America 1982-Chapter 616 - 138: We Are Different

At five in the morning, Tommy, dressed for a morning jog, sat on the back seat of the bicycle ridden by Sophia, meandering leisurely along the path that Stanford University’s President, Donald Kennedy, was sure to take.

"I have no objection to you having a chat with our Mr. President during his morning run, Tommy, but at the moment, you’re dressed in jogging gear without having run a single step, and you’re making me cycle you around." Sophia pedaled a bicycle, complaining unhappily.

Tommy, holding a sheet of paper in his hands and flipping through it, with a list of the supports he, Jason, or their company had pledged for some of Stanford University’s computer and internet research projects, didn’t even lift his head when he heard Sophia’s complaint and said:

"Our esteemed President Donald only skips his ten-kilometer morning run around the campus if he’s away on a trip. I usually run just five kilometers, and if I try to keep up with him for too long, it could hurt my knees. So I have to make sure I use my five kilometers run to talk with him as much as possible. Besides, I’m saving you. Quinn was in bed with you and Susy last night, and she definitely took advantage of you after you drank quite a bit of beer. Remember, Sophia, same-sex harassment is still harassment. If you want, I can have Delia help you shake down Quinn for a large sum of money, and then we can use it to pay for your breast augmentation."

"Hold on, how do you know Quinn would lay a hand on me?" Sophia looked suspiciously back at Tommy.

Tommy, glancing at the terms on the paper, said, "Because if I were in bed with you, I would do the same."

"Not everyone in this world is a scoundrel like you, Tommy. Quinn didn’t harass Susy or me; we just talked about the changes at Stanford in recent years before going to sleep," Sophia said, giving him a look.

Tommy, puzzled, looked up at Sophia: "Just like that?"

"Just like that," Sophia confirmed.

Tommy moved closer to Sophia, smelling the fragrance in her hair, and finding no trace of Quinn’s perfume scent, sadly said, "Just talking about Stanford’s changes? What were you locking the door and drawing the curtains for? Jason and I made several trips to the living room pretending to drink water so we could listen outside your door for a while. Locking the door and pulling the curtains is technically fraud."

As the two were talking, in the distance, Stanford University’s President Donald Kennedy, dressed in a dark blue tracksuit, had already appeared leisurely on the road.

Tommy immediately hopped off the bicycle and started warming up on the spot. As the figure approached, he stepped forward to greet him, "Good morning, Mr. Kennedy. I am..."

"Tommy, I haven’t succumbed to senility yet, so, I won’t forget your name that easily." The older man slowed his jogging pace, smiling as he spoke, "Good morning, Tommy, and to you over there, Miss Sophia O’Connor."

Stanford University’s President Donald Kennedy had announced from his first day in office that as long as he was healthy and not away from campus, he would jog on campus every morning and encouraged everyone to join him to exercise.

And if anyone had issues they found inconvenient to discuss in formal settings but wanted to have a private chat, they could simply wait for him on his morning jogging route and then they could communicate while jogging together.

From existing problems in education to certain departmental reforms, even to pressure faced by teachers at work, students’ anxiety over academic stress, or even how to get a girlfriend, as long as you were willing to get up early and were willing to treat this lean old man as a genuine listener, then you could talk to him about anything. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

In the beginning, many people would wait on his jogging route to have a chat, vent a bit, and discuss work. The undergraduate curriculum reforms undertaken by Stanford University in the past ten years, measures for the equality of minority student groups, prohibiting drugs on campus, and addressing discrimination against female faculty in the workplace – many of these issues were brought to his attention by faculty and students during runs, then seriously discussed in meetings, leading to the relevant changes.

This way of allowing everyone at Stanford to have a relaxed conversation with the President, free from outside interference, had persisted for ten years since he was hired by the board in 1980.

The longer he served as President, the fewer students and faculty ran with him because he was responsible and effectively addressed many problems. Even the most critical students and teachers had to admit that Donald Kennedy talked with students more than any other president in Stanford’s history. Since his arrival at Stanford, the university had undergone tremendous changes.

The concrete manifestation of his recognition by the students was that, even though Donald Kennedy hadn’t yet retired, he had been ranked by many students in various polls about Stanford’s past presidents as number one, alongside Wallace Sterling, who transformed Stanford from a regional university facing financial difficulties into one with a robust financial standing, even helping to establish Silicon Valley, earning Stanford the title "West Coast Harvard."

After all, ten years of development had made Stanford no longer need to piggyback on Harvard with the obviously derivative label of "West Coast Harvard." Last year, Stanford University was firmly ranked fifth among all US universities, with an alumni donation fund totaling two billion dollars, leaving a host of Ivy League schools trailing behind.