alan.bradford

In 2002, Michael Crow took over as president of ASU. In his inauguration address, Crow set out a vision for a university unlike any other. He called his personal vision for ASU “the new American University.”
The rest was history — literally.

Behind Crow, the New American University catchphrase quickly developed into a wide-ranging project with eight objectives set to change the face of public education in both the state and the nation.

It didn’t take long for ASU to begin doing so.

Crow’s University took off. According to ASU statistics, 14 transdisciplinary schools were established after 2002, 601 tenured and tenure-track faculty joined ASU after 2002, the school hit the top 20 list in research expenditures for schools without a medical school, and such ventures as the Biodesign Insitute and Downtown Phoenix campus were launched.

Within a remarkably efficient five-year period, ASU became known as one of the nation’s top up-and-coming research universities rather than one of the nation’s leading party schools.

The concept of the New American University was hastily becoming a reality.

The plan’s mission statement that ASU would be “a new model for American higher education, an unprecedented combination of academic excellence, broad access and impact” was sounding closer to completion every year.

Crow’s insistence on access — meaning there is no financial barrier to attending the school — has led an enrollment increase of more than 11,000. Over the past six years, ASU has rightfully taken pride in which students it includes, rather than which students it excludes.

In early 2008, that plan seemed destined to grow further. With the soon-to-be-ironic intention of growing the state’s economy and translating Arizona’s new influx of high-school graduates into highly-skilled college degree-holding workforce, the University announced plans to grow enrollment to about 100,000 by 2020, including 15,000 students at each the West, Polytechnic and Downtown campuses.

Last fall, Crow reiterated his commitment to access to The State Press editorial board, saying that ASU would not separate itself from the people of Arizona. “A public university should admit every student that has the capability to do university-level work,” he said.

As we broke for winter recess, the innovative and commendale vision of the New American University was still going strong — even in the face of a $30 million cut in state funding — and the state of Arizona stood to reap the benefits.

And then that sunny outlook was no more.

In a non-forward-thinking move, the state legislature’s focus in solving a $1.6 billion budget deficit was almost entirely centered on education. The results were not going to be pretty.

In the end, the final cut to the university system totaled $143 million for fiscal year 2009 alone, meaning since June 2008, ASU has been asked to sustain a $88 million financial hit.

Yesterday, the University announced the final implications of the cuts. On top of the more than 750 positions eliminated, 10- to 15-day mandatory unpaid furloughs and more, ASU announced that enrollment will be capped, four-dozen academic programs will be shut down and the Polytechnic and West campuses will be scaled back to one college each.

Meanwhile, the next fiscal year stands to be worse; yet, ASU’s years of progress have already been upturned.

Academic excellence has been thrown a major roadblock. Access has been stopped in its tracks. Impact has been significantly lessened.

The New American University has died; welcome to the Neutered American University.