Stanford University

Stanford University was founded in 1885 by California senator Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane, “to promote the public welfare by exercising an influence in behalf of humanity and civilization.”

Comprising more than 25 offices and centers, Student Affairs provides a broad range of services and support to Stanford students, including leadership development, residential programs, public service, career exploration and community engagement. Nearly all undergraduates and more than 60% of graduate students reside in 81 diverse campus housing facilities. Eight dining halls, a teaching kitchen and organic gardens provide the campus community with healthy, sustainable meals.

Stanford Undergrad is your guide to undergraduate academics and opportunities run by the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education. Approximately 7,000 undergraduate students attend Stanford. Learn more about the undergraduate program and student body.

When railroad magnate and former California Gov. Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane Lathrop Stanford, lost their only child, Leland, Jr., to typhoid in 1884, they decided to build a university as the most fitting memorial, and deeded to it a large fortune that included the 8,180-acre Palo Alto stock farm that became the campus. They made their plans just as the modern research university was taking form.

Leland Stanford Junior University – still its legal name – opened Oct. 1, 1891.The Stanfords and founding President David Starr Jordan aimed for their new university to be nonsectarian, co-educational and affordable, to produce cultured and useful graduates, and to teach both the traditional liberal arts and the technology and engineering that were already changing America.

Their vision took shape on the oak-dotted fields of the San Francisco Peninsula as a matrix of arcades and quadrangles designed for expansion and the dissolving of barriers between people, disciplines and ideas.In 1985, the B. Gerald Cantor Rodin Sculpture Garden opened as the largest collection of Rodin bronzes outside Paris. It became the nexus for a world-class collection of 20th- and 21st-century sculpture, nearly all of it freely accessible to the public. Today, the museum and sculpture garden are part of a Stanford arts district that includes the Bing Concert Hall, the McMurtry Building for experiential arts learning and the acclaimed Anderson Collection of 20th-century American painting.

The James H. Clark Center for Biomedical Engineering and Sciences opened in 2003 as the geographic and intellectual nexus between the schools of Engineering and Medicine and the home of Bio-X, a pioneering interdisciplinary biosciences institute led by Professor Carla Shatz. Its collaboration-friendly architecture set the tone for future building, furthering the interdisciplinarity that became a hallmark of university President John Hennessy’s tenure.

The environmentally sensitive construction seen in the Clark Center, the Science and Engineering Quad, the School of Medicine and elsewhere fulfills the university’s deep commitment to sustainability in research, teaching and institutional practice. In 2015, Stanford Energy System Innovations’ electric heat recovery system joined the university’s solar and geothermal power procurement initiatives to reduce campus emissions by roughly 68 percent.

The Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford opened in the School of Engineering in 2005, bringing students and faculty from radically different backgrounds together to develop innovative, human-centered solutions to real-world challenges. Using techniques from design and engineering, the institute, known on campus as the d.school, instills creative confidence and draws students beyond the boundaries of traditional academic disciplines.

Development campaigns of unprecedented scope carry forward the Stanford family’s vision. The 2000 Campaign for Undergraduate Education raised $1 billion, while the Stanford Challenge concluded in 2012 after raising $6.2 billion, then the largest fundraising campaign undertaken by a university, to fund bold new initiatives. Meanwhile, the $1 billion Campaign for Stanford Medicine is rebuilding Stanford’s two hospitals for adults and children to advance the mission of precision health.

In 2016, Stanford celebrated its 125th year of transformational impact. A revamped Roble Gym opened with a dedicated “arts gym” to help make art an integral part of the student experience, while “Old Chem,” one of Stanford’s first buildings, received new life as the Sapp Center for Science Teaching and Learning.

Stanford also launched a new Humanities Core, an integrated program of courses and seminars giving undergraduates a structured, guided pathway into fundamental questions of human existence. Stanford has expanded its Bing Overseas Studies Program, enhanced undergraduate research opportunities and played a pioneering role in exploring how best to use online technologies to expand access to high-quality education.

Stanford University today comprises seven schools and 18 interdisciplinary institutes with more than 16,000 students, 2,100 faculty and 1,800 postdoctoral scholars. Stanford is an international institution, enrolling students from all 50 U.S. states and 91 other countries. It is also an athletics powerhouse, with 900 current student-athletes and a history of 128 national titles and 22 consecutive Learfield Sports Directors’ Cups, awarded to the top intercollegiate athletics program in the nation.

At the 2016 Global Entrepreneurship Summit, hosted by Stanford, President Barack Obama praised the university as “a place that celebrates our ability as human beings to discover and learn and to build, to question, to reimagine, to create new ways to connect and work with each other.”