Sunday. She finished at four-under-par for the tournament, which placed her in a tie for fifth. Krauter and Heck both posted 72, which earned them seventh and 10th place finishes, respectively.

Junior Angelina Ye ended with her best round of the week, a twounder-par 69. Although Ye’s round on Sunday was her only counting score of the tournament, she finished in a tie for 19th out of 90 golfers.

Seeking her third victory in as many collegiate starts, Zhang Pass Rush Stanford’s secondary has done its job for the most part this season, but a poor pass rush has hindered the defense. The Cardinal have only recorded 13 sacks so far.

Before the season, we knew the defensive line was going to be a weak point for this team and acknowledged that senior defensive end and captain Thomas Booker needed to have a big year for the defense to be successful. While Booker has been a large presence on the line in terms of tackles and tackles for loss, he has not been getting to the quarterback as much as expected, only making one and a half sacks in the first half of the season.

Quite simply, Stanford’s pass rush is giving the opposing quarterbacks too much time in the pocket, which gives receivers downfield too much time to get open. We do not know exactly what needs to change, but pass rushing is surely to be another focus of the bye week for the coaching staff.

Bottom Line In our season preview article we had the Cardinal at 4-3 overall and 2-3 in conference play at this point in the season. We nailed the conference record (let’s ignore the predictions for the individual games)! It goes without saying that 3-4 is not where the Cardinal want to be.

The division title is a long shot at this point, and the Cardinal have

with both 2020 contests canceled due to COVID-19, this was Stanford’s first time playing Colorado since 2019.

Senior middle blocker Holly Campbell remarked that such a hiatus brought some challenges to the team in Sunday’s match.

“Having not played them since 2019 and not having many people out there that have actually played against them ... the first few points of the game, it took us a few seconds just to get into it,” Campbell said.

Following this win, the Cardinal will hit the road to take on No. 25 Washington State and No. 10 Washington, both of whom sit in a tie for first place in the Pac-12 alongside Stanford. First serve against the Cougars is scheduled for Friday at 6 p.m. PT. Cybele Zhang contributed reporting. picked up where she left off in the final round. She birdied the first hole and never looked back, carding a bogey-free round of 67.

Zhang tied and broke several school records along the way to her Stanford Intercollegiate victory.

Her 12-under-par total for 36 holes tied Mariah Stackhouse’s ’16 record, and her 16-under-par total for 54 holes tied Heck’s score for the lowest in school history.

Zhang also became the first Stanford golfer ever, male or female, to win in each of their first three starts. In 1994, Tiger Woods won two of his first three tournaments at Stanford.

Even Zhang seemed a bit stunned by her record-setting performance.

“It’s truly amazing. When I came to college, I didn’t really expect to shoot a certain score or place a certain finish,” Zhang told GoStanford following her final round.

Whether or not Zhang expected to have this much success on the collegiate stage, her results speak for themselves, and people are taking notice.

“For me, I’m learning so much just to watch a player like this in action. Her patience is unreal,” Coach Anne Walker told GoStanford.

Stanford women’s golf will wrap up its fall season in two weeks’ time at the Pac-12 Preview in Kailua Kona, Hawaii. Zhang and Heck will be absent from the lineup, as they represent the U.S. in the Spirit International Amateur Golf Championship.

The first round of the Pac-12 Preview is scheduled for Nov. 1. a very real chance at missing out on a bowl. According to ESPN’s FPI, Stanford has a 4.3% chance at winning the North and a 44% chance at reaching the six wins needed for bowl eligibility. On a more positive note, if you took the over on Vegas’s preseason win total of four for the Cardinal, you’re in great shape!

Much has been made of Stanford’s difficult schedule. It has certainly been tough and littered with road games, but it should not be invoked to explain away where the team is now. Only one of the seven teams the Cardinal has played is currently ranked. Stanford is 2-4 against currently unranked teams.

The Cardinal have dealt with their fair share of injuries, especially in the secondary. But the irony of it all is that those are not the position groups that are costing them games — it’s those that are healthy. Sure, the injured secondary got torched a couple times against Washington State, but a significant part of that is due to the complete lack of a pass rush.

The team’s performance has to improve in the trenches or Stanford will miss a bowl once again.

The slew of road games in the first half means that the Cardinal will be seeing a lot of Stanford Stadium in the upcoming weeks — four of the last five games come at home.

Can they use that to their advantage? We’ll find out starting next Saturday as they host Washington at 7:30 p.m. PT.