Another fellowship year has concluded, and I find myself reflecting on the many high points of the year. Chief among these was the strong and positive culture among the fellows. It has been immensely gratifying to watch the friendships and collaborations form between members of the 2024-25 class, and to have supported their various activities, such as reading groups, social activities, or simply the quiet companionship forged during their morning jigsaw puzzling over coffee. I also have enjoyed our intellectual events, such as the March screening of the documentary Join or Die, about two-time CASBS fellow Robert Putnam (Bob himself appeared by Zoom to introduce the film to our community), a fall panel discussion featuring the grandchildren of Robert and Frank Oppenheimer in collaboration with new friends from the Exploratorium in San Francisco, and the April Sage-CASBS Award Lecture, featuring Nobel Laureate Daron Acemoglu. It was a terrific year at the Center, the memories of which I will cherish.
As many of you know by now, I will step down as director to assume the deanship at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Since this will be my last message as CASBS director, let me reflect briefly on what I see as my main accomplishments in the two years I have held the role. First, I wanted to lay the groundwork for a more meaningful engagement with former fellows. Building on a similar event convened during the 2023-24 year, this year we hosted the first “For Fellows, By Fellows” convening, which brought together about 40 former and current fellows around the topic of climate change (we called it “Backlash, Burnout, and Backsliding: Identifying and Overcoming Obstacles to Climate Action for the Future of Humanity”). While human societies have always had to adapt to changing climate patterns, our current situation presents some unique obstacles and barriers. This convening sought to articulate what we already know about adapting to climate change and to craft a plan for sensible action. Some of the participating scholars contributed to a set of short essays that appeared in Behavioral Scientist. My hope is that future gatherings like this will organize around other urgent questions and topics.
I also fostered closer connections to Stanford University with a variety of new partnerships with Stanford units: the VMWare Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab, Stanford Doerr School for Sustainability, Stanford Center for Digital Health (notably, I and other CASBS affiliates contributed to a white paper on “Generative AI for Health”), Stanford Center on Longevity (here is an example of a recent collaborative convening), and Graduate School of Business. Each of these partnerships has brought resources (both financial and intellectual) to the Center, and each also has exposed new people to the magic of CASBS.
In addition, I initiated experiments designed to explore how CASBS might grow and scale in ways beyond the traditional fellowship model. This year, we selected several promising projects from Stanford University faculty and/or former CASBS fellows to host at CASBS. These groups provided their own funding for their workshops and were able to take advantage of our beautiful physical space and our ability to host conferences and workshops. As just one example, we hosted the Futures Project on Education and Learning for Longer Lives project’s workshops. This project, run by Laura Carstensen (Stanford faculty and former CASBS fellow) and Mitchell Stevens (Stanford faculty), notes that education and learning are essential components of human flourishing, yet the models of education we have inherited from the twentieth century do not adequately support adults, much less over increasingly longer lifespans. Participants seek to design a framework for learning and educational opportunities that will help adults navigate change and prosper. Learn much more about “The Futures Project,” and its participants.
In other news, I am delighted that Dr. Lara Tiedens, a member of the CASBS board of directors and former president of Scripps College, as been appointed as the Sara Miller McCune Interim Director of CASBS. She will welcome the 2025-26 CASBS fellowship class and have the honor of selecting our first fellow from Linköping University, Sweden, as part of our new agreement with this university. Dr. Tiedens, the class (selected in early 2025), and future fellows from Linköping – along with the Center’s wonderful staff and board of directors – help constitute the bridge that will forever connect my tenure here to the CASBS of tomorrow.
And, finally, my sincerest thanks for the continued support from the Center’s extended community, including readers of this newsletter, for your continued excitement about and engagement with CASBS. I am going to miss it here!
