At the end of my day as a PWR lecturer—after I’ve taught classes, held conferences, tutored at Hume, prepared my next lesson plans, photocopied readings, and replied to student emails—I shed my teaching persona and enter a different Stanford: the Arrillaga gym. There, twice a week, I take a cardio dance class (“Zumba” without the corporate branding), in a too-warm room with an often-faulty sound system. Here, I join a group of fellow dance enthusiasts (I hesitate to call many of us “dancers,” but I promise we are enthusiastic!) drawn from every corner of campus. There are undergrads and professors emerita, biologists and language teachers, administrators and staff of all stripes. The participants vary from week to week, but I’ve been dancing alongside many of them for nearly five years, and this non-academic classroom is undoubtedly one of my homes on campus. My bi-weekly excursions out of Stanford’s academic world made me wonder what other spaces on campus the PWR community calls home—so I put out the call to you to tell me about your campus activities beyond Sweet, Wallenberg, and Hume.
Here’s what a few of you had to say:
Tom Freeland: “Here's a fun campus activity I enjoy with my family (no-one will be surprised to hear): birding. Campus can be a terrific place to see birds: quail in the community gardens, hummingbirds in the cactus garden, barn owls in the towers of Old Union, and acorn woodpeckers in the tops of the palms in the Main Quad. You can hear red-shouldered hawks everywhere; we also have Cooper's hawks and the occasional peregrine falcon. And great blue herons and great horned owls on the golf course, and white-tailed kites and red-tailed hawks on the Stanford Dish hill. And of course crows everywhere. Also lots of ravens, juncos, sparrows, bluebirds and visiting warblers. Since Lake Lagunita has some water in it, it will attract interesting waterfowl and shorebirds. A great opportunity to see unusual ducks (wigeons, wood ducks etc.).”
Jennifer Stonaker: “I volunteer at the Arizona Garden once a month. I usually weed or rake up leaves, but sometimes they need help with pruning or planting, depending on the time of year. It’s nice to get outside, see how the garden changes throughout the year, and chat with the other volunteers and visitors to the garden.”
Megan Formato: “I feel like joining the public writing and public humanities lists opened a door to so many great events and workshops on campus for me. They are a super smart, interdisciplinary group of folks who are interested in many forms of meaningful writing and communication and not as invested in hierarchy as many other spaces on campus. Their events and workshops are stellar.”
Roberta Wolfson: “I serve on the board of Stanford’s Asian Staff Forum. Specifically, I’m on the programs committee, which means that I help organize and participate in ongoing events that bring together staff from all over campus. Most recently, I helped run a “Boba and Bingo” event, and in the next couple of months, we’ll be holding a Lunar New Year event and a lecture on Bollywood event called “Chai and Chat.” I also help organize the annual book club, which is a really fun way to read a book in community with others every year.”
Sangeeta Mediratta: “I try to stay connected to campus life by attending events through Stanford Live. While my goal is to attend at least one event per quarter, I usually manage to catch two or three throughout the year.”
Kevin Moore: “I learned in the context of ESF last quarter that the sandstone of the main quad apparently contains visible fossils. So far, I think I’ve maybe spotted only one, but the hunt has made my morning stroll around the arcades on the days I teach way more interesting.”
Alexander Greenhough: "From time to time, I visit the Windhover Contemplative Center, a tranquil space in which you can reflect, ponder, meditate, as well as remember, dream, and imagine. Unlike other campus places that similarly presume some degree of quietness, such as libraries or galleries, the center doesn’t have an implicit activity (reading, looking at art) and instead you can be simply be with your thoughts, which can take on whatever form you want them to, and can take you wherever you want to go."
Christine Alfano: Campus doubles as my family's (on-leash) dog park. My husband walks one of our dogs on campus at 6AM every weekday morning (yes, if you see a reddish-golden retriever with a reddish-haired guy in the early hours, that's probably him!), and I join him on Saturdays and Sundays (8AM is our favorite time) to walk circles around our beautiful campus with both dogs. Our favorite path: Cantor Center up to Tresidder, over to Sweet, down to Lathrop and then Littlefield, and then back to the Oval. Along the way on the weekends, you'll see ground squirrels and tree squirrels, perhaps a coyote (yes! esp by Cantor or Frost), athletes on eBikes and electric scooters, occasionally a heron or hawk, often a troop of Model UN or Math Olympiad students, and -- if you're lucky -- Michelle Bercow, walking with her own two dogs and her dog-walking posse. There is so much beauty on campus, across the seasons: roses through the summer, vibrant yellow ginkgo trees in the fall, misty/foggy mornings in the winter, purply magnolia trees in early winter, and wildflowers (about to burst open around campus right now!) in early spring. With (most) students sleeping soundly during our early morning walk, it feels a bit like walking through a well-maintained public garden.
There’s so much to do on this campus of ours. See you out there!
