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This archived information is dated to the 2008-09 academic year only and may no longer be current.

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Stanford People

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A Brief History of Stanford

By any measure, Stanford's faculty, which numbers approximately 1,800, is one of the most distinguished in the nation. It includes 16 Nobel laureates, 4 Pulitzer Prize winners, 20 National Medal of Science winners, 132 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 239 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 85 members of the National Academy of Engineering, and 28 members of the National Academy of Education. Yet beyond their array of honors, what truly distinguishes Stanford faculty is their commitment to sharing knowledge with their students. The great majority of professors teach undergraduates both in introductory lecture classes and in small freshman, sophomore, and advanced seminars.

Enrollment in Autumn Quarter 2007 totaled 14,945, of whom 6,759 were undergraduates and 8,186 were graduate students. Like the faculty, the Stanford student body is distinguished. Approximately 12 people apply to Stanford for every student who enters the freshman class. 89 Stanford students have been named Rhodes Scholars and 76 have been named Marshall Scholars. The six-year graduation rate for freshmen who entered Stanford University full-time in 2000 was 95 percent. Stanford awarded 4,666 degrees in 2007-08, of which 1,702 were baccalaureate and 2,964 were advanced degrees.

Stanford students also shine in an array of activities outside the classroom, from student government to music, theater, and journalism. Through the Haas Center for Public Service, students participate in dozens of community service activities, such as tutoring programs for children in nearby East Palo Alto, the Hunger Project, and the Arbor Free Clinic.

In the athletic arena, Stanford students have enjoyed tremendous success as well. Stanford fields teams in 35 Division I varsity sports. Of Stanford's 95 NCAA team titles, 79 have been captured since 1980, placing Stanford at the top among the nation's most title-winning schools during that time. In 2007-08, Stanford won two national championships in women's cross country and women's synchronized swimming, and won the Directors' Cup, emblematic of the top overall athletic program in the country, for the 14th consecutive year. In 1999-2000, Stanford became the first school in Pac-10 history to win conference championships in football, men's basketball, and baseball in the same year. Athletic success has reached beyond The Farm, as well, with 48 Stanford athletes and coaches taking part in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Intramural and club sports are also popular; over 1,000 students take part in the club sports program, while participation in the intramural program has reached 9,000 with many active in more than one sport.

Stanford graduates can be found in an extraordinary variety of places: in space (Sally Ride, '73, Ph.D. '78, was the first American woman in space); on the news (Ted Koppel, M.A. '62, created the successful program Nightline); Broadway (David Henry Hwang, '79, received a Tony Award for his celebrated work, M. Butterfly); in San Francisco live theater (Carey Perloff, '80, artistic director of the American Conservatory Theater); at the helm of major corporations (Scott McNealy, '80, founded Sun Microsystems, and Chih-yuan (Jerry) Yang, '94, and David Filo, '90, founded Yahoo); and on the U.S. Supreme Court (two Stanford graduates, Anthony Kennedy, '58, and Stephen Breyer, '59, currently sit on the high court; Sandra Day O'Connor, '50, J.D. '52, recently retired from the high court, and William Rehnquist, '48, J.D.'52, served until his death in 2005).

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