[Maple Leaf]

The university has transformed itself from being an educational-research institution to a brand name on the world stage of many different components from education/tech/basic science/medicine/domestic and foreign policy.  What role in the future will athletics play is to be determined.  My fear is that the brand name folks/advocates will continue to increase the domination in the policy direction.  What will be lost are those experiences and real human opportunities that allowed Stanford be at the head of the pack of academic institutions starting in the late 70's.  Those real human opportunities included athletic competition.  David Packard played football at Stanford, if he was still alive I wonder what his take on this would be?  Friends and relatives who are still connected to the university through employment, consultant or volunteer activities have stated that at times it seems that the goal of the administration is to produce the next "Apple-Microsoft-Google-Amazon" creation and everything else can take a back seat.

[Maple Leaf]

The university has transformed itself from being an educational-research institution to a brand name on the world stage of many different components from education/tech/basic science/medicine/domestic and foreign policy.  What role in the future will athletics play is to be determined.  My fear is that the brand name folks/advocates will continue to increase the domination in the policy direction.  What will be lost are those experiences and real human opportunities that allowed Stanford be at the head of the pack of academic institutions starting in the late 70's.  Those real human opportunities included athletic competition.  David Packard played football at Stanford, if he was still alive I wonder what his take on this would be?  Friends and relatives who are still connected to the university through employment, consultant or volunteer activities have stated that at times it seems that the goal of the administration is to produce the next "Apple-Microsoft-Google-Amazon" creation and everything else can take a back seat.