A Case in Point: Arizona State University. (March 18, 2009)

Toward the end of April in 2007 Nature published an extensive article on "US higher education: The Arizona experiment" in which it described Arizona State University's (ASU) president, Michael Crow's desire "to shake up the hierarchy of American universities".

Professor Crow took over the presidency of ASU in 2002 having served as Executive Vice Provost at New York's Columbia University since 1998. He was also professor of science and technology policy in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia.

Colin Macilwain in his Nature article writes: "since he left Columbia University in New York to take the reins in Arizona, Crow has had one goal in mind. Put simply, he wants to leave behind the Harvard template, and build a new American university for the twenty-first century. The key to Crow's vision is to break away from the department-based model of most universities, and instead build up excellence at problem-focused, interdisciplinary research centres. US research universities, Crow argues, 'are at a fork in the road: do you replicate what exists, or do you design what you actually need?' By his reckoning, centres that teach students to communicate with the public and to tackle real problems, such as water supply, are more relevant to today's needs than, say, a chemistry department... Crow's role has been to publicly raise the flag of bold reform, get politicians and philanthropists on board, sign up some star academics and build interdisciplinary centres to house them."

Mr Macilwain then reports on the naysayers viewpoint:

The programme still has its detractors. Academics who don't agree with the new interdisciplinary paradigm say that they have been trampled underfoot. Take Robert Pettit — a chemist and long-time director of the Cancer Research Institute at ASU until he lost the position in 2005. Pettit had clashed with Crow over various issues, including the relationship between his lab and new, interdisciplinary centres at the university. Still a tenured professor at ASU, Pettit says that the arrival of the new institutes "has been very destructive to faculty and student morale and has placed ASU in serious financial jeopardy".

Richard Zare, head of chemistry at Stanford University and another former chair of the National Science Board is an authority on US research universities. But he thinks that ASU's emphasis on the interdisciplinary may come unstuck. "It will learn, as others have in the past, that you can't have strong interdisciplinary programmes without strong departments," Zare says.

But to Crow, the hierarchy among established US university departments is too rigid. "If you are the 25th-best geology department, you are trapped!" he says. "Your chances of getting to be fifth-best are zero." The interdisciplinary approach, he says, offers more promise.

Why bring all this up nearly two years later?

Earlier this week The New York Times' Tamar Lewin had a close look at ASU and what effect "The Great Recession" has had on Professor Crow's vision.

When Michael Crow became president of Arizona State University seven years ago, he promised to make it "The New American University," with 100,000 students by 2020. It would break down the musty old boundaries between disciplines, encourage advanced research and entrepreneurship to drive the new economy, and draw in students from underserved sectors of the state.

In fact ASU now has a student body of 67,000, of whom 80% are undergraduates, and an endowment of just under half-a-billion US dollars. But within the past couple of months  more than 500 jobs have been cut. They include deans, department chairmen and hundreds of teaching assistants. And the university is preparing to close 48 programs and cap enrollment.

In addition all employees, including the president, will be subject to 10 to 15 days of unpaid leave this North American spring.

The student newspaper's take following the announcement of the cuts?

The New American University has died; welcome to the Neutered American University.

Ms Lewin reports: "While Arizona State’s economic problems have been particularly dramatic, layoffs and salary freezes are becoming common at public universities across the nation."

And Jane Wellman, executive director of the Delta Project on Postsecondary Costs, Productivity and Accountability, an organization that studies spending by colleges and universities told him: "What’s happening, everywhere, is what’s happening to Michael Crow. The trend line is states disinvesting in higher education."

It's not universally so. Despite the fact the the state of Michigan is in the US "rust belt" one of the US' leading research universities, the University of Michigan has its budget virtually intact for the coming year.

And Ms Lewin writes: "Public universities everywhere are bracing for deep cuts in next year’s budgets, but the federal stimulus package, providing billions for education and billions more for research, should ease the problem somewhat."

Others are more sanguine and believe that the best of US public research universities may, if not prosper, at least do quite well, and Professor Crow said he will be "sticking to his priorities, protecting his new programs and his tenured and tenure-track faculty members. Furthermore, he told Ms Lewin he is hoping to expand research, with, for example, renewable-energy money from the stimulus package.

But Mark G. Yudof, president of the ten campuses of the University of California sounded a strong note of gloom: "Research universities are very expensive, and you can’t have one in every county and every state. Your first obligation as a public university is to treat the undergraduates right. That’s going to need a national attitude adjustment from leadership and boards of regents. We’re trying as hard as we can to preserve the instructional program, but with the economy shrinking, and less money allocated to public universities, can I guarantee that the class that would have been 40 won’t be 45? I can’t."

Meanwhile ASU president Crow is doing the equivalent of Australia's  push to increase foreign student revenue. While his plans for expanding the university have slowed, he is trying to increase the enrollment of out-of-state students — who pay triple tuition — to as high as 40% next year.

Tamar Lewin concludes: "Many blame the [Arizona] Legislature for short-sightedness in failing to support the university when it plays such a key role in the state’s economy and residents’ upward mobility.
    "'It really takes a lot of wind out of the sails of this university,' said Kyle Whitman, a senior and an economics major who works part-time in Mr. Crow’s office. 'It’s been on such a strong trajectory.' "