Walking down a side street in Shanghai's French Concession, a partially preserved corner of that city's gloried and turbulent past, visitors come upon an ivy-covered house that served as the headquarters for the Shanghai branch of the Communist Party in the 1940s. Here the spartan quarters of Mao's second in command, Zhou Enlai, are carefully preserved, the narrow beds and wooden desks evoking a simpler, revolutionary China.

A short ride away, across the murky waters of the Huangpu River, monuments to the new China are being erected in what was farmland less than two decades ago. The Pudong New Area, with its clusters of highrise office towers and multi-story shopping malls, is emblematic of the rush to wealth and economic power that now drives China.

These were among the images from a visit to China by a delegation of scholars from the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center from April 8-14, 2007. Though time was short, the group managed to visit Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Beijing.

Fulfilling Shorenstein APARC's mission to carry its work "into Asia," the delegation met senior officials from government and business and held wide-ranging exchanges with Chinese scholars and policymakers at leading universities and research institutions. The conversation ranged from China's development strategy to the current state of relations between China and its longtime rival and neighbor, Japan.

The delegation was led by Shorenstein APARC director and professor of sociology Gi-Wook Shin and by professor of political science Jean C. Oi, who has launched the center's new China studies program. The group included Shorenstein distinguished fellow Ambassador Michael H. Armacost, associate director for research Daniel C. Sneider, and senior program and outreach coordinator Neeley Main. In Beijing, Freeman Spogli Institute director Coit Blacker joined the delegation, as did Shorenstein APARC's Scott Rozelle.

The trip started in Shanghai, a dynamic center of finance and industry that has drawn in many Stanford graduates. State-owned enterprises such as Baosteel, one of the world's largest steel producers, are in the midst of becoming players in the global marketplace. From Baosteel's sprawling complex of docks, blast furnaces, and rolling mills along an estuary of the Yangtze River, products are now being dispatched around the world. In a meeting, the leadership of the Baosteel Group expressed an eagerness to tap into the educational and training opportunities offered at Stanford University.

Shanghai is not only the business capital but also a political center, rivaling Beijing. The Shanghai Institute for International Studies is an unofficial foreign relations arm of the Shanghai government. Shanghai Institute scholars are also players in national policy debate on many key issues facing China, such as relations with Taiwan, with Japan, and even with the Korean peninsula.

The scholars presented their views on a wide range of issues, from the preparations for the 17th Congress of the Communist Party this coming fall to emerging structures of regional integration in East Asia. Professor Xu Mingqi, who is also a senior leader of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, explained that China's development strategy is shifting toward a more balanced approach. Whereas local government officials previously were pressed to meet targets for GDP growth, foreign investment, and export volume, now they must also raise employment levels, close the growing income gap, and provide social security.

Hangzhou, considered one of the most beautiful cities in China, is a two-hour drive south of Shanghai. The modern roadway passed a tableau of the suburbanization of this part of China's countryside, with multi-story brick homes mushrooming amidst the fields. The delegation arrived at Zhejiang University, considered among the best of China's provincial higher educational institutions and growing rapidly in size and scope.

The Shorenstein APARC delegation met with faculty members from Zhejiang's social science departments, who briefed the delegation on their research work in areas such as distance education, international relations, Chinese history, even a school of Korean studies. Zhejiang is also the site of a new research institution, the Zhejiang Institute for Innovation (ZII), founded by Stanford engineering graduate Min Zhu, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who is determined to bring the lessons of Stanford and the valley to his home province and his undergraduate alma mater. ZII aims to foster applied research that can tie the university to the vibrant entrepreneurial culture of Zhejiang province. Shorenstein APARC researchers may soon be carrying out fieldwork in this laboratory of change, based at ZII.

Beijing, however, is still the place that matters most in China, not only in the realm of government but also when it comes to academic scholarship. The delegation met with two of Shorenstein APARC's longtime corporate affiliates in China: PetroChina, the state-owned oil and gas giant, and the People's Bank of China. Shorenstein APARC dined with a lively group of Chinese journalists, organized by former Stanford Knight fellow Hu Shuli, the editor of Caijing Magazine, considered China's leading independent business publication.

