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Gobaud learned of violation through clerical mishap

In an incident called “profoundly regrettable” by the vice provost for student affairs, student body president David Gobaud learned that his running mate, former vice president Jay de la Torre, faced possible suspension for a suspected Honor Code violation only after he was mistakenly handed de la Torre’s case file late this summer in the Judicial Affairs office, where he was serving as a panelist on another case.

The claim, confirmed by top University officials and de la Torre ‘10, has raised questions about how the Office of Judicial Affairs protects students’ privacy, as well as communication between de la Torre and Gobaud ‘08, M.S. ‘10 before and after their election, and Gobaud’s efforts as president to encourage reform to parts of the judicial process—efforts that he says were appropriate even after he learned that his vice president was in the Judicial Affairs process.

Gobaud offered the explanation last Friday in response to questions about when he learned that his vice president was alleged to have plagiarized code in a computer science class last fall—an Honor Code violation whose standard penalty is a quarter-long suspension and 40 hours of community service. De la Torre was found responsible of the violation by a Judicial Affairs panel, received the standard penalty, appealed it and was denied at a final hearing earlier this quarter. He resigned at a Nov. 11 meeting with student leaders and President Hennessy, and explained his suspension in a public statement the next day.

“I was shocked,” Gobaud said about the day in late summer when, he said, a Judicial Affairs staff member mistakenly handed him the wrong case file. He said when he opened it and saw de la Torre’s name on the paperwork, “my jaw dropped. The person who handed it to me, it was obviously like, ‘Wait a minute.’ I was like, ‘I don’t think I should have this.’ She took it back.”

Several top University officials have responded to the mistake that apparently tipped Gobaud off to his vice president’s case, which, like all Judicial Affairs cases, is promised in the University’s 1997 student judicial charter to be kept confidential by the office.

“It is clear that multiple parties made mistakes,” said University President John Hennessy in an e-mail to The Daily, although he stopped short of naming those parties.

Provost John Etchemendy called it “a less serious mistake than if [the office] lost the file, handed it to somebody who wasn’t on a panel,” but said the incident was still “a serious mistake.”

“I am aware that an extremely unfortunate error occurred when David, as a judicial affairs panelist, was given the wrong file in preparation for a hearing during the summer,” said Vice Provost for Student Affairs Greg Boardman in an e-mail to The Daily. “As you know, confidentiality in the judicial process is, and always has been, of utmost importance, and this mistake, while clearly unintentional, is profoundly regrettable.”

Gobaud has gone to lengths to explain the constraints he faced after learning about the case, noting that when he became a judicial affairs panelist last fall, he signed the standard confidentiality agreement saying that “information regarding any student’s disciplinary status is not to be discussed with anyone… outside the judicial hearing without the written authorization of the student.”

Gobaud said that agreement meant he could only seek advice about the incident from Judicial Affairs staff members and the associate vice provost who oversees Judicial Affairs, Christine Griffith. Griffith told The Daily that panelists are expected to take their concerns to office staff. Gobaud said he believed he could not take the issue to any other administrators.

The day he saw the case file, Gobaud said, “Jay and I talked, and he told me about his case.”

“David sat down with me because he was suspicious something was up, and I told him about my situation,” de la Torre said in an e-mail to The Daily. The two said they then started planning a transition for after de la Torre’s resignation, which took place some two months later.

“[Gobaud] was a good friend and respected my privacy, so he didn’t discuss the situation with anyone I wasn’t comfortable sharing it with,” de la Torre said. Gobaud maintains he would have faced a Fundamental Standard violation charge if he told anyone else about the case.

Confidentiality, Reexamined

Griffith sat down with The Daily and acknowledged that the mistake has prompted a review of confidentiality protocol in the Office of Judicial Affairs.

“I think given the weight of that responsibility that we feel in terms of confidentiality—that’s the highest charge we have in the office, no question,” she said. “Given how seriously we take that responsibility, sure, it’s huge when there’s a human error.”

She described the review process prompted by this summer’s incident, the likes of which have never, to her knowledge, happened before.

“We review what our protocols are, we try to determine, are there ways we can implement better protocols? And then we just reiterate the need [to staff] to continue to be as committed to that part of our work as we always have been,” Griffith said.

She said there have been no major protocol changes, but two practices have been reemphasized. One is requiring panelists to sign a confidentiality agreement, as Gobaud did.

“The fact that they agree when they volunteer to serve in this capacity to keep all information confidential is a big part of what we do,” Griffith said.

The second practice is the electronic document system the office switched to earlier this summer, which allows panelists to access case files on a secure server. Griffith said the system “serves us well.” Panelists can still request hard copies of case files, as Gobaud did for the case file he was supposed to pick up that day.

Jamie Pontius-Hogan, a judicial adviser who works in the office, explained the protocol for picking up file in person.

“We provided a kind of sealed envelope and they [the panelist] would walk into the front desk,” she said. “The person sitting at the front desk would say, you know, ‘I need to see your ID,’ and they’d sign the little sign-out form and sign out the form and take the packet.”

Despite the fact that someone apparently gave Gobaud the wrong case file that day, Griffith said she is confident about efforts to protect students’ privacy as promised in the judicial charter.

“No, I don’t have concerns about students’ privacy being at risk,” Griffith said. “I have all the confidence that we’re doing everything we possibly can to ensure that we don’t have a repeat.”

Vetting de la Torre

Gobaud and de la Torre have both offered descriptions of their communication before and after their election, and de la Torre has explained why, despite facing a possible suspension because of the plagiarism claim against him, he still ran.

“At the end of the day, I just wanted to help people,” de la Torre wrote in an e-mail to The Daily. “I always saw Stanford as this safe, perfect space. The stories I heard about students with mental health challenges feeling alone and stories [of] girls getting raped really got to me, and I wanted to do something about it.

“I’ve sat down and thought about whether or not running and staying despite everything I was going through was the right decision,” he added, “and I’m still struggling with that.”

He told The Daily three weeks ago, “I thought if I made my case—expressed my remorse—well enough to the judicial affairs panel, I could mitigate the consequences. I was very optimistic.”

Gobaud said that when he was evaluating de la Torre as a running mate last year, he did not ask him if he had any “outstanding judicial affairs.” Gobaud said he did, however, talk extensively with de la Torre about the time commitment necessary for student body executives, and “nothing ever came up that caused me to have any doubt that he would be able to fulfill his duty.”

At Tuesday’s ASSU Undergraduate Senate meeting, Gobaud also pointed to the Judicial Affairs language that indicated to him it was possible for de la Torre to delay a suspension.

According to the Judicial Affairs Penalty Code, “responding students are responsible for providing convincing evidence that a suspension would have an unduly harsh impact—for instance, intense and unavoidable public attention—for the Panel’s consideration. In rare instances, a quarter of suspension may be postponed for a quarter, or at the most, two quarters.”

