From his office overlooking
Arizona State University’s campus,
Dr. Michael Crow, ASU’s president,
is usually busy handling some
of the major business of Arizona’s
largest university.
“It’s everything from academic
matters, to real-estate matters, to
financial matters, to political. It’s all
that stuff,” he says. “Lots of meetings.
Lots of discussions.”
Six years ago, Dr. Crow came
to become president of ASU from
Columbia University, where he
served as that prestigious college’s
executive vice provost. He says the
decision to come to Arizona was an
easy one.
“Arizona really is a place where
ideas will be measured on their
merit, and if they’re good, people will
get behind them,” he says. “For me
it was the most exciting place in the
whole country, where you can make
new ideas happen.”
The sheer size of ASU, and the
many ambitions Dr. Crow has for
improving all aspects of the student
experience, make him a very busy
man. The Open Door Policy crew
waited two months to squeeze 20
minutes out of Crow’s tight schedule.
Dr. Crow’s hard work appears to
be paying off. Since taking his post in
2002, ASU has experienced substantial
campus growth, higher enrollment
rates and many new academic
programs, all of them among Crow’s
overall vision for the college’s future.
“I think our goal is very specific,”
he says. “We are going to be
the greatest public university ever
built.”
By Shanna Hogan
1. Art on display from ASU’s collection. 2. Piles of categorized paperwork.
One pile is magazines Crow intends to
read, while another consists of books
he plans to send to others. The third
pile is of books and magazines he has
yet to decide what to do with. 3. Crow has at least four clocks in his
office. “I have a lot of clocks around
because sometimes it’s kind of like a
psychologist’s office – you constantly
have to know how much time is left
with this ‘patient.’” 4. Awards and memorabilia. “Some
of that stuff is from visitors that come
from China or other places. I never
know what to do with that stuff, and
someone said I probably shouldn’t
throw it away.” 5. Photos of Crow’s wife and three
children. 6. Antique pin from the 1958 proposition
vote that made ASU a public
university. “It helps inspire me that this
is a people’s university, voted in by the
people. It’s probably the only one in the
country.” 7. Letterhead. “Most notes I send out
are handwritten. So these are different
piles of paper I have, depending on the
size of the note.”
8. Military coins given to Crow
by officers with whom he’s met.
“They say if I take this coin into
the officers’ club or somewhere I
can get a free drink or something.
I don’t even drink.” 9. Indian blanket given to Crow
when the Fulton Center was dedicated
in a traditional Navajo ceremony
in 2005.
10. Running shoes. Crow likes
to mountain bike and hike, even
during the hot summer months.
Recently he started working out
with the “jocks” in the athletic
department gym. “They just got
me a locker over there so I’m not
going to be so fat, hopefully, in the
future.” 11. Crystal lion given to Crow
when he left Columbia University,
the college where he worked for
11 years before coming to ASU. 12. Hundreds of books line
Crow’s office bookshelves. “I
haven’t read all of them. I’ve
looked over all of them. I have
more books than this. I probably
have 10 times as many books at
home.”
