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The Leland Stanford Junior University, founded by Leland Stanford, and his wife, Jane Stanford, and named in honor of their deceased teenage son in 1891, is one of the United States' most prestigious universities, situated in Stanford, California (in Palo Alto) on the San Francisco Peninsula. The campus covers over 8000 acres, making it one of the largest campuses in the world. Stanford also played an important role in the development of Silicon Valley, with alumni such as the founders of Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems and Yahoo. Indeed, Sun originally stood for Stanford University Network.
There are approximately 6,500 undergraduates at the university. The graduate schools include Stanford Law School, Medical School, Graduate School of Business, School of Earth Sciences and School of Education. The Schools of Humanities & Sciences and Engineering have both graduate and undergraduate programs.
Stanford built its reputation as a pioneering Silicon Valley institution with strong engineering and science programs. It has since built a premier humanities program to rival any U.S. college. Its reputation among students is that of a relaxed, fun-loving, warm-weather alternative to the Ivy League schools.
The Stanford University Libraries (SUL) have a collection of more than 8 million volumes.
Stanford's teams are called the Cardinal (the color, not the bird). The school's unofficial mascot is the Tree, which is part of the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band (LSJUMB). Stanford's athletic teams participate in the NCAA's Division I-A and the Pacific Ten Conference. The number of sports stars who attended Stanford is impressive. Among them include:
- Notah Begay, golf
- Amy Chow, gymnastics
- John Elway, American football
- Janet Evans, swimmer
- Eric Heiden, skating, biking
- Casey Martin, golf
- John McEnroe, tennis
- Pablo Morales, swimming
- Mike Mussina, baseball
- Tiger Woods, golf
- Summer Sanders, swimming
- Kerri Strug, gymnastics
- Debra Thomas, skating
- Tom Watson, golf
Stanford's traditional sports rival is Cal. The winner of the annual football "Big Game" between Cal and Stanford gains custody of the Axe.