Senator Alex Katz ‘12 asked, “Is this the reason, the sole reason, the announcement didn’t happen earlier?”

“This is one of the reasons,” Gobaud said. “He might have received an alternate sanction.”

“Did you really not advise him against that, telling him that was probably not a reasonable expectation?” Katz asked.

“I actually did tell him I didn’t think it was possible,” Gobaud said.

After an appeal this fall, de la Torre’s suspension remained set for winter quarter.

Of the 367 cases brought to Judicial Affairs between 2004 and 2007—most of which were heard, though some were dropped—one has ended with a reduced penalty after an appeal, according to statistics on the office’s Web site.

Gobaud’s Judicial Reform

Meanwhile, students at Tuesday’s Senate meeting pressed Gobaud on his efforts as president to encourage reform to parts of the judicial process, efforts that he says were appropriate even after he learned that his vice president faced suspension.

Gobaud said he wasn’t ready to specify what those efforts were, but later outlined them to The Daily.

He said he had begun talking to administrators who work in or oversee the Office of Judicial Affairs since the spring—and continued after learning about de la Torre’s case—regarding ideas to modify the judicial process.

One, he said, is to change the current practice of assigning the same judicial adviser to the “complaining party”—say, a professor or T.A.—and the responding student, which, he said, risks confidentiality breaches.

The other idea, he said, is creating a resource outside of the office to help students through the “inherently stressful” judicial process.

Gobaud said he sent an e-mail to President Hennessy, Provost Etchemendy and Vice Provost Boardman shortly after de la Torre’s public announcement, both explaining the situation and discussing his ideas.

“Seeing Jay go through the process helped shed light on the Judicial Affairs process” for him, he told The Daily.

He also called a meeting in early fall between some Senate and Graduate Student Council (GSC) members at his Munger apartment to discuss the Board of Judicial Affairs nominee issue that spurred weeks of disagreement in student government. There, too, he said he discussed his ideas for judicial changes.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Senator Zachary Warma ‘11, who is also The Daily’s columns editor, asked Gobaud, “You did not see how involving legislative bodies in a push against the Office of Judicial Affairs just as your number two is being reviewed under Judicial Affairs, how that comes off as circumspect?”

Gobaud said the meeting was to discuss the board matter, not the office.

The Senate unanimously approved Andy Parker ‘11 as Gobaud’s nominee to replace de la Torre as vice president. The group also voted 8-5 to approve Farah Abuzeid ‘10 as co-chief of the executive staff, formerly Parker’s position. Appointments, however, require a two-thirds vote, so Abuzeid remains unconfirmed by the Undergraduate Senate. She was approved by the GSC two weeks ago.

Devin Banerjee contributed to this report.

A bunch of folks have been submitting the recent Patently-O post by Martin Goetz, the guy who claims to have the first “software patent,” defending the concept of software patents. The argument boils down to pretty much the same argument we’ve heard a thousand times before: that what people create in software is no different than what they create in hardware — it’s just a different method of doing the same thing, and thus, software should be patentable. To some extent, I agree. Unlike some, I’m not in favor of making a specific “exemption” for software as not being patentable (though, I do question why or how something should be covered by both copyrights and patents, and also am curious how you can patent basic mathematics… but those are questions for another time).

Honestly, in reading through his arguments, what struck me is that there is no explanation for why even computer hardware should be patentable. It’s just taken for granted that computer hardware patents must be good, and since software is the equivalent of what’s done in hardware (not really true in many cases, but…), software patents must be good. But shouldn’t the original question be whether or not the hardware itself requires patents and whether or not that helps to “promote the progress of science and the useful arts”? Goetz never bothers to explain how any of these patents promote progress.

And, of course, the bigger point is whether or not it’s really true that software is just a different way of doing what you can do in hardware. In some cases, that’s true. In other cases, it’s not. Most software today is not just a different way of doing things that could be done in hardware, but involve things that couldn’t be done without software. How do you offer wireless email without any software? How do you do “one-click shopping” without software? What the article is really arguing is that because you could build software-functionality into hardware, you should be able to patent it, but perhaps that never should have been allowed to be patented in the first place?

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As the endowment tumbled by 27 percent, University officials vowed to maintain Stanford’s current financial aid system. Lesser known, however, was their promise to uphold the same policies for international students on financial aid.

According to Director of Financial Aid Karen Cooper, the University will uphold the same pledge in financial aid security to international students, who comprise approximately seven percent of the total undergraduate population.

The actual percentage of international students on aid is nearly half that of the total undergrads — approximately 25 percent of international students receive need-based aid directly from the University, compared to 48 percent of all undergraduates.

Resident vs. Nonresident Aid

The difference in financial aid distribution results from the lack of a need-blind admissions policy for international students.

Unlike for students holding U.S. Citizen or Permanent Resident status, admission officers must consider an international student’s ability to pay when making admission decisions.

According to Cooper, international students must indicate during the admissions process whether or not they will be applying for aid.

“If international students do not apply for aid at the time of admission, they do so with the understanding that they will not be considered for assistance from the University throughout their undergraduate career,” she wrote in an e-mail to The Daily.

Yet once international students do decide to apply for aid, they provide family financial data to the University, much as domestic students do.

According to the University’s financial aid Web site, both groups must fill out the CSS Profile when applying for aid. And while domestic students submit the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), international students submit the International Student Certification of Finances in the FAFSA’s place.

“We [then] attempt to make a similar analysis of the student’s family’s financial strength in order to determine eligibility for aid as we do with domestic students,” Cooper said.

Increasing Aid Numbers

Due to increased funding and donations over the past several years, the University has been able to admit an increasing number of international students with financial need.

“Over the last five to 10 years, we have steadily been increasing the number of international students admitted with aid eligibility each year, as funding from our very generous donors has increased for this purpose,” Cooper said.

While the University financial budget has swelled 85 percent since the 2005-06 academic year — the amount of total aid increased from $60.8 million to $112.5 million — the amount of institutional aid awarded to international students has also seen a 64 percent increase, from $5.5 million to $9.1 million, over this four-year period.

And just as it does with domestic students, the University relies on a combination of the endowment income, annual gift funds (The Stanford Fund) and general University funds to provide aid to international students who have demonstrated need.

One key difference in funding, however, is that the University does not receive any federal or state grant funds to pay for international student aid.

”Checking the Box”

Director of Admission Shawn Abbott maintained that the admissions process is not much different for international students than it is for domestic students.

“They still move through the same exact evaluation and selection process as all students,” Abbott wrote in an e-mail to The Daily, although he acknowledged that it is more competitive for international students who need aid to be admitted.

Many international applicants therefore do not apply for aid out of fear that it will affect their chances of admission into the University.

“With the need-blind financial aid, I would probably be somewhat unwilling to check that box [requesting aid] because I feel that might affect my admission,” said Fon Kulalert ’12, who attends Stanford on a Thai government scholarship. “I would think that as an international student, I would have to be super extraordinary for top American schools, like Stanford, to accept me and even pay for me to come here.”

