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Posted Sep 18, 2011, 7:03 AM
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Skyriser
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Newark, California
Posts: 7,199
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YES! YES! YES!
Effort to split ASU may be revived
Some local leaders working to stop plan
by Art Thomason - Sept. 18, 2011 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
Quote:
Four months before the next legislative session begins, government and business leaders in the West Valley and southeast Valley are working behind the scenes to head off another attempt to strip Arizona State University of its Mesa and Glendale campuses and turn them into stand-alone universities.
The idea, pitched by several legislators including Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Andy Biggs, would splinter one of the nation's largest universities and has prompted moves by influential groups and officials of the Arizona Board of Regents - the public universities' governing body - to discourage it.
The bid went nowhere last session, but at least two lawmakers say they plan to bring it back.
"I think there is probably a pretty good chance of that, but until you get into it you really don't know," said Sen. Rick Murphy, R-Glendale.
Murphy said Biggs has taken the lead in exploring ideas to turn ASU into three separate schools and that the lawmakers would gauge support for the concept among their colleagues before determining this fall whether to propose it in the form of a bill.
Biggs did not respond to telephone and e-mail requests for an interview.
"There is no bill yet, no legislation yet," Murphy said. "It's kind of in the idea or brainstorming stage."
However, he said the state needs satellite universities with more undergraduate options so most students don't have to drive to the Tempe campus "for practically everything."
"Maybe this budget crunch will force us to look for a better way for them to get a degree, but not require all the resources of a research university," he said.
"I'll get plenty of input," Murphy said. "I look forward to having these discussions, whether it's in opposition, neutral or favor. Most of the time those conversations tend to make a bill better."
But the idea of separating the university has many other Valley leaders worried. It comes at a time when the university is in the midst of constructing new academic villages on its Poly and West campuses and enhancing its international reputation as a research institution.
"We are concerned about where this seems to be going," said Michelle Rider, president and executive director of Westmarc, a coalition of the 15 communities in western Maricopa County. "This one seems to have stronger legs than other proposals in the past couple years."
The East Valley Partnership, a regional coalition of community, business, education and government leaders, is also concerned.
"There have been so many advances that have taken place at Polytechnic campus that to do anything that would change its brand, its image, its research or activities that (vice-provost and dean) Mitzi Montoya and her team are doing would be a setback for a great university," said Roc Arnett, the partnership's president.
"We are on the cusp of a large number of developments that will no doubt happen and is being carried by the momentum from what is going on at Polytechnic," he said. "That includes the university's connection with the Air Force Research Lab, possible development of unmanned aircraft systems and research to convert algae into biofuel and other constructive uses."
Arizona State University President Michael Crow alerted Mesa Mayor Scott Smith to the separation concept in a July 9 e-mail and asked for the city's support to keep ASU/Poly in Mesa.
He recounted a long list of university improvements, including $60 million in new construction of an academic village, expanded research partnerships, plans for more than 100 acres of commercial high-tech and retail development, expansion plans for academic programs, a collaborative statewide defense and aerospace lab, possible expansion of aviation training and research and a push to attract a fully international-scale student body.
"But having said that I hear from leaders that the effort to pull the Poly campus away from ASU is gaining steam," Crow said.
In an interview with The Republic, Crow said he is "perplexed" by any university-restructuring concept in view of the efficiencies and cost savings that have been achieved at ASU over the last nine years.
The university reduced three administrations into one while producing some of the nation's top degree programs and assembling some of the best scholars to teach them, he said.
Despite widespread budget cuts, ASU's academic star has been rising amid international recognition for research.
Even so, Murphy and state Sen. Linda Gray, R-Phoenix, said that some lawmakers are interested in exploring a plan drafted by an ASU student as part of his master's degree thesis to restructure the Arizona University System.
Sanjeev Ramchandra, who also is a part-time mathematics teacher at Mesa Community College, proposes the merger of ASU West and Polytechnic campuses into an independent, "medium-cost" and "moderate research" state university housed at the Polytechnic campus.
"This then frees up the West campus to transform itself into an independent, low-cost and non-research state university that offers its own complete set of workforce-oriented, academic degree programs on-site," he said.
The Tempe campus would remain a "high-cost, heavy-research" university, and the downtown Phoenix campus would continue as an extension of the Tempe campus, according to Ramchandra's plan.
He has been touting the concept for two years and said it offers "greater accessibility and affordability to a university education for many more Arizona residents."
Board of Regents member Mark Killian of Mesa, a former state lawmaker and speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, said he met with Biggs recently to discourage separating the university.
"From a parochial standpoint you can say that we need our own university in a given community," he said. "But we can't afford to be parochial right now."
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, and Phoenix College should become a highly selective 4-year liberal arts college; it has that nice historic campus atmosphere.
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