Investing in university research, and the graduate students who are involved, not only promotes the objectives Dr. Crow has described, it also promotes the development of critical thinking skills which are fundamental to the entire process of innovation, invention, creativity and discovery.
Research not only leads to tangible outcomes that benefit society and our economy, it provides the most robust environment for learning, for it challenges people to think in new ways, unexpected ways, to challenge the status quo.
Consider these statements about the creative process, which is driven by hard work yes, but also something else, something intangible, something you can’t quantify on a quarterly balance sheet:
“There is no such thing as a logical method of having new ideas, or a logical reconstruction of this process…Every discovery contains an irrational element or a creative intuition.” — Sir Karl Popper, in The Logic of Scientific Discovery.
“It is surprising that people do not believe that there is imagination in science. It is a very interesting kind of imagination, unlike that of the artist. The great difficulty is in trying to imagine something that you have never seen, that is consistent in every detail with what has already been seen, and that is different from what has already been thought of; furthermore, it must be definite and not a vague proposition.” — Dr. Richard P. Feynman, in The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist.
“…minority dissent stimulates creativity and divergent thought, which, through participation, manifest as innovation.” — DE DREU Carsten K., and WEST Michael A., Minority dissent and team innovation: The importance of participation in decision making, Journal of applied psychology, 2001 v86 n6 p1191-1201.
“It’s when we do this foolish, time-consuming, romantic, quixotic, childlike, thing called play that we are most practical, most useful, and most firmly grounded in reality, because the world itself is the most unlikely of places, and it works in the oddest of ways, and we won’t make any sense of it by doing what everybody else has done before us. It’s when we fool around with the stuff the world is made of that we make the most valuable discoveries, we create the most lasting beauty, we discover the most profound truths. The youngest children can do it, and the greatest artists, the greatest scientists do it all the time.” — Philip Pullman, Common sense has much to learn from moonshine, The Guardian, 22Jan05.
“Many people believe innovation requires thinking ‘outside the box’. But innovators know the truth….there is no box.” — David Wright
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today announced the award of more than $108.8 million in Early Reading First grants to 28 local education agencies and other public or private organizations in 18 states and Washington, D.C., to improve the school readiness of young children, especially those from low-income families.
Over the past 2,000 years, organized learning has evolved. Today, however, there are social, economic and cultural needs not being met. American society has undergone massive shifts over the past 50 years but our universities have hardly changed at all. The very identity of the university is at stake. So, ASU is changing that identity. ASU is reinventing higher education in America. By breaking the mold, ASU has created a place where local solutions have global impact. Join us. And pursue the work you believe in.
I am writing to let you know about a post-doctoral fellowship opportunity with our Community-Campus Partnership (CCP). Please see the attachment. This initiative is located in the School of Government, but it will involve faculty and students from many other campus units. There is widespread interest in this project on our campus and among key stakeholders in North Carolina. I am biased, of course, but I believe this is a wonderful opportunity to get involved in a community-based research project that will make a practical difference in communities and advance our knowledge about engaged scholarship. What more could you want? Please forward this announcement to anyone who might be interested. If someone has questions about the project or the fellowship, the best person to call or email is the project director, Will Lambe, at (919) 966-4247 or whlambe@sog.unc.edu. Many thanks.
Manfred Laubichler talks about teaching, theoretical biology, historical biology and stretching the limit of what is known.
Manfred Laubichler is a professor in the School of Life Sciences at ASU. His research covers three distinct yet overlapping areas: theoretical biology, the history of biology, and evolutionary developmental biology. He is also an affiliated professor in Philosophy.
Report Reveals the High Cost of Arizonans Living Without Health Insurance
“I have a lot of friends who don’t have it (health insurance). I think they’re dealing with it like I am: Hoping we don’t get sick.”
Those are the words of Josh, 47, who suffers from hypertension and unemployment.
His story and many others are told in Truth and Consequences: Gambling, Shifting, and Hoping in Arizona Health Care, a new report by Morrison Institute for Public Policy, St. Luke’s Health Initiatives, and the L. William Seidman Research Institute at the W.P. Carey School of Business.
The report, released today, examines the true costs of so many Arizonans – nearly one in five – living without health insurance.
“Health care is expensive, but the costs of poor health can be enormous,” said Arizona State University economist Kent Hill, who contributed to the report.
Treatment costs alone for chronic disease in Arizona are estimated to be $4.2 billion, or 2.3% of the gross state product. By 2023, projected costs for major chronic diseases are $99 billion, of which more than $25 billion could be avoidable.
But without health insurance, the personal stories of so many Arizonans will continue to paint a gloomy picture of lost dollars, lost potential, and lost opportunity:
· “At a public health clinic, you have to go wait in line. I try to avoid going because of cost.”
· “What if I got hurt? What’s going to happen to my daughter?”
· “It’s very frustrating. Especially when you know you’re sick but you can’t get anything done about it.”
Truth and Consequences seeks to change that portrait by presenting recommendations to Arizona’s policymakers that could help the state fare better in the future so that Arizona can stop taking risks on residents’ health and health care.
Morrison Institute is an independent and non-partisan public policy research organization based at Arizona State University as part of the College of Public Programs.
