Liu ‘91 turned to service on Farm
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010 | By Elizabeth Rosen
During his days as a Stanford undergraduate, Goodwin Liu ’91 made a lasting impression on those who worked with him in the biological sciences department at the Haas Center for Public Service and in the campus community at large.
Now Liu, 39, is President Obama’s nominee to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, and some of those who knew him at Stanford are hardly surprised.
Goodwin Liu '91. (Courtesy of UC-Berkeley)
Liu is currently a professor at the UC-Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law.
J. Myron Atkin, a professor emeritus in the Stanford School of Education, advised Liu on his undergraduate honors thesis, a study on the tensions in education policy associated with state-level decision-making versus local policy implementation, and said he always knew Liu would do well after school.
Twenty years ago, Atkin wrote a letter on Liu’s behalf praising his “quick, insightful and analytic” mind as well as the obligation he felt, even as an undergraduate, to put his intellect and leadership to use in working for “a gentler world.” Atkin said he feels those words still reflect the Goodwin Liu he knows today.
Liu began his career at Stanford as a biological sciences major determined to go to medical school and become a doctor. However, his work on education policy at the Haas Center for Public Service motivated him to reconsider this decision and look instead at a career in law.
Atkin said he recalled Liu being torn between the two career paths — though former Haas Center Director Catherine Milton, who worked extensively with Liu, told the Daily that “he always had time