Similarly, Kin Fucharoen ’12, who is on scholarship from the Aeronautical Radio of Thailand, an air traffic service provider for Thailand’s airspace, believes that his admission would have been affected had he requested aid.

“Given that Stanford cannot be need-blind for international students,” he said, “I would have felt reluctant to check the box requesting the aid because I would have felt that my application did not stand out enough for the admissions team to ignore my financial background.”

However, Pak Hin Lee ’12, an international student from Hong Kong, chose to apply for aid due to his financial need, even though he understood that his decision would increase the competition he faced in the applicant pool.

“It wasn’t at all a hard decision for me to apply for aid — even though I knew it would affect my admission — because it was basically impossible for my family to afford my studies here without any forms of aid or scholarship,” Lee said. “I was fortunate enough to be admitted, and Stanford guaranteed to provide me with financial aid that would meet my need.”

Strings Attached
International students who did not apply for University-funded financial aid, meanwhile, pay their University bill one of two ways: through outside scholarships or out of their own expenses.

Kulalert and Fucharoen had the privilege of receiving full scholarships from the Thai government, which allowed them to pay for Stanford without worrying about the financial aid application.

Many of the scholarships available for international students, however, come with constraints.

Although Kulalert’s scholarship covers her undergraduate and postgraduate tuition in full, she is required to return to Thailand for the same amount of time spent studying abroad. Likewise, Fucharoen had his major predetermined and must work at least 14 years for his sponsor.

Despite the many conditions of his contract, Fucharoen maintains that he may have abandoned the opportunity to leave Thailand for college if he did not have the scholarship, as the cost of attending Stanford is roughly six to seven times that of Thai universities.

“Some people may think 14 years is a lot, but I like [the] aviation industry, so getting to work in the air traffic service sector is more than I can ask for, hence I’m really happy with this deal,” Fucharoen said.

“Again, some people don’t like the life-bonding contract, but I think it’s a very good deal as long as you choose to apply for the sponsor that you really want to work for,” he added.

Other students in the international community rely on their parents to fund their education or find work to pay their own way through school.

“My parents paid for my tuition — actually, my mom pays the bulk of it,” said Shine Zaw-Aung ’11.

Some students also work while at Stanford.

“Many of us find various on-campus jobs to relieve the burden on living expenses,” Lee added. “After all, sometimes we may want to eat outside or watch a movie, and those cost money.”

What the Future Holds

Although Martha Trujillo, director of financial aid for the School of Medicine, indicated that the medical school had once discussed extending its need-blind financial aid policy to include international students, both she and Cooper cited the fallen endowment and current economic state as reasons why the University cannot do so at this time.

“There are no immediate plans to extend our need-blind admission policies to international students,” Cooper said. “The cost is prohibitive at this time.”

1. My middle name is Lynn.
2. I have one older sister and one younger sister.
3. I have 4 living children and one deceased child.
4. I have Fibromyalgia.
5. I have 8 birds; 1 is my daughter’s bird.
6. I love all animals.
7. I hate shopping.
8. I was born and raised in Vermont.
9. I graduated High School in 1988.
10. I’ve lived in Vermont, New Jersey, and currently reside in PA .
11. I went back to college when I was 36.
12. I have hyper mobile joints.
13. I became a Certified Nurses Aide in 2003.
14. I love to create graphics with Paint Shop Pro 9.
15. I talk in my sleep.
16. I used to sleepwalk when I was a child.
17. I love to watch baseball. Go REDSOX!
18. My African Grey parrot says, “Go Redsox!”
19. I believe in God.
20. I love to read all different genres.
21. But, my favorite genre is British Literature.
22. I knew my Great Grandfather!
23. And, my children got to meet their Great Great Grandfather before he passed away.
24. I love crossword puzzles.
25. I love to write.
26. I love to watch Holiday movies.
27. I hate talking on the phone.
28. I don’t believe in reincarnation.
29. I’m part Native American, from the Onondaga Tribe .
30. My favorite colors are green and pink.
31. Sometimes I see things in my head and they come true.  My kids don’t like this one, lol.
32. I have naturally wavy hair.
33. I collect stuffed bears.
34. I collect stuffed cows.
35. I want to visit Fenway Park someday soon.
36. I love the smell of lavender and sandalwood .
37. I crochet doilies, blankets, hats, etc.
38. I hate doing dishes.
39. But, I hate having dirty dishes in the sink.
40. I can’t believe that I’ve gotten this far on the list!
41. It’s taken me 2 days to come up with 40 things about me.  Which makes this now 41, lol.
42. I write articles.
43. I have gorgeous green eyes.
44. I love Lucy.  Lucille Ball was an amazing woman.
45. My children, ages 17, 12, & 11, still give me a hug and kiss every night before bed.
46. I’m watching the movie “Sleepless in Seattle” right now.
47. I can’t stand telemarketers calling me on Sundays! 
48. I don’t like to wear a lot of jewelry.
49. I wear one ring every day.
50. I very rarely wear earrings or necklaces.
51. I love house plants.
52. I love Audrey Hepburn.
53. I wear shoes as little as possible .
54. My favorite color for roses is peach & yellow, consecutively.
55. I’m allergic to bee stings and iodine.
56. I try to go for a walk every day.
57. I am moody, over-sensitive, and stubborn.
58. I am also kind, smart, funny, imaginative, empathetic, practical, creative, loving, conscientious, and optimistic.
59. My man rubs my back and feet every single day.
60. I love chocolate.
61. I’m addicted to Seattle’s Best Mocha.
62. I love Borders Bookstore.
63. I prefer Barnes and Noble bookstore, but, we don’t have one where I live.
64. I hate lying.
65. I Must have my coffee in the morning.
66. I’m not superstitious.
67. I don’t like odd numbers (slight OCD).
68. My “p” key is missing thanks to my cockatoo.
69. I’m going to buy a new keyboard real soon!
70. I wrote the answer # 100 about 20 questions ago.
71. Too many noises bother me.
72. My favorite actresses are: Sandra Bullock, Lucille Ball, and Audrey Hepburn.
73. I am not a very patient person.
74. I had almost no hair until I was 2 years old.
75. I don’t like the dentist.
76. I sleep a lot.
77. I finally got a new keyboard.
78. Ergo, I can “p” again.
79. I’m waiting for the first snowfall.
80. I love it when the kids get a snow day so we can play outside then warm up with cocoa and play board games.
81. I’d rather it be snowing rather than raining.
82. My better half was just made manager.
83. I love to go barefoot.
84. I can be very random.  As you can see by my answers. 
85. I know some American Sign Language.
86. My favorite pie is Pumpkin.
87. My bedroom is the last room that I clean.
88. I’m trying to quit smoking.
89. My family raised Black Angus cows.
90. It’s 2:30 am and I’m still awake.
91. I currently have writer’s block.
92. I’m a social drinker.  I never drink at home because of the children.
93. I can’t regulate my sleep pattern.
94. I love the smell of Autumn.
95. I dream in color. Hey, some people don’t.  Some don’t even remember any of their dreams.
96. I once caught a 21 1/2” lake trout while ice fishing on Caspian Lake in Greensboro, Vermont.
97. My favorite toy when I was little was “Charlie Bear”. It was a little brown bear that my Grandma Perkins sewed for me.
98. When it comes to furniture, I prefer real wood. Don’t ruin the natural beauty of it with paint, ugh!
99. It’s taken me 2 weeks to finish this thing!
100. I can’t believe that I actually finished this list.

