1999 Stanford Annual Report
What began as informal conversations among President Gerhard Casper and members of the Stanford faculty has turned into one of the most successful graduate programs in the nation. The president asked, “What is the most important need at the University?”
In response, faculty lamented the dependence of university graduate education on federal funding. If graduate education is vital to the future of universities, to the success of our economy, and is a primary mission of research-intensive universities, they argued, is it wise to leave it vulnerable to the vagaries of the political process?
The conversations resulted in the Stanford Graduate Fellowship Program, a first-of-its kind opportunity for students to pursue graduate education independent of restrictions and confident of ongoing support. Graduate students, particularly those in the sciences, have traditionally pursued research and study aided by funding restricted to specific projects or faculty grants. Stanford Graduate Fellowships free students to explore, much like entrepreneurs, research subjects that cannot necessarily compete for grants, but that may yield significant discoveries.
President Casper, who has made the Stanford Graduate Fellowships one of the University's top priorities, committed $10 million in discretionary funds to cover the first two years of the program. At the same time, a $200 million endowment drive was launched in April 1997, starting with $100 million in matching funds provided by a small group of donors to create an incentive for other donors. Under this program, gifts are matched on a one-to-one basis. The endowment is more than three-quarters raised and beginning to provide crucial funding. Donors include undergraduate and graduate alumni, friends, corporations, and foundations. Corporations, which typically do not make gifts of endowment, have cited the role graduate students play in basic research, technological innovation, technology transfer, and economic growth as reasons for contributing.
Now in its third year, Stanford Graduate Fellowships is being emulated by other research universities, according to Dean of Research Charles Kruger. Of the 102 fellows admitted for the fall of 1999, 54 were in the School of Engineering, 25 in the School of Humanities and Sciences, 14 in the School of Medicine, five in the School of Earth Sciences, and four in the School of Education.
“I believe that what Stanford and other universities do is directly related to the success of the nation's economy,” says Kruger, adding, “To the extent, for instance, that Stanford has been a catalyst in the creation of Silicon Valley, it is in a very significant way due to the work of the people we have educated.”