Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University , more known under the name of University Stanford , is one of most prestigious the Université S American. Located in the middle of the Silicon Valley, separated from Palo Alto by the avenue El Camino Real, it in particular took part in the development of Internet. Its French name should be “Stanford University” and not “University of Stanford”, forms incorrect but frequent. Indeed, it draws its name from its founder, Leland Stanford, business man and American politician of the 19th century.

Among his professors and researchers, one currently counts 18 Nobel Prize. In the field Sport yew, the club of the Stanford Cardinal defends the colors of the Stanford University. Two members of the French Academy are currently professor with Stanford: Rene Girard (highly skilled Prof) and Michel Greenhouses.

History

The university is founded at the end of the XIXe century by the tycoon of the Gouverneur, railroads and Senator de Californie Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane Stanford. She owes her name with their single child, Leland Stanford Junior, died of the Typhoïde in 1884 right before its sixteenth birthday. The day of died of his/her son, Leland Stanford would have declared with his wife " The children of California will be our enfants" (" The children off California shall Be our children") , sentence which is generally regarded as the founding document symbolic system of the university.

The campus is sometimes called The Farm by the students in reference to the fact that it was founded on the old site of the farm of Stanford, the Palo Alto Stock Farm which accommodated horses. The constitutive instrument is dated from the November 11th 1885 and the University opens officially its doors the October 1891 with 559 students as a mixed establishment.

The Earthquake of 1906 in San Francisco destroys parts of the Main Quad , the bookstore, and Stanford Memorial Church, as well as the gate which marked the entry of the university. The buildings are quickly renovated but some, as the church whose bell-tower is not rebuilt, do not find their aspect of origin. The Earthquake of Loma Prieta in 1989 inflicts new damage with the campus.

Campus

The Stanford University extends on 32 km ². Its principal campus is bordered by El Camino Real , Stanford Avenue, Junipero Serra Boulevard and Sand Hill Road, in the north-western area of the Vallée of Santa Clara, in the Péninsule of San Francisco.

It is during the summer 1886 that Stanford consults off the president of the Massachusetts Institute Technology, Francis Amasa Walker, and the architect-landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted of Boston to decide plans of the campus. Olmsted is at the origin of the general idea of the campus, its buildings and the place adapted to construction. Charles Allerton Coolidge chooses the romantic style richardsonien and combines it with the style Mission Revival for the buildings. However this original campus is largely reached by the seism of 1906, which saves only the Quad , the old man Chemistry Building and Encina Hall .

The University also includes/understands a second campus, Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve , a ground of 5 km ² located at Portola Valley, and the Hopkins Marine Station located at Pacific Grove.

The principal buildings of the principal campus are the Main Quad and Memorial Church , the Cantor Center for Visual Arts and art gallery , the Stanford Mausoleum and the Angel off Objection , Hoover Tower , the Rodin sculpture garden , the Papua New Guinea Sculpture Garden , the Arizona Cactus Garden , the Stanford University Arboretum , the Green Library and the Dish . The Hanna-Honeycomb House of Frank Lloyd Wright (1937) and the Lou Henry and Herbert Hoover House (1919) are both of the National Historic Landmark S.

Stanford Church Memorial

Located in the middle of the campus, the Stanford Memorial Church , so known under the name of " MemChu ", was built by Jane Stanford like a memorial with the memory of his/her husband Leland Stanford. Built at the beginning of the Years 1900, the church roughly accommodated 7500 marriages since its completion in 1903. It has four organ and a frontage decorated with the mosaics, largest of America at the time, which required the work of twelve men during two years to be completed. The cost of construction amounted to 1,000,000 of Dollar S of 1900, including 97.000 dollars for the mosaics alone. Three architects took part in the project: Charles A. Coolidge, Clinton Day and Charles Hodges. The frontage measures more than 62 meters of length and 28 meters in height. The interior of the church is long of approximately 50 meters and 1250 seats there are available.

The church is not dedicated to a particular worship, but the daily services and Sunday are generally Protestant. Catholic masses are also held. The Reverend Scotty McLennan supervises the religious life with Stanford and directs the Office for Religious Life .

