SCIL Executive Director Sam Steinhardt reflects on the successes and challenges of the Center's work in Wallenberg Hall

What is your role at SCIL?

My role has a number of different components. The most basic is to manage all the administrative and non-research elements of the organization, including finance, facilities including Wallenberg Hall, technical infrastructure, human resources, and communications. A unique component of my job, not typically part of the executive director's role in a research center, is managing the teaching support program on the first floor.   This has been a unique and interesting challenge, in that it affords us the opportunity to work with faculty on ways they can be more innovative in their teaching.   Another important aspect of my job is supporting the launch of new programs. Some recent examples are various international initiatives, the summer institute we are forming, and our new program in innovation journalism, started by our Swedish visiting scholar, David Nordfors.    Still another critical part of the job is supporting and helping to manage our affiliates program, Media X.

Why does SCIL have three directors?

At its founding, SCIL was to be the successor to the Stanford Learning Laboratory, in combination with an institute Professor Roy Pea envisioned, The Institute for the Learning Sciences and Technologies (ILST).   The idea was that the Learning Lab component of SCIL would be concerned with exploring uses of technology in higher education, while ILST would be focused more on the K - 12 sector.    The initial concept was that Roy would run ILST while Stig Hagström would run the Learning Lab.   Early on, though, we decided that the boundary between these two sectors (K - 12 and higher ed) was blurring, so these initial roles have changed.   Roy's role expanded to include the entire research portfolio, while Stig oversees our international initiatives, a natural fit for him, given his Swedish background and experience in developing collaborative international projects. We each bring something unique to SCIL, and we each contribute in different areas, as well as working as a team.

What is your background and how did you become executive director?

I became executive director in the fall of 2001 after having been named interim director of the Stanford Learning Lab earlier in the year.    In 2001, the University undertook a study of the Learning Lab and a number of related activities [the administrative group called "Learning Technology and Extended Education" or LTEE] and I worked with acting Vice Provost David Brady on analyzing and making recommendations for how to restructure the groups. As part of that restructuring work I took on the role of interim director of the Learning Lab. As we began to think about SCIL, or a successor organization for the Learning Lab, I worked closely with Roy and Stig and they eventually asked me to stay on as executive director of SCIL.

Prior to coming to SCIL my career had two different parts. For the first ten years after graduating from UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, I was a management consultant, first for KPMG Pete Marwick (now BearingPoint). I was there six years, and then I had my own consulting business for four years. As part of my consulting I did work for non-profits, including Stanford and UC Berkeley.   Then, I was a CFO for four years, including a year at Golden Gate University, which was a turnaround situation. I came to Stanford in late 1999, hired by then Vice-Provost Geoff Cox to help organize and structure the university's efforts in digital media production and internet related curriculum.

Explain how SCIL is related to Wallenberg Hall, and the other groups that reside in the building.

The three groups residing in Wallenberg Hall are SCIL, Media X, and the Stanford Humanities Lab.   SCIL is the custodian of Wallenberg Hall and also its anchor tenant, if you will. As executive director, part of my responsibility is to oversee the staff operating Wallenberg Hall. Of course Media X is an affiliate program we launched along with CSLI, so we work very closely with both CSLI's leadership and the Media X staff to insure that the program runs effectively.   The Humanities Lab is a part of the School of Humanities and Sciences and runs independently from SCIL and Media X.

What is the purpose of the first floor classrooms?

Wallenberg's first floor classrooms give Stanford faculty a place to experiment with advanced technology in their teaching. So far more than 80 faculty members and instructors have taught courses in the building.   Anecdotes about courses and some of the innovations that have happened here are available on SCIL's web site.

What kinds of research falls within SCIL's interests?

A very broad range of research could be undertaken at SCIL.   In our very short existence, we've only begun to scratch the surface. Any kind of research that involves learning, broadly defined, and uses of technology or innovative approaches to learning that are interdisciplinary in their nature could fit under our umbrella. That would be anything from tools like DIVER, a tool that facilitates "guided noticing," to our new program in innovation journalism, which recognizes that journalism is an important tool in how people learn in informal ways. The project aims to create a new kind of journalism focused on the intersection between business and technology.   I like to think of SCIL as a very broad umbrella, under which many, many projects can reside.   Some would like to see us have more focus, or to create just one integrated research program, but the nature of Center like ours is that it has to be broad, with room for any number of new, interesting research projects.

Can you explain the Sweden-Stanford connection?

Stig Hagström, one of our co-founders and a co-director of SCIL, is a Swede and has been associated with Stanford for nearly 30 years. At one point in his career, in the early 90s, he went back to Sweden to be chancellor of the Swedish university system. My understanding is that during his tenure there, he became close with the Wallenberg family, Peter Wallenberg, in particular. When he came back to Stanford he was intent on making a connection between what he saw as the joint strengths of Stanford and Sweden. He wanted to convince both that they would be good partners. He invited Casper Weinberger to the Nobel ceremony in Sweden and he introduced him to Peter Wallenberg. One thing led to another and Stig, along with a number of Stanford colleagues, was able to craft an agreement with the Wallenberg Family and the University that initially brought $15 million to the university.   Half of the money was used to renovate Building 160, which eventually became Wallenberg Hall, and half went to run a collaborative research program, the Wallenberg Global Learning Network.   We continue to receive support from the Wallenberg Foundation, which allows us to run programs we have created here in partnership with the university.

What do you think the successes managing Wallenberg Hall have been so far?

At first we worried it would be a challenge to get faculty interested in using the first floor classrooms effectively. As it turned out, though, we developed and implemented an effective plan for making that work.   We have such a great and dedicated staff here, that what we thought would be a challenge turned out to be one of our greatest successes.

How can SCIL make a real difference in the field of education and technology, and do you think it will have an impact on learning and teaching of the future?

We are already having a huge impact on learning research and the design of classrooms all over the world.   Since our opening, we've had   more than a thousand visitors to Wallenberg Hall from high schools, middle schools and universities throughout the country and the world, who have asked us what we're learning through our research and support of teaching in these innovative classrooms. They take our answers seriously and go back and include what we've said in their work, including the design of new classrooms. We see the impact on our own campus, for example in the Medical School, the School of Engineering, and the Business School, all of which are in various stages of developing classrooms based on our experience. We know that is happening worldwide as well. It's harder to track the impact that some of the longer-term research might have on education more broadly, but I am convinced that over time, all of the work we do here will have at least some influence on how education in delivered, both nationally and globally.

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