The origin story of Knight-Hennessy Scholars

The earliest seeds for Knight-Hennessy Scholars began to form in the spring of 2012, when I was on sabbatical from my role as president of Stanford University. I spent most of that time reading books on higher education and reflecting on the state of the world. We were witnessing the failure of the Arab Spring revolution, a refugee crisis in Europe, the lingering effects of the 2008 financial crisis, and, as a society, we were feeling increasingly concerned about climate change, inequality, and racial justice issues.

In the spring of 2013, this contemplation led me to meet with Phil Knight, co-founder and chairman emeritus of Nike, Inc. He expressed similar concerns about the quality of leadership he was seeing in government, universities, and global and national industries. He encouraged me to think about the next steps in my career and asked whether I had considered doing something to combat those issues.

That fall, I had another significant meeting—with my friend Bill Meehan, an esteemed management consultant and longtime lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business, who has since passed away. As I continued to think about my conversation with Phil, Bill advised and encouraged me to focus on finding something important and fulfilling to do in the next phase of my life. Rather than fill my plate with small bites, he told me, “Have the main course there.”

That got me thinking more intensely about how I could make a positive impact on the world. In the fall of 2014, I began to outline the basic concept of what would become Knight-Hennessy Scholars. I initially met with the Stanford provost and deans to discuss my idea and soon after sat down with Steve Denning, chair of the Board of Trustees at the time. Their unanimous enthusiasm for my idea encouraged me to further develop the concept of the program.

In the spring of 2015, the Stanford trustees went on a retreat, during which I explained my idea for a fellowship program that would bring emerging and aspiring leaders from around the world to graduate schools at the university. I talked about the impact similar programs had made in other parts of the world and explained why Stanford’s incredible academic strengths and bold entrepreneurial culture uniquely positioned it to create a high-quality program. The trustees were incredibly enthusiastic.

I spent the early part of that summer drafting a thought paper for what was then called “Project S.” I pitched it to interested Stanford trustees, deans, and the provost and solicited their feedback, slowly developing Project S into the program it is today. Then I met with Phil Knight again.

I explained to Phil the idea of creating a scholarship program that would offer a Stanford education along with leadership development, with the ultimate goal of shaping a new generation of leaders. He was very excited about the program, so I said, “Phil, that's great. I need $400 million.”

In fall 2015, Phil called and asked to visit, insisting on making the trip to Stanford. He came to campus and told me that, after some consideration, he was interested in becoming the founding donor of Project S, on the condition that it would be a partnership jointly named after the two of us. He also insisted that I be its initial leader. I agreed, and thus was born Knight-Hennessy Scholars.

In the fall and winter of 2015, I started to meet with other founding donors. Dorothy and Robert King graciously endowed the King Global Leadership Program, in which all Knight-Hennessy scholars participate, and Roberta and Steve Denning gave the gift that allowed us to build Denning House.

On September 1, 2016, I relinquished the office of university president, closing a 16-year tenure in that office, the longest serving president of Stanford since the 1960s.

I immediately turned my attention to announcing the creation of Knight-Hennessy Scholars and traveling to do outreach. The 2016-2017 academic year was spent planning the construction of Denning House with Roberta and Steve Denning. The building, designed to evoke the feeling of a large tree house perched on the edge of Lake Lagunita, was conceptualized after an insightful suggestion from one of the architects to have all the communal areas located on the upper floor to promote and maximize the beautiful views. Our vision from the start was for Denning House to be a meeting place for thinkers, a comfortable, inviting space where people could exchange ideas and carry out important conversations or just catch up with friends.

In the fall of 2017, we began spreading the news of our program across the United States and around the world. We hired our first team members, Jeff Wachtel, Derrick Bolton, and Celeste Browne, and began the search for scholar candidates. The core values of determination, creativity, and commitment that we look for in our scholars have remained the same since the beginning.

From the start, we had a global focus in our search. We avoided limitations on where scholars came from; rather we encouraged a multicultural environment and while we wanted a balanced class of PhDs, professional degrees, and master’s students, there was no predilection for exact numbers. Students from any academic program at Stanford could apply to be Knight-Hennessy scholars. The early applications embodied many of the personal elements that are still highlighted in our applications today. A big part of our program is, and always has been, the scholars themselves and their individual and collective potential to change the world.

In the spring of 2018, we hosted our first in-person Immersion Weekend for finalist applicants. From the start, the program was about the community of scholars and bringing them together. It was such a successful event that we established it as a cornerstone of the program going forward.

We finished Denning House just in time for the first cohort of 51 scholars to arrive in fall 2018. In those days, the program was simpler, but many of the original characteristics remain, such as a fall retreat for our new cohort, Dan Klein and Lisa Rowland’s storytelling program, and the opportunity to experience travel study. Since opening in 2018, Denning House has become home to hundreds of scholars as well as home to an incredible art collection championed by the Dennings.

Many other things have changed in the five years since we started. The leadership model developed by Tina Seelig, executive director of Knight-Hennessy Scholars, became the cornerstone for programming, including the traits, behaviors, and goals for KHS. We also reduced the number of formal gatherings we hosted in favor of many more interactive workshops and discussions. We created more opportunities for engagement and had fewer requirements. We also encouraged scholars to organize more programs based on their interests and expertise, and now those make up roughly half of our events.

COVID-19 generated lots of changes within the program for an extended period of time. We worked to keep our community connected, a community that’s based so much on personal interaction, but we survived the pandemic and we survived it better than we could have anticipated.

Perhaps most significantly, we’ve seen an extraordinary rise in the number of dual degrees, as many scholars choose to add a second degree that complements their first. We emphasize multidisciplinary thinking and endeavors, and the commitment to this belief is a testament to our scholars as students and individuals.  

As we embark on our sixth cohort this fall, we will have had a total of 425 Knight-Hennessy scholars, representing 68 countries of citizenship and spanning 94 Stanford degree programs across all seven schools, including medicine, law, business, engineering, education, sustainability, and humanities. Our vision from 2015 has been more than realized in 2023.

And, of course, the team has grown tremendously. Of the founding team of 10 members, Carole Virtucio, Dan Klein, Lisa Rowland, and I are still here. But we’ve acquired lots of new team members since those early days: Christian, Deborah, Flor, John, Jordyn, Joslyn, Perla, Kathy, Micaela, Midori, Rachel, Rose, Stacy, Tina, and Yuezhong.

At this moment, on the occasion of our fifth anniversary, I want to say a special thank you to our donors and supporters: To Phil Knight, the Kings, and the Dennings, but also to the many other people who have supported this program and made it possible for us to bring these incredible scholars together. Thank you also to our faculty colleagues. They’ve been advisers to our scholars, and many of them have interviewed prospective scholars for us over the years. Thank you to our entire team, including the dedicated readers who work so hard to help us find the very best scholars. And finally, thanks to you, our scholars. You are why we are all here.

And so, I have a closing verse from my favorite large language model: 

Five years have passed, and we have grown,
Our knowledge and our skills have shown,
Throughout the world, we have made our mark,
With our ideas, and our hearts, and our spark.

You are the Knight-Hennessy scholars,
A group of leaders, and of doers,
You are the future, and you are here,
To create change, and to make your impact clear.

Congratulations on five years, and we look forward to the next five!