Fall quarter, 114 Minor in Possession of Alcohol (MIP) citations were issued, up by nearly double from last year, according to a report from the Department of Public Safety (DPS). In contrast, alcohol-related medical emergencies during New Student Orientation (NSO) declined compared to last year.

DPS issued 62 MIP citations last fall quarter and 81 the year before last.

“The increase in citations in 2009 to date can be partially attributed to increased staffing during nights when parties are held, [when] alcohol violations and other incidents such as burglaries, thefts and assaults are more likely to occur,” DPS spokesman Bill Larson wrote in an e-mail to The Daily.

Upperclassmen were issued the majority of Driving Under the Influence (DUI) and Drunk in Public tickets. The vast majority of MIP tickets were issued on the Row.

According to Ralph Castro, associate dean of substance abuse prevention at Vaden Health Center, the relative number of freshmen transported to emergency rooms for alcohol poisoning declined to 40 percent of all students transported to the ER for alcohol-related reasons. In previous years, they were the majority.

Castro believes the later fall move-in date for Row houses and revised University party-planning guidelines, both of which went into effect this summer, were instrumental in the decline of early-quarter emergency room transports. He sees the later move-in date as a “protective factor” that gives upperclassmen less idle time before classes start.

With those policies in place, Castro doesn’t see the need for additional changes in the near future.

“At this time, I believe that the policies we have in place are working,” Castro wrote in an e-mail to The Daily. “We have a solid social contract with students. The University assumes that students will make responsible and healthy decisions, and this assumption guides all of our policy decisions.”

In Castro’s opinion, the primary cause of unhealthy decisions is students’ poor ability to distinguish between the alcohol contents of different drinks, resulting in excessive consumption of hard liquor.

“Some students think they can drink hard liquor in volume quantities similar to beer, and this leads to troubling outcomes,” Castro said. “We continue to stress the dangers of hard liquor in our education efforts.”

When students are ticketed for alcohol violations, they are required to enter the Alcohol Education Seminar at Vaden’s Substance Abuse Prevention Program. Castro says the program has been successful since the rate of repeat offense is only four percent.

As alcohol education has become more pervasive, high-risk drinking has declined across campus, especially among freshmen. Castro indicated that while AlcoholEdu, the online alcohol education seminar required for freshmen, cannot be correlated to declining alcohol-related incidents at Stanford, there has been a marked decrease in high-risk drinking since the program was introduced four years ago.

“We continue to enforce the prohibition against Minors in Possession of alcohol,” Larson said. “Also, our sworn personnel work closely with our colleagues at Student Affairs to promote alcohol awareness and education.”

There were no violent crimes committed on campus this quarter where alcohol was implicated as a contributing factor.

Eco Factor: Hydrogen-generating plant relies on solar energy.

Hydrogen is often touted as the fuel of the future. However, even after being the most abundant element in the universe, producing hydrogen that can later be used as fuel is in itself a dangerous process. SolarLab Research and Design has come up with the Hydrogen Powerplant, a concept powerplant that can be one of the safest and the most efficient ways to create hydrogen.

(more…)

President announces decision in major speech at West Point

President Barack Obama announced Tuesday night that he will send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, escalating the United States’ eight-year military operation in the region.

The soldiers will deploy in early 2010, bringing the total number of American soldiers in Afghanistan to approximately 100,000.

The speech ends weeks of speculation about the precise decision President Obama would reach regarding strategy in Afghanistan for 2010 and beyond. The President argued for the deployment’s representing “the resources that we need to seize the initiative while building the Afghan capacity that can allow for a responsible transition of our forces out of Afghanistan.”

Obama announced the increase in front of 4,000 cadets at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York. His speech also outlined and defined objectives for what the White House is calling “a new way forward.”

The decision raises the likelihood that the war in Afghanistan will be as defining to the Obama presidency as the Iraq War was to the terms of President George W. Bush. Conscious of this and the gravity of the increase, the President used much of the speech to explain the urgent necessity he saw for the move.

“I do not make this decision lightly,” he said. “I make this decision because I am convinced that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is the epicenter of the violent extremism practiced by al-Qaeda. It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak. This is no idle danger, no hypothetical threat.

“This danger will only grow if the region slides backwards and al-Qaeda can operate with impunity,” he added. “We must keep the pressure on al-Qaeda, and to do that, we must increase the stability and capacity of our partners in the region.”

The President also used the speech to clarify military strategy in Afghanistan, and said the United States’ “overarching goal” remains constant: “to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future.”

Obama explicitly listed three main objectives that will define achieving that goal.

“We must deny al-Qaeda a safe haven,” he said. “We must reverse the Taliban’s momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government. And we must strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan’s security forces and government so that they can take lead responsibility for Afghanistan’s future.”

The President said the newly-deploying troops will return home beginning in 18 months.

Saying that the price of two ongoing wars can no longer be ignored, Obama also said he will work to monitor and control the costs of the increase and the continued conflict. Funding the new approach in Afghanistan will cost $30 billion in 2010, he said.

At the start of the President’s term, 32,000 American troops were deployed in Afghanistan. Earlier in the year, Obama also approved a longstanding troop increase request, but Tuesday’s announced increase emerges from an entirely new strategic review.

Obama closed his half-hour speech with a direct address to the American people.

“America, we are passing through a time of great trial,” he said. “And the message that we send in the midst of these storms must be clear: that our cause is just, our resolve unwavering. We will go forward with the confidence that right makes might, and with the commitment to forge an America that is safer, a world that is more secure and a future that represents not the deepest of fears but the highest of hopes.”

Sony has recently identified a minor quality issue involving a small percentage of the VAIO JS Series all-in-one desktop computers sold since October 22, 2009. When powering on or resuming from hibernation in a low temperature environment, the JS4 may not start properly. You may want to think twice about bringing your JS out into the cold next time, especially those of you living in igloos. The VAIO JS4 is sold in many countries around the world, including the USA, Europe and most of Asia Pacific.

