A Standing Invitation: The Stanford Programs Open to Everyone

Stanford is famous for saying no. Its undergraduate admissions rate is among the lowest in the country, and the university’s reputation can make it seem like a fortress of privilege, set apart from the communities around it. That reputation obscures something important. In many ways, Stanford is also an institution that says yes, through a remarkable range of programs and spaces open to anyone who cares to take part.

This section of The Stanford Chronicle will report on new programs and initiatives as they are announced. We begin with a guide to the standing offerings that already welcome the public, because many of the most valuable things a university offers are hiding in plain sight.

Learning Without Admission

The most direct invitation is Stanford Continuing Studies, founded in 1988. Its courses are open to adults without a formal application or university affiliation; the program asks only that participants hold a high school diploma or its equivalent. Offerings span the liberal arts and sciences, creative writing, and professional and personal development, with courses taught on campus and online.

For a region full of people whose formal education ended years ago, this is an extraordinary resource. A retired engineer can study the history of ancient Rome. A software developer can take a writing workshop. A parent can explore philosophy in the evenings. The courses carry no expectation of a degree, which frees them to be what education at its best should be: an encounter with ideas for their own sake.

Many of the most valuable things a university offers are hiding in plain sight, available to anyone curious enough to walk in.

Art, Music and Architecture

The arts offer a second invitation. The Cantor Arts Center’s admission is always free, and its collections span thousands of years and cultures, including a renowned group of Rodin bronzes displayed inside the museum and in the adjacent outdoor sculpture garden. The museum offers free public tours, including docent-led walks among the outdoor sculpture on the Main Quad and around the museum.

Stanford Live presents performances throughout the year, principally at Bing Concert Hall, which opened in 2013, and Frost Amphitheater, an outdoor venue that first opened in 1937 and reopened after a major renovation in 2019. Many performances are ticketed, but the venues are designed to welcome the broader community, not only the university.

Hoover Tower, completed in 1941 for the university’s fiftieth anniversary, has long offered public access to its observation deck for a modest fee, with exhibitions in its galleries and rotunda free to visitors. Anyone planning a visit should check the Hoover Institution’s website first, since the observation deck periodically closes for maintenance and its hours change.

Open Land and Open Air

The landscape itself is a third invitation. The Dish trail, a paved loop of roughly three and a half miles through the foothills, is open to walkers during daylight hours on a seasonal schedule. The O’Donohue Family Stanford Educational Farm, a six-acre working farm near the university’s historic Red Barn, connects students and the community to questions of food and sustainability.

Even the central campus, with its sandstone arcades and open quadrangles, functions as a kind of public commons. Visitors are welcome to walk the Main Quad, step into Memorial Church, and wander among the university’s outdoor sculpture.

None of these offerings requires an affiliation or an introduction. Together they amount to a quiet argument that a research university’s resources, its collections, its teachers, its land, belong in some measure to the region that surrounds it, and that the boundary between campus and community is more porous than the university’s reputation suggests.

How to Stay Informed

Programs change, schedules shift, and new initiatives appear each year. The most reliable sources are the university’s official events calendar and the websites of individual programs: Continuing Studies, Stanford Live, the Cantor Arts Center, the Hoover Institution, and the Educational Farm, among others. We encourage readers to confirm dates, prices, and access policies directly before planning a visit.

As The Stanford Chronicle grows, this section will report on new programs as they are announced, with attention to what they offer, whom they serve, and how members of the wider community can take part. Our premise is simple: a great university is not only a place that selects the few. It is also a place that, when it is at its best, extends an open invitation to the many.