Farm Report

CAMPUS NOTEBOOK   Casting a Wider Net for Law Faculty A new program might help the Law School address the criticism that its tenured faculty does not include enough women and minorities. The Stanford/Yale Junior Faculty Forum has been created to help groom young legal minds. Stanford law professor Ronald Gilson says organizers hope the program will increase faculty diversity by identifying a broader pool of up-and-coming professors. Participants will be chosen from among those submitting papers. They then will present their work at the forum, to be held each year starting in spring 2000, where leading legal scholars will provide commentary on the papers.   Sleeplessness Can Be as Impairing as Alcohol You'd get very concerned if, while waiting to board a plane, you saw the pilot stumble out of the airport bar. You should be just as worried if you see the pilot yawning, according to new research by Stanford's Sleep Disorders Clinic and Research Center. In a test of reaction times, people who were tired because of disrupted sleep performed as poorly as people who were legally drunk. The study is the first to show severe impairment in people who have only mild to moderate sleep disturbances.   Giving the Coffee House a Much-Needed Jolt Every campus needs a place where students can linger over a cup of coffee, do a little studying, maybe take in some live music along with a veggie burrito. At Stanford, that place has been the Coffee House -- affectionately known as CoHo -- for the last 30 years. Now this Tresidder mainstay is getting a badly needed facelift. Out: the cavelike interior and convoluted traffic flow. In: improved wiring, a longer counter and a warmer, lighter atmosphere. "We didn't want to alter the culture at all," says Matthew Almeida, general manager for Bon Appétit, which manages the CoHo. "Almost everything is a minor aesthetic change or a code improvement."   After a Drug Study, Questions A Stanford study of a powerful psychiatric drug may have violated one of several conflicting laws governing research on prisoners, California Youth Authority officials say. In the 1997 research, conducted jointly with the CYA and led by psychiatry professor Hans Steiner, 61 boys held at the state correctional center in Stockton volunteered to take the drug Depakote. Investigators wanted to know if the drug would make the 14- to 18-year-olds less aggressive. CYA officials now acknowledge that the study was probably "not in compliance" with a state law prohibiting medical research on prison inmates. Stanford says doctors followed thorough procedures to make sure the study was permitted and that the volunteers were safe.   The Irish President Calls for Compassion The leader of Ireland came to Silicon Valley to call for social responsibility to communities excluded from economic boom times. In a September 20 speech at the Institute for International Studies, Irish President Mary McAleese spoke about her country's unprecedented economic growth and about the special responsibility it created for her "blessed" generation. Ireland is home to many subsidiaries and partners of Silicon Valley companies. "We are wealthier, more independent, better educated, more self-confident than any generation which preceded us," McAleese said, "but we are a first-world country with a third-world memory."   The Radio Free Europe Archives Head to Hoover During the Cold War, the crackle of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty meant real news for people in countries where independent media didn't exist. Now the archives of the U.S. government-funded radio service -- including some 61,000 reels of broadcast tapes and 7.5 million pages of transcripts -- will make their home at the Hoover Institution. "These archives provide a historical record of every major event, movement and personality in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe throughout the Cold War and during the first years of transition from communism to democracy," says Hoover director John Raisian.   A Think Tank Hopes for a Foothills Home The tug-of-war over campus land use continues. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, a think tank temporarily housed in Menlo Park, wants to build a 20,000-square-foot facility in the Foothills south of Junipero Serra Boulevard. The foundation, which has close ties to Stanford, has signed a long-term lease on the land with the University for $1 a year. But activists who want to preserve open space are expected to protest the plan. The project is scheduled to go before the Santa Clara County planning commission in November.   Now Available: Classes in Argentina Stanford's overseas reach just got a little longer. A new study-abroad program will kick off this spring in Buenos Aires, bringing to three the number of campuses in Latin America, says outgoing overseas studies director Russell Berman. Up to 15 participants will study political science, international relations, economics and Argentine culture alongside local students at the Universidad Torcuato di Tella. Overseas studies programs already operate in Puebla, Mexico, and in Santiago, Chile. Also back in business is the campus in Moscow, which was shut down temporarily last year during a currency crisis in Russia.