The substantive task was to forge new ties with key research institutions. The current state of China's development strategy was again on the agenda when the delegation met with senior officials from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), formerly China's State Planning Commission. Alongside the NDRC, the delegation met as well with the leadership of an offshoot of China's State Council, the China Development Research Foundation, which is doing important work in promoting good governance in areas such as poverty alleviation, nutrition, and budgeting. Those conversations were echoed later in our meetings with scholars from Peking University's School of Government.

Shorenstein APARC's own China program, as Oi explained, is focused on understanding the tensions that arise as China grapples with the consequences of its rapid economic development. Out of the meetings in Beijing, an ongoing dialogue has begun, to be advanced this summer with a visit from a NDRC delegation and in the fall with an international conference at Stanford on China's Growing Pains.

The delegation also engaged in frank and useful exchanges on a variety of international relations issues. We had an extended meeting with scholars and leaders of the China Reform Forum (CRF), a think-tank associated with the Communist Party's Central Party School, the premier institution for training party leaders and officials. The CRF is credited with authoring important concepts such as the foreign policy doctrine of China's "Peaceful Rise." These discussions were followed by a visit and exchange with scholars from Peking University's widely respected School of International Studies.

The scholars shared analysis of the current state of the North Korean nuclear negotiations, as well as evaluating the outcome of Chinese Premier Wen Jibao's visit that week to Japan. Over dinner with CRF Vice Chairman Ding Kuisong, the conversation turned to the American presidential politics and the future direction of U.S. foreign policy.

Professors Blacker, Shin, and Oi also met with senior officials of Peking University, as part of an ongoing dialogue about cooperation between these two premier institutions of higher education.

The year 2007 marks the 20th anniversary of South Korea's June 10 civil uprising of 1987, and the 10th year since the 1997 Asian financial crisis. To commemorate these occasions, the Korea Herald published a series of contributions from prominent foreign scholars to analyze the significant changes that Korea has undergone during the past two decades. Shorenstein APARC Director Gi-Wook Shin wrote the op-ed below, on the problems of Korean nationalism.

When the Virginia Tech massacre shook American society, Koreans and Korean-Americans alike nervously responded with a deep sense of collective guilt. Many first-generation immigrants took it upon themselves to apologize for the actions of gunman Cho Seung-hui on the grounds that they all share the same Korean ethnicity (meaning blood).

South Korea's ambassador to Washington, Lee Tae-shik, went so far as to say that the Korean- American community needed to "repent," suggesting a 32-day fast, one day for each victim, to prove that Koreans were a "worthwhile ethnic minority in America." The South Korean government offered to send an official delegation to the funerals of the victims.

This episode may seem bizarre or perplexing to non-Koreans since most ethnicities (including Americans) don't have that strong sense of collective responsibility. Yet this incident well illustrates Korea's psyche, i.e., deeply rooted ethnic national identity, which remains strong today.

Korea has been democratizing and globalizing for the last two decades but neither force has weakened the power of nationalism. On the contrary, it has only become stronger.

How can we explain this phenomenon of persistent ethnic nationalism in a country at the forefront of globalization? Where does such a tradition of collectivistic, ethnic identity come from? What are the positive and negative aspects of ethnic nationalism in Korea? How can Korea, as it is becoming a multiethnic society, deal with it in a globalizing world?

Origins and History

Historically Koreans have developed a sense of nation based on shared blood and ancestry. The Korean nation was "ethnicized" or "racialized" through a belief in a common prehistoric origin, producing an intense sense of collective oneness.

Ethnicity is generally regarded as a cultural phenomenon based on a common language and history, and race understood as a collectivity defined by innate and immutable phenotypic and genotypic characteristics. However, Koreans have not differentiated between the two. Instead, race served as a marker that strengthened ethnic identity, which in turn was instrumental in defining the notion of nation. Koreans are said to believe that they all belong to a "unitary nation" ("tanil minjok"), one that is ethnically homogeneous and racially distinctive from its neighbors.

