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About Us
The Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education (VPGE) opened in January 2007 to further Stanford University’s commitment to excellence in graduate education. Our mission is to provide academic leadership that accelerates Stanford’s efforts to enhance the quality of graduate education by fostering innovation.
We collaborate across campus with the schools and programs that have primary responsibility for organizing and delivering Stanford's graduate education.
We promote and create innovative pilot programs to advance diversity, encourage interdisciplinarity, and offer leadership and professional development opportunities for students. Our initiatives are infused with the spirit of experimentation and exploration.
Want to know more?
- Introduction to VPGE staff
- A message from the Vice Provost, Patricia J. Gumport
- VPGE Mission
- VPGE Programs
- VPGE in the news
- Overview of graduate education at Stanford
- Contact VPGE
Our Shield
Our heraldic banner was designed in 1967 by Stanford chemistry professor Eric Hutchinson as the symbol for the graduate division. He designed the University flag and the shields of all seven schools at that time. The triple redwood frond represents the three major functions of a University: the discovery, codification, and transmission of knowledge. It appears on the shields and flags of all seven schools and on the University flag.
The remainder of our banner employs triangles and ermine tails. The triangles symbolize the hoods appropriate for Stanford degrees. The small black design element, the ermine, recalls the ermine-trimmed hood commonly worn by medieval scholars. The seven ermine tails stand for the seven schools offering graduate degrees. Blue is the color of the velvet trim on Ph.D. hoods. White for the arts and gold for science are in the shield of the School of Humanities and Sciences; gold also appears in the shield of the School of Earth Sciences, recalling that Herbert Hoover mined gold in Australia.
Article about the design of the flags and shields in Sandstone and Tile (pdf)