Models affected:
Asia Pacific:
VGC-JS45GF/P, VGC-JS45GF/Q, VGC-JS45GF/S, VGC-JS45LF/Q, VGC-JS43LF/P, VGC-JS45TF/P, VGC-JS45TF/Q, VGC-JS45SF/S, VGC-JS45SF/P

North America:
VGC-JS410F, VGC-JS410F/S
VGC-JS430F, VGC-JS430F/Q, VGC-JS430F/S
VGC-JS450F, VGC-JS450F/Q, VGC-JS450F/S

Sony will be providing free repair for customers of the affected models if such models exhibit the above-mentioned symptoms. Please contact the nearest Sony Service Center (in Asia Pacific) (1-877-643-1219 the USA) if you have any of the models stated above. We were unable to find a European notice of this issue at time of writing.

For owners of latest Walkman E series, Sony is offering NWZ-E445, NWZ-E443, NWZ-E444, NWZ-E444K, NWZ-E443K owners firmware update version 1.01 for fixing audio compatibility with several Sony products and improving functionality with Windows. A new Content Transfer program is also mentioned.

Target products
The followings are the target products of this service, whose firmware version should be 1.00.

• NWZ-E443/E444/E445/E443K/E444K
  * For customers using NWZ-E443K/E444K, the products show [Model:] as “NWZ-E443” or “NWZ-E444”.

Fixed symptoms

With the above products, customers may experience the following symptoms. The symptoms will be fixed with this firmware update.

• You may not be able to play back the WALKMAN under the following conditions:
  – When the WALKMAN is connected to NAS-SC500PK or CMT-LX50WMR and its function is set to WM-PORT.
  – When the BCR-NWU5 is disconnected from the PC under the WALKMAN is connected to BCR-NWU5 with the PC.

Additional function
By updating the firmware, you can experience new features:

• The products can be used by computers being installed OS of Windows 7.
  * The applied edition of the OS is Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate.
  * The software, Content Transfer Ver.1.2, supplied with the products is not compatible with Windows 7. In case of using the target products by Windows 7, Music/Video/Photo files should be transferred by drag and drop from the Windows Explorer. Or, please use Content Transfer Ver.1.3, planned to be supplied in December, 2009.

How to confirm the Model and the Firmware version
Please confirm the Model and the Firmware version from the steps below.

1. Press and hold the BACK/HOME button until the Home menu appears.
2. Press / / / button to select Settings, and then press button.
3. Press / / / button to select Common Settings, and then press button.
4. Press / / / button to select Unit Information, and then press button.
5. Confirm the Model and the Firmware version.

Eco Factor: Zero-energy residential concept based around sustainability.

A project collaborative of a group of architecture firms, Team+, has been chosen as winners to construct a zero-energy residential concept in Aalborg, Denmark that is based around sustainability and high architectural quality. Dubbed the Bolig+, the design maximizes sun exposure, while protecting the building from unnecessary heat gain.

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It’s amazing the turnaround in response Sony is getting with the PS3 these days – especially when SCEA’s Sr. Corporate Communications director Patrick Seybold revealed 440,000 Playstation 3 consoles were sold to eager shoppers in the last month of November taking advantage of special holiday sales. Sony really had a good presence during Black Friday which fell within this week and accelerated sales greatly. Consumers jumped at the chance of any retailers offering PS3 bundles with several games or other accessories. I can only imagine the numbers Sony had for Cyber Monday as well, which many analysts have stated was a bigger draw for consumers then retail experienced during Black Friday.

Perhaps it would be advantageous for Sony to bundle games or include vouchers for free game downloads to maintain this momentum. Now is the time to build the army.

On another note, it’s interesting is that Sony didn’t offer word on that PSP sales looked like. Seybold merely stated,

“The 2009 holiday season got off to an amazing start for PlayStation, with all key retailers showing a significant increase for PS3, PSP and key holiday titles over Black Friday and the holiday weekend.”

Meanwhile, Nintendo announced that American consumers bought more than 1 million units of its Nintendo DS and DSi portable consoles during the week of the Thanksgiving holiday, along with more than half a million Wii consoles — for the week ending November 28th.

Rival Nintendo offered sales figures as well by stating more than 500,000 Wii’s were sold, as well as 1 million units of its Nintendo DS and DSi portable consoles were sold in the same period. Microsoft’s Director of Product Management Aaron Greenberg stated the company saw the Xbox 360 console move two times as many units over the holiday week as the previous one, making it the biggest sales week on the year so far. Some reports have lauded that Microsoft may not have met the same numbers that Sony and Nintendo did.

Very interesting, though – is it becoming more obvious that there is more value at this point and time (not discounting Natal, but it’s not here right now thanks) in a Sony and Nintendo console experience? I think the XBOX360 is a great value and has incredible community-driven features (including movie watching, social media, etc) and much more. However, I really think consumers are shifting to two things – motion control and simplicity in the Wii (as well as unique software IP’s), or HD gaming and movies with the PS3. The XBOX360 is a weird in-between of this. Maybe Natal will make it more relevant again, but if Microsoft doesn’t implement Blu-ray soon I think that sales will deteriorate faster than you think. Sure you can implement streaming 1080P, but Blu-ray games are also nice. Maybe Microsoft will do a power play and the next XBOX will have a humongous (1TB+) hard drive and you’ll just download everything.

Eco Factor: Efficient turbine engine for extended-range hybrid car.

Israel’s ETV Motors has unveiled a proof-of-concept extended range hybrid vehicle, in the shell of a Toyota Prius, which the company claims can run for 50 miles on a single charge. Unlike other extended range vehicles that rely on convention piston engines to refuel the batteries, ETV’s car features a small, clean, quiet, efficient and inexpensive jet turbine engine.

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Political science student Daniel Shih ’10 last week was named one of 32 American 2010 Rhodes Scholars heading to Oxford University. Shih will begin studying there next fall.

Shih, who was born and raised in Naperville, Ill., is also a 2009 Truman Scholar.

“I’m still figuring out exactly what I’m going to study. I’m interested in a few things, mainly the intersection between grassroots activism and government,” Shih said. “I’m interested in how we can create space for grassroots activists and allow people’s voices to be heard without having to be elected to government.

“I think I might be studying comparative government and political science,” Shih added. “Something in the Department of Politics and International Relations.”

Shih has taken significant time off from Stanford to pursue both field research interests and to work on the campaign trail. He took over a year off school to work for the Obama campaign, eventually working as a field organizer in five states and, during the general election, becoming the regional field director in Albuquerque.

“It’s really important for me to take charge of my own education, to pursue opportunities that will help me grow as an individual, help me grow as an activist and a scholar,” he said. “With that belief in taking some risks and trying new things, graduating in four straight years was not the most important thing to me.”

Shih received a Chappell Lougee grant his freshman year to research the social programs of Hugo Chavez. He continued the research into this quarter, which he took off to conduct field research on the Sino-Venezuelan political and economic relationship.

On campus, Shih is involved with the Stanford Progressive Association and helped launched the Stanford Sweat-Free Campaign to get Stanford to join the Worker Rights Consortium.