This sense of ethnic homogeneity, contrary to the popular "prehistoric origin" belief, took root in the early 20th century. Faced with imperialist encroachments, from both the East (Japan) and West, Koreans developed the notion of a unitary nation to show its autonomy and uniqueness. For Korea, which had a long history of political, linguistic, and geographic continuity, the internal issues of political integration or geographic demarcation were less important than the threat of imperialism. Enhancement of collective consciousness and internal solidarity among Koreans against the external threat was more urgent. As a result, the ethnic base or racial genealogy of the Korean nation was emphasized.

Sin Chae-ho, a leading nationalist of the time, for instance, presented Korean history as one of the "ethnic nation" ("minjoksa") and traced it to the mythical figure Tangun. According to him, the Korean people were descendants of Tangun Chosun, who merged with the Puy of Manchuria to form the Kogury people. This original blend, Sin contended, remained the ethnic or racial core ("chujok") of the Korean nation, a nation preserved through defense and warfare against outside forces. The nation was defined as "an organic body formed out of the spirit of a people descended through a single pure bloodline" that would last even after losing political sovereignty.

The need to assert the distinctiveness and purity of the Korean nation grew more important under colonial rule, especially as Japan attempted to assimilate Koreans into its empire as "imperial subjects." The assimilation policy was based on colonial racism, which claimed that Koreans and Japanese were of common origin but the former always subordinate.

The theory was used to justify colonialist policies to replace Korean cultural traditions with Japanese ones in order to supposedly get rid of all distinctions and achieve equality between the two nations. Yet colonial assimilation policy meant changing Korean names into Japanese, exclusive use of Japanese language, school instruction in the Japanese ethical system, and Shinto worship. Koreans resented and resisted the policy by asserting their unique and great national heritage. Yi Kwang-su, a leading figure at the time, claimed that bloodline, personality, and culture are three fundamental elements defining a nation and that "Koreans are without a doubt a unitary nation ("tanil han minjok") in blood and culture." Such a view was widely accepted among Koreans: to impugn the natural and unique character of the Korean ethnic nation during colonial rule would have been tantamount to betraying Koreanness in the face of the imperial challenge of an alien ethnic nation. Ironically, Japanese rule reinforced Koreans' claim to a truly distinct and homogeneous ethnic identity.

After independence in 1945, and despite peninsular division into North and South, the unity of the Korean ethnic nation or race was largely taken for granted. Neither side disputed the ethnic base of the Korean nation, spanning thousands of years, based on a single bloodline of the great Han race. Instead, both sides contested for the sole representation of the ethnically homogeneous Korean nation.

Even today, Koreans maintain a strong sense of ethnic homogeneity based on shared blood and ancestry, and nationalism continues to shape Korean politics and foreign relations. Many ethnic Koreans overseas share this sense of ethnic homogeneity, which can explain the response by the Korean American community to the Virginia Tech massacre.

Prize and Price

Ethnic nationalism has been a crucial source of pride and inspiration for the Korean people during the turbulent years of their nation's transition to modernity that involved colonialism, territorial division, war, and dictatorship. It has enhanced collective consciousness and solidarity against external threats and has served Korea's modernization well. Nationalism is also the underlying principle of guiding the current globalization process in the South.

In the North, ethnic national consciousness offered the grounds for the formation of a belief that Koreans are a chosen people, a position that became the epistemological basis for the juche ideology and the recent "theory of the Korean nation as number one." Ethnic nationalism could also play an integrative role in a unification process, as this self-ascribed identity of homogeneity can serve as the basis for the initial impetus toward unification, if not as the stable foundation of a unified Korea.

At the same time, such a blood-based ethnic national identity became a totalitarian force in politics, culture, and society. Individuals were considered only part of an abstract whole, and citizens were asked to sacrifice individual freedom and civil rights for the collectivity.

