I now have completed five years as CASBS director and look forward to remaining in this position for a few more. With the help of Sally Schroeder, the associate director, and a terrific team, the Center is strong and vibrant.
We not only host a full complement of outstanding fellows every year, we also have several multi-year projects that are externally funded and involve a wide range of cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral thinkers. Our presence at Stanford, Silicon Valley, and the larger community of thinkers is expanding, and we are sought after as partners in numerous initiatives on campus and off. With the new “collaboratory” we will build, we finally will be able to respond to the increasing pattern of social scientists working closely with other scholars on specific projects. This added space will increase the Center’s capacity to host collaborations, both among fellows and with other scholars and thinkers.
The months since I last wrote have been eventful for CASBS. We have selected and announced a new fellowship class, full of outstanding scholars who bring multiple perspectives and experiences to bear on significant questions. Our multi-year projects are progressing on all the dimensions we care about: generating new thinking and research, having impact, raising funds, and engaging exciting scholars and thinkers internationally. And our public events are drawing new audiences to the work of the Center.
Fellows
The 2018-19 class is a strong and diverse cohort. Its interactions down the hill at Stanford seem to have intensified: many fellows sample lectures and seminars on campus, and others are giving talks or being engaged in research projects. Our increasingly active faculty fellows are working to help us make useful connections.
There are also several projects underway led by members of the current class. Three fellows arrived as part of a project on sexual assault and institutional betrayal, and once here they enthusiastically welcomed a fourth fellow. Another set, some of whom are linked to the CASBS impact evaluation design lab and/or are involved in behavioral insight units world-wide, have come up with an idea for an annual summer meeting of researchers in such units to share best practices and address skill deficits among potential academic employees. Fellows from the class have joined multi-year projects. There are also reading groups, writing groups, and socializing.
Projects
The growth and vitality of our ongoing projects are one of the major reasons we need the new building. Just this year, we have received funding from the Hewlett, Knight, and Sloan Foundations as well as the Berggruen Institute and SAGE Publishing. We are currently in conversations with other foundations and donors about additional support. I am happy to note that the costs of all of our projects are fully covered and go a long way toward supporting the salaries of our program directors and event coordinator.
I want to emphasize the impact of these programs. In several instances, as we are increasingly documenting through stories in the newsletter and coverage in the Stanford Report, they are transforming thinking about important problems and creating new fields of study, research and policy.
The multi-year projects have other impacts as well. They attract new fellows, engage former fellows, and involve CASBS in a wider network of thinkers in universities and society. They are also what foundations and private donors will fund, and we ensure that the grants and gifts we receive subsidize the staff time required to manage the programs and disseminate their findings.
Finally, it is largely because of these projects that several organizations and foundations have turned to CASBS for assistance. In recent months, we have organized meetings for Open AI, the Knight Foundation, and the Governance and Ethics of AI initiative (a meeting on information fiduciaries). We also have been approached by several eminent Harvard economists to help them arrange a set of discussions on “Using Tech Data for the Social Good;” they turned to us because of their knowledge of our previous efforts in this area.
We now have decided to focus on three main areas with a principal project in each: the impact of technology on society (iGen), rethinking the social sciences (evidence-informed policy and evaluation), and the creation of equitable societies (generating a new moral political economy). We also will continue to support summer institutes, exploratory workshops (generally proposed by fellows, present and past), and meetings hosted by partners that relate to our themes.
Outreach
This is taking several forms.
- Public events that feature the work of our fellows (CASBS symposia, talks in partnership with the Long Now Foundation, and salons held in cities beyond the Bay Area)
- Publicity around those events (for example, see our article on the February 12 symposium on “Betrayal and Courage in the Age of #MeToo and the media coverage it cites)
- Bringing attention to the contributions and publications of fellows and former fellows through social media
- Partnership with Pacific Standard that both publicizes and assists our multi-year projects. Our iGen project is the latest example
- Our new podcast, “Human Centered,” hosted by CASBS research affiliate and renowned journalist John Markoff
New building
The new building is designed as a collaboratory: the location for collaborative labs, workshops, and meetings. The plan also includes a new courtyard bounded by the dining room, the administrative building, the staff studies/offices, and the collaboratory.
Stanford relations
We continue to build up our partnerships with various Stanford centers, institutes and programs. We are now engaged with the new Institute on Human-Centered AI (HAI), run by John Etchemendy and Fei-Fei Li. We continue our strong relationship with Presence, based at the Medical School and managed by faculty fellow Abraham Verghese and Sonoo Thanaday; the focus is on the use of technology in medicine. Recent workshops and discussions have included partnerships with the Center for Ethics in Society, Precourt Institute for Energy, Woods Institute for the Environment, Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, and the Natural Capital Project.
As I complete my first five years as director, I look forward to the projects that will consume the last years of my tenure at the Center. My goal is to nurture and advance what has made CASBS great over its 65 year-history, ensuring that it maintains a unique identity while keeping with the demands and needs of 21st century thinkers and society.
