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The Stanford Daily An Independent Publication
FRIDAY November 5, 2021
Volume 260 Issue 7
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Expand enrollment by 25%? President floats increase after $1.67 billion raised By CAMERON EHSAN DESK EDITOR
By RACHEL LIT Stanford has raised $1.67 billion from donors to fund priorities in the Long-Range Vision, including the potential creation of a ninth neighborhood and a 25% increase in undergraduate enrollment, announced Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Vice President for Development Jon Denney at Thursday’s Faculty Senate meeting. Increasing undergraduate enrollment has been a priority for the University, but the lack of housing on campus and country restrictions have prevented Stanford from expanding. At the same meeting, senators learned about the new date for the University’s employee vaccination requirement and scrutinized Stanford’s policies for foreign re-
search funding. When the University submitted its General Use Permit application to Santa Clara County in 2016, it included plans that would allow it to increase undergraduate enrollment by 100 students every year through 2035. After three years of deliberation, Stanford withdrew its application, releasing a statement that said it acknowledged “obstacles on the path to a successful permit.” However, with the launch of ResX neighborhoods, the University is once again exploring the option of expansion. Tessier-Lavigne said Stanford has identified the site of a ninth residential neighborhood, and administrators are looking into the resources needed to accompany an increase in student enrollment. “I would like nothing more than to say that in the next five to eight years, we grow by one neighborhood and then by a second one —
By SARAH RAZA CONTRIBUTING WRITER
ter to my first elected office running for president of my class — all those things were invaluable, but most importantly, the relationships I have. I still have some of my dearest friends from my Stanford years. I don’t know about falling short, frankly. This is one of the organizations in my life where
Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai said that each person should strive to make a positive change in their community, regardless of their field of study, during a Friday speaker event at the Graduate School of Business (GSB). Yousafzai, hailing from Swat Valley, Pakistan, has been a relentless advocate for girls’ education for over a decade. She rose to international prominence at the age of 15 after surviving an assassination attempt by the Taliban. As the cofounder of the Malala Fund and the author of the international bestseller “I am Malala,” Yousafzai became the youngest person in history to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. Yousafzai praised her father, a strong feminist, for his encouragement throughout her life and the influence he has had on her advocacy. She said that he deviated from the culture of men silencing the women in their families to maintain the status quo, which contributed to her confidence and development as an outspoken activist. “I always tell people that my story is not exceptional — it could’ve been the story of any girl — if their fathers and brothers had allowed them to speak out,” she said. Yousafzai said that she abides by two principles in her advocacy: to be herself and to speak the truth. And she believes her time is best used when she uses her voice to uplift others. “I’ve met incredible girls who are
Please see BOOKER, page 3
Please see MALALA, page 3
Photo courtesy of Andrew Brodhead
Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne (above) updates the Faculty Senate on fundraising efforts. The over a billion dollars raised to fund Long-Range Vision priorities could spur the creation of a new neighborhood and expand the undergraduate population. that would be a 25% growth of the undergraduate population,” Tessier-Lavigne said, cautioning that county restrictions remain an obstacle. The $1.67 billion funding figure includes $1.1 billion for schools and units, $428 million for special initiatives and $133 million for undergraduate financial aid.
Stanford launched the LongRange Vision in May 2019 with a focus on the core themes of preparing citizens and leaders, catalyzing discovery in every field, accelerating solutions for humanity and sustaining life on Earth. The Long-Range Vision led to
Please see FACSEN, page 3
Step out of your comfort zone,Cory Booker says Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) ’91 M.A. ’92 returned to campus on Friday for the Stanford Alumni Reunion. Booker, a former political science and sociology student, played football for Stanford, ran the Bridge Peer Counseling Center and was a columnist for The Daily. Since his election to the U.S. Senate in
Malala Yousafzai visits GSB Nobel Peace Prize winner encourages activism
UNIVERSITY
By ILA MATHUR
CAMPUS LIFE
2013, he has helped craft legislation related to criminal justice reform, advocated for progressive economic policy and fought for the protection of the Affordable Care Act. At the reunion, The Daily asked Booker about his time at Stanford and his advice for students on being change-makers at Stanford and beyond. This interview has been lightly edited
for length and clarity. The Stanford Daily [TSD]: How has your Stanford experience prepared you for life after graduating, and how has it fallen short, if at all? Cory Booker [CB]: Stanford is a big part of the foundation on which I stand. The lessons I learned here and the diversity of experiences — from the football field to the peer counseling cen-
CAMPUS LIFE
SPEAKERS & EVENTS
Democracy is dying, experts say
Senator warns of election corruption Corruption is one of many threats to democracy
Polarization of online media is a primary factor
By KEVI JOHNSON
By BOXIN ZHANG CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Democracy is slowly eroding in politics and news due to the polarization of online media, and the misuse of and lack of access to technology, Stanford professors warned during Tuesday’s Democracy Day event at Meyer Green. The event was part of Stanford’s
GAURVI SINGHVI/The Stanford Daily
Professors said that abuse of technology use in social media, lack of technical infrastructure in journalism and erosion of fair voting rights is jeopardizing democracy during a Democracy Day event on Tuesday. inaugural Democracy Day, which featured an itinerary of faculty panels and community activities at the intersection of civic engagement, academic integrity and digital tech-
nology. Democracy Day coincides with the U.S. Election Day and was created by the University in June to
Please see MEDIA, page 3
ACADEMICS
Virtual advising maintains popularity By MAYA RAQUEL BENYAS MHAR TENORIO/The Stanford Daily
6 new student COVID-19 cases reported By LOGAN GAINES CONTRIBUTING WRITER
The University reported six new student and eight new employee COVID-19 cases for the week of Oct. 25, according to the COVID-19 dashboard. This week’s case count marks
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After 18 months of remote academic advising, Stanford academic advisors are holding in-person meetings with students again. However, the continued convenience of Zoom has rendered it the more popular mode of advising. Currently, advisors work in their offices on campus at least three days a week and offer a minimum of three in-person appointments per day, said Dean of Academic Advising and Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Louis Newman. Though students now have the option to sign up for in-person appointments, they are still largely opting for virtual meetings. Out of the 2,560 advising appointments
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held within the first three weeks of the quarter, only 294, around 10%, were in-person meetings. Newman said this was fewer than the actual number of available in-person slots. “Many students are actually happy that they still have virtual appointments available,” Newman said. “It’s the convenience of just being able to log in, have a quick conversation with an advisor and not have to move and go anywhere.” For Monica Tsien ’22, the transition to Zoom during the pandemic did not drastically affect the efficacy or productivity of her advising appointments. Tsien virtually met with her advisor, Melissa
Please see ADVISE, page 2
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Increasing polarization, social media, the corruption of elections and paralysis of the Senate are major threats to American democracy according to Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) ’79, who spoke at a Tuesday Democracy Day event hosted by Stanford in Government. Merkley hails from a small town in rural Oregon, and he said he uses his background to bridge divides between his progressive agenda and the beliefs of his constituents, many of whom are from red counties. Merkley said that community members in red, rural counties often moderate their opinions about him after hearing from him directly at town halls. However, social media posts and news stations like Fox News that vilify the Democratic party make it more difficult for him to shift people’s preconceived notions, he said. He also discussed the demonization of Republicans by CNN and MSNBC, adding that he remembers a time “when we didn’t have two absolute media bubbles driving us into our corners and augmenting our anger with each other.” “We are at this hinge moment,” Merkley said. “The flame of the vision of the government of, by and for the people — that flame is flickering.” Corruption of elections — especially in the form of ongoing
Screenshot: KEVI JOHNSON/ The Stanford Daily
Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) ’79 outlined key threats to American democracy and urged students to remain engaged with pressing issues. gerrymandering efforts — and deep cynicism induced by the paralysis of the Senate pose a threat to democracy’s integrity, Merkley added. He expressed concerns about the dominance of “dark money” in politics, citing the example that the Republican party and politicians like Lindsey Graham were more willing to speak on climate issues before the rise of the corrupting influence of lobbyists. Merkley also focused on the potential of international climate agreements, especially as world leaders gather at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. He said that the
Please see CORRUPT, page 4
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Recycle Me
2 N Friday, November 5, 2021
The Stanford Daily CAMPUS LIFE
Reflection to fix climate crisis? By LUC ALVAREZ
By SARAH RAZA CONTRIBUTING WRITER
This report covers a selection of incidents from Oct. 26 to Nov. 1 as recorded in the Stanford University Department of Public Safety (SUDPS) bulletin. Learn more about the Clery Act and how The Daily approaches reporting on crime and safety here.
TUESDAY, OCT. 26 I At 2 p.m.,
a threatening crime occurred at 620 Mayfield Ave. I At 2:30 p.m., a vehicle burglary occurred at the Tresidder Memorial Union parking lot. I Between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., a bike was stolen from Taube Tennis Center Stadium. I Between 3 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., a vehicle burglary occurred at the Tresidder Memorial Union parking lot. I Between 7:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m., a bike was stolen from the Center for Education Research.
THURSDAY, OCT. 28 I
Between 1 p.m. on Oct. 27 and 9:30 p.m., a bike was stolen from Green Library. I Between 7 p.m. on Oct. 27 and 11 a.m., a bike was stolen from Abrams. I Between 7 a.m. and 4:10 p.m., a grand theft of greater than $950 occurred at the Knight Manage-
ADVISE Continued from page 1 Stevenson ’96, twice last year. Having experienced in-person advising before the switch to Zoom, Tsien said that remote advising ran smoothly and was similar to the inperson process. “My advisor ran drop-in office hours on Zoom where you could line up in the waiting room, just like her in-person drop-in hours where you could wait outside the door,” Tsien said. She added that Stevenson also sent out weekly digests and made herself very approachable to students. While many students have had positive experiences with virtual advising, privacy concerns remain an issue. Students who live with roommates, for example, may not want to talk about certain topics with their advisor if they are doing the meeting from their room, according to Newman. Alternatively, “if they meet with someone in person, they might feel more inclined to have a longer conversation to delve into more issues with an advisor than they would online,” Newman said. Another benefit of in-person advising is the ability of advisors to form deeper connections with students through face-to-face interaction, Newman added. “The conversations are sometimes a little more open-ended, and sort of expansive, because there’s just an interpersonal energy when you’re sitting across the table from a student,” he said. Cary Xiao ’25 noticed this energy shift when he met with his advisor, Cari Costanzo Ph.D. ’05, inperson for the first time in September. After attending virtual advising sessions with Costanzo over the summer, Xiao said there were many perks of meeting without a screen between them. “Being able to meet with her one-on-one makes me feel like I can rely on her more,” he said. Still, some advisors feel that having to wear a mask during inperson meetings limits their ability to connect with their students because “you can’t read a person’s facial expressions through a mask,” Newman said. This makes it increasingly difficult to establish a personal connection, which is crucial in cultivating lasting relationships between students and advisors, especially for advisors meeting with students for the first time, Newman added. While students also create relationships with their professors and other faculty and staff, academic advisors can get to know students better because they “often have long-standing relationships with students,” Newman said. Fortunately, the return to inperson advising allows for the continued development of these relationships, and remote advising provides a convenient alternative. Considering the enduring success and popularity of Zoom, this hybrid model of advising will likely continue for the foreseeable future. “I don’t see virtual advising going away, and certainly in-person advising is not going away,” Newman said.
I
ment Center Garage. Between 7:30 p.m. and 7:40 p.m., a battery by a spouse or domestic partner occurred at a residence at 706 Tolman Drive.
FRIDAY, OCT. 29 I
Between 8 p.m. on Oct. 28 and 7:30 a.m., a bike was stolen from Kimball Hall. I Between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 a.m., a petty theft occurred at Wilbur Hall.
SATURDAY, OCT. 30 I
Between 6 p.m. on Jul. 9 and 2:23 p.m., several annoying phone calls were made to the Law School. I At 7:17 p.m., a petty theft occurred at the Graduate Community Center.
SUNDAY, OCT. 31 I Between
8 p.m. on Oct. 30 and 11:30 p.m., a grand theft of greater than $950 occurred at Phi Kappa Psi. I Between 12:30 a.m. and 12:55 a.m., a battery on person occurred at Synergy House. I Between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m., a bike was stolen from McMurtry Building.
MONDAY, NOV. 1 I At
2:50 a.m., a bike was stolen from Arrillaga Family Dining Commons.