Nation was also used as a trump card to override other competing identities as well as to justify violations of human and civic rights in both Koreas in the name of the "nation." The power of nationalism has thus hindered cultural and social diversity and tolerance in Korean society.

The dominance of collectivistic, ethnic nationalism constrained space for liberalism in the public sphere. In its formative years of nation building, nationalism developed in opposition to liberalism and these two ideologies were mistakenly positioned against each other. This historical legacy led to the poverty of modern thought in Korea, including liberalism, conservatism, and radicalism. A lack of a liberal base, for instance, made Korean conservatism highly vulnerable to manipulation by authoritarian leaders.

Ironically, the very belief in ethnic unity has also produced tension and conflict between the two Koreas over the last half-century. The prevailing sense of unity in the face of territorial partition has provoked contention over who truly represents the Korean ethnic nation versus who is at fault for undermining that Korean unity. This battle for true national representation helps to explain highly charged inter-Korea conflict, including the Korean War that killed millions of fellows in the name of "national liberation."

Challenges and Future Tasks

Ethnic nationalism will remain an important organizing principle of Korean society. Neither democratization nor globalization has been able to uproot the power of nationalism. It would thus be wrong and dangerous to ignore or underestimate its power, treating it as a mere myth or something to pass away in due course. At the same time, we can't remain simply content with its current role, either.

Instead, it should be recognized that ethnic nationalism has become a dominant force in Korean society and politics and that it can be oppressive and dangerous when fused with racism and other essentialist ideologies. Koreans must strive to find ways to mitigate its potential harmful effects and use it in constructive manner. In particular, Koreans must promote cultural diversity and tolerance, and establish democratic institutions that can contain the repressive, essentialist elements of ethnic nationalism.

This important task is urgent because Korea, on the contrary to popular perception, is becoming a multiethnic society. Today about a half-million migrant labor workers, with the majority coming from China and Southeast Asia, live in the South. Only a decade ago, the number was less than one hundred thousand. Similarly more than one out of 10 marriages is "international," meaning that the spouse is nonethnic Korean (reaching 13.6 percent in 2005). Considering that the figure was only 1.7 percent in 1994, Korea is fast becoming a multiethnic society.

Despite new realities, however, perception and institutions are slow to change. Most Koreans still have stronger attachment to "ethnic Koreans living in foreign countries" than to "ethnic non-Koreans living in Korea." It is also much easier for a Korean-American who to "recover" Korean citizenship than for an Indonesian migrant worker living in Korea to obtain Korean citizenship. This is true even if the Indonesian worker might be more culturally and linguistically Korean than a Korean-American.

The principle of "bloodline" or jus sanguinis still defines the notions of Korean nationhood and citizenship, which are often inseparable in the minds of Koreans. In its formative years, Koreans stressed the ethnic base of nation without a corresponding attention to its civic dimension, i.e. citizenship. After colonial rule, neither state (North or South) paid adequate attention or made serious effort to cultivate a more inclusive notion of citizenship.

Social institutions that can address issues of discrimination against ethnic non-Koreans (e.g., ethnic Chinese known as "hwagyo") have been overlooked and underdeveloped. The Korean nationality law based on jus sanguinis legitimizes consciously or unconsciously discrimination against foreign migrant workers by explicitly favoring ethnic Koreans.

Korea needs to institutionalize a legal system that mitigates unfair practices and discrimination against those who do not supposedly share the Korean blood. Koreans need an institutional framework to promote a national identity that would allow recognition of ethnic diversity and cultural tolerance among the populace, rather than appeal to an ethnic consciousness that tends to encourage a false uniformity and then enforcing conformity to it.

They should envision a society in which they can live together, not simply as fellow ethnic Koreans but as equal citizens of a democratic polity. In fact, it is only a matter of time before Koreans will face serious challenges living in a multiethnic society (e.g., children of ethnically mixed couples, civic rights of migrant labor workers) that it is unprepared to resolve. Preparing for such challenges through public education and legal institutions won't be an easy task and should be an integral part of democratic consolidation processes that are currently under way.