Hoover Tower

Hoover Tower (called HooTow by the students) is a tower of approximately 86 meters in height located in the campus. It belongs to the Hoover Institution, a research center rested by the former president of the United States Herbert Hoover. Completed in 1941, the year of the 50e birthday of the university, the tower has a Carillon of 48 bells. Its new first stages are dedicated to shelves of library and its last three stages at offices. A panoramic platform of observation is with 76 meters with the top of the ground and offers a sight on all the campus and the surrounding area.

Libraries

The Cecil Howard Green Library is the principal library of the campus. It belongs to the Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (SULAIR). One counts there more than two million volumes, whose majority relate to humanities and social sciences. Built in the Years 1910, equipped with an appendix in 1980, it is named in the honor of the geophysicist Cecil Howard Green which contributed to its construction. It pays also homage to Peter Bing who allowed the restoration of the building after the Earthquake of Loma Prieta, in 1989.

On the whole, the nineteen libraries of the University have a collection of more than eight million works. Meyer Library has many documents concerning the Eastern Asia. The other libraries are Lane Medical Library , Jackson Business Library , Falconer Biology Library , Cubberley Education Library , Branner Earth Sciences Library , Swain Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Library , Jonsson Government Documents collection , Crown Law Library , the Stanford Auxiliary Library (SAL), SLAC Library , the Hoover library , the Miller Marine Biology Library with Hopkins Marine Station , the Music Library , and the special collections of the University.

Parks

The Stanford University Arboretum is a Arboretum where one can find more than 350 species of plants, whose Eucalyptus, of Washingtonia will filifera, of the date palms of the Canaries, of the Quercus agrifolia, the cedars of the the Himalayas, fir trees of St Lucia. It also includes/understands the Arizona Cactus Garden , a Botanical garden specialized in the Cactus and the succulent plants. It was planted at the origin between 1880 and 1883 by Stanford and was organized by the Landscape gardener Rudolph Ulrich. One can find there Arbres of Jade and Aloès.

The Stanford Mausoleum is located in this unit, in the North-East of the campus. Leland Stanford, Jr. and his/her parents Leland and Jane Stanford rest there. In the beginning, Stanford wish to build on the site a residence, but they change opinion after the death of their son and make set up the current mausoleum, as well as a memorial, which is a copy of 1908 statue of 1894 of the American sculptor William Wetmore Story, Angel off Objection ; dedicated to the brother of Jane, Henry Clay Lathrop.

Classifications

The Stanford University appears in the leading bunch of the classifications of the best universities in the world. The academic Classification of the world universities carried out by the University Jiao Tong of Shanghai class thus the Stanford University in the 2nd world place for the year 2007.

The Stanford University is classified 2nd in the classification of the most total universities (The Top 100 Total Universities) carried out by the American magazine Newsweek in 2006.

The Classement of reference US American News also classifies, since many years, the Stanford University and its various schools in the leading bunch of the American Universités.

Innovations and discovered

  • the agency of advanced research of the American department of Defense (DARPA) finance of the technological projects such as the DARPA Great Challenge , a race in the desert of the Nevada which takes place every year. In October 2005, it is the machine designed by the Stanford University, baptized Stanley, which gained the reward of two million dollars. Stanley is an automatic vehicle, driven by seven network computers and which is guided by a radar and laser beams.

  • the professor Vijay S. Pande directs there Folding@Home, a project of calculation distributed on a worldwide scale of research on the folding up of proteins.

People having attended or attending the Stanford university

Presidents of the University

  1. David Starr Jordan (1891– 1913)

  2. John Casper Branner (1913– 1915)
  3. Ray Lyman Wilbur (1916– 1943)
  4. Donald Bertrand Tresidder (1943– 1948)
  5. J.E. Wallace Sterling (1949– 1968)
  6. Kenneth Sanborn Pitzer (1968– 1970)
  7. Richard Wall Lyman (1970– 1980)
  8. Donald Kennedy (1980– 1992)
  9. Gerhard Casper (1992– 2000)
  10. John L. Hennessy (2000– present)

Professors

Graduates

See too

Random links:Madrugada | Argonautidae | FC Biel-Bienne | Scott Weinger | Andre Mabille de Poncheville | Richard_Owen