Doctors, professors and monks from around the world shared ways that contemplative practices, such as behaviors like looking inward and taking pauses in one’s day, could help combat the climate crisis during this year’s Contemplation By Design Summit, which concluded on Tuesday. The organizers designed this year’s summit to highlight the intersection of contemplative practices and sustainability in response to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) most recent climate report. Attendees took away actionable skills for how they can implement contemplative practices in their own lives to combat climate change, including by adjusting their perspective of the planet, reflecting on personal behaviors and reducing
consumerism. According to Tia Rich, the director of Stanford’s Contemplation by Design program and organizer of the summit, the summit’s focus on sustainability differentiated it from the summits of previous years. With the United Nations’ 26th Climate Change Conference (COP26) beginning last Sunday, the summit was designed to highlight the connection between contemplative practices and sustainability, according to Rich. “With this motivation, we created a summit that provides scientific research and enduring contemplative traditions’ insights,” Rich said. She hoped attendees will apply these contemplative practices and knowledge to combat climate change in their own lives. Contemplation By Design, a multidisciplinary Stanford Medicine
program, emphasizes taking pauses in one’s day to look inward, reflect and connect with others and one’s surroundings. Research has proven that these practices enhance wellbeing, improve professional performance and boost happiness, according to the program’s website. Speakers taught the practices across 35 sessions from Oct. 25 to Tuesday. The sessions were held mostly over Zoom, with the exception of a few in-person yoga and meditation sessions. Some of the sessions were led by Stanford faculty members, including art history professor Alexander Nemerov and environmental science professor Gretchen Daily. Other session leaders included psychologist Tara Brach, astronaut Steve Smith and Christine Wamsler,
Please see SUMMIT, page 3
Friday, November 5, 2021 N 3
The Stanford Daily ACADEMICS
Students praise in-person midterms By CASSIDY DALVA Amid the height of midterm season, many students said they appreciate the in-person test-taking environment and find it easier to concentrate and maintain motivation in comparison to last year’s virtual format. These in-person midterms come after over a year of online examinations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, during which many students completed assignments from their homes. While away from campus, students faced unique difficulties and distractions, ranging from unreliable internet access to a dearth of quiet spaces to work. For most students, these midterms are the first in-person exams they have taken since winter quarter of the 2019-2020 school year. Despite the challenges posed by the transition back to in-person instruction, for many students, the switch back to in-person midterms is a positive change.
FACSEN Continued from page 1 the development of the School of Sustainability, ResX neighborhoods, enhanced undergraduate financial aid, accelerators such as the Stanford Impact Labs and the Innovative Medicines Accelerator, as well as planning for a new Town Center at White Plaza. “I’m so heartened by the way our community is rallying around these priorities — not only our campus community — but also our community of supporters and donors,” TessierLavigne said. “I’m just so energized by the work that we have ahead of us.” The University’s current fundraising campaign is unique because Stanford has not set a public dollar goal as it has in past campaigns. By not announcing a goal, the University hopes that its donors will be able to “focus on what those dollars that we raise actually do at Stanford and
Nora Yang ’24, who lived off campus for the entirety of her freshman year, said that it was difficult for her to concentrate on her tests at home because there were “so many other things to do, especially with a test that is not timed.” Now that she lives on campus and in-person midterms have resumed, she said that “it was sort of nice to be back in that headspace, where you just have one thing to think about, and you have to completely focus.” Before this quarter, Yang had not taken an in-person exam since her senior year of high school. For students who have been on campus before the start of the pandemic, such as Bill Wermuth ’23, returning to a more traditional, in-person setting for exams has been a welcome shift. “I much rather enjoy an in-person setting for midterms,” Wermuth said. “I feel as though I get distracted easily when I’m online.” Most of the online examinations administered during the remote
learning period were open-note, allowing students to refer to outside sources such as their textbooks while taking tests. In contrast, many professors have prohibited students from using their notes while taking in-person exams. For Aayan Patel ’25, this change caused him to shift his approach to studying for exams. “You definitely have to study harder and in more depth rather than knowing surface-level details or where to locate specific information,” Patel said. “It kind of helped train my brain to get back into that mental state, specifically, where you have to recall information.” One of the most significant concerns for students returning to campus this quarter has been the transmission of COVID-19. Many midterms take in place large lecture halls, with hundreds of students gathering in the indoor spaces. Even so, the precautions taken by the University to minimize transmission of COVID-19 — including requiring vaccines, indoor mask-wearing and
what they are going to do to make an impact on the broader world,” Denny said. The $1.67 billion figure, he added, does not include all donations to date — only those gifts earmarked to support Long-Range Vision priorities. Though previous fundraising campaigns have focused on land and facilities, Tessier-Lavigne said the current campaign is focused on providing the “resources needed to sustain and expand the excellence of our schools and units.” Approximately 68% of donations have been allocated to fund school and department priorities, including 17% for the School of Sustainability and 6% for Undergraduate Financial Aid, while only 31% is set aside for initiative priorities. “We believe that it’s important for us to continue investing in our established schools and units but for the new initiatives, most of them are focused on programs and people and much less so on facilities,” TessierLavigne said.
In her report to the Senate, Provost Persis Drell said that the date of compliance for Stanford employees to be vaccinated has been moved from Dec. 8 to Jan. 4. The date to request a medical or religious exemption remains Nov. 12. Since Stanford is a federal contractor, employees and students are required to be vaccinated in compliance with an executive order issued by President Joe Biden in September. “Previously we had a pathway for faculty, staff and postdocs to say that they did not want to disclose or do not want to get vaccinated,” Drell said. “That alternate path is no longer available.” Now, Stanford employees must have an approved medical or religious exemption; otherwise, they are subject to the vaccine requirement. Drell added that the University’s Human Resources division is in the process of contacting employees who have not submitted vaccine documentation. “We’ll be reaching out to individually speak to them about the need to comply with the mandate,” she said.
Vaccine mandate delayed
BOOKER Continued from page 1 the more I’ve tried to give back to it, the greater the deficit seems to be. TSD: What can students do to bridge the inequalities that exist in society, both within Stanford and beyond? CB: As a college student, don’t necessarily ask a middle-aged person to tell you how to be an activist. Every generation seems to be so creative in finding new ways to push change, so go within yourself and ask yourself that question. In many ways, if you want to make change, you have to be the change agent through your imagination and through your ability to envision a different future. TSD: What advice would you give to current students on maximizing their experience at Stanford? CB: Get out of your comfort
MEDIA Continued from page 1 highlight democratic participation and civic engagement within the Stanford community. Tuesday’s conversation, entitled “Is Democracy in Danger?,” was moderated by Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies director Michael McFaul. The event featured panelists across a variety of fields, including political science assistant professor Hakeem Jefferson, computer science professor Mehran Sahami ’92 M.S. ’93 Ph.D. ’99, communication lecturer Janine Zacharia and Lorry I. Lokey Visiting Professor in Professional Journalism Cheryl Philips. According to Sahami, people currently live in information bubbles curated for them by online media, and technology creates alternate facts that polarize the world. He mentioned a social network simulation that he showed to students in class that consisted of slightly right-leaning and leftleaning users. If the click-through rate of news articles is low, people just share content and the network stays connected. But when the network attempts to maximize clicking rate — as is the case for many modern social media sites — the network breaks down and there is no cross-sharing of content between user groups. “If we don’t have a shared reality, it becomes really hard to govern,” Sahami said.
WILLIAM MENG/The Stanford Daily
For most students, fall midterms were the first in-person exams they have taken since winter quarter of the 2019-20 school year. regular COVID-19 testing — have convinced some students that inperson test-taking is safe. Wermuth, for example, said that Stanford’s precautions to eradicate COVID-19 from campus have been very effective, referencing the University’s weekly student case counts. He added that COVID-19 precautions enforced in his classes help keep students safe. Students sit more than three seats away from other students in his classes, especially during midterms, and everyone wears a mask, according to Wer-
muth. Still, there are some classes that are not quite as COVID-19 conscious, due to class size. In some classes, students have to sit side-byside due to limited classroom space. Looking ahead, students expressed interest and support in catalyzing a return to an in-person academic and test-taking environment for all classes on Stanford’s campus. “I want to get back to the feeling of normalcy here at Stanford as quickly and comfortably as possible,” Wermuth said.
Drell said that she could not provide the number of Stanford employees who have not been vaccinated, but said that some peer institutions have faced some resistance with regard to staff vaccination mandates.
to a staff committee for review, and four were referred to a faculty committee responsible for evaluating complex and high risk cases. The committee decided against the recommendation of only one engagement — the Huawei funding. “There was one matter where we made the recommendation that engagement should not proceed,” said GERP Director Jessa Albertson. “And that matter was an extraordinary matter involving a company that is subject to longstanding and widely shared concerns, leading us to believe that the risk associated with that engagement was not manageable for the University.” The program’s next steps aim to expand awareness of the GERP as a resource to support foreign engagements while simultaneously mitigating risks that protect Stanford faculty and students. They also hope to provide further self assessment tools for identifying risks, and encourage a more open dialogue regarding how to best weigh the benefits of conducting research and the risks associated with it. “We’ve fortunately acquired some expert experience over the last year or so with different matters that come up,” said law professor George Triantis. “But we need further conversation and it would be great to stimulate more of a conversation internally at the University from different perspectives as well as engaging externally in this discussion.”
Foreign research funding scrutinized A presentation on the Global Engagement Review Program, or GERP, reignited discussions in the Faculty Senate over foreign-sponsored research funding. The program was established by the Senate in 2019 and charged with reviewing Stanford’s moratorium on research funding from Chinese telecom conglomerate Huawei. Huawei has faced intense U.S. government scrutiny over the company’s alleged ties to the Chinese government and fears that its equipment could be used to spy on other entities. The University halted funding in 2018 — though its decision generated faculty criticism. After more than a year of review, the University in April opted to keep its moratorium on Huawei funding in place, with plans for the GERP to revisit it annually, in addition to other research proposals and referrals that present potentially high-risk international security issues. Within the last year, the committee received 94 referrals of suspicious engagements, the majority of which were approved at the director-level. Only eight of the cases were elevated
MALALA Continued from page 1
ILA MATHUR/The Stanford Daily
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker ’91 M.A. ’92 disccussed the realities of being a person of color and ways to reframe the societal mindset regarding race at a panel hosted by the Stanford Center for Racial Justice. zone as much as possible — your comfort zone in the circles you hang out, your comfort zone in the classes you take, your comfort zone in your extracurricular ac-
tivities, your comfort zone in where you go on vacation. The more you get out of your comfort zone, the more you’re going to grow.
Zacharia said that she also finds this polarization concerning. She asked the students in attendance how many of them have seen a professional journalist in person. After seeing very few hands, she talked about how this detachment makes it “easy to demonize” journalists, especially under former President Trump’s attempt to suppress the media. So what are possible solutions? According to Sahami, the current democratic system is a result of conscious choice, and in order to stop the erosion of democracy, people “just need to find the right mechanisms to make it happen.” Zacharia gave a concrete example for how people can make the correct choice: They can choose what they subscribe to and what they read. For example, students could use the money that they spend on Starbucks or Coupa Cafe to subscribe to a local newspaper and support public media, she said. Philips further emphasized that “democracy happens at the very, very local level.” She added that it is important that citizens pressure their local governments to be more transparent. She said that students can make an impact locally, citing a project that students initiated to help people find free lunch during the pandemic in several counties in California. McFaul offered another perspective, saying that “democratization is not an engineering problem. It’s a political struggle.” According to McFaul, engineering solutions to democracy should be complemented by political actions. Currently, the U.S. is also seeing
an erosion in voting rights, which Jefferson said is rooted in “a concern among a dwindling white majority” that they are losing power. For example, he said that Texas has redistricted to decrease Hispanic representation, and Georgia has refused to distribute water to its voters who often have to wait in lines for hours, which especially disadvantages Black and brown voters. Democracies die in “the slowmoving eroding of rights,” Jefferson said. Philips said that democracy has also eroded in journalism. While it is easy for party-based organizations to obtain data to study voting patterns, small newsrooms often can’t afford to access this data, according to Philips.