Discussion of unification is premature and problematic if unification occurs without such adjustments. As the German unification experience shows, a shared ethnic identity alone will not be able to prevent North Koreans from becoming "second-class citizens" in a unified Korea. Even worse, because of higher expectations resulting from a shared sense of ethnic unity, a gap between identity (ethnic homogeneity) and practice (second-class citizens) will add more confusion and tension to the unification process.

All said, Koreans should strive to promote ethnic diversity and cultural tolerance, and develop proper legal institution so that all can live together in a multiethnic or unified Korea as equal citizens of a democratic polity. This task will be all the more important and urgent as Korea consolidates democracy, globalizes its economy, and prepares for national unification.

CISAC awarded honors certificates in international security studies to 14 undergraduates who completed theses on policy issues ranging from speeding up the detection of a bioterror attack to improving the World Bank's effectiveness at post-conflict resolution.

Among the 2006-2007 participants in CISAC's Interschool Honors Program in International Security Studies were award winners Brian Burton, who received a Firestone Medal for his thesis, "Counterinsurgency Principles and U.S. Military Effectiveness in Iraq," and Sherri Hansen, who received the William J. Perry Award for her thesis, "Explaining the Use of Child Soldiers." The Firestone Medal recognizes the top 10 percent of undergraduate theses at Stanford each year, and the Perry recognizes excellence in policy-relevant research in international security studies.

CISAC honors students "can make the world a more peaceful place in several ways," FSI senior fellow Stephen Stedman told students and guests at the honors ceremony. "They can graduate and find jobs of power and influence [and] they can identify real world problems and solve them."

This year's class, which included several double-majors, represented nine major fields of study: biology, history, human biology, international relations, mathematics, management science and engineering, physics, political science, Russia-Eurasian studies. Some students headed to business or policy positions, while others looked forward to advanced studies in law, medicine, biophysics, security studies, or other fields.

"I hope that this is the beginning, not the end, of your contributions to policy-relevant research," CISAC senior research scholar Paul Stockton, who co-directed the program with Stedman, told the students. He added, "In every potential career you have expressed a desire to pursue, from medicine to the financial sector and beyond, we need your perspectives and research contributions, to deal with emerging threats to global security."

Many students expressed interest in realizing that hope. Burton said his aspiration is to attain "a high-level cabinet or National Security Council position to cap a long career of public service in foreign policy."

Katherine Schlosser, a biology major who is headed to Case Western Reserve University for joint MD-master's in public health program, said she hopes to "keep conducting innovative research and to eventually rejoin the international security studies community in some capacity."

The 2007 honors recipients, their majors, thesis titles, advisers, and destinations, if known, are as follows:

Brian Burton, political science
"Counterinsurgency Principles and U.S. Military Effectiveness in Iraq"
Firestone Medal Winner
Adviser: David Holloway
Destination: Georgetown University, to pursue a master's degree in security studies

Martine Cicconi, political science
"Weighing the Costs of Aggression and Restraint: Explaining Variations in India's Response to Terrorism"
Adviser: Scott Sagan
Destination: Stanford University Law School

Will Frankenstein, mathematics
"Chinese Energy Security and International Security: A Case Study Analysis"
Adviser: Michael May
Destination: The Institute for Defense Analyses in Alexandria, Va., for a summer internship

Kunal Gullapalli, management science & engineering
"Understanding Water Rationality: A Game-Theoretic Analysis of Cooperation and Conflict Over Scarce Water"
Adviser: Peter Kitanidis
Destination: Investment Banking Division at Morgan Stanley in Los Angeles

Sherri Hansen, political science
"Explaining the Use of Child Soldiers"
William J. Perry Award Winner
Adviser: Jeremy Weinstein
Destination: Oxford University in England, to pursue master's degree in development studies

Andy Leifer, physics and political science
"International Scientific Engagement for Mitigating Emerging Nuclear Security Threats"
Adviser: Michael May
Destination: Harvard University, to pursue a PhD in biophysics

