Takeaways from Stanford Review Interview with President Jon Levin

Academic freedom is an existential matter for the university. At the end of the day, it’s the one unique thing we could potentially offer.

Good for President Levin for sitting down for an interview with the Stanford Review and great interview by Julia Steinberg. Here’s my quick TLDR summary.

Interviewer Julia Steinberg observed:

• Some Stanford students do not read a single book and still graduate

• Many Stanford classes are “contract graded”, i.e. you get an A if work submitted on time regardless of quality

• Democracy Day at Stanford had a heavy emphasis on supporting Democrats and in general there’s little political diversity on campus

President Levin emphasized:

• Faculty can teach and invite who they want

• Students and faculty should want to hear people with a perspective from outside the figurative Stanford “zip code”

• Universities can restore public confidence by creating environments on campus where all ideas can thrive and be tested and debated

From the discussion on AI:

• If AI is the future then there are big questions about the value proposition of universities. Meta has 1000x the GPUs as Stanford

• According to President Levin, universities can only win with a “human capital strategy”.

• People will want to come to universities in part because they “get the freedom to think about the things they want to think about”

My main takeaway is that true academic freedom is actually an existential matter for the university. At the end of the day, it’s the one unique thing we could potentially offer.