SUMMIT Continued from page 2 who helped lead negotiations for the Paris Climate Accords. Buddhist monk Sister True Dedication emphasized the connection between contemplative practices and sustainable living during a session she led on Oct. 27. Even as her monastery sends two monks to COP26, she said she feels that policy change alone will not be adequate to truly solve the climate crisis. “We need [climate] policies but they’re not enough,” True Dedication said. “True sustainability has to be built on insight, because then it really is coming from the heart of each person. It’s not something im-
fighting for their right to safety and education. Oftentimes I’m expected to inspire them, but it’s the other way around — they inspire me,” she said. Yousafzai urged the audience — which primarily consisted of GSB students — to bring a change to their communities and countries. She added that their mere presence at a school like Stanford was inspiring for children from different backgrounds, because “when a child sees somebody in their dress, who looks like them, they can imagine themselves in that person’s role.” Though Yousafzai once said that she was interested in going into politics, she has come to realize that politics is not necessary to bring about change. For now, she plans to continue her activism on the issue of girls’ education, she said. Yousafzai also has strong hopes that the social norms and stigmas attached to Pakistan may change. The schools she started through her organization are now receiving far more applications than they have spots — a sign of positive change. While educational opportunities are growing for young girls, there are many differences between schools in Pakistan and Western countries, according to Yousafzai. Subjects such as textiles and cookposed from the outside.” Contemplative practices can have impacts extending beyond sustainability, Rich said. She pointed to data from the COVID-19 shelter-inplace order that showed individuals who engaged in contemplative practices were more resilient, less emotionally distressed and more compliant with pandemic mandates in comparison to those who did not engage in the practices. Individuals who incorporated contemplative practices into their daily routines protected their mental health while more positively contributing to the collective well-being of the community, Rich said. According to Rich, this is evidence that contemplative practices have “untapped potential for promoting personal and planetary wellness.” Summit attendee Carlino Cuono
Photo courtesy of Saul Bromberger
Yousafzai urged the audience to recognize the power of its voice at an event hosted by the Graduate School of Business. ing that were offered in her British schools were not prioritized back home in Pakistan, a difference which she said challenged her notions of what education really meant. But she also cautioned against the idea of idealizing Western traditions and norms, citing the response to the pandemic as evidence of the West’s shortcomings. Yousafzai responded to criticism that she does not comment on more social issues by reminding her audience that she is just one person and wants to keep her advocacy focused on girls’ education and issues that she has been involved in. She added that her ultimate goal is to be surrounded by activists whose voices are heard by world leaders. “Let’s listen to these activists,” she said. “They have something to say to you, and you have been ignoring their voices. Hear from them, and they will tell you what the issues are in this country for girls and women.” ’22 said he believes that the more individuals in power think holistically and contemplatively about nature and the planet, the better off the earth will be. For Cuono, exposure to Contemplation By Design as a freshman was a life-changing experience. It “opened this whole world of a different way of approaching life,” Cuono said. “A more gentle, understanding, compassionate way of approaching things.” By engaging in contemplative practices, students can address climate anxiety while making lifestyle changes to mitigate the effects of climate change, Cuono said. “I think Stanford generally kind of misses out on the softer side of things, and this is a cool way to start thinking that way and get some exposure to those ideas still at Stanford,” he said.
4 N Friday, November 5, 2021
The Stanford Daily
OPINIONS The Stanford Daily
Abeer Dahiya Established 1892
SIPEC legitimizes anti-democratic speaker
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arlier this week, the Stanford India Policy and Economics Club (SIPEC), a VSO founded last academic year, announced a Zoom event with Manohar Lal Khattar, the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Chief Minister (the Indian equivalent of a US governor) of the northern state of Haryana. The event, titled “Haryana: Powering India’s Growth Story’” is set to take place this weekend, in collaboration with groups at Princeton and Berkeley. While Khattar is not a well-known figure internationally, domestically, his administration is widely seen as inept, and he himself has been associated with inflammatory rhetoric against women and minorities. Let’s start with economics, since the event aims to promote the purported miracle that is Khattar’s Haryana. In fact, his administration has presided over some of the worst economic depressions in the history of the state. Before his election in 2014, Haryana was hailed as a bright spot in India’s flagging economy. Under Khattar’s leadership, Haryana has attained the unenviable distinction of the highest unemployment rate in the country, with an estimated 35.7% of people unemployed as of August as per the CMIE, an independent think-tank. But Khattar has disputed those numbers, citing government figures that are a fraction of that percentage. Under the Modi regime, India’s national economic statistics have come under fire by independent observers and experts for being prone to distortion or outright fabrication. To have Khattar speak on economic growth is akin to having Lil Nas X lecture us on defense policy. In any case, rising unemployment figures are not Khattar’s only concern. Haryana is a traditionally agricultural state, making it one of the epicenters of the farmers’ protest movement in response to the deregulation of public markets for crops. Those laws were similarly passed by the far-right Hindu majoritarian Modi regime without much debate in Parliament. Among other things, the new farm laws would strip the right to legal recourse from affected farmers suing against public agents or private corporations.
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The laws have drawn fierce and sustained opposition from India’s millions of small farmers (65% are ‘marginal farmers’ that own less than one acre, and the average holding is around 3 acres) who would be most heavily affected by the entry of large corporates that could exercise control over markets that their livelihoods depend on. Protesters have received support from international rights organizations, 87 farmers’ unions in the United States and even Rihanna, while they have been vilified by India’s media as “traitors” and “terrorist sympathisers”. Khattar’s government has arrested and imprisoned thousands, doused peaceful protestors with freezing water cannons, and led police brutality on an unprecedented scale, resulting in dozens killed. On Oct. 3, he exhorted his supporters to “treat” protesting farmers with violence. His words have had an impact: on Thursday, three women were killed by a hit-and-run at a protest site. A minister in his Cabinet has publicly stated that farmers killed while protesting would have “died anyway”. Furthermore, Khattar has publicly stated that men from his state should “bring back Kashmiri women” in a despicable reference to the stripping of Indian-administered Kashmir’s constitutional autonomy clause. His comments echo the rising rhetoric of ethnic cleansing that is popular among his brand of Hindu nationalist politicians, many of which hold high office in India today. Haryana has one of the worst gender ratios of any subdivision in the world, with just 911 female births per 1000 male births. In recent years, women’s safety has deteriorated in the state, with four rapes being reported daily and an increase of 68.9% in cases involving minors as per the National Crime Records Bureau. Confronted with this issue, Khattar has blamed victims for wearing revealing attire, and has claimed that the “biggest concern” is not the abject failure of police and legal authorities in his state to protect women, but that many cases are false reports, comments that are antithetical to the oath that defines his office, and bring shame to his state- my state. To me, Haryana stands as an achievement of the Indian experiment in liberal democracy- a multilingual society carved out of refugees from a bloody Partition (of which Khattar traces his ancestry to) and native citizenry, as well as a champion of industrial agriculture and market liberalization. Despite a deeply patriarchal society, Haryana has produced
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ix months ago, the University’s Faculty Senate formally recognized the Tuesday following the first Monday of November — the date of American federal and (often) state elections — as an academic holiday. This year on Tuesday, Nov. 2, classes, sections and labs are canceled, and instructors are encouraged to refrain from assigning homework or assessments. In place of academic commitments, we invite you to celebrate Stanford’s inaugural Democracy Day. This fall, on the first Democracy Day ever, a dedicated group of students and staff — including the President’s Office, the Haas Center for Public Service and people across campus — have put together a slate of fun, engaging programming intended to promote democratic engagement, citizenship and community-building. Stanford affiliates will have the opportunity to hear from faculty about the dangers facing democracy, participate in intimate dinner discussions, take part in a deliberative poll and more. The events incorporate a wide range of perspectives, and we believe everyone will find something with which they resonate on Democracy Day. Indeed, that’s the goal: research has shown that voting and engagement are habit-forming. Universities have an obligation to foster the civic education of those under their care, and we foster that civic engagement best by connecting
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remarkable female talent, including astronaut Kalpana Chawla, foreign affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and a plurality of Indian female Olympic medalists. Khattar is an anathema to that narrative of progress. To have Khattar speak under the banner of this University now is a part of a trend of members of India’s ruling party attempting to regain some of their lost international credibility. We must not let that happen. A past event organized by SIPEC involving Union Cabinet Minister Piyush Goyal did not permit unmoderated questions, and neither will the one featuring Khattar. If a representative of a foreign government- let alone one that is single-handedly associated with the collapse of democratic institutions in India- comes to Stanford, they must expect and be prepared to meet the dissent they have tried so egregiously to suppress at home. Stanford cannot, and will not, become a bully pulpit for wouldbe authoritarians. Twenty-one months ago, in January 2020, students at this University and hundreds of other institutions around the world demonstrated in solidarity with thousands of students in India against the enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019
Democracy Day is a good start democratic values to folks’ everyday lives and interests. In future years, we envision a Democracy Day that brings the entire Stanford community together and forms the foundation of new campus traditions and experiences. The program will serve as the focal point of a university-wide commitment to public service and good citizenship, a day entirely devoted to the betterment of the society we inhabit. We are excited to build off the successes and failures of this year, to iterate, improve and make Democracy Day the best it can be. But it’s not enough to care about these issues for one day, even a day as important as this one. Now more than ever, democracy around the world needs global citizens who are kind and invested, thoughtful and involved. The last year has proven that society is more fragile than it appears. The crises facing humanity will not be untangled in these 24 hours, and progress — lasting progress — will take the efforts of a lot of driven people working really hard to make things better. It is our responsibility, individually and collectively, to be part of the solution. So, this Democracy Day, we hope every member of the Stanford community finds something enjoyable and valuable in the program, whether you’re a student, staff member, instructor, administrator or alum. We hope you have thoughtful conversations, meet new friends and find joy in the celebration of democracy. We hope you come away from Democracy Day invigorated, excited and ready to live out good citizenship
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A N I N D E P E N D E N T N E W S PA P E R
“Democracy around the world needs global citizens who are kind and invested.” in whatever it is you do at Stanford. But we also hope that the spirit of Democracy Day continues on long after the program ends. We hope the lessons learned, the relationships formed, and perspectives changed on Nov. 2 this year stay with you through your time at Stanford and beyond. More than anything, we hope this inaugural Democracy Day can usher in a new age of civic engagement at this place we love so much, holding us to our highest ideals and reminding us of the promise of universities like ours. Our Founding Grant says that Stanford’s purpose is to “promote the public welfare ... inculcating love and reverence for the great principles of government.” From the very beginning, the members of the Stanford community have been called, above all, to be good citizens. On our best days, that is who we are. This Democracy Day and every day, that is who we should aspire to be.
(CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) by the Modi regime. Taken together, both would have effectively introduced a religious test for citizenship in a constitutionally secular democracy, under the guise of opening citizenship to refugees fleeing religious persecution. Nearly two years after domestic and international outcry over the laws, they are yet to be completely rolled out in many parts of the country, effectively abandoned by the ruling BJP as a policy priority. It is worth remembering that Khattar has spent his political career as part of that same machine. Our experience as protestors then taught us a significant lesson: that the Modi government was ultimately sensitive to foreign criticism, criticism that it is unable to monitor or effectively control. Unlike in India, where journalists and academics are regularly arrested on flimsy charges and detained for years without trial, we at Stanford enjoy the enormous luxury of the First Amendment, as well as our University’s name: both powerful weapons in inspiring progressive change around the world. We carry with that great power a great responsibility to the societies we inhabit. The Fundamental Standard that
governs student behaviour at this University since 1896 states that students at Stanford are “expected to show both within and without the University such respect for order, morality, personal honor and the rights of others as is demanded of good citizens.” I have yet to understand how an organization of Stanford students such as SIPEC can reconcile those foundational values with the invitation of a figure as repugnant as Khattar to address our campus community. As a Haryanvi, I am enraged that the misamanager-in-chief of my state is given ill-deserved validation. As an Indian, I am ashamed that voices like those of Prof. Anand Teltumbde or Sudha Bharadwaj, which have spent their careers fighting for democracy and justice are silenced while those entirely unworthy of a platform are given several. And as a Stanford student, I am devastated that my University could be co-opted by the very movement I’ve dedicated myself to fighting in its unrelenting drive to rob my homeland of its democratic institutions. The irony is stark: Stanford is set to celebrate its first-ever Democracy Day on Tuesday, two days after it hosts a denier of it to millions.
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in an email to The Daily. “The university will continue to monitor CDC, state and county guidance and adjust health and safety protocols as conditions evolve and provide updates to the university community.” Over the past 61 weeks, Stanford has conducted more than 443,000 student and 251,000 faculty, staff and post-doctoral scholar tests through the University’s surveillance testing program. In total, 357 students and 284 faculty, staff and postdocs have tested positive, according to the dashboard. The University continues to enforce weekly COVID-19 testing and indoor masking requirements, regardless of vaccination status, as they monitor COVID-19 variants. The University also maintains that vaccination, testing and masking can protect against serious illness, according to the dashboard.
Continued from page 1 another increase in COVID-19 cases from the four student and six faculty, staff and postdoc cases reported in last week’s dashboard. The University’s seven-day positivity rate also rose from 0.03% last week to 0.05% this week. Stanford’s seven-day positivity rate continues to remain lower than Santa Clara County’s 1.2% positivity rate and California’s 2.4% rate. Currently, Santa Clara County has a seven-day rolling average of 147 new cases per week. “The members of our university community have been diligent in working to protect one another and minimize the prevalence and spread of COVID-19,” wrote University spokesperson EJ Miranda
CORRUPT Continued from page 1 Biden administration’s continued endorsement of fossil fuel projects is antithetical to America’s climate change approach. “We have no moral authority in the world if we aren’t an example of our actions, as well as the speeches,” he said. Merkley emphasized the necessity of active civic engagement to counter the rising threats to democracy. He offered students advice on engaging with current issues, reflecting on his experiences at Stanford as well as the jobs he had after graduating. The key to being engaged is
being open to shifting plans as opportunities arise, he said. Though he came to Stanford with skills in math and science, Merkley used his time at Stanford to explore classes in philosophy, religious studies, history, economics and political science to help him better understand the world. In his early career, he had diverse positions including studying poverty issues as a graduate student, working on decreasing the threat of nuclear warfare, serving as the executive director for Portland Habitat for Humanity and leading the fight for LGBTQ+ equality at the beginning of his career as a senator. “Anything you throw yourself into is better than being on the sidelines,” Merkley said. “So don’t be on the sidelines.”