James Madsen, political science
"Filling the Gap: The Rise of Military Contractors in the Modern Military"
Adviser: Coit Blacker
Destination: World travel; then San Francisco to open a bar

Nico Martinez, political science
"Protracted Civil War and Failed Peace Negotiations in Colombia"
Adviser: Stephen Stedman
Destination: Washington, DC, to serve as a staff member for Senator Harry Reid

Seepan V. Parseghian, political science and Russian/Eurasian studies
"The Survival of Unrecognized States in the Hobbesian Jungle"
Advisor: James Fearon

Dave Ryan, international relations
"Security Guarantees in Non-Proliferation Negotiations"
Adviser: Scott Sagan
Destination: Stanford University, to serve as executive director of FACE AIDS

Katherine Schlosser, biology
"Gene Expression Profiling: A New Warning System for Bioterrorism"
Adviser: Dean Wilkening
Destination: Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, to pursue a joint medical degree and master's in public health

Nigar Shaikh, human biology and political science
"No Longer Just the 'Spoils of War': Rape as an Instrument of Military Policy"
Adviser: Mariano-Florentino Cuellar

Christine Su, history and political science
"British Counterterrorism Legislation Since 2000: Parlimentary and Government Evaluations of Enhanced Security"
Adviser: Allen Weiner
Destination: Stanford University, to finish her undergraduate degree; Su completed the honors program as a junior.

Lauren Young, international relations
"Peacebuilding without Politics: The World Bank and Post Conflict Reconstruction"
Adviser: Stephen Stedman
Destination: Stanford University, to finish her undergraduate degree; Young completed the honors program as a junior.

Throughout history, nations have waged war against epidemics from bubonic plague to pulmonary tuberculosis. Today we confront HIV/AIDS, SARS, and avian influenza, among other major infectious diseases. Scientists around the world scrutinize viruses and bacteria more intently than ever. Yet while scientific advances are crucial, they are insufficient. The world is not well prepared for the next health crisis.

This timely book argues that the battle against infectious disease epidemics must be fought on two fronts. The first, of course, is the laboratory. The second is the wider social context that involves ordinary individuals and groups, legislators, and the state. The failure to contain HIV/AIDS and the emergence of new infectious diseases highlight the inadequacies of current preventive and management approaches to deal with epidemics.

The authors of Crisis Preparedness offer perspectives from social science, epidemiology, and public health, collectively seeking to answer the question: How can we prepare for the next global epidemic?

Political science Professor Michael McFaul gave the Class Day lecture Saturday in Maples Pavilion.

If Stanford is indeed a bubble, political science Professor Michael McFaul deftly pointed out its radiant lining while simultaneously bursting it with a needle--in the form of sobering statistics and descriptions that paint a dour portrait of America's international standing--during his Class Day lecture on Saturday in Maples Pavilion.

Sponsored by the Stanford Alumni Association, the Class Day tradition gathers graduates and their families before a distinguished faculty member for a keynote address that is at once congratulatory and weighty. But McFaul, the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, began by describing his humble roots as a boy from Montana.

"When I came to Stanford as a 17-year-old freshman, I was raw and not ready for prime time," McFaul admitted. "I had never lived anywhere but Montana. I hadn't even set foot in California, let alone a foreign country."

In 1986, McFaul said he emerged from the Farm a dramatically different person--holding a bachelor's degree in international relations and Slavic languages and literatures, as well as a master's in Russian and East European studies. He had lived in the Soviet Union, Nigeria and Poland; and today, McFaul is regarded as one of the top scholars in terms of bringing together the theory and practice of democracy.

"I came here wanting to practice law and left here wanting to practice diplomacy," said McFaul, who in 2005 was appointed director of the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. "So, my time in the bubble changed me."

Then McFaul brought out the needle. He noted that, just as this year's graduates were first arriving on the Farm, President George W. Bush was outlining his "freedom agenda," a plan to transform the world. McFaul said the plan outlined Bush's strategy for promoting democracy around the world as a way of keeping Americans safe.

