Michael Crow

President of Arizona State University

“If your aspirations are small, your outcomes will be even smaller. No one ever attains all of their aspirations; our aspirations are immense. I am hopeful that we will attain 70% of our aspirations. If we do, we will be wildly successful.”

Summary

In this episode of Leadership Matters, Alan and his guest Dr. Michael Crow discuss how to create social transformation on a large scale through rethinking the university system. Changing the university culture, in Crow’s experience, gives access to education and opportunities that benefit people of all backgrounds.  

Dr. Crow opens up about how much of his drive to help people can be attributed to his unique upbringing, living in diverse communities, and gaining an education despite challenging circumstances. He shares his efforts, as President of Arizona State University, to transform the way universities measure success, value access, and seek to create impact rather than focus on selectivity and reputation.

Mentions & Resources in this Episode

• “Time to rethink the NIH,” Michael M. Crow

• Designing the New American University

• The Fifth Wave: The Evolution of American Higher Education

Guest Bio

Dr. Michael M. Crow is an educator, knowledge enterprise architect, science and technology policy scholar and higher education leader. He became the sixteenth president of Arizona State University in July 2002 and has spearheaded ASU’s rapid and groundbreaking transformative evolution into one of the world’s best public metropolitan research universities.

As a model “New American University,” ASU simultaneously demonstrates comprehensive excellence, inclusivity representative of the ethnic and socioeconomic diversity of the United States, and consequential societal impact. Lauded as the ”#1 most innovative” school in the nation by U.S. News & World Report for six straight years, ASU is a student-centric, technology-enabled university focused on global challenges.

Under Crow’s leadership, ASU has established twenty-five new transdisciplinary schools, including the School of Earth and Space Exploration, the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and the School of Human Evolution and Social Change, and launched trailblazing multidisciplinary initiatives including the Biodesign Institute, the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, and important initiatives in the humanities and social sciences.

Follow Michael Crow on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Linkedin.

Clips from this Episode

• “You can't solve "the whole problem" [with universities]! you need to show that the problem is solvable, innovatively.”

• "We [university founders & administrators] made this mistake that, somehow, only some colleges would be research."

• On universities granting social status upon admission: "we've created a false sense of scarcity!"

• On the need for universities to come together, pool their assets & achieve "community-scale success"

• “Academics are to blame for many educational & societal problems.”