52nd Faculty Senate
Welcome to the 52nd Senate of the Academic Council.
Chair, Tim Stearns
Tim Stearns holds the Frank Lee and Carol Hall Professorship at Stanford University and is Chair of the Department of Biology. He also holds appointments in the Department of Genetics, is a member of the Stanford Cancer Institute, and Bio-X, is a Faculty Fellow in Chem-H, and is an affiliated faculty member of the Center for International Security and Cooperation. He is a member of JASON, a national organization that advises the government on matters of science, technology and national security. He has also been an advisor to the National Academies of Science and the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Dr. Stearns received a B.S. from Cornell University, a Ph.D. from MIT, and did his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco. His research concerns the mechanism and regulation of cell division, the organization of signaling pathways within cells, and cell biology of fungal pathogens. Stearns was named an HHMI Professor in 2002, for his work in science education, and has taught international workshops in South Africa, Chile, Ghana, and Tanzania. He is a member of the NCSD Study Section at the NIH, and has served on the editorial boards of several journals.
Vice Chair, Dan Edelstein
Dan Edelstein Born in Ithaca, NY, I moved to Geneva, Switzerland when I was eleven. After attending the Collège Calvin, I studied French literature at the University of Geneva; I then returned to the U.S. to pursue graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 2004. I joined the Department of French and Italian at Stanford that same year.
I work for the most part on eighteenth-century France, with research interests at the crossroads of literature, history, political thought, and digital humanities (DH). I am the author of three books (all with the University of Chicago Press): the first on French revolutionary Terror; the second on the genealogy of the Enlightenment; and the third on the early-modern history of human rights. I've also edited or co-edited six volumes of essays: "Myth and Modernity" (co-edited, Yale French Studies); "The Super-Enlightenment" (Voltaire Foundation, at Oxford University); "Scripting Revolution" (co-edited with Keith Baker, Stanford University Press); "Let There Be Enlightenment" (co-edited with Anton Matytsin, Johns Hopkins University Press); "Networks of Enlightenment" (co-edited with Chloe Edmonson, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment); "Power and Time" (co-edtied with Stefanos Geroulanos and Natasha Wheatley, University of Chicago Press). I'm a co-PI for the "Mapping the Republic of Letters" project, and the founding faculty director of the "Humanities + Design" research lab at CESTA.
I'm currently at work on two book projects: a history of permanent revolution, and a defense of core curricula in higher education. I also continue to work on a variety of DH projects.
I regularly teach courses on the literature, philosophy, culture, and politics of the Enlightenment; nineteenth-century French novels; the French Revolution; early-modern political thought; French intellectual culture (“Coffee & Cigarettes”); liberal education ("Education as Self-Fashioning"); and historical networks ("Networks: Ecological, Revolutionary, and Digital").
52nd Steering Committee of the Senate
The Steering Committee (StC) of the Senate sets the Senate Agenda, confers degrees for the Summer, Autumn and Winter quarters, and serves at Administrative Sessions to the StC to review undergraduate and graduate programs on behalf of the Senate. StC members are elected each year by the Senate. Joining Chair, Tim Stearns are:
Dan Edelstein, Vice Chair (French and Italian)
Adam Banks (Graduate School of Education)
Sarah Billington (Civil and Environmental Engineering)
Hazel Markus (Psychology)
Sheri Sheppard (Mechanical Engineering)
Ravi Vakil (Mathematics)
Jeremy Weinstein (Political Science)
Persis Drell (Provost, ex-officio)
Tom Wasow (Academic Secretary, ex-officio)
Adrienne Emory (Assistant Academic Secretary, Staff)
Senate Membership
SENATE 52 ROSTER
SENATE 52 STUDENT REPRESENTATIVES
Senate Minutes
Autumn Quarter
Winter Quarter
Spring Quarter
- 4/16/20
- 4/23/20
- 5/7/20
- 5/21/20 - Annual Academic Council Meeting, see below
- 5/28/20
- 6/11/20
- 6/23/20 - Special Academic Council Meeting, see below
- 6/25/20 - Special Academic Council Meeting, see below
- 7/30/20
Annual Academic Council Meeting
The President convenes the Academic Council faculty annually to deliver a state of the university address. The Senate Chair reports on the highlights of the Senate.
Special Academic Council Meetings
Two special Academic Council Meetings were held this Academic Year.
6/23/20 Special Academic Council Meeting Minutes
6/25/20 Special Academic Council Meeting Minutes
Administrative Sessions of the Steering Committee on Behalf of the Senate
The Steering Committee (StC) holds administrative sessions as needed to hear routine or administrative matters that would otherwise come before the full Senate. This allows the Senate to spend more time on issues that need broader discussion and debate prior to action. All Senators are welcome to attend administrative sessions.