The appointment as president of a major research-intensive university does not come with a clear and concise job description. Therefore, let me provide background and introduction by talking about how I viewed and experienced what can be characterized as at least nine jobs.

1.College president.When I was recruited as president of Stanford, I did not realize that the most visible job I was taking on was a job that almost everybody in the country referred to as “college” president. The designation “college” president suggests a nineteenth-century image of somebody who walks around a small campus in a tweed...

Fellow members of the first-year class and fellow transfer students; Mr. Freidenrich and members of the Board of Trustees; Presidents Emeriti Kennedy and Lyman; my colleagues on the faculty and staff; Stanford students, alumni, and friends; ladies and gentlemen:

On March 17, when I first arrived on the Farm in my new role as president-elect, I was put to what you might call an “advanced placement test.” I flunked it—as my fellow first-year students will be reassured, if not delighted, to learn. I had dinner with a group of excellent people to discuss the following day’s news conference when...

Unfortunately, it was too late when I discovered yesterday that Jane Stanford would not have approved of my being in the pulpit on Found ers’ Day (and I remind you that the word “found ers” in “Founders’ Day” is plural in form). On December 28, 1904, Mrs. Stanford wrote a letter to President Jordan in which she told him that she had no objections to memorial ser vices in March: “It seems to me that it would be very appropriate indeed to have the ser vices held in the Church built to . . . my husband’s memory, but under...

On May 2, 1994, nine Stanford students filed a lawsuit—Corry v. Stanford University—challenging the Fundamental Standard interpretation titled “Free Expression and Discriminatory Harassment.” The Fundamental Standard has been the mea sure of conduct for Stanford students since 1896. It states: “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. Failure to do this will be sufficient cause for removal from the University.”

The Student Conduct Legislative Council put the interpretation—popularly known as the Grey Interpretation...

Members of the Stanford college class of 1997 and those among you who have had the splendid good sense to transfer to Stanford: On behalf of the university’s faculty and staff, and your fellow students, both undergraduate and graduate, I warmly welcome you. We have looked forward to your presence with pleasurable anticipation because we know, on the basis of what we have learned about you, that you will be superbly qualified to test our abilities.

Equally warmly I welcome parents, other relatives, and friends who have come along to lessen the apprehensions that our freshmen might have. For many...

As you know, last Wednesday, a group of Chicano students began a protest on the Quad, including four Chicanas who chose to engage in a fast. They, like all of us, feel the uncertainty and stress that inevitably accompany times of contracting, rather than expanding, resources. The provost and I suspended most other business and met with the students several times over three days. We have agreed to the establishment of committees to examine their concerns in depth and make recommendations.

It was crucial—crucial—to the provost and me that the university’s constituted processes for making decisions be followed....

With increasing frequency, students, faculty, trustees, alumni, and others have asked where Stanford should be on affirmative action. I determined several months ago to express my own views on the subject to the Stanford community at the first Faculty Senate meeting of the fall. Affirmative action involves some of the most difficult and complex issues in our society. Reasonable people differ on what it means, has meant, or ought to mean. In the hope that it will facilitate further examination and discussion, I offer my full statement here to the senators, and all of Stanford, in advance of the October...

The hundredth anniversary of China’s 1898 Reforms and of Peking University [Beida] is a special occasion. It merits the gathering of university presidents from around the world. The establishment of this university signaled China’s commitment to create a university that would serve the nation and the world and that would meet international standards of scholarly excellence.

The many accomplishments of Beida in the intervening years—as well as its moments of despair—are known throughout the world. At the dawn of a new century, the original vision enunciated by its early leaders is at last within grasp. Of this I...

Thank you, Dean Salovey. As Dean Hockfield (whom I greatly admired as dean) has become Yale’s provost, I am much comforted by the fact that the fate of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences will now, like the presidency of Yale University, be in the hands of a Stanford alumnus. In case some members of the audience suspect Stanford nepotism in the choice of me as the convocation speaker, I should like to stress that I was invited by then Dean Hockfield. Dean Salovey’s only involvement was that he did not withdraw the invitation when I offered him the...

The literature on universities in modern societies is prodigious. It covers the choice and admission of students and fee levels, the choice of faculty and curricula, the choice among different approaches to teaching and teaching technologies, the choice of research agendas, the choice of governance structures, the choice of investments in programs, infrastructure and funding sources, the choice of knowledge transfer strategies, the choice of ways to bring about innovation pure and simple and innovation at the university to increase productivity, the choice among approaches to the challenges of globalization, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. My listing makes clear...