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CULTURE READS
Alum’s dating memoir A social scientist works to find love By MALIA MENDEZ MANAGING EDITOR
“I
t started in 2008 in the fall, right around now,” Carolyn Lee Arnold M.S. ’85 Ph.D. ’88 said of her twoand-a-half-year dating experiment that became the subject of her first memoir “Fifty First Dates After Fifty,” released to the public on Tuesday. After breaking things off with an exboyfriend who couldn’t seriously commit, Arnold set out to find her long-term partner precisely how a seasoned statistician would: by transforming dating into an experiment. She resolved to go on fifty first dates, refining her own ideas about what she wanted in a partner along the way, in order to find the “perfect one.” “It was natural for me to make it a research project,” Arnold said. When she began her project, Arnold had already been working as a social science researcher for fifteen years. She knew from her professional experience that samples of only fifty were needed for statistically significant results, and thus she decided fifty dates would be sufficient for her purposes. Though Arnold’s idea for the experiment came to her quite suddenly, it took her much longer to realize she had the makings of a
memoir. “Originally, I just thought I had a lot of great stories,” Arnold said. “But when I was sharing my experiences with my friends, they said, ‘these are great stories — write them down!’” Purely for her own self-care, Arnold kept a journal cataloguing her thoughts and feelings throughout her dating research project, and in the two years after concluding it, she made additional notes about all 50 dates. “I’m so grateful they jogged my memory,” Arnold said. She then spent her weekends and summers from 2011 to 2018 turning these notes into a manuscript. In order to refine her creative writing skills and create enough structured time to execute the project, Arnold started attending memoir workshops. “It wasn’t until I started taking memoir classes that I realized how to write a good story,” Arnold said. The workshop-style feedback loop gave her a better understanding of what readers might want from her book, and her teachers equipped her with tools for organizing the book’s central themes. One course that Arnold said was particularly pivotal in her project was Julia Scheeres’ 2011 memoir-writing workshop at The Writer’s Grotto in San Francisco. Scheeres, a journalist and author of the New York Times Bestseller “Jesus Land,” said that she was pleasantly intrigued by the fun premise of the dating memoir. “I teach a lot of memoir students, and most of them are coming to the classes with really sad, tragic stories,” Scheeres said. “It was refreshing to have this fun, quirky, life-af-
Graphic: MEGAN KING/The Stanford Daily
"Fifty First Dates After Fifty," released to the public on Tuesday, is a quirky memoir cataloguing Stanford alumna Carolyn Lee Arnold's two-and-a-halfyear dating research project to find a long-term partner. firming story, and especially one about an older woman who is very sexual and very assertive.” Arnold’s memoir is unapologetically genuine, manifesting its authenticity most prominently in its comfort around the subject of sex. According to Scheeres, workshop participants were at times taken aback by this element of Arnold’s writing, so Scheeres grew accustomed to prefacing her work. “She’s always been this very liberated woman, but most people don’t think like Carolyn does,” Scheeres said. Nonetheless, Arnold’s authentic storytelling reflects “the beauty of these types of memoirs: they are glimpses into other worlds and to other ways of being.” Arnold’s dedication to authenticity also explains her affinity for memoir as a medium.
Awkward sexual encounters and sob episodes over her ex-boyfriend are sprinkled throughout the book, making Arnold a relatable character. “I wanted it to be very real. I feel a passion, since I’m an early sex educator and a feminist, to represent women’s lives as they actually are,” Arnold said. In the same way her participation in memoir workshops influenced Arnold’s writing process, Arnold said her involvement with the Human Awareness Institute (HAI) shaped her dating experiment. HAI is a global nonprofit that produces research about and hosts workshops on love, intimacy and sexuality. HAI Marketing Director Kate Snow said that the organization
Please see MEMOIR, page 8
READS
MUSIC
Sedaris shows his privilege
Student artist plays slacker pop
By JARED KLEGAR STAFF WRITER
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avid Sedaris apparently doesn’t feel the need to introduce himself. If, on a drizzly Monday night, you’ve made the trek to San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House and proffered your $100 ticket to hear him read from a book you’ve probably already read, he’s assuming you know who he is. Instead, to kick off BroadwaySF’s “An Evening with David Sedaris,” he walked onstage in an outfit that was half-sport coat, half-French maid dress (with some motel curtains layered in to boot) and said, “I know you’re thinking, ‘Oh my God, he looks ... amazing.’” The packed crowd roared in laughter. Of course, this all happened a fashionable 15 minutes after the show’s slated start time. Perhaps the delay was to accommodate the stragglers fishing through their handbags for vaccine cards; perhaps it was simply to ratchet up the suspense. In any case, the holdup allowed me ample time to eavesdrop on neighboring audience members. To my right, a pair of friends was discussing their love of horseback riding; to my left, a couple recounted their great pandemic travels. In the row in front of me, a man of a certain age was scrolling through Instagram. His feed was populated entirely by gray-haired heterosexual couples posing in formal attire — senior prom photos, one might call them. For each picture, he’d zoom in, examining the bowties, the dresses. Then, always choosing not to like the photo, he’d scroll to the next image. All that to say: This was Sedaris’ key demographic — white, affluent, middleaged, vaccinated — and, during the reading, they seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely. Sedaris’ writing draws you in. The recurring characters of his essays — Hugh, Amy, Lisa — are mononymous; like Sedaris, they need no introduction because, through the intimacy of Sedaris’ storytelling, you are rendered his confidant. And, needless to say, as Sedaris’ confidant, you should know that Hugh is his partner, and Amy and Lisa his sisters. If you’re not familiar with Sedaris’ biography or oeuvre, “An Evening with David Sedaris” is a bit like jumping into a TV show five seasons in — the plot points work and the jokes land, but there’s a feeling that everything would be more impactful if you’d tracked it all from the beginning. Still, it’s hard not to be swept up in his acerbic wit, which he applies even to
Please see SEDARIS, page 7
Graphic: JESSICA LEE/The Stanford Daily
The South Korean show makes viewers interrogate their animal survival instinct in the modern world. It has solidly established itself among today's most iconic dystopian stories through its impressive lighting and sound design.
By EMMA K WANG By ERIC ZHU
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
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n track to becoming Netflix’s biggest show ever, “Squid Game” leaves viewers unsettled but locked in, immersed in its eerie premise. Written by South Korean director Hwang Dong-hyuk, the recent release’s overnight virality follows the increasing popularity of South Korean films in America, most notably demonstrated by
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“Parasite” (2019) and “Train to Busan” (2016) The show’s unprecedented success likely boils down to its refreshing spin on the dystopian genre and its topical storyline, which has created a psychological thriller that plays on the real horrors of capitalist society. Seong Gi-Hun, the main character of “Squid Game,” is a deadbeat, divorced gambler who is in debt to loan sharks and leeches money off his mother to get by. At the height of his desperation, he is approached by a man at the subway station who offers him the chance to join a game to win money — a lot of it. Eventually, he agrees and finds himself on an isolated island with 455 other participants, each in desperate need of money. The reality of
Please see NETFLIX, page 8
Please see SINGER, page 7
Epic ‘Squid Game’ thrills CONTRIBUTING WRITER
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
hen not studying aeronautics and astronautics, Aditeya Shukla ’22 is busy making music. His work has been featured in “The Rolling Stone India,” “The Indian Music Diary” and “The Talented Indian.” A month after being featured, Shukla was performing songs from his newly released EP, “Just Wait, Sunshine,” at The Stanford Daily’s “Off the Record” concert series. In September, he released his latest single, “Purple Heart.” Originally from New Delhi, Shukla describes his music as a combination of “slacker pop” and “sunshine pop.” He attributes his love for music to his family, saying that his parents always had The Beatles or Simon & Garfunkel playing. Music was a family affair — his parents were always supportive of his musical endeavors, and his grandmother had a degree in music. Shukla’s venture into the space started at just 6 years old, when he heard his older sister play the piano and wanted to mimic her. “I’m really, really blessed that in my family, music was such an important thing,” Shukla said. After starting piano lessons, Shukla set what he calls a “naive goal” to “learn all the instruments possible,” adding the classical guitar next. Although he fell in love with the instruments themselves, he didn’t appreciate having to practice the same songs over and over, and
SCREEN
The Netflix hit tackles the evils of capitalism
By PANN SRIPITAK
THE GRIND
A day at Elizabeth Holmes’ Trial By ANNIE RELLER Peeking over her shoulder, I watch as a scene sprouts from the colored pencils she brought in a leather roll. The sketch artist uses a circle stencil to compose the United States seal, black staccato strokes for the judge’s peppery hair and olive green for Elizabeth Holmes’s mask. She perfectly captures what the San Jose courtroom looks like on Tuesday, Oct. 26 at 8:30 a.m. Facing allegations of knowingly misleading doctors, patients and investors about her company’s blood testing, defendant Elizabeth Holmes is pleading not guilty on a dozen federal fraud charges and is facing up to 20 years in prison. Theranos, the biotechnology company Holmes started after dropping out of Stanford, claimed to be able to perform accurate
blood tests from a single pinprick of blood rather than the standard tubes required. The company was once valued at $9 billion, making Holmes the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire. But the whole thing was a fraud. The technology didn’t work. I learned this story from a 2019 ABC News podcast called “The Dropout,” which chronicles Holmes’s story. In the blur of the pandemic, her case faded from my mind until, after multiple delays, the trial began on Aug. 31 in San Jose. As a sophomore at Stanford, I had to take advantage of the opportunity to see, in person, a portion of the trial happening only 30 minutes away. I texted my most willing adventure buddy, Piper Holland ’25, and we set our alarms for a 6:15 a.m. departure to San Jose. On a chilly October morning, we wear borrowed blazers, our business heels clicking up
the stone steps. By 7:00 a.m., there are a handful of older people gathering outside the courtroom. I talk to the other people in line, including Jessie Deeter, who produced HBO’s documentary on Holmes, and Sara O’Brien, who is covering the trial for CNN. O’Brien tells me that this is the first trial she has covered, having formally been acquainted with the Theranos story while covering technology. The crowd is made up of young reporters and older couples, apparently with time on their hands and a passion for white-collar crimes. We line up to go through the airport-esque security checkpoint, after which we are handed our paper tickets and directed to the elevator. Jurors adorned with blue lanyards are whisked to the front of the line. Then, we elevator up-
Please see TRIAL, page 8
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HUMOR
McConnell stuck in plastic Hesitantly joins Climate Coalition By BRANDON RUPP CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Graphic: TUAN ANH NGUYEN/The Stanford Daily
During Pilipinx History Month, The Daily celebrated by asking Pilipinx students on campus to reflect on their experiences at Stanford and what their identity means to them.
