The message behind the Stanford Challenge rang loud and clear Saturday morning at Maples Pavilion, where the University elucidated the agenda of its five-year, $4.3 billion fundraising campaign with a roundtable discussion featuring the co-founder of the largest online network, a former secretary of state, a former secretary of defense, the CEO of a pharmaceutical giant, a specialist on biological terrorism and a US Supreme Court justice.

The early morning discussion centered around geopolitical issues ripped from the headlines — from North Korean nuclear proliferation to the lack of clean water — and was moderated by reporter and Stanford alumnus Ted Koppel, who later told The Daily that the forum was marked by “surprising freeness.”

Though The Stanford Challenge was never explicitly mentioned, the roundtable came just four days after the University announced the campaign and was held before a 5,000-strong Homecoming Weekend crowd composed largely of alumni and University donors. President John Hennessy introduced the ground-breaking Stanford Challenge on Tuesday, specifying that $1.4 billion would be devoted to research in human health, environmental sustainability and international peace and security and more than $1.7 billion would be spent to sustain current teaching and research programs.

And if those goals seemed vague in last week’s press release, Stanford-educated industry leaders and University faculty brought those aims into focus.

“This is a global village, and borders mean nothing to disease,” said Jean-Pierre Garnier, the CEO of the world’s second largest pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, regarding the possibility of a pandemic. As a Fulbright Scholar, Garnier earned a Masters in Business Administration from Stanford in 1974.

Garnier’s idea of a “global village” permeated the roundtable, titled “Anxious Times: Seeing Beyond a World of Perpetual Threats.” Koppel, who received his master’s degree from Stanford in 1962, established the agenda for the relatively undefined program as he pressed the panelists on the latest international problems. Five minutes into the discussion, Koppel had already broached the global consequences of North Korea’s nuclear test and attempted to elicit potential academic and policy solutions to the crisis.

William Perry, a former secretary of defense under President Clinton and professor at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, was less than optimistic. Perry, who received a bachelor’s degree from Stanford in 1949, a master’s degree in 1950, and his doctorate in 1955, predicted that Iran will be close to follow and that North Korea’s purported nuclear test will likely produce an escalating Asian arms race. Distinguished Hoover Fellow George Shultz, secretary of state in the Reagan administration, agreed with the Clinton adviser and argued that the United States should push for “high-level energetic diplomacy” in multilateral talks with North Korea.

During the two-hour discussion, Koppel often introduced hypothetical scenarios to force the panelists to address real-life possibilities. When Koppel asked what the United States should do if a North Korean ship evaded a potential naval blockade, Shultz immediately responded that “you have to follow them and shoot.” Sensing that it was a leading question, the Reagan adviser continued, “Are you trying to argue that force doesn’t work?”

But talk about North Korea wasn’t just limited to foreign policy experts. Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, who collected bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Stanford in 1990, said that technology could spark increased dialogue between North Korea and the outside world.

One topic that particularly piqued the interest of the panel was the spread of infectious diseases. Developmental Biology Prof. Lucy Shapiro pointed to the recent outbreaks of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and the West Nile Virus, arguing that the United States and the international community are grossly unprepared for a pandemic disease.

“We need ordinary things like face masks, food, water and hospital beds,” she said. “In a market economy, there tends to be a small inventory of such products. This is absolutely orthogonal to what you need to deal with a pandemic.”

In response, Garnier described the need for pharmaceutical companies to unite together to expand the supply chain.

“We’ll forget about competition, money and profits,” he said. “This is bigger than us.”

Garnier said that he has met with other pharmaceutical executives and agreed that, in the event of a pandemic, their companies should distribute vaccines to the first people infected, adding that he had also met with President Bush and that the president agreed. But, he continued, the Federal Trade Commission has yet to approve a potential consolidation in a time of crisis because of anti-trust regulations.

Koppel told The Daily after the forum that this proposal was a surprise to him.

“Here’s an American president who has signed on to the notion that medicine should be sent to, let’s say, Indonesia to impede the spread of some disease,” Koppel said. “Can you imagine the political impact of such a decision?”

Koppel also said he had not anticipated that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy would “speak as freely as he did.” While most sitting justices rarely speak publicly to maintain an appearance impartiality, Kennedy addressed some critical issues raised in the discussion.

The justice specifically delved into the lack of clean water and its global implications, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Kennedy said that over two billion people in the world have unsafe drinking water and that Africans spend over eight billion hours each year finding clean water for themselves and their families. He predicted that war in the twenty-first century would not be motivated by lack of oil but by lack of water.

Shultz immediately chimed in.

“How many times do we have to be hit in the head by a 2 x 4 to learn that we have to use less oil,” drawing thunderous applause from the crowd.

Koppel also addressed the state of civil liberties in the United States in a post-9/11 world, which sparked Kennedy to passionately argue for the importance of democratic traditions.

“The ultimate security of our nation is our commitment to democracy,” Kennedy said. “The President and Congress must realize that they too have a commitment to the Constitution,” a statement which also drew applause.

Kennedy added that, “We are still trying to find a way to have a rational, democratic discourse that is not mundane, fractious and evasive.”

The panelists also addressed educational failures, especially among younger generations, as panelists pointed to deficiencies in basic math and science literacy and civics knowledge. Perry, however, defended his students.

“I have 200 people in my class, and they are exceptionally well-informed,” he said. “I understand that this is not, by any means, an accurate cross-section of the population, but these are our future leaders. I look at my students, and I have great hope.”

When the forum came to a close, Koppel gave the panel an “A+” and thanked the audience for spending their morning listening to “a bunch of smart people talk about tough issues.”

Audience members said they appreciated the discussion, but some complained that the forum tried to cover too many issues.

“I think it’s really hard to delve into so many issues in just two hours,” said 2004 graduate Anh Tan. “They all had these ground principles but nothing beyond that because of lack of time.”

Most members of the audience, however, said that they were glad they attended.

“It was fantastic,” said 1956 graduate Richard Bush. “I liked the breadth of the discussions and what they had to say. We’re up for our fiftieth reunion and this was the best part of the trip.”