The Stanford Review editor-in-chief Julia Steinberg’s interview with university president Jonathan Levin:

Stanford Review: The first two categories are the buckets of questions that I have. So I’ll move on to my first question about Stanford’s educational and political climate at the present moment. In one of my classes, I was randomly assigned a partner to work on a presentation together. He told me that he had not read a book, cover to cover since the third grade, let alone at Stanford. In June, he will graduate with a degree from Stanford. How is this possible?

President Levin: Have you read a book at Stanford?

Stanford Review: I actually have. I’ve read fifty. I’ve counted. Probably at sixty now.

President Levin: I can’t speak to the particular student you worked with and exactly the way he or she has approached things. I think it’s a missed opportunity if you go through Stanford without doing a lot of reading, because at least in many fields, that’s the way to learn. Now, some fields, it’s true at Stanford, you learn in different ways that aren’t necessarily from books, but you know, I certainly would hope that any student who came to Stanford would spend a lot of time reading and thinking and reflecting. So I think it’s a missed opportunity if that’s not how you choose to spend a good fraction of your time here.

Stanford Review: I agree. Several freshmen I have talked to have bemoaned their mandatory COLLEGE classes that are contract graded, meaning that students will receive an A if their work is turned in on time regardless of quality. One frosh even told me that all of her first quarter classes are contract graded. How does this set students up for success at Stanford and beyond?

President Levin: So the COLLEGE curriculum, that’s part of the design—and of course, it’s a new course. So many aspects of COLLEGE are an experiment. We’re learning. The faculty who teach it are learning about the best design for that class, what the syllabus should look like, what’s the best way to manage discussion, what’s the teaching model, what’s the grading model. And that’s something that the Faculty Senate discussed maybe 18 months ago or last year, the grading model, and at the time, they presented some evidence suggesting that it seemed to have been a positive experience. Sounds like you may have a view that’s different and when that program comes up for review and to be looked at, it’ll be interesting to hear that perspective on it as well. The way I think of the COLLEGE curriculum is it’s in the best tradition of something at Stanford, which is, you put something out, you try it, you see how it works, you iterate, you improve it, you keep improving it, and hopefully, over time, it’s going to become fantastic. And that that may well be one of the aspects of it that should be debated and discussed.

[…]

Stanford Review: What is the most important problem in the world right now?

President Levin: There’s no answer to that question. There are too many important problems to give you a single answer.

Stanford Review: That is an application question that we have to answer to apply here.

More proof that the so called Ivy League and ‘exclusive’ schools are a branding exercise - any resemblance of academic rigor has long been dispensed with.