THE GRIND
Pilipinx History Month reflections By LORENZO DEL ROSARIO Pilipinx American History Month, which is celebrated in October, celebrates the culture, history and legacy of Pilipinxs in the United States. Pilipinxs constitute the third-largest Asian American group nationwide and are the largest Asian origin group in nine states. As a Pilipinx American myself, I take pride in my ethnicity and community, both on campus and at large. Looking back on Pilipinx American History Month, I’d like to take a moment and reflect on the question, “What does it mean to be a Pilipinx American student at Stanford?” To gain more insight toward the answer, I interviewed four members of the Pilipinx American community about their thoughts on how their identity has affected the way they experience and perceive Stanford as an institution. Pilipinx American representation at Stanford In the interviews, Pilipinx members of the community reflected on Pilipinx representation at Stanford. Representation, however, meant something different to each of the participants — it could be the percentage of Pilipinx undergraduate students, or the number of teaching faculty who are Pilipinx. In addition to talking about what representation means to them, participants noted whether they feel that Pilipinx Americans are a “well-represented” group at Stanford. Co-chair of Kayumanggi and second-year Filipino language student Jonathan Laxamana ’24 believes that the University falls short in its transparency about Pilipinx admits. “Stanford prides itself on diversity, right? And they pride themselves on admitting as many students of color from marginalized communities as possible,” he said. “But they sort of fail to disaggregate the data in a way that makes sure every single sector of the Asian American community is represented.” Co-chair of the Pilipinx American Student Union (PASU) Gabriela Mendoza ’22 said that she feels campus workers deserve more of a voice in interactions with the administration. According to Mendoza, it is often easier for undergraduates to
express their complaints with the University through the Asian American Activities Center (A3C), but it may be more difficult for other groups to get their concerns addressed. “The A3C does a good job of providing us a platform in terms of what to publish out to the world,” Mendoza said. “But it’s more of the workers on campus that would not have access to the resources that we have. It’s hard for them to voice the problems that they have with the school.” Of course, representation can take on forms beyond numbers and percentages of students, faculty and workers. What’s taught in classes should also be taken into consideration when thinking about how certain groups are represented. Another frustration expressed among several interviewees was the lack of Pilipinx history and culture being taught in Stanford courses. Co-chair of Kayumanggi — the artistic arm of PASU — and prospective International Relations major Kevi Johnson ’24 feel that Pilipinx and Pilipinx American topics should be more widely covered in the curriculum at Stanford. “I feel that Southeast Asian studies in general, as a topic of study at Stanford, is not much of a possibility,” Johnson said. “It is a shame, because I would be so eager to incorporate Southeast Asian studies into my academic education.” When talking about the lack of Pilipinx culture and history being taught in courses, Robert Castaneros ’24, the co-chair of Kababayan — a committee focused on education about Pilipinx issues — expressed discontent with Stanford’s Asian American studies curriculum relative to other schools in California. “I think that, compared with a lot of California schools like UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC Davis — those are schools that have Filipino American studies,” Castaneros said. “Whereas Stanford doesn’t even have a strong Asian American studies department.” As part of an effort to increase the Pilipinx studies curriculum at Stanford, Laxamana and Castaneros are co-teaching an Alternative Spring Break class about Pilip-
Please see PILIPINX, page 8
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. It seems as if a recent, tragic series of events has fundamentally shifted former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s view on the pressing issue of climate change. In a televised speech this weekend where the senator slowly chewed spinach, McConnell announced an unlikely collaboration between himself and the co-sponsors of the Green New Deal, Representative Alexandria OcasioCortez and Senator Ed Markey. In his emotional plea to the country, he explains his sudden change of heart, indicating that a recent accident at a Kentucky beach sparked the change. According to McConnell, after laying eggs on the shore, he was attempting to swim through the water to investigate a pile of trash when he got his head stuck inside of a plastic 6-pack Coca-Cola ring. After a grueling, eight-hour medical procedure, where McConnell was declared medically dead four times, doctors at the University of Kentucky Albert B. Chandler Hospital were able to remove the ring, leaving him with even more gruesome facial defor-
Edit: BRANDON RUPP/The Stanford Daily
Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell shortly after the incident... in a suit for some reason. This is only one week after getting a plastic straw stuck in his nose. mities. “He seems to really have come out of his shell as a result of this tragedy,” said Washington analyst Nadia Reelpersun, “and he’s right when he says that we really need to look out for our defenseless, simple-minded underwater friends.” For further evidence of his robust character development, just take a look at his latest press release regarding a scheduled event with the Stanford College Republicans, which says that “the Senator
seeks to make the argument that maybe emitting cancer air into the atmosphere 24/7 is a ... bad idea(?).” This seems to be a significant year for the senator from Kentucky, who was also recently tapped to play Squirtle in the liveaction remake of the first Pokemon film. Hopefully, this turn of the tide means McConnell can go from TIME Magazine’s “Most Hated Man in America” to simply TIME Magazine’s “Man in America”.
HUMOR
R&DE launch ‘No Heat November’ Who needs divestment? 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. Stanford has been getting a lot of flak recently for failing to completely divest its endowment from fossil fuels as its peer institutions like Harvard and Dartmouth pledge to do so. I’m here to report that fortunately, Stanford has taken other measures to balance out the university’s carbon footprint. Those criticizing the Board of Trustees for its decisions should first consider R&DE’s initiative “No-Heat November” (NHN), which encourages students to think critically about their energy use. Stanford promotes this experiential learning model to help us integrate climate awareness into our everyday lives. Instead of turning on the heat as the winter months approach and it gets cold, what if we simply ... did not? No-Heat November will challenge students to realize the small but meaningful impact they can have in the fight against cli-
mate change. The Board urges us to believe that we can save the planet, one cold college student at a time. The new NHN program aims to prove that through embracing some minor discomfort, we can make easy choices in our lives that will pitch in to help counteract the Board’s investment in fossil fuels. As a Stanford community, it is our collective responsibility to reach carbon neutrality. Next time you think about critiquing the Board’s climate agenda, remember that there are steps you can take yourself to create change.
Graphic: SOSI DAY/The Stanford Daily
HUMOR
Piazza to add ‘unhelpful’ button for hairbrained suggestions By BEN MIDLER 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. In a recent star-studded promotional video, Piazza, the purported virtual classroom message board that’s actually a front for selling student information to recruiters, announced that it would be adding an “Unhelpful” button to its website for those especially hairbrained suggestions. “We conducted a thorough investigation of the posts made on Piazza and concluded that most of them were actually useless,” said Piazza spokesperson Samuel Doldrum. “So, in order to better allow our products — I mean student
customers — to indicate their dissatisfaction, we added this new button.” In a recent survey of Stanford students, most were supportive of the addition. “As a raving narcissist,” said freshman and self-described computer science co-term Jessica Sizzlebaum III, “I really value every outlet to remind other students that there is nothing they have to say that I don’t already know.” Faculty, on the other hand, were more equivocal about the change. “As a high-voltage declasse worrywart, giving students the ability to indicate when my answers are unhelpful may expose my inability to actually teach the class,” said anthropology professor Morose Mooney. Upon conveying those concerns to Doldrum with a request for comment, he replied via email that such feedback was unhelpful.
Edit: BEN MIDLER/The Stanford Daily
A typical post on your CS class’ Piazza forum. You tell me: Helpful, or not so much?
Friday, November 5, 2021 N 7
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HUMOR
The police are here By DEFNE GENC 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. After an enthusiastic return to semi-normalcy, many Stanford students have turned to campus fraternities to get their share of themed-party fun. Frats have made their debut following the restricted period by exploring a variety of themes for their parties, but one seems to prevail above all others. See, we’re not exactly sure who came up with it first, but “the police are coming”-themed parties have gained a real edge over the past few weekends. It’s astonishing how good these guys are at giving us the adrenaline-packed, role-playing experience of seeming as though they’re about to get arrested while ushering
people out of their houses. I’ll admit, they really had me at “EVERYONE OUT, NOW!” — I love a guy who can tell me what to do, and honestly, 10/10 acting on their part. It’s so nice to see that they’re giving it their all to make sure the rest of us have fun — they really gaslight, gatekeep and guyboss their way to social supremacy by making us feel like true rebels going crazy on a Friday night. The violent spectacle of people trying to push through the entrance to one of these parties is really something. Amid all the chaos, I couldn’t help but wonder: Why are SNU’s friendship bracelets so ugly? I was really confused while watching people wave flimsy pieces of paper wrapped around their wrists at the poor guy at the door. It’s really sad that they couldn’t afford any string this time — but hey, I’m all for greater inclusivity through the reduction of dues. It’s so nice to watch the Greek community grow more and more conscientious of the needs of their members and community.
Wikimedia Commons
These flashing lights are definitely the police and not us continuing to party without you. Please leave, the police are already here.
SEDARIS
and that my long-dead mother can peer down from it and spot my brother, my sisters and me indoors, some of us with hats on, out of the eight billion other people on Earth, and without her glasses, because they weren’t with her in the box she was burned to ashes in?” Later, reading a diary entry from October 2021, he probed the town of Uranus, Mo., its famed Fudge Factory included, for all the juvenile jokes he could. The audience, relieved that Sedaris’ cultural capital permitted them to appreciate a series of such decidedly unintellectual puns, went into fits. The moments Sedaris lost me
—but, judging by their reactions, not most of his other patrons — were those in which the extent of his privilege came into unpleasant view. One anecdote saw Sedaris navigate a particularly annoying airport; the story appears as though it will culminate in his flight’s cancellation but actually ends with his boarding a lovely private jet. In another anecdote, also taking place on a plane, Sedaris clumsily attempts to engage with race: He comments on the “unnatural” eyebrows of his Black flight attendant — the one character throughout Sedaris’ entire reading who was racially marked. His ini-
tial observations veer into snideness (“I got the idea that a stencil had been involved”), but just as you think he’s about to unleash the unalloyed force of his signature misanthropic snark, he retreats and merely compliments the woman’s eyebrows. In a recent interview with The New York Times Magazine, Sedaris noted, “If you have a character who’s Black and is not a virtuous character, the audience freaks out, because they think: If I laugh, does that make me a racist? If I don’t like this person, does that make me a racist? It’s something I’ve noticed for years. The audience freaks out,
and it’s by and large a white audience freaking out, and it gets worse with every passing day.” Sedaris knows his audience; last night, they chuckled nervously when he spoke about the flight attendant. And yet, in his literary treatment of the flight attendant, who, it should be noted, plays only a minor role in his narrative, it seems that he himself is unsure how to write about Black people — reluctant, perhaps, to write a Black character who is not entirely “virtuous.” Sedaris ended the night back in a place of comfort — for both him and his audience — with a book recommendation. Virtually unprompted, he sang the praises of “Crossroads” by Jonathan Franzen, an author who could be characterized as the dramatist to Sedaris’ humorist in the field of white literature. The man in front of me pulled out his phone, closed out Instagram and typed “crossroads book” into Safari. He traced his fingers along the Wikipedia summary and nodded. After the show ended, audience members lined up to get their books signed. I heard a woman say that she was getting hers inscribed to her son, an aspiring creative writer. “He’s only 14, but he’s already got an eye for the absurd,” she said. “He’s struggling in math though,” she added somberly. I studied this line — a sea of white faces, each one eager to impress their favorite author with a joke of their own. I considered how much they knew about Sedaris; how little he knew about them; how, through his writing, he had invited them into his life. And, again surveying these readers — their diction, their mannerisms, their homogeneity — I wondered if invitation necessarily engendered disinvitation, and if intimacy and exclusivity went hand-in-hand.
and Boy Pablo. He aims to create fun, exciting songs that keep both the listener and himself entertained from start to finish. “Whenever I’ve tried to make a song, it’s like I don’t want to be bored while I’m making the song, and I don’t want it to be boring
when somebody is listening to the song,” Shukla said. Shukla finds joy in being both a musician and an engineering student, though sometimes he wishes he had more time to spend on music. That’s why the indie artist found a silver lining during the trying times
of the COVID-19 pandemic — Shukla took a gap year during the public health crisis, which gave him more time to spend on his art. Those close to Shukla say that you can hear his passion in his music. Shukla’s music “reminds me of him and all the effort and love he
puts into his work,” said friend Maitri Paul ’22. You can listen to Shukla’s music by visiting his linktr.ee, watching his “Off the Record” performance or going to his Friday concert at The Arbor. Shukla is a music columnist for The Daily.
Continued from page 5 the darkest of moments. Reading from the titular essay of his collection “Happy-Go-Lucky,” which will be released in June 2022, Sedaris recalled his father’s last words to him: “Don’t go yet. Don’t leave.” His last words to his father? “We need to get to the beach before the grocery stores close.” Cutting through the audience’s shocked guffaws over these words, Sedaris continued: “They look cold on paper” — here the audience laughed even louder — “and when he dies, a few weeks later, and I realize they were the last words I said to him, I will think, Maybe I can warm them up onstage when I read this part out loud.” Sarcasm aside, Sedaris’ viva voce delivery — though not exactly warm — does, in fact, bring out the full jocularity of his compositions, which is not always evident in purely written form. Sedaris’ keen eye not only finds humor in grief, but can rejuvenate even the most tired topics. In “The Vacuum,” another essay from his forthcoming book, he writes of the bare grocery store shelves at the outset of the pandemic, “First to vanish was the toilet paper, followed by the most obvious toilet paper substitutes: Kleenex, napkins and paper towels.” Then the kicker: “I remember looking long and hard at the coffee filters.” Sedaris’ selected readings encompassed the broad range of his comedic skill. In the pithy “A Better Place,” he asks, “Can we give the whole ‘looking down from Heaven’ bit a rest? ... Sure about that, are you? Sure that there’s a Heaven ...
SINGER Continued from page 5 would instead start improvising and riffing off. Thankfully, his music teacher encouraged such creativity, which Shukla says prompted his love for writing music and not just playing it. The lyrics of Shukla’s songs range from extremely witty to heartfelt and nuanced. His favorite song lyrics to write were those of his humorous tune, “Zodiacs are Stupid.” “Over the past year, this whole idea of zodiacs blew up, and, me being a cusp, I’ve always thought that this is so dumb,” Shukla said. “So I really, really wanted to write a song about it for the past two years, and finally I had this song that’s about me being really mad about something that’s so not important.” Listeners appreciate the levity in Shukla’s music. Rolling Stone India praised his “cheeky takes,” and Shukla’s friend and former roommate, Cole Maxwell ’22, called his music “joyful and easy to listen to” with a “sense of humor.” Apart from his clever lyrics, Shukla’s music is notable for its blend of “electro-pop music with disco beats of the ’80s, which is quite catchy and melodious,” according to “The Indian Music Diaries.” Shukla says that his music is influenced by The Beatles, St. Motel
JARED KLEGAR/The Stanford Daily
"An Evening with David Sedaris" delights with its iconic dark humor and intimate storytelling. However, Sedaris' comedy alienates those in his audience who are not white and affluent.
