Do campers increase Tresidder business? Q&A
Henry Brooks and Oliver Hsu
Co-News Editor and Co-Lifestyle Editor
Students attending Stanford’s many summer programs have an on-campus outlet for shopping and passing time.
The Tresidder shopping center and the campus bookstore attract college students and visiting summer campers alike. The center includes a glass walled food court with Subway sandwiches and Panda Express. Jamba Juice and the CoHo coffeehouse attract numerous customers, filling Tressider with a diverse spread of people.
To learn more about how campers affect business at Stanford, we interviewed an employee who identified herself as Emily, who works in the textbook section of the Stanford bookstore.
How long have you been working here?
About two years now.
Over the time you’ve been here, how has business increased or decreased during the summer months?
It decreases with us downstairs in textbooks, because there are fewer classes offered during the summer months, but I think upstairs it increases because it’s people’s summer breaks and people are traveling and we have the summer camps.
Do you think Stanford’s summer camps help business?
I would definitely say so. We get new clientele, you know, the kids and then their families and parents, and they usually bring others
Graphic by Ashlyn Stewart
The top five on-campus hangouts
Nobel Economist visits game theory class
Griffin Ferre
Co-Sports Editor
The Nobel Prize is one of the most distinctive prizes in the world, and is only awarded to an extremely select group of people each year.
One of the members of that group, economist Ken Arrow, visited the Stanford EPGY game theory class on Friday, July 27 to discuss his work.
“It was a cool experience to get to meet him because I could definitely tell that he was thinking at an extremely high level and that he had a lot of knowledge about his subject,” game theory student Brian Wong said.
In 1972, Mr. Arrow, then 51, became the youngest person to ever receive the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, when he and British economist John Hicks were named joint winners.
However, economics was not Arrow’s first passion. His undergraduate major at Columbia University was mathematics and he was interested in pursuing statistics as a field of study before he drifted into the field of economics by accident.
According to Arrow, “At that time, there was no graduate department of statistics. The leading statistician, by the name of Harold Hotelling, was a professor of economics at Columbia University, so I enrolled in that department. As I took the required courses, I become more interested in economics proper.”
Arrow seems to have found his niche in economics, contributing many important theorems to the field.
While Arrow has made contributions to several economic fields, he is most well known for creating “Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem,” which, in simplified terms, states: no voting system can take the voting preferences of a group of individuals and convert them into a fair group-wide ranking. This theorem has made a significant impact on election theory.
In addition, Arrow was able to prove that economies will eventually reach a general equilibrium, and was also one of the first economists to prove the existence of a learning curve.
“My two favorite accomplishments were the theory of social choice and the economics of health care; the latter was broader than it sounds, because it led to recognition of the importance of differences of information among people engaged in economic and other transactions,” Arrow said.
Arrow has held a number of academic positions, but he is currently
serving as the Joan Kenney Professor of Economics and
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with them when they are here at camp.
Do you get a lot of campers at your store?
Yes, I would say so.
Are kids more likely to spend money when they aren’t with an adult?
I
think maybe on some items. I see people buying a lot of candy and soda
upstairs that parents might not let them purchase in their presence.
Besides books, what’s the most popular item the book store sells?
We
have a Stanford t-shirt that I think is very affordable and it’s just
basic Stanford [gear] and I see a lot of them going out the door.
1) Treat’s Back Porch
The Treat House back porch is a fun place to hang out, not just for Treat residents, but also for Yost and Murray campers. Anyone can mill about, relaxing in the hammocks or enjoying the weather while finishing an assignment.
2) Tresidder Union
Tresidder Union offers a variety of food choices, including Panda Express and Subway. Tressider also houses the Stanford Student Store and has plenty of open space to “just chill.”
3) Governor’s Corner Field
Green grass under a blue sky makes the perfect setting for many different activities: playing soccer, Pilates, or sitting with friends to debate the meaning of existence.
4) Coffee House
Although located in Tresidder Union, the CoHo deserves its own spot on the list. It’s is known for its delicious food, good coffee, and warm atmosphere.
5) “The Claw”
This sculpture fountain next to the Stanford Bookstore is one of the stops on a fountain-hopping trail for campers. The stone benches around the fountain also provide a serene resting area for anyone who doesn’t want to get wet.
Graphic by Ashlyn Stewart
KEN ARROW, 90, is a retired professor of Economics at Stanford.
Professor of
Operations Research, Emeritus at Stanford University, where he is one of
17 Nobel Laureates on the faculty.
He is also involved in current economics. His nephew, Larry Summers,
manned prominent economic positions for both President Clinton and
President Obama, and Arrow collaborated with others on a book, Toward a
21st Century Health Care System, which discussed the current U.S. health
care system.
Arrow thinks that visiting the EPGY students was a good way to share
his knowledge with a younger audience, and that the students could
benefit by, “putting a face and a person together with applications of
mathematics.”
With something as prestigious as the Nobel Prize on his resume, Arrow
can definitely serve as a positive role model for the younger
generations.
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