As for his future after Oxford, Shih admitted that he’s long flirted with the idea of becoming an academic.

“But I want to consider the social impact that my work as an academic could have as well,” he said. “I’ve always thought about how to make my work relevant to the people that I want to help — the people marginalized by government and by society.”

Shih applied to the Rhodes Scholarship at the encouragement of a colleague that he worked with at the Obama campaign.

“She talked about her experiences in Oxford, and it made a big difference in my deciding to apply for the Rhodes Scholarship,” Shih said. “I wasn’t aware that I even had a legitimate shot in any way.

“You never see yourself as a Rhodes Scholar,” he added. “It’s a little scary.”

The controversy and paranoia around jet contrails have led some to believe this condensation left by airplanes is “actually chemicals or biological agents deliberately sprayed at high altitudes for a purpose undisclosed to the general public”. Whether this conspiracy theory is true or not, Britain’s Met Office has discovered contrails reduce sunshine. The Telegraph reports:

Analysis of contrails from one large military aircraft circling over the North Sea showed the creation of a thin layer of cloud that, at its peak, covered an area of more than 20,000 square miles…Globally, vapour trails are thought to cut sunshine levels by less than one per cent, but this figure could rise to 10 per cent in areas under busy air corridors, such as the south-east of England, according to The Sunday Times.

Given this new information, I wonder if busy flight paths will be considered when selecting solar array sites in the future.

Stanford students, faculty and staff will be among an estimated 15,000 participants from 192 countries attending the 15th United Nations Climate Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen, Denmark, this month.

The Conference will work toward the goal set by over 180 nations in the Bali Road Map of 2007, which called for the international community to agree by 2009 on a binding framework for future climate change mitigation.

Among those attending the event, which takes place Dec. 7 to 18, will be at least 33 students as well as 13 University faculty and staff. While delegates from participating countries are at the negotiating table ironing out the specifics of the accord, these faculty, staff and students from a variety of departments at the University will be involved in other aspects of the conference.

As part of a non-governmental organization (NGO), members from the University have observer status at the conference. This gives representatives the opportunity to speak with delegates, network with other policymakers and scientists, and discuss problems and possible solutions with like-minded individuals.

“It’s a huge opportunity for faculty and students to network with people in the community they are interested in continuing research with, and also it’s a great education opportunity for all those involved,” said Sarah Jo Chadwick, a staff member in the department of biological sciences who helped organize the trip to Copenhagen.

Side events such as panels and talks will be held by many NGOs, including Stanford’s representation, for those interested.

“There will be many side events… on human health, on economic risk, agricultural risk and human disease risk associated with different elements of climate change,” said Robert Dunbar, professor in the School of Earth Sciences and senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment.

Dunbar, who is also part of the management committee at the Center for Ocean Solutions, will present at a panel entitled “Ocean Acidification: The Other CO2 Problem,” in which he hopes to raise awareness of a lesser-known problem stemming from carbon emissions.

“Because of ocean acidification, we have a very good reason to think oceans will be impacted [by carbon emissions], and it’s going to be a completely separate impact from global warming,” Dunbar said. “I’m hoping that thinking about the oceanic involvement will help convince people that this is an urgent issue that needs to be dealt with now.”

Stephen Schneider, professor of interdisciplinary environmental studies and a well-known expert in the field of climate change, will also give talks about his latest book, “Science as a Contact Sport,” which covers the four decades he spent in the “climate change battle.”

Schneider, who is currently teaching a course called “Copenhagen Climate Protocol: Interpreting the Chaos,” is also responsible for bringing many students to Denmark by offering those enrolled in his class the opportunity to go with him to the conference. The opportunity to attend the conference was not limited to students who took Schneider’s class, however. In early September, both undergraduate and graduate students had the opportunity to apply for COP15.

In general, students heading to Denmark have a special interest in some aspect of climate change. Ansu Sahoo, a Ph.D. student in management science and engineering, for example, hopes to learn more about energy technology research and development at the conference.

“I’m interested in talking to delegates in both the United States and China to understand what their perspectives are on the potential for research and development that can accelerate the development and deployment of carbon capture and sequestration technology,” Sahoo said.

Students interested in public policy also look forward to gaining something from the experience.

“I’ll be volunteering with a couple of different organizations,” said law student Bruce Ho. “There will be a delegation representing the interests of the California government, so I’ll be working with them, and I’m also likely to work with a couple of nonprofits involved with the state.”

Regardless of the outcome of the negotiations, both students and faculty seem to believe they will benefit from the networking and learning experience offered by the conference. At the same time, delegates and other attendees will benefit from the research and ideas that these members of the Stanford community will bring.

“This attempt at making binding international commitments is pretty tough and fascinating to watch,” Dunbar said. “I’m excited to go see the process.”

In a series of long and embittered fights in the Florida court system, a judge’s recent ruling may prove vital for smokers’ lawsuits against the tobacco industry. Yet for a Stanford professor who has been at the center of more than one case against big tobacco, the decision may have greater implications in preserving his work and academic freedom.

Last month, in the case of Castleman v. R.J. Reynolds Co., Judge Charles Mitchell of the Fourth Judicial Circuit Court in Duval County ruled that Prof. Robert Proctor, a key witness for the plaintiffs, did not have to turn over a manuscript of his unpublished book to R.J. Reynolds’ lawyers for the purpose of cross-examination. Proctor, who has appeared as an expert witness in lawsuits against tobacco companies since 1995, is only one of two historians to regularly testify against the industry.

However, this ruling reveals a number of legal disparities and uncertainties, as a judge presiding over an earlier case — Koballa v. Philip Morris U.S.A. — had come to the exact opposite conclusion: In October, Seventh District Court Judge William A. Parsons approved defense lawyers’ requests for a subpoena of the professor’s unfinished work, entitled “Golden Holocaust: A History of Global Tobacco.”

At the time of that decision, the plaintiffs immediately reacted, arguing that a court-backed seizure of any unpublished work was a direct violation of First Amendment rights. Developing an argument against a ruling that they believed would have a “chilling effect on academia,” Proctor and a team of lawyers filed a motion to block the subpoena.

The University also filed an amicus curae brief in support of Proctor’s motion, the first time it has ever done so to protect a professor’s unpublished research.

“For them to have access to notes before they are finished impairs ability to conduct research,” Proctor told The Daily for an earlier article.

The decision in Castleman, however, will give some support to the professor’s arguments. And while it is still uncertain how the recent Fourth Circuit decision will apply to other smoking lawsuits, Proctor and representatives of the plaintiffs claim it is a step forward in their cases against a multi-billion dollar industry.

“It is a big victory for academic freedom, but it remains to be seen how it will be applied in other counties… and how this argument is carried over in other cases,” Proctor said. “I’m hoping it will establish a certain protection for these manuscripts.”

Florida up in smoke

The case of Castleman v. R.J. Reynolds Co. is just one of hundreds of Florida smoker lawsuits that Prof. Proctor could become embroiled in. Even he has lost count.

