Arizona State University has developed a new model for the American research university, creating an institution that is committed to excellence, access and impact.
ASU measures itself by those it includes and how they succeed, not by those it excludes. ASU pursues research that contributes to the public good; and ASU assumes major responsibility for the economic, social and cultural vitality of the communities that surround it.
In order to become that model for the New American University, ASU has undergone some radical changes over the last few years. Like many universities, we have added new buildings, hired new faculty and brought in new students.
But, unlike many of our peers, we have also undertaken a massive reorganization of our institution. We have torn down walls between disciplines and encouraged collaboration among diverse units. We have altered the trajectory of the university and reevaluated the role that universities play in society, in the economy and in education at all levels. We have changed the relationship between ASU and Arizona.
Eight design aspirations guide ASU’s transformation into the New American University. By employing these aspirations in our work, we’ve accomplished a great deal.
Already, ASU has built a new physical and intellectual environment for learning and discovery. ASU has changed the community of people who inhabit that environment. And ASU has rewritten the objectives for the people in that environment as well as for the institution as a whole.
By breaking the mold, ASU has become a place where local solutions have global impact. Learn more
ASU is a place that inspires risk and reinvention.
ASU has changed the environment for learning and discovery. ASU fused disciplines to form new colleges, schools and departments that encourage transdisciplinary collaboration. ASU created new kinds of university structures that promote academic partnerships with the community, industry and government. And ASU increased research, residential and learning spaces throughout its locations, building an entirely new fourth campus in downtown Phoenix.
In this environment, ideas cross-pollinate
The result? A new kind of discovery. A new kind of learning. ASU prepares its students, faculty and staff to tackle socially relevant challenges that are emerging as we speak. ASU is building an environment that counts on the inconceivable and seeks answers to questions that have yet to be asked.
Children in developing nations account for 90 percent of the world’s bacterial pneumonia deaths. Until now, vaccines for pneumonia have been ineffective, expensive and administered in multiple doses—an unfeasible solution in rural parts of the world where pneumonia kills most often and where people have extremely limited access to health care.
In 2004, ASU built a new research hub called the Biodesign Institute. It brings together leading scientists, clinical partners and industrial collaborators in an outcomes-focused approach.
The institute has attracted world-renowned researchers and major investments. It has initiated a host of projects aimed at urgent, global challenges. Among these is an effort to produce a new, inexpensive vaccine for pneumonia that can be delivered in one dose to children all over the world.
In another radical move, ASU merged its departments of plant biology, microbiology and biology into one School of Life Sciences. This interdisciplinary school hired economists, philosophers and policy makers to become part of its intellectual landscape. By doing this, ASU changed the environment in which students and scholars undertake research.
Knowledge becomes action
ASU students, scholars and partners operate in a rich new educational environment—one that is interdisciplinary, creative and hyper-connected to external trends and needs. The result is a dramatically expanded suite of opportunities for all.
The blog boom and the growing tendency of news readers to get their information via the Web has disrupted the print news industry. At the same time, the demand for media in general has grown—more people of more ages in more places look for information in patterns that change almost as quickly as they form.
In light of these developments, the ASU Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication asked, how should journalists be educated in this blur of media innovation?
One of the school’s answers brings together students from computer engineering, design, business and journalism to collaborate in creating new media. In the New Media Innovation Lab, these students tackle real problems in real time, using a variety of knowledge bases. They analyze the past and create the future.
They work hard not only to become good journalists, but to invent new ways for the public to engage with the stories they write. Their series of news-related applications for social networking sites has been widely distributed by Gannett Company, one of the largest media conglomerates in the nation. Learn more
ASU is a network that invites and empowers.
ASU has transformed its community. ASU hired new faculty across the disciplines. ASU reached out to create more access to education for more students. ASU partnered with communities to deeply embed the university within its surroundings. And ASU has looked beyond national boundaries to engage with global partners.
Community means collaboration
For ASU, this is all part of redefining who our community is. Communities have specific knowledge and on-the-ground resources. Communities help to drive discovery and solutions. Everybody in the state and beyond is a potential partner in, potential beneficiary of, and potential contributor to solutions for the future.
Teach For America is a corps of outstanding recent college graduates from all majors who commit to teach in urban and rural public schools for two years. ASU and Teach For America have initiated a large-scale partnership to improve education for Arizona’s children.
This means ASU now graduates nearly 150 new teachers through our partnership with Teach For America. This is in addition to the nearly 1,300 other teacher candidates we produce every year. We’ve added an education leadership pipeline in Arizona by giving Teach For America alumni opportunities in ASU’s education, business and law schools. And just last year, more than 30 inspired ASU undergraduates were accepted into the Teach For America program, which will benefit both those students and the students they teach.
