Stanford University (officially Leland Stanford Junior University) is a private research
university in Stanford, California, and one of the world's most
prestigious institutions, with the highest undergraduate selectivity and the top position in
numeroussurveys and measures in the United States
Stanford was founded in 1885 by Leland
Stanford, former governor of and U.S. senator from
California and leading railroad tycoon, and his wife, Jane Lathrop
Stanford, in memory of their only child, Leland Stanford, Jr., who had
died of typhoid fever at age 15 the previous year. Stanford was
opened on October 1, 1891 as
a coeducational and non-denominational institution. Tuition
was free until 1920.
Stanford is located in northern Silicon
Valley near Palo Alto, California. The University's academic
departments are organized into seven schools, with several other holdings, such
as laboratories and nature reserves, located outside the main
campus. Its 8,180-acre (3,310 ha)campus is one of the largest in
the United States. The University is also one of the top fundraising
institutions in the country, becoming the first school to raise more than a
billion dollars in a year.
Stanford is located in northern Silicon
Valley near Palo Alto, California. The University's academic
departments are organized into seven schools, with several other holdings, such
as laboratories and nature reserves, located outside the main campus.[26] Its 8,180-acre
(3,310 ha) campus is one of the largest in the United States.The
University is also one of the top fundraising institutions in the country,
becoming the first school to raise more than a billion dollars in a year
Origins and early years (1885–1906)
The university officially opened on October 1,
1891 to 555 students. On the university's opening day, Founding
President David Starr Jordan (1851–1931) said to Stanford's Pioneer
Class: "[Stanford] is hallowed by no traditions; it is hampered by none.
Its finger posts all point forward." However, much preceded the opening
and continued for several years until the death of the last Founder, Jane Stanford,
in 1905 and the destruction of the 1906 earthquake.
Foundation
Stanford was founded by Leland Stanford,
a railroad magnate, U.S. senator, and former California governor,
together with his wife, Jane Lathrop Stanford. It is named in honor of
their only child, Leland Stanford, Jr., who died in 1884 just before his
16th birthday. His parents decided to dedicate a university to their only son,
and Leland Stanford told his wife, "The children of California shall be
our childrenThe Stanfords visited Harvard's president, Charles Eliot,
and asked whether he should establish a university, technical school or museum.
Eliot replied that he should found a university and an endowment of $5 million
would suffice (in 1884 dollars; about $131 million today.
Leland Stanford, the university's founder, as
painted by Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier in 1881 and now on display at
the Cantor Center
The university's Founding Grant of Endowment
from the Stanfords was issued in November 1885. Besides defining the
operational structure of the university, it made several specific stipulations:
"The Trustees ... shall have the power
and it shall be their duty:
·
To establish and
maintain at such University an educational system, which will, if followed, fit
the graduate for some useful pursuit, and to this end to cause the pupils, as
easily as may be, to declare the particular calling, which, in life, they may
desire to pursue; ...
·
To prohibit sectarian
instruction, but to have taught in the University the immortality of the soul,
the existence of an all-wise and benevolent Creator, and that obedience to His
laws is the highest duty of man.
·
To have taught in the
University the right and advantages of association and co-operation.
·
To afford equal
facilities and give equal advantages in the University to both sexes.
·
To maintain on the
Palo Alto estate a farm for instruction in agriculture in all its
branches."
Though the trustees are in overall charge of
the university, Leland and Jane Stanford as Founders retained great control
until their deaths.
Despite the duty to have a co-educational
institution in 1899 Jane Stanford, the remaining Founder, added to the Founding
Grant the legal requirement that "the number of women attending the
University as students shall at no time ever exceed five hundred". She
feared the large numbers of women entering would lead the school to become
"the Vassar of the West" and felt that would not be an
appropriate memorial for her son. In 1933 the requirement was reinterpreted by
the trustees to specify an undergraduate male:female ratio of 3:1. The
"Stanford ratio" of 3:1 remained in place until the early 1960s. By
the late 1960s the "ratio" was about 2:1 for undergraduates, but much
more skewed at the graduate level, except in the humanities. In 1973 the
University trustees successfully petitioned the courts to have the restriction
formally removed. As of 2014 the undergraduate enrollment is split nearly
evenly between the sexes (47.2% women, 52.8% men), though males outnumber
females (38.2% women, 61.8% men) at the graduate level. In the same petition
they also removed the prohibition of sectarian worship on campus (previous only
non-denominational Christian worship in Stanford Memorial Church was
permitted).
High tech
A powerful sense of regional
solidarity accompanied the rise of Silicon Valley. From the 1890s, the
university's leaders saw its mission as service to the West and shaped the
school accordingly. At the same time, the perceived exploitation of the West at
the hands of eastern interests fueled booster-like attempts to build
self-sufficient indigenous local industry. Thus, regionalism helped align
Stanford's interests with those of the area's high-tech firms for the first
fifty years of Silicon Valley's development. The distinctive regional ethos of
the West during the first half of the 20th century is an ingredient of Silicon
Valley's already prepared environment, an ingredient that would-be replicators
ignore at their peril.
During the
1940s and 1950s, Frederick Terman, as dean of engineering and later as
provost, encouraged faculty and graduates to start their own companies. He is
credited with nurturing Hewlett-Packard, Varian Associates, and other
high-tech firms, until what would become Silicon Valley grew up
around the Stanford campus. Terman is often called "the father of Silicon
Valley."Terman encouraged William B. Shockley, co-inventor of the
transistor, to return to his hometown of Palo Alto. In 1956 he established the
Shockley Transistor Laboratory.
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