Glen Davis

Andrew Wright, friend, fellow blogger, and student in Chi Alpha, refers to a positive impact I had on his life:

[Tobias] Wolff destroyed any residual interest I still had in Ayn Rand and Objectivism, completing the process begun by a series [of] summer conversations with Glen in 2002.

I hoped I was making sense back then. That was really one of my first ministry challenges at Stanford. Andrew was our very first student in Chi Alpha (and he turned into our housemate within weeks of our arrival).

It’s bittersweet seeing him graduate in a few months. On the one hand, my job as a minister will be MUCH easier without Andrew ;), but on the other hand he’s our last link to the beginning. We will have officially cycled a student generation.

I was pretty heartened by his last paragaph:

Commencing the last quarter at Stanford – the last 3 months of indiscretion of my life, but to cram all of the fun and folly of the past 4 years into one quarter would probably kill me. Rather than resolving to live it up, I’m hoping to end on a note that is simultaneously reflective and forward looking, a sort of transcendent Buddha-like coasting into the next higher phase.

We’ll be watching, Andrew. 🙂

Creepy squared:

In one of the most controversial scientific projects ever conceived, a group of university researchers in California’s Silicon Valley is preparing to create a mouse whose brain will be composed entirely of human cells.

Researchers at Stanford University have already succeeded in breeding mice with brains that are one per cent human cells.

In the next stage they plan to use stem cells from aborted foetuses to create an animal whose brain cells are 100 per cent human.

No, you did not misread. Stanford scientists are planning to make a mouse whose brain is composed of dead babies’ brain cells.

Rats of Nimh, anyone?

full story (or read another, broader story on the same issue)

I somehow missed this article from the Stanford Daily a few weeks ago : Christian Groups Sue Universities Nationwide.

some Christian groups have been successful in forcing colleges to allow them to bar gay students and atheists.

That’s an awfully loaded interesting way to describe what’s been happening. It makes it sound as though the Christian groups are agitating for rights previously denied them instead of reacting to new university policies which undermine their beliefs. For a different take, read Christianity Today’s weblog (and this follow-up).

Junior Rosabelle Oribello, the LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered] Center’s liaison to on-campus residences, believes the current political atmosphere at Stanford will help prevent the outbreak of such a controversy.

“I don’t think it will happen at this campus because the message the center has gotten from the religious groups has been that they are pretty affirming of LGBTs,” she said. “Though I don’t know what it’s like on other college campuses, we have a pretty liberal campus and that goes far in reducing the chances of these kinds of conflicts.”

While many religious groups at Stanford clearly do affirm whatever sexual choices you make, many others do not. You would have no clue based on this article. That’s odd.

[Scotty] McLennan agreed with Oribello’s reasoning.

“Stanford is a very pluralistic environment, religious and in other ways,” he said.

Many students believe that it is this politically-homogeneous atmosphere that prevents the difficulties faced at other schools.

The contrast between one sentence and the next is striking: “pluralistic environment” switched to “politically homogeneous.” That it wasn’t caught by the reporter or the copyeditor is revealing–the pluralism that Stanford presupposes is a superficial pluralism which focuses on color, culture, and sexual conduct but which usually ignores convictions. In other words, ideological diversity is the one sort of diversity that is frowned upon.

On that note, I find it curious that the author apparently didn’t seek to interview anyone who disagreed with his presuppositions. Of the three religious groups he did interview, none had been involved in the lawsuits on other campuses. That’s worth noting simply because the article mentions InterVarsity at Tufts by name and there’s a very active InterVarsity chapter here on the Farm. I wonder what they would have said had they been asked?

If you’re interested in stuff like this, Andy Crouch has a great article called Campus Collisions that explains why InterVarsity, in particular, is more likely to get involved in lawsuits than the rest of us.