Mission

Stanford in Government (SIG) creates a culture of civic and political engagement on the Stanford campus by offering opportunities for Stanford students to engage with and pursue policy as public service. SIG believes that direct public service plays an important role in communities, but that institutional reform fundamentally changes structures and systems for lasting public benefit. To inspire students to help enact institutional reform, SIG funds more than 60 fellowships for students each year at policy-related organizations, connects students with opportunities to hear and learn from policymakers, and coordinates a variety of civic engagement education initiatives.

Stanford in Government was founded in 1963 as the Stanford in Washington program, and in 1985 became a founding program of the Haas Center for Public Service. For the last 30 years, SIG has been a key part of the Haas Center’s public policy pathway for public service and offers programming and internships through local, state, national and international opportunities in government.

In keeping with the University’s founding principles, the SIG community ensures Stanford students continue to contribute to government service. SIG also reflects Stanford’s hallmark entrepreneurial spirit with its completely student run programming—a characteristic that sets it apart from similar organizations at peer institutions. Stanford in Government is an organization that creates government service opportunities so that students, in Jane Lathrop Stanford’s words, “will become thereby of greater service to the public.”

As a nonpartisan public service-focused organization, Stanford in Government (SIG) believes that civil and productive discourse is central to creating a culture of civic and political engagement on the Stanford campus. In our programming, SIG aspires to the following standards:

SIG pledges to:

Consider and consult the stakeholders involved in any event
Make good-faith efforts to represent diverse perspectives in SIG’s roster of events
Foster a home for civil and productive dialogue on campus

SIG asks any speaker or organization that wishes to partner with us to:

Facilitate civil and productive discourse on campus according to our code of conduct
Not publicly release personal identifying information (e.g. address, email, online accounts, phone number) of students without their consent
Not threaten or bring harm to the person or property of any community member

Code of Conduct for Civil and Productive Discourse:

No ad hominem attacks
Individuals are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts
Assume good intent and act with good intent

Read about the impact SIG has had on its long history of alumni here.