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John Hennessy: Wiring the School That Nurtures Silicon Valley Stanford has been a seedbed of the Information Age. Its new provost aims to unleash a tech revolution inside the walls of academe In the 1940s and 1950s, Stanford University Engineering School Dean and later Provost Frederick Terman used his unique position to help create Silicon Valley. Terman, who died in 1982, masterminded industrial parks, nourished student entrepreneurs, and recruited technical geniuses to the engineering school faculty. In a striking case of deja vu, Stanford Engineering School Dean John Hennessy, 46, will move into the provost's chair at Stanford on July 1, becoming the university's second in command. With a $1.4 billion budget and administrative duties across all departments, the traditional role of a provost inside Stanford Inc. is complex enough. But Hennessy's unique technology and entrepreneurial backgrounds give him a chance to help both Stanford and higher education reinvent themselves for the new wired century. ROUND-THE-CLOCK SUPPORT. Hennessy says Stanford has made great progress on wiring dorms and making sure its students have the physical connections to exploit the Internet. But the future requires thinking well beyond the wire in the wall: "Information technology changes everything we do, how we teach, how we work," says Hennessy. He expects to help Stanford address such pivotal issues today as the Internet's effects on academic publications, distance learning and research, and more tailored learning for students on campus. Hennessy has been one of the campus' most aggressive users of technology in teaching. As engineering dean, he launched the first online master's degree offering for a major university, and he has used the Web and his teaching assistants to offer almost round-the-clock support to students in his courses. But beyond single efforts, technology now has the potential to link far-flung researchers, limit the need for physical classrooms, and promote more cross-disciplinary collaborations in burgeoning fields such as bioengineering. "Hopefully, my technology background will help Stanford figure it out," Hennessy says.
After returning to Stanford, he shepherded the school's department of computer science for 11 years -- during which it became one of the nation's preeminent computing schools. In 1996, Hennessy became dean of engineering. Like his predecessor, James Gibbons, Hennessy had enormous clout in shaping the direction of technology development for both the Valley and the world. In the 1980s, for example, such promising startups as Silicon Graphics, Sun Microsystems, and Cisco Systems were founded by Stanford engineering and computer science brains. Sometimes the school influences best by what it doesn't do -- like not shutting down a couple of underperforming graduate students who were holed up in their campus trailer in the early 1990s, using Stanford's network to invent what would later become the Web portal Yahoo! The department's graciousness paid off when David Philo and Jerry Yang later became the youngest individuals ever to endow a full professorship in the school. Over time, some of the academic projects that Hennessy has backed recently will likely have an impact on Silicon Valley. Some of the most exciting Stanford specialties include improving software reliability and human interfaces, and finding roles for Internet appliances. As engineering dean, Hennessy maintained his Valley connections with a one-day-a-week consulting contract with Silicon Graphics, which eventually purchased most of MIPS. SGI has now spun MIPS out independently again, and Hennessy says he'll probably still put at least a half-day a week into keeping an eye on MIPS, his original "baby." By moving that kind of expertise into the provost's office, "Hennessy is the chance for Stanford to be as with-it as you possibly could be," says David Kelley, who is both a full Stanford professor and the founder of the Valley's well-known high-tech industrial design powerhouse IDEO.
Now that he's got the provost's power, look for Hennessy to push some of his own personal innovations, such as the Web page supporting his courses, or even the use of so-called streaming video so that students can watch his class over their PCs, download slides and other material he prepares, and review it as they need to. Another E-project: As provost, Hennessy will also oversee the juicing up of Stanford's 18-month-old Learning Laboratory, which uses technology to improve interactions between faculty and students. Thanks to a $27.5 million gift, the lab will work with a group in Sweden to try to come up with formats for cross-border research collaborations. To date, the lab has been used for such efforts as allowing biology majors to submit homework online for computer grading. The students get faster feedback. Instructors get a real-time sense of what concepts need reinforcing. Now Hennessy's challenge is "to build a broader set of connections" between students, faculty members, and their counterparts at universities and companies worldwide, he says. Terman shared Stanford's ideas with the world. Now its up to Hennessy to turn that into a two-way street. Hamilton is a Business Week contributing correspondent in Silicon Valley _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ |
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