When we asked ourselves the question what could Stanford do to make a better
contribution to the world we quickly converged on building a scholarship
program that would bring the most talented students and prepare them to be
leaders in the world. To lead on attacking the important problems we face,
whether they're climate change, healthcare, income disparities, poverty around the
world, peace and security. The Knight- Hennessy Scholars program brings the
very best students from around the world to study at Stanford in any discipline
they're interested in and helps prepare them to be world leaders.
It is the preeminent scholarship program. You'll get the best and brightest young men and women
from around the world who will receive a graduate education at the world's best university.
When this program is established we will be training and educating
a hundred scholars every year. It will be the largest graduate scholarship program
focused on all disciplines at any university in the world.
The Knight-Hennessy scholarship program is open to students studying in all disciplines
because we believe there are opportunities for important leadership in every walk of life.
This will make a difference because problems don't come in neat disciplinary packages.
They come with the need to bring people from across disciplines, across schools.
And the students who come here will have access to the full complement of professional schools.
I loved the idea of studying at a university where the different schools talk to each other.
It's amazing to me that I can learn about the physiology of the human body during the morning
and then in the afternoon take a cost effectiveness class at the business school.
The value of being at Stanford is really the deep breadth of resources and people available.
For example the issue of climate change I've been able to draw upon so many different programs
and opportunities to engage as a researcher, to engage as a scientist
or a policymaker, to really have the chance to see some of these issues first hand.
One of the things we're really enthusiastic about this program is it's bringing of great students from all around the world.
This is a program that's located in the United States but on the Pacific Rim at
a place where people from all different civilizations and parts of the world come together.
Stanford really values that diversity of its student body and that means not just your nationality
or race but your ideology and your philosophy.
It's a place where difference is opportunity and its cherished.
My business school class is about 40% international students. I think we all
learned so much from each other both in and outside of the classroom.
We sit in the cradle of innovation - the place where the world changes constantly and we
bring that innovative, entrepreneurial spirit to everything we do.
The modern world is an incredible source of innovation and Stanford stands at the center of that
creating new companies, schools of thought, prize-winning professors, inspired art
and literature, miracle drugs and amazing graduates.
I can't think of any place I'd rather be a graduate student than here in California, especially in Silicon Valley
where there's so much opportunity so much innovation happening around you and it's all within arms reach.
At Stanford we've always tried to encourage people
to take innovations, to take new ideas, to put them to use for the betterment of humankind.
And the Knight-Hennessy fellows will both benefit from that and contribute to that long tradition
of innovation in the service of humankind.
Stanford is a place where we believe innovation has an important role to
solve global problems. We are optimists about making the future better and we
seek scholars who want to join that optimistic setting and who want to make their contributions to the world.
They'll become foreign ministers, Prime Ministers, innovative scientists,
leading business people. This program will very simply change the world.