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John Hennessy
President of Stanford University
John Hennessy: One of the things I do is I look back to the founding of the university. I read the university founding grant. I look at what the Stanfords wrote about the university. I look at what the very first president, David Starr Jordan, wrote about the university. I think about these hard decisions in the context of two things. First of all, "How does this decision affect the core mission of the university, its mission to collect, discover and disseminate knowledge? How does it affect research and teaching?" The second thing I do, which is probably as hard or even harder, is to try to think in terms of a 50- or 100-year context, because as a university president, you have an obligation not only to the current generation of students, but the generations to follow. And so whether it's development, or how you spend the resources of the institution, or how we make important trade-offs about admissions, you have to think in the context of generation after generation after generation. The obligation that I have to future generations of students, future presidents, and the future university community, the faculty will have 100 years from now. That sometimes means that you have to make decisions which will make some people very unhappy and very angry, but which are the right decisions for the long term for the university. So you're a target for a lot of things, and what you have to do is have confidence, and of course, have a council of people who will reinforce that decision and agree that it is the right long-term decision for the institution, so that when you make it, you know you have the faith in yourself that it is the right decision.
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John Hennessy
President of Stanford University
People will come and sometimes ask for things, and sometimes the answer is no. Well, if the answer is no, it has to be no. The answer shouldn't be yes if later on you don't think you'll be able to deliver that. And I think that has been key, particularly in leadership roles. It means sometimes you have to disappoint people, but better to disappoint them than to be in a situation where you haven't carried through on something that they were counting on you doing.
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David Ho
AIDS Research Pioneer
David Ho: I think genuine scientific disagreement is healthy. That's how we move science forward. And, yes there are certain people who would disagree with me about how, say, the lymphocytes are specifically destroyed by HIV, so the mechanistic issues. It's a very controversial area. I have my views and others don't agree with those views, but each one of us are involved with experiments trying to prove our case or in fact sometimes disproving ourselves. So, that is good and that is what science should be.
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David Ho
AIDS Research Pioneer
David Ho: You have to go with your beliefs. One can't be hypocritical about it. And, I think I wanted to send a strong message to the Journal that it's much more complicated than what we have discussed so far. I mean, if the Journal had a particular view, the best approach is to talk to the people involved, to have a dialogue with the U.S. scientists, with the African scientists and with the subjects that are enrolling and get a true understanding at the grass root level, rather than pontificate from the ivory tower of Harvard University or, you know, the New England Journal. I think that kind of approach is not appropriate.
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