Some of Arizona’s most common and destructive illnesses—those of the brain—are failing to receive adequate treatment due to a combination of modern governmental gridlock and a centuries-old philosophythat separates the mind from the body.
That is among the findings of a new publication by Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University.
“Arizona’s Mind-Body Problem: Mental Health Systems and Choices” is the latest issue in the Institute’s Forum 411 policy briefing series.
The eight-page report looks at why mental health care has been relegated to second-class status, resulting in markedly fewer benefits for Arizonans with private insurance and a public system that has long has been criticized as underfunded, understaffed, and highly uneven in its quality of care.
How severe is the gridlock? Arizona’s system, which spends more than $1 billion annually, has been embroiled in a major class-action lawsuit for 28 years.
National studies have repeatedly shown that mental disorders, from phobias and panic attacks to schizophrenia, are widespread throughout the population, inflict suffering on millions of individuals and their families, and cost society billions in lost production.
Most people still shrink from the stigma of acknowledging mental problems, and most health care providers still labor under the false premise — refuted by the U.S. Surgeon General and other authorities — that problems of the mind should be dealt with separately from problems of the body.
Arizona’s Mind-Body Problem offers a range of policy choices, ranging from combating the stigma of mental illness to merging the public system with Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (Arizona’s version of Medicaid).
This Forum 411 on mental health is scheduled to be presented on June 17 to the Arizona Senate Committee on Healthcare and Medical Liability Reform.
Sponsored by Westcor, Forum 411 is a quarterly briefing series offering policy, business, and community leaders information on Arizona’s critical issues.
Morrison Institute is an independent and non-partisan public policy research organization based at Arizona State University as part of the College of Public Programs. The Institute is located in downtown Phoenix.
The power of the sun is never more apparent than during these scorching summer months of June, July and August in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Whether dashing from our home to our car, or from our car to the grocery store (and lingering in the freezer aisle), for those brave souls who wave goodbye to the snowbirds and tough out this skin-blistering time, there is no reason to doubt the ancients’ quivering reverence to the sun god.
The sun’s power is bursting with the potential to transform our society and improve the quality of our lives. And this is exactly what we’re doing at ASU with an initiative called “Lightworks.” By harnessing the power of the sun, Lightworks is developing a biofuel compatible with diesel and jet fuel production, creating sustainable-friendly plastics, researching ways to mimic antibodies for better and less expensive cures and working on a range of other innovative projects including studying the process of photosynthesis as a way of generating energy for our planet.
For more information regarding these exciting projects contact:
R.F. “Rick” Shangraw, Jr.
Vice President for Research and Economic Affairs
480-968-4087
Rick.Shangraw@asu.edu
It is commonplace to describe the nation as being divided in two, a nation of haves and have-nots, black and white, red states and blue states. But what if a more accurate description was a society in thirds: a lower, middle, and upper class, with education as the defining influence.
At UI, we were presented with this vision and have constructed a picture of what the state of Arizona looks like when split in thirds. The results are significant. Nearly 50% of all non U.S. citizens in the state are in the lower income third. Children in the upper income third are twice as likely to be in a married couple, family household than children in the lower income group, where single mother households outnumber married couple, family households. The Arizona Hispanic population, which makes up nearly a third of all residents, account for less than 10% of all Bachelor’s degrees or higher attained.
Education is a proven ticket to economic and social mobility. But inequalities in the system can prevent those in most need of increased education from getting the same chance.
ASU Professor Ariel Rodríguez knew students in his Program Planning course would love the chance to enjoy a 2.77-acre classroom with sunshine, waterfalls and artwork.
But he threw them a curveball in the form of a challenge at the Downtown Civic Space Park: Create events that inspire the people of Phoenix to join you here.
The course recently taught 20 students how to create, organize and oversee several community events that brought hundreds of residents and visitors to the park.
Students in the School of Community Resources & Development partnered with the City of Phoenix and ASU’s Parks and Recreation Student Association to offer the free activities. This included a big-screen outdoor showing of the movie “The Dark Knight,” complete with complimentary popcorn and refreshments, which drew a crowd of more than 200 people.
“We had an opportunity to see, literally 200 yards away from our College, how the theories we were learning in class could be put into practice immediately in the park,” says Samuel Richard, a senior in the College of Public Programs.
Rodríguez says, “The park is an ideal place to develop programs that can simultaneously impact people living at the Westward Ho, ASU students at Taylor Place, people coming from Tempe on the light rail…and other residents in the community.”
In the course, students learn the need to focus on planning event details such as equipment rental, security, weather contingency plans, waste disposal, marketing and venue seating.
“They even had to work out small details like making sure the grass in the park wasn’t watered shortly before the movie, or it would be wet where people were sitting,” says Rodríguez.
Students have also offered a gardening seminar for clients of an adult care facility operated by the Foundation for Senior Living in Phoenix. They arranged transportation to the park and taught the seniors to plant flowers which they were able to take home. Another event brought several seniors from the nearby Westward Ho to play board games.
For more information about the School of Community Resources and Development, visit http://scrd.asu.edu.
Corey Schubert
Manager of Media Communications
ASU College of Public Programs
602.496.0406 office