Courtesy of Paulo Makalinao
Singer-songwriter Aditeya Shukla '22 describes his music as a combination of “slacker pop” and “sunshine pop.” He performed music from his EP at an Off the Record concert with The Daily this past May and released his latest single, “Purple Heart," in September.
8 N Friday, November 5, 2021
TRIAL Continued from page 5 stairs, wait a bit more and finally shuffle into the wooden pews. The reporters take to the back row of the left side, clacking away at the keyboards on their laptops. A man holding a yellow legal pad, whom I will call Brown Corduroy Jacket, stands up from his seat in front of them. “I’m seeing a lot of keyboards. It’s a risky move. You’re going to get us thrown out,” he spits, as he crosses to a bench on the other side of the room. The millennial-aged reporters make eyes at each other and return to discussing who just got back from New York, and who is going there next. It’s as if they’re coworkers at a water fountain, not overseeing a federal trial that could put a woman behind bars for two decades. All of the characters are here — the bailiff, the attorneys, the martial — and are almost entirely white men. Bleached blonde older women line the row behind the defense, clearly the family. Then we rise for the judge. It unravels like a movie scene. The attorneys present their cases, and their arguments remind me of two little boys bickering to their father. It’s less formal than expected too. When the defense wants to bring a 90-minute video to the jury, the judge comments that it seemed rather dense. “It’s actually quite exciting,” replies the lawyer. “What did you do over the weekend?” quips the judge. “Well ... the Giants ... “ the attorney has no apparent banter left. I wonder if the lawyers actually like
NETFLIX Continued from page 5 their situation is soon revealed: the games they play are simple, but their lives are at stake. In a deadly version of the childhood game “Red Light, Green Light,” players are killed left, right and center as panic ensues. What separates “Squid Game” from similar dystopian, fight-tothe-death game show narratives is that players can end the game at any time with a majority vote. After the first game, the players take a vote, which surprisingly results in a decision to leave. Everyone returns to their lives, free from the nightmarish imprisonment that leaves as fast as it came. But as we follow a few of the contestants, we see that life outside the game is as brutal as it is inside. Most players return to the game, realizing that they would rather risk their lives than live in the real world. As horrifying as it
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the judge or if they have to kiss up to him for approval. I wonder if the defense thinks they have a chance with the case, or if they’re just trying to minimize the damages. The court is office-like and has bright fluorescent lights. One of the middle-aged men who is watching the trial with his apparent spouse turns around with a note on his phone for O’Brien, my CNN reporter friend sitting next to me. “Others have been called out by the judge for keyboard sounds like yours,” it reads. He shakes his head as he turns back around. Her fingers freeze above the keys, thinking, stunned. Then she types again, but softly. Piper leans over and asks me if I think Elizabeth Holmes will be there today. I realize that the blonde female lawyer on the defense side is not a lawyer after all. She sits straight up, in a black blazer, wearing an olive skirt and mask. Her neck swivels, birdlike. The judge warmly greets the jury and makes sure that they didn’t learn anything about the trial over the weekend. He proposes schedule changes, and one of the jurors speaks up. “It’s getting really hard to miss work. The scheduling ... it’s really difficult.” Jurors are paid $50 in the California District Courts. Today, the jurors were at the courthouse from 9 am to 4 pm, coming to $7.14 an hour, almost half of California’s $14 minimum wage. The witness is brought in. Brown hair, in her late 40s, glasses, chic grey jacket. Lisa Peterson is an investor for the DeVos family office and had recommended to the financial board that they invest in Theranos. “Do you see Elizabeth Holmes in this courtroom?,” the lawyer asks. “Yes.” “Where?”
Peterson points a slim finger in Holmes’s direction. Holmes appears unfazed. Her testimony reveals that the family was planning on contributing $50 million, but after an enticing visit to Theranos’s headquarters, they doubled their investment. They were made to feel lucky to be chosen for the opportunity — Holmes wanted to keep Theranos private, with few investors, who would be okay with a delayed payoff. The questions continue for upwards of an hour. Peterson seems slightly annoyed by the repetition of the questions, starting many of her answers with, “like I said ... .” At 11 a.m., the judge pauses the trial for a 30-minute break. In the bathroom, I brush arms with Holmes’s mother. What would it be like, I wonder, to have your daughter, who at one point must have made you so proud, be in her 8th week of a federal trial? Does this woman actually believe her daughter is innocent? Does Elizabeth herself believe she is innocent? At this point, Piper and I have to head back to campus to make it in time for our afternoon classes. We leave excited; there were powerful people in that room. People who wrote stories and people who did things worth writing stories about. I gained a lot from a morning in a courthouse, seeing my country’s justice system unfold in front of me. It humanized Holmes. The idea of her, her ambition, her followthrough, her lack of morals — all too big to comprehend. But seeing her, sitting at that table, with second-day curls and highlights that desperately needed to be redone, reminded me that whomever we make someone out to be, and no matter how big their aura becomes, everyone is still human. Everyone can be taken down.
may seem, the game is not antagonistic, as often portrayed in most works of dystopian literature. Instead, the game is an escape from the real nightmare of everyday life. “Squid Game” also stands out for its creative use of visual and auditory elements to reinforce its messages. During “Red Light, Green Light,” we see the first explicit mention of the two colors that become recurring motifs. The players, all having fallen into debt, wear green tracksuits, while the game workers wear dark pink. These two colors haunt the players even after they leave — red and green traffic lights are shone on their faces — a reminder that life on the outside is as brutal as within the game. Emphasizing themes of classism, the show leans on classical music to highlight the game’s irony. During episode seven, a group of wealthy individuals watches the players fighting for their lives as a source of entertainment while lighthearted melodies play in the background. The contradiction between the beauty of the show’s musical
score and the horror of its storyline makes a sharp commentary on society’s acceptance of financial inequality. The series not only condemns the inequalities of capitalist society, but also the dangers of internalized capitalism and how cutthroat competition can bring out the worst parts of human nature. It disturbs us because it shows us how cruel people can be when their lives or, more importantly, their families and pride are on the line. “Squid Game” is a thrilling experience that hooks the viewer from the start and never lets go. While not without flaws, it deserves much of the hype that it has received. The show stands out because it is so much more than simply a warning about the dark side of capitalism. “Squid Game” brings the problem of inequality into the spotlight, and its horror catalyzes viewers to consider how we can make the world a more equal place and dismantle the mindset of internalized capitalism. At the very least, viewers learn not to trust strangers on the subway.
PILIPINX Continued from page 6 inx American issues this upcoming spring. They hope to teach others about the systemic issues that Pilipinxs and Pilipinxs Americans face. How the University can support its Pilipinx students With several frustrations about how Pilipinx Americans are represented and heard at Stanford, this begs the question: How can the Stanford administration best support its Pilipinx American students? Alongside the concerns that the interviewees expressed, they also mentioned several steps that the University needs to take to support its Pilipinx American community. As a student who has taken several Asian American studies courses, Castaneros feels that one actionable step is to provide better funding for the department. “I think that Stanford needs to do more investing in those [ethnic studies] departments,” he said. “If you know the history of your people, then you will obviously have a better community.” Laxamana echoed Castaneros, saying that Pilipinx studies needs to be better established and funded within Asian American studies. “Why is Stanford, one of the most prestigious universities in the country, not supporting their ethnic studies as much as they can?” he said. Additionally, Johnson discussed how the University should pay attention to the voices of Pilipinx and Pilipinx American students. “I would say probably one of the biggest things is listening to Pilipinx students and being responsive to requests,” she said. “Especially with regard to the curriculum and faculty representation, I think that’s something that the administration would really benefit from — listening.” Mendoza voiced criticisms about how the Pilipinx community and other Southeast Asian groups are often overshadowed by larger ethnic groups when thinking about Asian American students at Stanford. She talked about how Pilipinx American students could feel more represented if there were more Pilipinx and Pilipinx American staff on campus. More specifically, she mentioned her experiences with residential staff at Okada, the Asian American theme dorm. “I definitely felt that lack of rep-
MEMOIR Continued from page 5 aims to “increase people’s connection to each other and also to themselves in a very open and accepting environment.” Arnold identified as a lesbian for 18 years, working with a tightly-knit community of women at the Berkeley Women’s Health Collective for four of those years. Eventually, though, she realized she wanted a long-term male partner. She left her community in Berkeley and began dating men, though not with much luck. “I’d been seeing men now for 10 years, and just failing miserably,” Arnold said. “I was kind of in despair about dating. Then one of my ad dates from the newspaper took me to this HAI party, and the people were really nice.” Though Arnold referred to the intimacy exercises conducted at the HAI gathering, which included gazing into a stranger’s eyes and gently touching their face or sharing affirmations, as “Psych 101” content, her deep longing for community got her to return. Her second experience was much more profound and had her hooked. “I cried in somebody’s arms that night. I said ‘I think I need this,’ and I was at [another HAI] workshop the next weekend,” Arnold said. Arnold credits HAI’s workshops with teaching her to be brave, communicative and assertive in her relationships — all traits that facilitated her dating experiment. Throughout her fifty first dates described in her memoir, Arnold negotiates levels of intimacy with her dates. Time and time again, she skillfully communicates her relational and physical boundaries. She writes, “Ten years of workshops on relationships had taught me the concept of being ‘at choice’ — that in every moment, I can choose differently.” “We layer in the awareness of ‘you are always at choice’ in everything that we offer,” Snow said about HAI. Arnold referred to this tenet of a healthy relationship when synthesizing the central message of “Fifty First Dates after Fifty.” “I want women to enjoy dating from a place of self-love and self celebration, and if they want, I want them to be able to include sexuality in their dating; I want women to
resentation freshman year with Okada — I saw that the staff was mostly East Asian,” she mentioned. “It’s kind of a problem, because if you want your students to identify with their identity, you have to have representation, especially on staff.” Finding Pilipinx American community at Stanford Despite frustrations among Pilipinx American community members about the way we are represented within the larger Stanford community, many Pilipinx American students have been able to find community with regard to their cultural and ethnic identities. Both inside and outside of Pilipinx student-focused organizations and clubs, several of the interviewees discussed how they have formed friendships and found community with other Pilipinx American students. Johnson mentioned that the transition to Stanford from home helped her find more community as a Pilipinx American. “Growing up, I lived in a place where there were pretty much no other Filipinos my age, except for my brother,” Johnson said. “Getting to come here and feel a really strong and friendly and welcoming group on campus that’s always here for me has been really meaningful, and it is one of the best communities I’ve been a part of at Stanford.” For some members of the Pilipinx American community, Pilipinxfocused student organizations have acted as a support group, a place where Pilipinx American students can find solace when they are facing life challenges. “I’ve always been part of the PASU community, so it’s very easy for me to rant to the people in my friend group who are also Filipino,” Mendoza says. “For me to rant about my experiences, they also are able to resonate very easily because basically the same identity, a lot of similar problems that we might face in classes.” The first- and second-year Filipino language courses have also helped some Pilipinx students find a group at Stanford that they identify with, as well as an opportunity to learn more about their culture. According to Laxamana, “The Filipino program at Stanford is an amazing program, because a lot of us never learned our language. It offers us a sense of community and deep connection to learning — you can’t learn the culture without learning the language. That’s really the lens of seeing yourself and your identity within the heritage that you grew up with.”
have choices,” Arnold said. Arnold ultimately hopes her book models healthy dating and empowered womanhood, combating a negative stigma that women over a certain age can’t be picky about their partners. As Scheeres said, “society wants to say, ‘by the time you’re 30 it all starts going downhill, and after 35 your fertility is gone and after 40 nobody wants you.’” But role models like Arnold are steadily eradicating these misogynistic myths. In moments when Arnold doubts the consequence of a fun memoir about dating, she reminds herself that this kind of visibility is actually a new advocacy. “I look back to my younger feminist self, and I’m very proud of her,” she said. “But I think my younger feminist self would be proud of me, because I am being brave as an older woman to be dating, sexual and promoting older women being sexual. That’s what we were fighting for in the ’70s.” In many ways, Arnold’s dating experiment and memoir-writing experience were personally formative. She grew to love her own adventurous spirit and learned to speak gently to herself during bouts of hopelessness. In addition, the memoir’s happy ending is a comfort to readers. Every year, Arnold holds a winter solstice ceremony where she and her friends reflect on what they want more and less of in the coming year. She focuses on this setting in her memoir’s epilogue. “It really hit me that solstice 10 years later,” she said. “I didn’t have anything to let go because I loved everything about my life, and everything I was doing was what I had wanted during the dating project.” In the epilogue, intimate scenes between Arnold and her partner — date number 49 — are paired with moments from this solstice ceremony to give us a sense of closure. Her turbulent, laborious and zany dating research project had culminated in peace. As Arnold concludes her memoir, “It must have worked.” This article has been updated to reflect that Arnold received her Ph.D. in ’88, not ’98, and that she identified as a lesbian for 18 years, but worked at the Berkeley Women’s Health Collective for only four of those years. The Daily regrets this error.