“It’s all confused in my mind, with the same defendants in every case making this argument,” he said of the lawsuits he’s currently involved in. “It’s several [cases] — I don’t know how many.”

In the Sunshine State, these individual lawsuits brought against big tobacco are the result of a 1994 class action lawsuit, Engle v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.. Arguing that the industry had knowingly sold a product that caused injury to consumers, former smoker and pediatrician Howard Engle sued on behalf of more than 500,000 state smokers for punitive damages of nearly $145 billion.

While the case was originally decided in favor of the plaintiffs, higher state appeals courts later overturned the decision on the basis that the state smokers were too dissimilar to constitute a class for a class action lawsuit. The Florida Supreme Court, however, ruled that smokers could try their cases on an individual basis.

This has prompted the emergence of thousands of tobacco lawsuits, known as “Engle Progeny,” the first of which are coming to a head now.

“There are 8,000 potential plaintiffs that have to be tried one by one,” Proctor said. “I testified in the very first Engle case in December of 2008, and ever since then, I’ve been called in a couple of other cases.”

Since September, nine Engle cases have been tried with seven judgments in favor of smokers and their families, and the others ruled for the tobacco industry.

“We thank the jury for taking the time to consider all of the evidence presented and for making the right decision,” said J. Jeffery Raborn, vice president and assistant general counsel for R.J. Reynolds, in a statement following a March 2009 ruling for big tobacco. “Their verdict demonstrates that despite the flawed decision of the Florida Supreme Court to allow these cases to proceed in this fashion, we have strong defenses to them, and we will continue to defend ourselves vigorously.”

Proctor and the ‘Engle Progeny’

As Engle cases begin to materialize 15 years after the original lawsuit, Prof. Proctor can expect to be more heavily involved in tobacco lawsuits.

Attorney C.K. Hoffler, who represents the plaintiffs in Castleman, stated that her law firm will pursue 420 other smoking cases in the state. She hopes to use the professor’s statements in each of these lawsuits.

“Dr. Proctor is testifying as an expert,” she said. “He will be giving generic testimony that is not case-specific.”

Proctor and lawyers for the plaintiffs can take confidence in the Fourth District Court’s ruling in Castleman, which prevents the professor from turning over his work, and allows him to testify freely as a witness in the case.

“Hopefully [other counties] will follow suit and will deny the disingenuous attempts [of tobacco companies],” Hoffler said. “Other judges, if it comes up in other counties, may follow suit or may make their own ruling.”

Yet, as confirmed by Hoffler, the issue surrounding the subpoena is by no means settled, and, according to lawyer Bill Ogle, will remain a point of contention in Florida smoking cases.

“There are tobacco cases that are spread throughout the different counties, and the issue will probably come up again and again and again,” he said. “Tobacco companies could raise it again in another court system and could be decided by appellate courts, the Florida Supreme Court, then the U.S. Supreme Court. These are constitutional issues.”

With the majority of fraternities and sororities operating without houses, Greek life at Stanford refutes the stereotype of purely residence-based Greek organizations. While some un-housed organizations hope to move toward their own housing in the future, others are content to remain in their current un-housed state.

Of the 28 frats and sororities recognized by Stanford, only 10 chapters are housed. The housing situation is by no means permanent, however, and there has been some fluidity in Greek housing in the past.

“There was significant fraternity turnover during the 1990s and early 2000s,” wrote Nate Boswell, associate director of Residential Education (ResEd), in an e-mail to The Daily. “I believe Theta Xi, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Phi Delta Theta, and Delta Tau Delta all lost their houses.”

According to Boswell, the University treats housing as a “profound privilege” that must be earned.

“In recent years, in the absence of a robust review process, adherence to housed Greek criteria has varied widely from chapter to chapter,” Boswell said.

“Moving forward [Greek organizations] will need to regularly and actively demonstrate their leadership and positive campus contributions in order to retain housing,” he added.

To enter the process for housing, Greek organizations must submit proposals to ResEd and the Office of Student Activities and Leadership (SAL). Boswell said housed criteria include “effective stewardship,” “student leadership plans,” “contribution to the Residential Education Mission,” “adherence to Student Housing policies” and “campus service contribution.”

There has been some interest expressed by more fraternities and sororities to have housing, according to Boswell, although he did not specifically indicate which groups these are.

Housing status has an effect on group dynamics, and housed and un-housed organizations appeal to different groups.

“All the girls that are in those houses seem to love it,” said Merit Webster ’10, president of the housed sorority Pi Beta Phi. “To be in an organization where we have a home base and a place of belonging, it’s a nice thing. You get to know the girls in the house by going to events together, you see them, their good times and their bad times—when people are stressed out and when they’re celebrating.”

Another advantage of separate housing is readily available meeting space. By having their own space, housed Greek organizations do not have to worry about finding meeting locations.

Laura Hansen ’12, a member of the un-housed Chi Omega sorority, said the lack of a single space can make planning events challenging.

“It’s probably harder to plan meetings and events logistically because we have to reserve a room either in the Quad (for meetings) or in one of the girls’ houses,” she wrote in an e-mail to The Daily.

On the other hand, having a residence can restrict the size of the rush class for housed Greek organizations, as there are only so many spaces within a fraternity or sorority house.

Not every member of a housed organization is able to live in her or his respective Greek house due to capacity: generally, sophomores are given preference as new arrivals, while juniors live elsewhere.

Seniors, too, have preference in order to spend their last year on campus within the house, but there are occasionally conflicts over living arrangements.

In Pi Beta Phi, the solution is a points system to help choose between the seniors, and also to act as an incentive.

“It’s a bummer we can’t have all the seniors in the house,” Webster said. “In a lot of Greek systems, it’s only sophomores that live in the house… sometimes the presidents have to have a fake room because they are required to live in the house but it’s not cool to if you’re the only upperclassman.”

While un-housed groups do not need to worry about fitting everyone into a house, this can sometimes lead to disagreements between housed and un-housed frats and sororities.

“As I understand it, in the past the housed sororities have tried to force the un-housed sororities to take more girls during rush because they don’t have to worry about a space crunch,” Hansen said. “This is fine with me—as long as all the girls we are taking are girls that truly fit with Chi Omega’s values.”

Despite the differences in housing situation, Anthony Bestafka Cruz, vice president and dean of membership intake for the un-housed fraternity Gamma Zeta Alpha, argued that a house is not necessary to build community. For example, he said the six chapters that belong to the Multicultural Greek Council (MGC) and the five chapters of the African American Fraternal and Sororal Association (AAFSA) build a family that is not just focused on housing.

“Because we are un-housed, our brotherhood (or sisterhood) is really focused in the time we spend together,” Bestafka Cruz ‘10 wrote in an e-mail to The Daily.

