Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stanford’s war on social life

palladiummag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 402 posts

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#271

Post by watwut »

dave_sullivan wrote: post #269
majormajor wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like how we're immediately jumping to "this is going to ruin the financial success of future graduates and thus hurt future fundraising." "Thing I like must be directly responsible for this other thing that happened later" is sad to see from someone from what's supposed to be one of our nation's best schools. Turning high school into middle school and college into high school, etc, in terms of adult supervision isn…

I think his point was more along the lines of "While you are at an elite school you should socialize and build your social network. That social network will become your starting professional network after school. Less opportunity for socialization will reduce the potential size of this network." Seems reasonable to me.

> Communal living houses (“co-ops”) encouraged casual nudity, while fraternities threw a raucous annual “Greek Week”

If the access to professional social network requires participation in the above, then I see why people see issue with that. In an ideal world, your professional future would not be dependent on your willingness to walk around naked or your enjoyment of raucous party. (Neither should damage your future, but should not be the key to access either.)

And in particular, I find it completely inconsistent with idea of meritocracy.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#272

Post by Dan_Sylveste »

watwut wrote: post #271
dave_sullivan wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his point was more along the lines of "While you are at an elite school you should socialize and build your social network. That social network will become your starting professional network after school. Less opportunity for socialization will reduce the potential size of this network." Seems reasonable to me.

> Communal living houses (“co-ops”) encouraged casual nudity, while fraternities threw a raucous annual “Greek Week” If the access to professional social network requires participation in the above, then I see why people see issue with that. In an ideal world, your professional future would not be dependent on your willingness to walk around naked or your enjoyment of raucous party. (Neither should damage your future…

Meritocracy isn't real. It's a nice ideal but it isn't real.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#273

Post by watwut »

lutorm wrote: post #264

The amount of control American universities exercise over their students is mind-boggling to me. I went to Uppsala University in Sweden, which has a rich and varied student life. But none of that has anything to do with the University (any of them, there are 3 in town). The universities provide education, period. Housing is not run by the University, and it certainly has nothing to do with student social life. What s…

> What stops a bunch of Stanford students from starting whatever club they want in their spare time?

Nothing, but greek system was advantaged over random non-greek friends groups or clubs. If you start own random non-greek club, the university wont guarantee or give you house for it. For the record, Standford always had plenty of students who were not members of Greek clubs. They created and participated in own spare time activities too.

In Europe, if your spare time club rents a house, it will have street number and no one will act as if it was great injustice. Based on article, that is destruction and homogenity. In Europe, if you fill the entire floor with sand and bulldozer it away to property you dont own, through property you dont own, the house owner will object - but in article university administrators are the bad guys for objecting.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#274

Post by droidist2 »

jackcosgrove wrote: post #124

Sometimes it feels like we're living in the second Victorian age. Living sanitized lives and speaking sanitized language, with recurring bouts of moral panic. Even in the early 00s when I was in college everything seemed to have become lamer than it was just a decade prior. 20th century libertinism peaked in the 70s and has been in retreat since then.

> 20th century libertinism peaked in the 70s and has been in retreat since then.

I agree with the 70s. The AIDS epidemic began in the 80s, which could have been a big reason. The wild and free way of life has been in retreat, and epidemics cause big chunks to be lost all at once. Maybe we'll look back on 2020s the same way: "Wow society was so wild and free up until the 2010s."

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#275

Post by rbanffy »

trh0awayman wrote: post #270
lutorm wrote: post #264

The amount of control American universities exercise over their students is mind-boggling to me. I went to Uppsala University in Sweden, which has a rich and varied student life. But none of that has anything to do with the University (any of them, there are 3 in town). The universities provide education, period. Housing is not run by the University, and it certainly has nothing to do with student social life. What s…

Because of the things you said: the amount of control American universities have over students. At many universities, the rules apply to you even off campus.

The US is one of the most intensely policed societies I’ve ever observed. It’s easy to miss that when you live inside it.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#276

Post by rbanffy »

zbrozek wrote: post #149

My interactions with Stanford administrators convinced me that I didn't need a graduate degree and that I would never donate to the school. Beyond that, I also got totally fed up trying to figure out how to get definitive positive permission to do anything. At one point I asked facilities if I could build an oven to cure composites. They reviewed and approved the plans. But when some other group within the school saw…

> I eventually moved the oven to rented space elsewhere since I was told I couldn't keep the thing on campus

I can understand this. The US has a very litigious society. If someone gets sick from being exposed to something that can even be loosely associated with your oven, the school will have to spend a lot of money defending itself.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#277

Post by rbanffy »

dilyevsky wrote: post #240
namlem wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I was then told my student group would be dissolved if we used off-campus facilities" This is the craziest part to me. There doesn't seem to be any rational reason for it other than wanting absolute control for its own sake.

Liability insurance most likely

Maybe patent rights as well. If the facilities belong to a company, they may want a piece.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#278

Post by ChadNauseam »

dougmccune wrote: post #15

I spent 3 years living in one of the co-ops briefly mentioned in the article ("In 2013, the administration took over the student-run anarchist house and painted over the old murals."). I wouldn't call it an "anarchist house" but it sure as hell was a lot of fun to live there. I painted some of those murals that are now apparently gone. We built a giant illegal loft in our room to make it two stories (which we would d…

Hey, I lived in a very similar system at Michigan State University. It was a ton of fun and I made some of my best friends in that house. Really sad to hear that Stanford painted over the murals.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#279

Post by watwut »

asdff wrote: post #233
ketzo wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my sophomore year, my roommate came back at 7am after being out all night with his thighs literally purple from paddling. He couldn't stand up for a day - I had to bring him meals. He was in the professional society for international relations students . It's not just frats.

Hazing happens anywhere in college. Your own roommates could haze you in your dorm, you don't need a student org or an off campus house. I'm not sure there is much of an easy solution. You ban all the student orgs you want and force people to live in a dorm for 4 years, and people will still party and get drunk and do stupid things and be terrible people at times.

This is not true. I was in college and there was no hazing.

Your own roommates could bully you and then you can ask to change rooms. You might not be able to get new one, but it is not nearly the same institutionalized hazing.

Re: Stanford’s war on social life

#280

Post by rendall »

colordrops wrote: post #241
zbrozek wrote: post #149

My interactions with Stanford administrators convinced me that I didn't need a graduate degree and that I would never donate to the school. Beyond that, I also got totally fed up trying to figure out how to get definitive positive permission to do anything. At one point I asked facilities if I could build an oven to cure composites. They reviewed and approved the plans. But when some other group within the school saw…

I'm confused. Why is any of this happening? What are the motivations behind the people putting up all these barriers?

There has been a vast increase in the proportion of administrators to faculty and students on college campuses throughout the US [1]

The result of this is greater administrative political power versus faculty and students, which leads to campus and academic culture being reorganized to suit administrators over faculty and students.

The cause of this is lots of available money needing to be spent, from huge tuition increases over the decades, in turn driven by government policy. Guaranteed student loans and their inability to be discharged in bankruptcy had unintended consequences.

[1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/higher-ed-administrators-grow... old article but still relevant

Post reply on HN