The New York Times ran an “edited and condensed” interview with Arizona State University (ASU) president Michael Crow, titled “Reshaping Arizona State, and the Public Model”.
Michael M. Crow sees Arizona State as the model of a public research university that measures itself by inclusivity, not exclusivity. In his 13 years as its president, he has profoundly reshaped the institution — hiring faculty stars from across the country, starting a bevy of interdisciplinary programs, growing the student body to some 83,000 and using technology to bring his ideas to scale, whether with web-based introductory math classes or eAdvisor, which monitors students’ progress toward their major. Last year, Dr. Crow made headlines when the university partnered with Starbucks to offer students the chance to complete their degree online for free. His new book, written with the historian William B. Dabars, is called, appropriately, “Designing the New American University.”
The problem is that the interview was so condensed that it lost a lot of context. Since Michael and I just released an e-Literate TV case study on ASU, the first episode could help as a companion to the NYT article by calling out a lot more information from ASU executives their mission. We would like this information to be useful for others to decide what they think about this model.