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Stanford University President John Hennessy has had a close-up view of technology companies‘ attempts to reinvent higher education.

Professors at Stanford recently founded Coursera Inc. and Udacity Inc., two key players in the effort to offer Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, which are free and interactive versions of courses that professors currently offer to paying students on everything from artificial intelligence to Roman architecture. Stanford itself is offering a small number of free online courses.

As such companies grow, some professors around the country fear for their jobs. Faculty at schools such as San Jose State University and Amherst College have publicly expressed reservations about the efficacy of MOOCs or said they worried about being replaced by online education.

While technology is poised to disrupt the status quo, Stanford remains in an enviable position. The school has a $17 billion endowment, up from $9 billion when Mr. Hennessy took office in 2000 after decades as an electrical-engineering professor at Stanford and a successful entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. Stanford‘s undergraduate-student financial-aid level during the recent academic year was $130 million, covering half of the collective tuition charged to its roughly 6,800 undergraduate students.

The 60-year-old Mr. Hennessy, who is originally from Long Island, N.Y., sat down with the Journal to discuss the impact online education will have on teachers, why students are opting for computer science over the humanities, and why computer science is becoming more attractive to women. Edited excerpts:

WSJ: What‘s happening at Stanford specifically in terms of using Massive Open Online Courses?

Mr. Hennessy: We‘re doing a lot of experiments internally. We think we can create a better learning environment than the typical large lecture, which is a learning environment that is not particularly productive or a great environment for the lecturer. My vision of the future is, there‘s going to be more demand for continuing education because people are going to be changing careers more. It‘s much easier to do if you can do it online. The key thing is to use these technologies to increase productivity, not just get costs down.

<癫痫病应该如何治疗p>WSJ: Is it a threat to Stanford?

Mr. Hennessy:No.

WSJ: It will be complementary?

Mr. Hennessy: Yes. Higher education is primarily a noofit sector. The goal is to provide students with the best education we can, hopefully in the most cost-effective way that we can. If that‘s our goal, the question isn‘t whether there are more faculty jobs. The question is, are the students learning?

WSJ: You mentioned faculty. At San Jose State and elsewhere around the country, you‘ve got teachers up in arms about job security. What happens to them?

Mr. Hennessy:If you‘re at San Jose State, what do you have to worry about? Not enough students graduating. Can a faculty member make better use of their time than standing in front of a class delivering a lecture? How many kids do we teach Psychology 101 to in this country? Several hundred thousand? We can‘t have one course for all those people, but maybe we can have 10. If the faculty member doesn‘t have to spend time preparing the lecture, they can say, ‘OK, here are the students struggling in this course,‘ and they can have a special section devoted to them.

WSJ: Are you taking steps to reassure your faculty?

Mr. Hennessy: They‘re mostly not nervous. We‘re blessed in that the endowment allows us to deliver education in the way that we want.

WSJ: What kind of surge of interest are you seeing in science and engineering versus the humanities?

Mr. Hennessy: Computer science is booming. This year it became the largest major in the university for the first time ever [10.5% of undergraduate students who have declared majors are in computer science]. These numbers are considerably higher than traditionally they have been, by 50%. Partly it‘s what students sense as career opportunities. There‘s no doubt that the number of students going to humanities is at an all-time low.

This is really a career-focus issue, and I actually think it‘s getting overblown. I point out to students that our business school has the same or higher acceptance rate for people coming from economics degrees, but for a lot of students it looks like a riskier route.

WSJ: Is there anything you can do to change it? Do you want to?

Mr. Hennessy:At some leve癫痫病怎么治疗才会好l I think you want to. We do worry about how, at some point, we will not be able to hire enough faculty [in humanities]. It‘s hard to figure out what to do. Stanford is a place where we don‘t tell students what to major in.

WSJ: Are you seeing a greater percentage of women entering computer science?

Mr. Hennessy: It‘s improving from its darkest days probably in 2000-ish. A lot of factors here but probably a movement away somewhat from the kind of gaming, kill-the-enemy culture to one that‘s social and sharing, and that‘s what computing and information technology are all about.

WSJ: A subset of people ticize Stanford as being laser-focused on technology businesses and having professors financially back companies run by their students. What‘s your response?

Mr. Hennessy: Students are going to be entrepreneurial. If you think otherwise you‘re mistaken. Now, if they are going to do it and there are lessons we can teach them on the way to help them be successful, that‘s no different from teaching them other skills that would help them succeed in their future.

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