FOLLOW-UP

'Unquestionable Courage'

Roughly one year after he was slain by Pakistani extremists, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl (“The Man They Called Danny,” May/June) has been honored with an award named for the country’s first martyr to freedom of the press.

In November, Colby College selected Pearl, ’85, as its 2002 recipient of the Lovejoy Award, one of the country’s oldest and most esteemed honors for journalists. The award memorializes Elijah Parish Lovejoy, an abolitionist editor who died defending his press from a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Ill., in 1837. Pearl’s sister Tamara Pearl accepted the honor at the ceremony in Waterville, Maine.

Pearl, the 50th recipient, joins a roster of past Lovejoy winners that includes virtually every top name in American journalism. Otis Chandler, ’50, former editor and publisher of the Los Angeles Times, earned the award in 1966. The late John S. Knight, editorial chairman of Knight newspapers and whose foundation permanently endowed Stanford’s Knight fellowships in journalism, was the 1969 honoree.

“Daniel Pearl’s commitment to his profession, the drive and determination that were hallmarks of his work, and his unquestionable courage are inspirational to any journalist,” said Matthew Storin, former editor of the Boston Globe and chair of the selection committee. “I only wish he were here to receive the honor.”

Also in November, Stanford announced the establishment of the Daniel Pearl Memorial Journalism Internship, to be awarded annually to an outstanding Stanford student journalist whose qualifications and career goals exemplify Pearl’s work. The student selected will work in a foreign bureau of a major U.S. newspaper. In the first few years of the new internship, that newspaper will be the Journal.

Gutok Was Here

SMALL WORLD: Batniji and Gutok.

Courtesy Rajaie Batniji

Culturally and physically, Papua New Guinea is about as far as you can get from the Farm. Or so thought Rajaie Batniji last summer as he neared the village of Tongajumb after four hours paddling a dugout down the steamy Sepik River.

He and 10 other students had come to the island nation through the Stanford PNG Medical Project (“Getting Better,” November/December 2001). Already, their trip had been marked by surprises, like getting caught in an election-day brawl among men wielding blow guns and sticks. But remote Tongajumb held the biggest surprise of all.

As the students set up a makeshift clinic by the river, an old man hobbled over to Batniji, ’03. In broken English, he asked, “Where do you come from?”

“We come from America,” Batniji replied.

“I go to America,” announced the man, whose name was Gutok. “I work there.”

During the medical exam, when Gutok complained of back pain, a local translator said it started after he came back from California. “What was he doing in California?” Batniji asked.

“He carved wood and stone of our ancient idols.”

Could Gutok be one of the master carvers who had come to Stanford in 1994 to create the New Guinea Sculpture Garden near Roble Hall? On that hunch, Batniji says, “I told him we live with his work and enjoy seeing it all the time.”

Back on campus, Batniji found Gutok’s name carved into several of the sculptures, as well as a photo of the artist and a map indicating his village. The old man had indeed left his mark on the Farm.

Settling an Old Score in Reno

STREET SMART: Stanford.

News Service

Under the terms of a settlement reached in October, Stanford will relinquish its claim to the streets of downtown Reno, land once co-owned by the University’s founder.

The land originally was purchased in 1868 by San Francisco’s “Big Four” railroad barons, including Leland Stanford, during construction of the transcontinental railroad. The lots were subsequently sold, but the streets themselves remained in legal limbo.

A dispute over who owned the streets emerged in the mid-1990s, when several downtown casinos sued the city of Reno over monthly leases the city charged for skywalks that connect the buildings. After a title search, says deputy city attorney Michael Halley, the Big Four heirs—who also include the University of California system and the McKesson Corp.—were named as potential litigants because “they might have a legal interest in the property.” Prior to that, says Halley, the University “had not a clue” that it owned, or might own, a piece of Reno.

Last fall’s settlement grants full legal title to five Reno casinos. In turn, the casinos and the city of Reno will pay Stanford and other heirs a total of $150,000.

FOLLOW-UP

Hiring Takes a Hit

SLOWDOWN: Etchemendy.

Linda Cicero

When Provost John Etchemendy was interviewed last September for a story about Stanford’s budget woes (“Balancing Act,” November/December), he acknowledged that money was tight but said “it is too early to tell” whether a hiring freeze or layoffs might be needed. It didn’t take long to find out.

On October 25, Etchemendy announced to the Faculty Senate that the University would implement an administrative hiring freeze effective immediately. The move comes as Stanford attempts to balance its general fund budget for fiscal year ’04, which begins in September ’03. Offices campuswide have been asked to submit budget plans reflecting cuts of 5 percent, 7.5 percent and 10 percent. Etchemendy, PhD ’82, estimates the general fund budget—which makes up roughly one-quarter of the University’s total budget—will require an 8 percent reduction. In some cases, he told the Senate, “that could well involve layoffs.”

Faculty hiring is not affected.

The freeze is “a cautionary measure” to introduce more restraint in University hiring, according to Etchemendy, who noted that administrative staff grew from 6,700 in 1998 to 7,900 in 2002 to accommodate new programs and expanded operations.

Hollywood and the White House

History professor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Kennedy has written famously about American presidents and their role in shaping our country, but until now he never went on record with his pick for the best president ever. In the movies, that is.

In its November issue, the Atlantic Monthly invited Kennedy, ’63, along with history professors from Harvard, Columbia and Boston University, to rate 11 movie presidents for their ability to manage the country in a crisis. The candidates ranged from Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) in 1964’s Dr. Strangelove to Robert Fowler (James Cromwell) in last summer’s The Sum of All Fears.

The historians ranked the Hollywood presidents as great, near great, average, below average or failure. It was a sorry lot, but even so, Kennedy told STANFORD, “Celluloid presidents offer far more nourishment to the imagination than most of the real ones.” In making his reviews, he quipped, “I followed the example of one of my favorite movie critics, Joe Bob Briggs, and treated this assignment with all the seriousness it deserved.”

James Marshall (Harrison Ford) of Air Force One and Andrew Shepherd (Michael Douglas) of The American President won top honors, but even they were considered below average overall. Marshall, who rescues his family and the nation after terrorists hijack the presidential airplane, won Kennedy’s vote as “a can-do, take-charge, damn-the-torpedoes kind of guy.” As for Shepherd, a widower embroiled in controversy over his lobbyist girlfriend, Kennedy wrote: “He was a weak leader who succumbed to the admittedly abundant charms of Sydney Ellen Wade (Annette Bening) and made himself a pawn of the environmental movement.” Shepherd did have one thing going for him: according to the script, he was a Stanford grad.