Friday, November 5, 2021 N 9
The Stanford Daily
SPORTS UP AGAINST UTAH UTES VISIT THE FARM FOR FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS By DANIEL WU SENIOR STAFF WRITER Graphic: AMY LO/The Stanford Daily
Mills dazzles, McCaffrey nears return Former Cardinal star in NFL Week 8 action By DREW SILVA CONTRIBUTING WRITER
The Carolina Panthers’ 19-13 victory over the Atlanta Falcons marked the team’s first win without Christian McCaffrey ’17, who has been out with a hamstring injury since the team’s Week 3 victory over the Houston Texans. McCaffrey is eligible to come off of Injured Reserve for the Panthers’ Week 9 matchup with the New England Patriots, and Panthers’ head coach Matt Rhule said in his Monday press conference that they are hopeful McCaffrey will be available, but his return might have to wait until the Week 10 game against the Cardinals. Rhule also made sure to shut down some trade rumors surrounding McCaffrey after speculation that Carolina could include him in a trade for Texans’ quarterback Deshaun Watson. If the rumors had been true, McCaffrey could have potentially linked up with former Cardinal players Davis Mills ’21 and Justin Reid ’18. Speaking of Mills, he played his best game since Week 5, completing 29-of-38 passes for 310 yards and two touchdowns, including a 45 yard pass to Brandin Cooks, despite an interception in the first half. However, Mills’ impressive second half proved to be too little too late, as the Texans suffered their seventh straight loss, 38-22, at the hands of the Los Angeles Rams. As usual, multiple Stanford tight ends played a role in their teams’ offenses this week. Zach Ertz ’13 had four catches for 42 yards, but the Cardinals suffered their first loss of the season, falling 24-21 to the Green Bay Packers. Dalton Schultz ’18 caught two of seven targets for 11 yards as the Cowboys took down the Vikings 20-16. Austin Hooper ’16 caught four of his six targets for 26 yards, but the Browns fell to the Steelers 15-10. Ty Montgomery ’15 only had one reception, but it came late in the fourth quarter and helped set up the go-ahead field goal for the Saints. Montgomery’s teammate Andrus Peat ’15 did not suit up for the Saints in their 3627 win over the Buccaneers due to a pectoral injury he suffered last week that will require season-ending surgery. On a more positive note, Nate Herbig ’19 stepped in to provide protection for quarterback Jalen Hurts after the Eagles’ offensive lineman Jack Driscoll was forced to exit the team’s game against the Lions due to a hand injury. Following the Eagles’ 44-6 win, Herbig was praised by both Hurts and head coach Nick Sirianni for his role in the success of the Eagles run game. Linebacker Bobby Okereke ’19 once again led the way defensively for the former Cardinal. He had 12 total tackles — 10 being solo — but the Colts fell to the Ti-
Please see NFL, page 10
Stanford hasn’t won a football game in over a month. Last week, the frustration began to show. Rested after a bye week and at home with a chance to get back to .500 and keep pace in the race for bowl eligibility, Stanford put up just 13 points and let one of the worst offenses in the Pac-12 score a game-winning touchdown. “I’ve got a locker room full of guys that are not happy right now,” head coach David Shaw said after the loss to Washington. “And they shouldn’t be.” There are no more gimmes on the home stretch of the Cardinal schedule, least of all Pac-12 South frontrunner Utah (5-3, 4-1 Pac12). Stanford (3-5, 2-4 Pac-12) hosts the Utes on Friday night in the Cardinal’s second short week of the season with even modest postseason hopes on the line. The math is simple. To get to a bowl game for the first time since 2018 (Stanford was eligible in 2020 but opted out at the end of a gruelling pandemic season), the Cardinal must win three of their four remaining games. They’ll need to find a way against a Utah team that looks set to challenge Oregon for the conference crown. And they might have to do it without Tanner McKee. The sophomore quarterback’s availability is the biggest question mark for the Cardinal after Shaw announced Tuesday that McKee was questionable for Friday’s game for undis-
SYLER PERALTA-RAMOS/The Stanford Daily
For the first time in his career, quarterback Tanner McKee (above, 18) is listed as questionable. The sophomore has been key to the Cardinal’s offense this season. closed reasons. There isn’t a more important player on the roster. Stanford has lived and died by the success of its passing game, and no other quarterback has shown he can run it as well as McKee. If McKee is out, it’ll be up to backups senior Jack West and sixth-year Isaiah Sanders to lead the Cardinal under center. West has started three games for Stanford — all losses — without much success, and Sanders
has so far only been featured as a rusher in a wildcat package in short yardage situations. Shaw said that both would play if McKee is unavailable, but it’s unclear whether Sanders will take on an increased role in the offense as a result. “I trust coach’s game plan,” Sanders said on Wednesday. “Whether it’s Tanner, whether
Please see FOOTBALL, page 10
FOOTBALL ROUNDTABLE
CARDINAL SEARCHING FOR UPSET Stanford seeks first win in over a month By CYBELE ZHANG DESK EDITOR BRANDON VALLANCE/isiphotos.com
Sophomore Brooke Seay (above) finished in a tie for third place at the Pac-12 Preview, leading the Cardinal to their fourth victory in as many tournaments.
By ELLS BOONE DESK EDITOR
By DREW SILVA CONTRIBUTING WRITER
By ZACH ZAFRAN
WOMEN’S GOLF
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
By NOAH MALTZMAN
Fourth time on top Cardinal win final event of fall season By GAVIN MCDONELL DESK EDITOR
The No. 1-ranked Stanford women’s golf team wrapped up its fall season on Wednesday, competing in the Pac-12 Preview at Nanea Golf Club in Kailua Kona, Hawaii. Despite missing four golfers, the Cardinal prevailed, posting a four-stroke win over second place USC. Fresh off a trio of individual victories to begin her collegiate career, freshman Rose Zhang was not in the lineup this week at the
Pac-12 Preview. Instead, Zhang was in Trinity, Texas, representing the U.S. in the Spirit International Amateur Golf Championship. Alongside Zhang were three other Cardinal golfers competing for their home countries: sophomore Rachel Heck (U.S.), sophomore Rebecca Becht (Belgium) and freshman Caroline Sturdza (Switzerland). The conflict with the Spirit Championship meant the Cardinal were not at full strength, but the lineup Coach Anne Walker sent out was still formidable — it consisted of seniors Aline Krauter and Calista Reyes, juniors Brooke Seay and Angelina Ye and sophomore Sadie Englemann. In the opening round on Monday, the Cardinal cast any doubts aside by shooting a four-under-par 288 to take the lead.
Please see GOLF, page 10
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Stanford football is in free fall. The Cardinal (3-5, 2-4 Pac-12) have lost their last three games — their longest conference losing streak since 2019, when Stanford ended the season 4-8 and without a bowl game. Now, the Cardinal face Utah (5-3, 4-1 Pac-12), the front-runner for the Pac-12 South title. To make things harder, it’s yet another short week for Stanford, with kickoff set for Friday night at home. It is only the 10th meeting between the programs and the first since Oct. 2018, when Stanford was blown out 40-21. Noah Maltzman, Drew Silva, Zach Zafran and Ells Boone discuss the injury report, Stanford’s offensive weapons and pros and cons of the Cardinal defense. Cybele Zhang [CZ]: Sophomore quarterback Tanner McKee is questionable. How
Please see TABLE, page 10
WOMEN’S SAILING
Championship sweep By MAYA SOMERS STAFF WRITER
Stanford women’s sailing won both the Pacific Coast Collegiate Sailing Conference Women’s Championship (PCCSC) and the PCCSC Women’s Team Race Championship over the weekend in Redwood City. The Cardinal won all three divisions on Saturday in the Women’s Championship and went undefeated competing against four teams on Sunday. In the Women’s Championship, Stanford bested Hawaii, California, UCLA and UC Santa Barbara, winning by 102 points over three divisions. Each Cardinal boat finished in the top three out of 15 total squads competing. In first place was the Division A boat of
junior skipper Michelle Lahrkamp and junior crew Patricia Gerli, rotating with fifthyear skipper Stephanie Houck and sophomore crew Gwendolyn Donahue. They put up just 20 points with four first-place finishes and five second-place outcomes over the 10 races of the day. Sophomore skipper Hannah Freeman, junior crew Abigail Tindall and senior crew Sammy Pickell took second place overall from Division C. Tindall started out sitting in the crew for the first five races as the boat was finishing outside of the top three. When Pickell hopped in for the last five races, the boat raced for four first-place finishes to round out its total score at 29 points. Finishing in third-place overall, sopho-
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Junior Michelle Lahrkamp (above, left) and senior Ashton Borcherding (above, right) helped the Cardinal have a successful weekend on the water at the PCCSC Women’s Fall Championships, dominating the field against four other schools.
10 N Friday, November 5, 2021
FOOTBALL Continued from page 9 it’s Jack, whether it’s me, we’ll be ready to go.” Unpredictability may be the biggest asset Stanford’s passing game has on Friday. Besides McKee, starting wide receivers junior Elijiah Higgins and sophomore John Humphreys are also questionable, though Stanford will get a boost with the return of senior wideout and team captain Michael Wilson after a long recovery from foot surgery. A much more known quantity for the Cardinal that Utah will be eyeing is Stanford’s dismal performance on the ground, on both sides of the ball. Utah buried UCLA with 290 rushing yards last week and could very well replicate that against Stanford’s league-worst
SAILING Continued from page 9 more skipper Berta Puig, sophomore crew Grace Austin, junior skipper AnaClare Sole and senior crew Ashton Borcherding recorded
NFL Continued from page 9 tans in overtime 34-31. Brennan Scarlett ’16 had three tackles for Miami, one being for a loss. James Vaughters ’15 had two tackles for the Atlanta Falcons in
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rushing defense. The Utes are unlikely to respect Stanford’s run game after the Cardinal was stonewalled by Washington, the league’s second-worst rushing defense. Both are clearly points of frustration for Stanford at this point in the season. “I don’t have an answer for you,” Shaw said last week when asked about his team’s porous rush defense. “If I knew, I would have fixed it by now.” Stanford at least gets reinforcements in the secondary with the probable return of senior cornerback Ethan Bonner, who has been out since Stanford’s opener against Kansas State, and junior cornerback Salim Turner-Muhammad, who has yet to play this season. They’ll test Utah quarterback Cam Rising, whose ascent after ousting Baylor transfer Charlie Brewer has fuelled Utah’s emergence in a crowded Pac-12 South division. “He’s become a playmaker,”
Shaw said of Rising. “That’s really been the story of this season for Utah, [for] everybody, on both sides of the ball. Whatever it takes to win the game, they’ve been able to do it.” That is high praise and well-deserved for a program that has risen to the top of the Pac-12 after overcoming unthinkable tragedy in the deaths of players Aaron Lowe and Ty Jordan in the past nine months. Stanford will face a confident and motivated team on Friday with everything to play for. It’s up to the Cardinal to put their struggles behind them and match up. Stanford kicks off against Utah at 7:30 p.m. PT on Friday. The game will be televised on Pac-12 Networks. Per the attendance policies of Stanford Athletics, spectators at Stanford Stadium will be required to present either proof of COVID19 vaccination or a negative test result within 72 hours of the game.
40 points in the B Division. The boat sailed to first-place twice, but added to its score with a 12th-place finish in the seventh race. On Sunday, Stanford dominated the Women’s Team Race Championship with a perfect 7-0 record, competing against the same four teams and defeating three of them twice. Lahrkamp, Houck and Free-
man skippered while Gerli, Sole, Tindall, Donahue and Pickell raced as crews to secure the win for the Cardinal. Stanford sailing will be back on the water on Nov. 6 for the ICSA Singlehanded Championship in Seattle and the Gaucho Fall Team Race at UC Santa Barbara.
their loss to Carolina. Harrison Philipps ’18 added two tackles of his own for the Bills’ defensive line. For the defensive backs, Paulson Adebo ’21 contributed with four tackles against an elite Buccaneers receiving corps. Justin Reid ’18 had 10 total tackles for Houston in the loss. Richard Sherman ’11 continues to be sidelined with a hamstring injury.