Access has trumped elitism
At ASU, redefining community also means drawing new groups of students into higher education. First generation college students are enrolling at ASU from all over the region, and ASU has built structures and programs to support students and the communities to which they are connected.
The success of students, both during their education and after they leave the institution, is one of ASU’s highest priorities.
ASU works with communities in a variety of ways. In a collaboration with tribal stakeholders, ASU is building educational programs that are relevant to the issues faced by American Indian communities. Economic and infrastructure disparities in Indian Country remain enormous. For example, tribal lands continue to have limited access to basic utilities, with nearly a sixth of Indian households lacking electricity altogether.
Students need to find courses and programs at ASU that recognize where they come from and allow them to tailor an education to meet their needs. As a result, ASU students, faculty and staff innovate constantly. For example, a student project grew to become “Construction in Indian Country,” an annual conference that improves construction management within American Indian nations and provides valuable educational opportunities to American Indian construction students. The conference brings in hundreds of attendees annually, one-quarter of them from other states. The substantial proceeds from the conference contribute to an endowment benefitting American Indian students in ASU’s Del E. Webb School of Construction.
It’s this kind of community-driven program that makes an ASU education relevant for many different people. ASU combines these programs with intensive outreach efforts to communities around the state in order to support students and families as they make the decision to go to college.
Through the Sun Devil Promise, the university collaborates with school districts to make sure that thousands of qualified Arizona students are familiar with the university and know what they need to do to get in. Club ASU connects young students to ASU. The American Dream Academy helps instill the value of education in parents and their children. And the Hispanic Mother-Daughter Program raises the educational and career aspirations of women. Learn more
ASU is a force that creates meaningful change.
ASU has changed the objectives for the university as a whole and for individuals within the institution. ASU seeks to create meaningful change by producing knowledge that translates to action. On the individual level, that means listening to the needs that communities express and working together on solutions
ASU embraces complexity
It’s all about networks. As a big university, ASU can offer a network of approaches to a network of problems. ASU tackles large challenges with multiple, coordinated solutions.
ASU recognizes sustainability as one of the most important issues facing society today. In fact, sustainability involves a host of problems, solutions, stakeholders, values, policies, geographies and people. It’s an enormous topic.
And that’s our objective: deal with the difficult issue. Create multiple, differentiated solutions to a thorny, multifaceted problem.
ASU confronts sustainability questions through a global interdisciplinary institute, a school (the first school of sustainability in the United States) and a wide variety of initiatives undertaken by individuals across the university. Among these is an array of approaches to producing renewable energy sources.
One of ASU’s biofuel projects uses algae to produce kerosene-based jet fuel in collaboration with Boeing. Algal oil is surprisingly similar to vegetable oils, but algae produce a significantly higher oil yield, making the bacteria a perfect potential fuel source.
Creating jet fuel out of algae has major implications for human consumption of fossil fuels, but its potential won’t be fully realized without simultaneous social changes. So other teams of ASU researchers and entrepreneurs are figuring out how to address the policy, ethics and social intricacies that go along with this new technology. One group looks at how science and technology policy might be improved. Another team has started a nonprofit organization that advocates for biofuels in the region.
These new objectives help us help others
ASU not only deals with the difficult issues, it produces knowledge that leads to action. And to effect massive change, ASU finds ways to bring these solutions to as many people as possible.
Stroke is the leading cause of serious, long-term disability in the United States. Therapy is almost always needed after a stroke, but, for many patients, traditional therapy methods are not effective enough.
ASU researchers are developing tools to better address stroke patients’ needs. One of these efforts brings together artists, bioengineers, musicians, psychologists, electrical engineers and computer scientists in the Arts, Media and Engineering program. Working collaboratively, these researchers have created Mixed Reality Rehabilitation, a new system of rehabilitation that allows patients to relearn movements.
Patients drive their own therapy, as opposed to traditional methods where a therapist facilitates each session. Using multimedia technology, patients become more engaged as they recreate pictures or songs based on movements.
A scaled-down version of the interactive lab will be implemented at the John J. Rhodes Rehabilitation Institute at Banner Baywood Medical Center in Mesa, Arizona. In 2008, a pilot system was used in some patients’ homes. It is expected to be widely available for home use and hospitals by 2012.
With a little creativity, ASU researchers have shifted their objectives, pursuing knowledge based on societal needs and immediately applying that research. The result is a new connectivity between society and knowledge, and an entirely new rehabilitation philosophy and practice that has the potential to impact the daily lives of millions of people.