“We take vacations together, we visit each other’s homes and know each other’s families,” he added. “We are each other’s friends and family at Stanford, and I can’t say I’ve ever heard members of organizations that are housed say the same.”

Hundreds of former UC-Berkeley Japanese-American students whose educations were interrupted by World War II and Japanese internment will graduate this month alongside current students.

The product of Assemblymember Warren Furutani’s Assembly Bill 37, signed into law by Governor Schwarzenegger last October, the legislation calls upon University of California schools, California State Universities and California Community Colleges to issue degrees to anyone whose education was interrupted by Japanese incarceration.

“The main motivation is that it’s under the heading of ‘unfinished business,’ tying up loose ends,” Furutani said. The Japanese assemblymember has been working toward granting degrees to the former students for decades.

Serving on the Los Angeles Board of Education before being elected to the State Assembly, Furutani organized a high school cap and gown graduation for hundreds of Nisei—the children of emigrants from Japan, in this case second-generation Japanese Americans—who similarly had their high school educations interrupted.

“I’ve always thought: ‘what about those folks who were in college and then they got pulled out of college by Executive Order 9066 and were not given the opportunity to finish?’” he said. “For me, the motivation is that our Nisei are almost gone, and this was something to correct past wrongs.”

Legislation Long Overdue

Duncan Williams, who serves as associate professor of Japanese Buddhism and chair of the Center for Japanese Studies at UC-Berkeley, believes the legislation is long overdue.

“Of course I think it [AB 37] should’ve come a long time ago,” Williams said. “In my opinion, I would have hoped and thought that the UC system… would be a leader, but it seems like we’re at the tail-end.”

However, Williams points out that the UC system has a history of abstaining from issuing honorary degrees of any kind. In order to issue said degrees, the UC regions had to additionally vote to suspend the regulations. With the degrees approved, approximately 400 former students or families of students—UC-Berkeley had the largest population of Japanese students pre-WWII—will be among the first people in decades to be issued honorary UC degrees.

The ceremony will run jointly with the regular undergraduate graduation; Williams, who serves on the ceremony’s campus planning committee and who will be reading the names of the Japanese graduates, hopes the university’s undergraduates will be able to learn something from the Nisei.

According to Williams, a number of private schools on the West Coast have already issued similar degrees. However, Furutani states that private schools, not falling under governmental jurisdiction, cannot be mandated to do so.

It is Stanford’s policy not to issue honorary degrees. Japanese students who formerly attended Stanford during WWII and were forced to leave were honored at a ceremony in fall of 1993, but no honorary degrees were given.

“I can’t recall having received such an honorary degree,” said former Stanford student Eric Andow (’48), who was forced to leave campus when he was incarcerated in Colorado and subsequently sent overseas as part of the Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

The ceremony was “just to reunite some people that were at Stanford at the time,” Andow said, and was attended by then-University President Gerhard Casper. Although a much larger population of students were forced to leave Stanford, only nine made it to the ceremony. Among the nine, several were able to re-matriculate post-war and finish their degrees—a course that UC-Berkeley students were unable to take.

“I was taking an engineering course, so it’s hard to try to continue from that point when you left… but I managed somehow because I was interested in getting the degree more than anything else,” Andow said. He returned to achieve a degree in engineering.

Mixed Emotions from Former Berkeley Students

For former UC-Berkeley freshman Jim Yamasaki, the honorary degree he will receive this winter is worth less than the hardships he overcame by having his education interrupted.

“Having received my B.S. degree in engineering at Northwestern in 1949, the honorary degree for my freshman year is nice PR for somebody and is appreciated as a gesture but really… why bother?” he said.

Originally from San Joaquin County-Tracy, Yamasaki was an excellent student, receiving nearly all As in school and working toward becoming the breadwinner of his family. His studies were interrupted, however, when his father’s liquor license was suspended, disabling the family business of running a tavern in Tracy. Curfew restrictions then forced him to return home.

“There were bigger problems than [the] interruption of my education… I had no time to worry about school,” he wrote in an e-mail. Shortly after returning home, Executive Order 9066 uprooted his family and relocated his life to the horse stables of the Turlock county fair grounds, and eventually to Gila Rivers Relocation Center in Arizona.

Yamasaki was unable to return to UC-Berkeley but found other methods of finishing his education. He emphasizes there were many, such as himself, who overcame them and found different paths to success.

From inside Gila Rivers Relocation Center, Yamasaki applied for a scholarship to leave camp and resume his studies elsewhere. He was accepted on a scholarship to the University of Utah, where he was subsequently drafted despite boasting the best grades in his classes among white students who were allowed to defer.

He became a 2nd Lieutenant and was transferred to military intelligence, ending up in Japan on occupation duty in counter intelligence. He spent the next year writing secret reports from field information for General MacArthur’s staff.

When Yamasaki returned to the states, he struggled to find a school that wasn’t already packed with GIs from the GI Bill or that would accept Nisei students in the post-war prejudice.

Yamasaki managed to matriculate into Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., thanks to the admission interviewer, who graduated from UC-Berkeley the same year he was forced to leave. He became the first Japanese American to go to Northwestern tech school and earned a B.S. in 1949 in Electrical Engineering.

Cedrick Shimo was faced with numerous challenges as well, but unlike Yamasaki, had his graduate education at UC-Berkeley interrupted by the draft. Shimo received his Los Angeles draft notice the day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, but was ironically refused passage on the train to L.A. because he looked like the enemy.

Shimo eventually volunteered for the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) and was transferred to Camp Savage in Minnesota. Just before graduating from the MIS language school, he was expelled for protesting a rejected furlough. He had asked for one in order to say goodbye to his mother before being sent to the Pacific Front, since no Japanese Americans were allowed on the West Coast.

He was transferred to the 525th, a special unit for “troublemakers,” demoted to the rank of a private, and eventually was reorganized into the 1800th, a similar unit for “malcontents.” When the war ended, he received an honorable discharge.

Shimo has spoken about his experiences of defying authority at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. and UCLA, where he previously earned his undergraduate degree.

Though he is unable to attend the Berkeley graduation ceremony, he appreciates the degree.

“At least I got proof that I was in graduate school in case somebody doubts it,” he said.

While there is no deadline for California public institutions included in AB 37 to issue the degrees, Furutani stressed that time is of the essence.

“As you know, the average age [of Niseis] is 86 or 88—there’s no deadline, but literally they’re passing away, and if we don’t get this done right away, more and more are going to have to be given away posthumously.”

The first of the ceremonies will be held by UC-San Francisco on Dec. 4, followed by UC-Davis on Dec. 12, UC-Berkeley on Dec. 13 and UCLA in the spring.

Eco Factor: Concept car to be powered by a low-emission engine.

Honda has unveiled the Personal-Neo Urban Transport (P-NUT), an ultra-compact and sophisticated city couple. The three-seater vehicle is designed to be powered by an ecofriendly low-emission engine that can include a low-emission IC engine, hybrid-electric or an all-electric setup.

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