Both offensive lineman Walker Little ’21 and tight end Colby Parkinson ’20 played a handful of special teams snaps for their respective teams. Parkinson’s Seahawks came out on top, defeating Little’s Jaguars 31-7. Jake Bailey ’19 punted three times for 146 yards, including a 62 yard punt as the Patriots defeated the Chargers 27-24.
GOLF Continued from page 9 Krauter paced Stanford with a three-under-par 70. After bogeying her first hole, she played mistakefree golf all the way into the clubhouse. She tallied a trio of birdies on the sixth, seventh and eighth holes and added a final birdie on the 18th. Close behind Krauter was Seay, who shot a two-under-par 71. In her round, she made four birdies to go against just two bogeys. Ye and Englemann contributed rounds of 73 and 74, respectively, as the Cardinal took a two-shot lead over USC into the second round. Tuesday’s round saw the Cardinal post another under-par score and expand their lead to three shots. Seay continued her consistent play, making just one bogey in her round of 70. After 36 holes, her total of five-under-par put her in a tie for second place. Krauter shot an even-par 73 to move into a tie for fifth. Englemann recorded a 72, while Reyes registered a 76. Heading into the final round, the Cardinal were in prime position. They held a three-shot lead over USC and six-shot lead over third place Arizona. Dating back to the NCAA Regional Championship last season, Stanford had won six straight stroke play events. Surely, Wednesday’s final round would be smooth sailing for the Cardinal. It wasn’t. As the Cardinal made the turn to the back nine, they hit a roadblock. Seay bogeyed the ninth hole, Englemann bogeyed the 11th and Krauter bogeyed both the 11th and 13th. Meanwhile, in
TABLE Continued from page 9 scared should Cardinal fans be? Noah Maltzman [NM]: Well, this is not good; Stanford fans should be very scared. Some thought that senior Jack West would be the starter quarterback coming into the season, but watching him play against Kansas State showed that McKee deserved the start over him. Is West starting the worst thing in the world? Absolutely not. But judging from his last performance, where he went 8-12 for 76 yards and two interceptions, McKee being questionable for the Utah game has me worried. Drew Silva [DS]: Cardinal fans should be scared if McKee is unable to suit up. After watching the two-quarterback experiment in the Kansas State game start the season, it was clear who needed to be under center for Stanford to be as successful as possible. After three consecutive underwhelming performances against Arizona State, Wazzu and Washington, losing McKee would be less than ideal ahead of a matchup with Pac-12 South-leading Utah. However, McKee has not yet been ruled out, so this worrying could be for nothing. Ells Boone [EB]: Cardinal fans should be terrified if McKee is unable to play on Friday night. With the way Utah is playing and how the Cardinal have fared over their last three games, it would already be a tall task against the Utes, so having to play backup quarterback Jack West would not be ideal. McKee has seriously impressed for Stanford this season, and West has shown in the past that he is just not at the same level as the sophomore signal caller. However, questionable means McKee still has a chance to play, so let’s hold on to that hope. Zach Zafran [ZZ]: There wasn’t a distinct moment in the Washington game that I recall McKee getting hurt. Cardinal fans should be cautiously optimistic, as I’m led to believe that it’s nothing too serious, and we can expect to see him out there on the field this Friday. However, in the event McKee doesn’t make it off of the injury report, Stanford supporters have every right to be scared. The times the Cardinal have taken the field without McKee under center have not been pretty. The team will have to lean more heavily on the run game, which has been a point of weakness all season. CZ: Senior WR Michael Wilson is back, but sophomore WR John Humphreys and junior WR Elijah Higgins are both questionable. Who should the quarterback — whoever is put in — target? Additionally, in a now-deleted tweet, Emmitt Smith called the Stanford offense “too predictable” — is he right? NM: Injuries are not being kind to the Cardinal this week. While Wilson is back, this will be the first playing time he has all season, meaning he is probably rusty. Higgins and Humphreys as questionable does hurt, but hopefully their status is more definite before game
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Fifth-year Tucker Fisk (above, 88) leading the team onto the field during a football game between Stanford and University of Washington last weekend. time. In terms of who should be targeted, factoring in the injury list, sophomore TE Benjamin Yuroseck could see an increase in targets this game, specifically in the red zone. In addition, passing short to an RB like junior Austin Jones or junior Nathaniel Peat could increase. Head coach David Shaw and offensive coordinator Tavita Pritchard could, and frankly should, switch up offensive weapons to confuse the defense, and the list of injuries may give more opportunity for players on the depth chart to show their worth. ZZ: Wilson’s return is huge for the largely-stagnant offense, but the absence of Humphreys and Higgins would be more devastating than his return can make up for. Without Humphreys and Higgins, Stanford’s next leading wideout from this season would be sophomore Bryce Farrell, who has seven receptions on the entire year. The Cardinal still have a major weapon in sophomore tight end Benjamin Yurosek, who has been a bright spot in the otherwise uninspiring recent weeks, but I don’t believe he alone is enough for the Cardinal offense to shine. As for Smith’s comments: they’re well-merited. For years, a main point of criticism for Shaw has been the play calling and this season is no different. Unfortunately for the Cardinal, with the personnel they’re running with after all of these injuries, it may be too late to shake things up. DS: Emmitt Smith did not hesitate to criticize a disappointing Cardinal offensive performance against a lackluster Washington defense. However, with a wide receiver corps plagued by injuries, and a running game that hasn’t quite been able to find its stride with the play of the offensive line, it is difficult for David Shaw to diversify the play calling. Following a game in which sophomore RB EJ Smith only had one carry, I’m sure Emmitt Smith would love to see his son receive more touches this week. EJ Smith certainly has the talent to produce, and giving him a bigger role in the offense would not be the worst thing. However, as Zach mentioned,
the play calling has been under fire for years now, and it will take more than one adjustment to change this narrative. EB: It seems like every week now, the cast of receivers changes, and this week is no different. Wilson will be welcomed back with open arms, and while it probably will take time to shake off the rust, he is no doubt the most talented wideout the Cardinal have. Tight end Benjamin Yurosek has emerged into a go-to option in the passing game as well. If Higgins and Humphreys are unable to play, whoever lines up under center will also have to rely on Bryce Farrell and EJ Smith. As for Emmitt Smith’s tweet, he is 100% correct. With a stagnant running game, Stanford has had to rely on the pass much more than they usually do. When David Shaw does elect to run the ball, the offensive set is so easy for the defense to read that it gives the struggling offensive line even less time to protect the Cardinal ball carriers. CZ: The Cardinal defense gave up only one touchdown last game versus Washington, forcing field goals three times. What has been going right for Stanford defensively, and what can be improved upon this Friday? NM: Stanford’s passing defense has been underrated and very good this year. They only let up 195 yards per game, thanks in large part to the secondary. Junior CB Kyu Blu Kelly has two interceptions on the year, along with nine passes defended and one forced fumble, leading the team in all three categories. In addition to Kelly, junior ILB Levani Damuni leads the team with 62 tackles and is sixth overall in the Pac-12. In terms of improvement, the defensive line is a sore spot for the Cardinal defense. Having a junior LB leading the team with 3.0 sacks is not ideal. The Cardinal need to find a way to pressure the Utah backfield on Friday, especially since the Utes average 33.4 points per game, which is third in the Pac 12. In sum, in order to beat Utah’s rush-first offense, Stanford needs to apply more pressure to the opposing backfield.
ZZ: Stanford perfectly exhibited the idea of a “bend, don’t break” defense on Saturday — that is, until the final two minutes came. The Cardinal played the pass well and, although they gave up significant yardage on the ground, didn’t let Washington’s rushing attack kill them. Unfortunately, the biggest challenge for the Stanford defense is Stanford’s offense. After coming up with a huge stop with just under four minutes remaining against Washington, a three-and-out possession that only burned 21 seconds of clock forced the defense to return back to the field. Getting a helping hand from the offense by keeping the defense off of the field for as long as possible would help mitigate the number of chances Utah will get and prevent a repeat of what happened late last Saturday night. DS: Stanford boasts a passing defense that is top three in the Pac-12 in yards allowed per game. Kyu Blu Kelly, as always, will cause havoc for Utah’s quarterback Cameron Rising. However, in order for Stanford to win this game, they must do more than defend in the air; they must stop a powerful Utah run game. Stopping the run has been a struggle all year for the Cardinal, and Stanford will need to step up to halt Utah running back Tavion Thomas, who is coming off a 160 yard, four touchdown performance against UCLA. As Zach mentioned, Stanford’s run defense would benefit greatly from a solid offensive performance. If the Cardinal go down early, and Utah is able to simply run the ball to take time off the clock, this could be a long game. However, if Stanford can get some points on the board and make Utah play from behind, relying on the passing game, Stanford could come out on top. EB: As the others have said, the pass defense is what has gone right for Stanford so far this season. This week, they will get another boost with the return of junior cornerback Salim Turner-Muhamad and senior cornerback Ethan Bonner. Turner-Muhammad impressed in his five starts a year ago and many
uncharacteristic fashion, Ye played a stretch of six holes in seven-overpar. The Cardinal were now over par for the tournament and trailing the Trojans. The Cardinal needed to turn it around quickly or they would be in danger of losing their perfect fall season. As the Stanford golfers reached the middle portion of the back nine, things started to fall their way. Ye maintained her composure and parred in from the 14th hole. Englemann played her last six holes in one under-par. Seay birdied the 14th hole to get within one shot of the individual lead. Things were looking up again for Stanford. With a little help from USC, the Cardinal reclaimed the lead. By the time Krauter eagled the 536-yard, par five 18th hole, Stanford had all but secured the team victory. In the end, Stanford finished at one-under-par for 54 holes, four strokes ahead of USC and five ahead of Arizona. With a tie for third place individually, Seay collected the best finish for the Cardinal. Krauter and Englemann both tied for sixth, while Ye tied for 28th. Reyes placed 48th. The Stanford women’s golf team came into the fall season with skyhigh expectations, and it met, if not exceeded them. The Cardinal went a perfect four-for-four in tournaments, winning the Molly, the Windy City Collegiate Classic, the Stanford Intercollegiate and the Pac-12 Preview. Zhang, the topranked amateur in the world, cemented her reputation by winning three individual titles, while several other Cardinal golfers posted stellar scores throughout the fall. Stanford will resume play in the spring at the Lamkin Invitational in Rancho Santa Fe, California. The Cardinal will tee off on Feb. 14. thought he would not even play this year due to injury. Bonner has not played since the season opener against Kansas State. It will be interesting to see how the Cardinal coaches work them into the rotation on Friday, since the other guys have done well in their place. Finally, the thing that needs to be improved is, of course, the run defense. The Utes can do some serious damage on the ground; will this be the week Stanford’s defensive line comes to play? CZ: The last time Stanford beat Utah at home was Nov. 27, 1902. Can the Cardinal defy the odds? Score predictions? NM: Utah 34, Stanford 20 — This matchup is not favorable for the Cardinal. Having to face a run heavy offense like Utah with a subpar defensive front is not ideal. In addition, the potential loss of offensive leaders like McKee, Higgins and Humphreys is very detrimental. It is doubtful that Stanford will even beat the spread of -7.5 points. It will be hard to pull off a victory, but if watching Friday Night Lights has taught me something, it’s that anything is possible. DS: Utah 31, Stanford 20 — Stanford heads into Friday night’s game as 7.5 point underdogs, which could be generous considering Stanford’s lengthy injury report. Since the Oregon upset, the Cardinal have not shown much that suggests they will prevail again as underdogs. Following a game in which Stanford allowed Washington to rush for over 100 yards more than their season average, I think that Utah’s run game will prove to be too much for the Cardinal defense to handle, and the injured Stanford offense will struggle to keep up coming off of a short week. ZZ: Utah 31, Stanford 17 — Utah sits atop the Pac-12 South. Stanford sits at the bottom of the Pac-12 North. Utah is playing some of its best football, coming off of a 44-24 win over UCLA. Stanford is riding a three-game losing streak and has looked far from impressive. This is Utah’s game to lose, and few expect the Cardinal to come close on Friday (oddsmakers have Utah 7.5). However, Stanford has a knack for ruining other teams’ championship aspirations. We’ve seen it in the past, and we saw it just four weeks ago when they took down No. 3 Oregon. Utah faces a Cardinal team that is hindered by injuries, running with zero momentum and struggling historically for a David Shaw-era team. I fully expect the Utes to leave Stanford Stadium with a win, but it goes without saying that you can never count out a Stanford upset. EB: Utah 35, Stanford 14 — This scoreline is predicated on the fact that McKee is questionable for the game and may not play. If he is unable to go, I think things could get ugly at Stanford Stadium. If he can play, however, I think the Cardinal’s offense could keep pace with the Utes’s. Utah’s rushing attack scares me, especially with how Stanford has been defending the run this year. At the end of the day, the current three-game losing streak does not inspire much confidence against the Pac-12 South leaders, but you never know: the return of captain Michael Wilson may spark the team to an upset.