But so far, McFaul lamented, few of the plan's goals have been realized. "It hasn't been pretty out there," McFaul said. "While you have been living inside the bubble, a lot has been happening--much of it bad--outside of the bubble."

McFaul then reminded graduates of positive developments, such as the Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003 and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004. And, no one, he added, misses the Taliban regime in Afghanistan or Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

"But overall, trends are disappointing," McFaul said. "In Afghanistan, democracy is barely holding on. In Iraq and Palestine, there's civil war."

Between 2003, when the departing undergraduates in the audience arrived as freshmen, and today, more than 3,000 American soldiers, roughly 60,000 Iraqis and more than 200,000 people in Darfur have died, McFaul said. He added that the number of al-Qaida's followers also has grown during the four years that the Class of 2007 was in "the bubble."

And yet, the graduates might have left Maples completely deflated were it not for the main message of McFaul's lecture, which was one of renewal. When he graduated from Stanford in 1986, McFaul gave a graduation speech at the ceremony for international relations majors in which he lamented the failing arms control treaty between the Soviet Union and the United States. He also expressed dismay that South Africa's apartheid regime had just declared emergency rule and that Washington seemed too confrontational or too indifferent to address either.

"However, after each of these periods, the United States had found a way to renew itself and become again a force for freedom and justice around the world," McFaul said. "So, my understanding of history gives me confidence in our capacity for renewal. But so does my sense of the future that comes from teaching here at Stanford University."

McFaul said he has taught enough of this year's graduates to know that they have the smarts, the drive and the convictions to turn things around--young men and women from throughout the United States but also from nations such as Afghanistan, Brazil, Egypt, India, Indonesia and Nigeria.

"Someone sitting here right now will someday open the first U.S. Embassy in a democratic Iran," McFaul said. "Someone sitting here right now will inspire a third grader in the South Bronx to become the first kid in his neighborhood to win a Nobel Prize in physics."

But in the effort to renew the world, McFaul also told the graduates they should not forget to renew themselves. He urged them not to describe whatever occupation they take up simply as a job title, but as an action verb; to occasionally welcome idle time to refocus their energies; to embrace uncertainty; and to continue to learn and stay connected to Stanford.

McFaul's parting message echoed the welcome address by Howard Wolf, '80, vice president for alumni affairs and president of the Stanford Alumni Association. "Alumni are the only permanent stakeholders" of the university, Wolf said. "Get involved, stay connected."

The second presidential election campaign in Taiwan's young history as a democracy has entered its final week, providing a useful moment to ponder its larger meaning. This hard-fought election contest will determine more than simply which man and which (if any) party governs the country. It will also shape in important ways the future character and quality of democracy in the country.

If the twentieth century was the century of totalitarianism, total war, genocide, and brutality, it was also the century of democracy. As Freedom House notes in its latest annual survey of freedom in the world, there was not a single country in 1900 that would qualify by today's standards as a democracy. By 1950, only 22 of the 80 sovereign political systems in the world (28 percent) were democratic. When the third wave of global democratization began in 1974, there were 39 democracies, but the percentage of democracies in the world was about the same (27 percent). Yet by January 2000, Freedom House counted 120 democracies, the highest number and the greatest percentage (63) in the history of the world.

Dr. David Heymann, assistant director-general for communicable diseases at the World Health Organization (WHO), concluded two weeks in residence at Stanford on April 12 by giving a 2007 Payne Lecture. In the lecture, titled "Infectious Diseases across Borders: Public Health Security in the 21st Century," Heymann discussed the collective responsibility to defend public health and surveyed what the WHO is doing to fight emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases on every continent.

Heymann, whom CHP/PCOR Director Alan M. Garber likened to an "Indiana Jones of the medical world," has a long history of field work in communicable diseases. He was involved in the initial characterization of legionnaire's disease and worked on the ground to contain the second outbreak of the Ebola virus. In his present capacity, Heymann oversees the communicable diseases and polio eradication programs at the WHO.