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  Liberal and Conservative Place: Palo Alto, CAThese are comments on Palo Alto, submitted by other Turn Left visitors. They do not necessarily represent the opinion of the webmaster. You may add a comment on Palo Alto if you want.  Fake left, go right. Score one for the Cardinal. Over a century
ago, Leland Stanford built his railroad fortune on the sweat of
Chinese and Irish immigrants. After his son died, Leland decided
that his legacy would live on as a private school built on a farm.
Since then, agrarian feudalism has turned corporate, and Stanford, Inc.
is on the rise again. The campus, which resembles a corporate country
club more than a university, is replete with an on-campus golf course
and an opulent on-campus shopping mall (with the likes of Nordstroms,
Macy's, and Bloomingdales, it caters primarily to a non-student
clientele,
and exists for the purpose of enriching Stanford's coffers). The student
body gravitates quite homogeneously towards several mainstream
professions, and academic graduate school is anathema to the vast
majority of undergraduates. The atmosphere of intellectual curiosity
which might be expected of any great university has largely been
supplanted by the belief that success in life required no more than
the Stanford name and a few million dollars.
In recent years, some engineering departments have elected to dilute their selective graduate programs in their quest for economic gain. Masters programs admitted hundreds of students, many of whom would never have gained admission to Stanford's undergraduate programs. Instead of gaining exposure to the state of the art technology and research Stanford is supposed to be famous for, these students sit in classes of 100 or more students for $22,000 a year only to be rushed promptly out into the corporate world. Some masters programs do not even offer the possibility of a thesis track for students interested in deeper and more independent study. Courses are often watered-down to accomodate the swelling ranks of Silicon Valley gold rushers eager for a quick piece of paper; in fact, several graduate classes at Stanford are now considered undergraduate material in the University of California. Crowded classes at the graduate level often preclude contact with faculty members, many of whom are too preoccupied with their own companies to devote serious concern to teaching. Rumor has it that in at least one department owning a company has almost become a requirement for tenure.
If the sacrifice of academic standards for corporate enrichment is
disturbing, Stanford's transparently phony attempt to imitate liberal
ideas is even more obnoxious. In the late 80s and early 90s, the
administration needlessly restricted academic freedom by slapping
several new course requirements on the student body, most of which
were politically motivated. There is not a conscientious liberalism
on this campus that encourages individual students to think critically
and independently. Students who are not entirely apathetic most often
tow the PC line with little thought or conviction, mindlessly conforming
to the social expectations of the elite. Everybody talks about
multiculturalism and diversity, but I don't see it. I came to Stanford
years ago with the highest opinion of the university. Four years and
$100,000 later, I left disenchanted, eager to get out of the path of
the great herd of upper-middle class yuppie suburbanite elites making
a beeline for the big bucks. ...and another comment...
...and another comment...
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