President Goldsmith and John Hennessy Reflect on Leadership, Mentorship and Higher Education

Leadership, institutional transformation and the future of higher education were the topics when Stony Brook University President Andrea Goldsmith welcomed Stony Brook Distinguished Alumnus John L. Hennessy MS '75, PhD '77 to the last of three presidential discussions on April 17, as part of the Inauguration Week celebration.

Hennessy - former president of Stanford University and an internationally recognized leader in higher education - is a close friend and mentor of Goldsmith, who spent more than 20 years at Stanford. They discussed the evolving role of universities in advancing research, innovation and societal impact.

"Personally, I view John as the most transformational and inspirational leader in higher education," Goldsmith said, adding that she has sought his advice on leadership for most of her academic career, including before, during and after her applying for the role of Stony Brook president. "I am so thrilled and proud that you are here for this Inauguration Week and coming back to your alma mater, which served as the foundation to the beginning of your career."

Hennessy is co-founder and director of Knight-Hennessy Scholars, the largest, university-wide, fully-endowed graduate fellowship in the world. He is chairman of the Board of Alphabet and serves on the Board of Trustees for the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

Hennessy has been on the faculty of Stanford University since 1977 and was its president for 16 years after several roles, including chair of computer science, dean of the School of Engineering and provost. He also co-founded MIPS Computer Systems and Atheros Communications.

Goldsmith noted that Hennessy has done pioneering research in computer architecture while teaching and mentoring generations of students and colleagues, including her husband, Arturo Sanz. He also led Stanford's computer systems lab and "wrote the definitive book on computer architecture together with David Paterson, which is now in its seventh edition," Goldsmith said. Hennessy and Patterson were awarded the ACM A.M. Turing Prize for 2017 and the National Academy of Engineering Draper Prize in 2022.

Hennessy said Stony Brook gave him something critical as a graduate student. "At that point, since I had exhausted my savings in undergraduate education, they gave me financial aid and that made it possible for me to go to graduate school."

Hennessy pointed out that he came to Silicon Valley in the early days, even before computer companies like Apple, when "they were all silicon companies."

"It's a very strong entrepreneurial environment," said Hennessy, who described himself as a "reluctant entrepreneur."

"The Valley is a place where if you pursue a great idea, and it doesn't work out, your life isn't over, you can pursue other careers," he said. "There's a lot of loyalty to technology as opposed to loyalty to companies, per se."

Hennessy said one of the things people need to learn in a startup environment is how to make decisions under uncertainty. "You have a limited amount of capital, you have to get to a certain point," he said. "There's enormous time pressure and there's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of things are gray - and that's one of the hardest things to do in any leadership position."

Looking at the challenges faced by higher education, Hennessy spoke of the 2008 financial crisis, when Goldsmith was chair of the Stanford faculty senate.

"We lost about 30 percent of the value of our endowment, basically in a six-month period, and that created an enormous budget hole," he said, adding that he and the provost took a 10 percent salary cut while the deans and vice presidents took a voluntary 5 percent salary cut. "So we needed to make that adjustment and we needed to do it fast. One of the things I learned, having done a layoff when we were in a startup, the best way to get through a layoff is to do it quickly and get it over with, right? Get through the dark tunnel and get to the other side where there's light and then try to resume things."

Speaking about AI, Hennessy said people who know how to use AI will be the survivors, and that universities need to teach how to incorporate it "without throwing out the things we really love."

"We're going to have to think about how to use those tools in an intelligent and useful fashion that encourages our students to become lifelong learners," he said.

Describing Hennessy as an outstanding mentor to her, Goldsmith asked about the role his own mentors played in his life. He credited mentors throughout his life, from Stony Brook to Stanford, and said the best advice he received was to take the job as dean of engineering not because of the salary or size of his office, but because you want to serve. "And that was the best advice I ever got. So that's the advice I give to people, if you're thinking about a leadership role."

Goldsmith asked Hennessy how his views on leadership evolved over a career in education and business, and he explained that learning about leadership is experiential.

"One of the things I learned along the way is: small steps," he said. "You've got to learn how to climb that ladder because when you get to a larger and larger organization, you're going to have more and more difficult decisions to deal with, and having dealt with decisions in the small then makes it easier to deal with them as you as you go up the ladder and I think that's really changed my view."

Hennessy added that another thing he has learned is that if you want to be good at something, you have to be enthusiastic.

"You have to love it," he said. "And that's why you're going to be such a great president because you love it."

"I do love this place, it's a perfect place for me," Goldsmith responded to applause. "I think everyone here knows how much I love being president of the number one public university in New York."

Goldsmith's final question was to ask Hennessy what he thought were Stony Brook's greatest opportunities and challenges, and how it should seize those opportunities.

"Be ambitious. Find a strategy that fits Stony Brook in a unique way as a great public institution," he said. "Rally the alumni - that's a tool that universities have, alumni that are devoted to the place and love it and believe it's really made an important contribution in their lives. Those are the things you begin to do to shape a strategy around. And what can Stony Brook do that's different and unique and its own? I think these are all things you can try to figure out as a way to go forward to make an even larger contribution on behalf of Stony Brook."

Goldsmith noted the uniqueness of a journey that saw Hennessy hire her as an assistant professor 27 years ago, and was now at his own alma mater as part of her presidential inauguration. "To have this amazing discussion means more to me than I could really express."

"I'm so proud that Stony Brook has had the amazing good sense to pick you to be the next president," Hennessy said.

A reception and book signing followed, featuring Hennessy's memoir, Leading Matters: Lessons From My Journey. The book offers personal reflections on leadership, service and lessons learned across a distinguished career in higher education.

- Michael Gasparino