To see a slideshow of Lattie Coor's years in office, click here.
Lattie Coor didn't want the job.
For 13 years, he had been the president of the University of Vermont, a "public Ivy," and wasn't interested in moving his family to his native state of Arizona.
"I had not planned to be a university president again," Coor said.
When the regent from Arizona kept calling, Coor kept saying no to the possibility of becoming ASU's next president.
Then, Coor's youngest daughter suggested a new life in Arizona could be good for the single father with three children, and Coor changed his mind.
When he took over the presidency in January 1990, few thought ASU could make the climb to a "world-class" university. Few thought ASU could stop playing second fiddle to the University of Arizona and shed its party school reputation. However, Coor saw potential in the young university embedded in a growing metropolitan area.
"The more I learned about ASU, the more I became excited at the opportunity," he said. "ASU was much stronger in 1990 than many people realized."
Now, as the 65-year-old Coor prepares to retire June 30 and turn over the reigns to Columbia University executive vice provost Michael Crow, 46, many are singing his praise.
"Lattie Coor was absolutely the right president at the right time," said provost Milton Glick, who has been at ASU since 1991.
People are increasingly looking at ASU as a place where major things can be accomplished, said Barbara Barrett, a three-time ASU graduate who along with her husband, Intel CEO Craig Barrett, donated $10 million to endow the Honors College. "Lattie Coor, without doubt, has elevated and catapulted ASU to a whole new level of reputation, performance and aspirations," she said.
Still there have been problems, and Crow's administration will face a number of challenges.
The athletic program has been marred by a major scandal and budget problems, faculty and staff salaries aren't competitive with peer institutions, and the task of convincing state officials of the importance of funding higher education will always be difficult.
Yet, for the most part, ASU's record over the past 12 years reeks of success. Since Coor took office:
- Minority enrollment has nearly doubled.
- Research awards have increased nearly 150 percent in 12 years and are on a track to double in just five.
- National Merit Scholars are entering ASU at record levels.
- In 1994, ASU became one of only eight public universities without a medical or agricultural school to achieve Research I status.
- The Campaign for Leadership, the largest university fundraising effort in state history, garnered over $560 million in contributions for the university.
- Enrollment in the Honors College has quadrupled.
Coor, who grew up in Avondale and graduated from Northern Arizona University, said ASU's greatest successes are still to come.
"In many ways, I view the last decade as a preamble to the next couple of decades where, without questions, ASU can be one of the preeminent public universities in America," said Coor, who characterizes himself as an optimist.
Coor, with his quiet, diplomatic demeanor, remains humble and likens himself to an orchestra conductor. "The baton I hold in my hand makes not a sound by itself," he said. "This has been a team effort."
The team effort started in March 1990 when Coor laid out the "Four Pillars" in his inaugural address. He said undergraduate education, graduate education and research, cultural diversity and economic development all had to be improved if ASU was to become what he called a "world-class" institution.
"Our license to practice"
Much of ASU's success is because of efforts made in undergraduate education. A strong focus on improving undergraduate education has brought in better professors, and according to Glick, changed the profile of ASU students.
"We made a decision to increase the size, quality and diversity of the freshman class," Glick said.
ASU has created an environment that attracts top-quality students. In 1999, 132 National Merit Scholars entered the university—the 12th highest among both public and private universities. Every year since, ASU has garnered at least 100 and is currently ranked sixth among public universities in enrollment of the scholars. Before 1999, no more than 52 ever enrolled at ASU in one year. There were just 11 during Coor's first year on the job.
ASU students also regularly receive prestigious Rhodes, Truman, and Marshall Scholarships.
"We can function effectively shoulder to shoulder with other universities anywhere in the world," Coor said.
He said the decision to focus on improving undergraduate education was an important one. "That is our license to practice," he added. "If we can't be a premiere undergraduate educational institution, we can't function as a major university."
He credits a lot of the undergraduate success to the Barrett Honors College, an institute created by Coor's predecessor, J. Russell Nelson.
"The Barrett Honors College has established itself as one of the more successful honors colleges in the nation," Coor said. "Students who enter (the Honors College) know that they are with other students of very substantial talent that are as competitive as students at university in the country."
Business leaders are impressed with the Honors College, too. As a part of Coor's Campaign for Leadership, Craig and Barbara Barrett made a $10 million gift to the College and the renamed Barrett Honors College was born.
"We were taken by the cause and the benefit of an institution like an Honors College to a community," Barbara Barrett said.
ASU students are also graduating at a higher rate than before. Forty-nine percent of the class entering in 1990 graduated within six years. According to ASU's Office of Institutional Analysis, that number should increase to 51 percent for the class that entered in 1996.
The one-year persistence rate for full-time freshman has risen from 69 percent in 1995 to more than 76 percent in 2000. ASU had the highest five-year retention rate change among any of its peer institutions and Pac-10 and Big-10 schools.
Though undergraduate education may be ASU's license to practice, graduate students still make up a quarter of the student population. The university's efforts to improve graduate education haven't been nearly as successful as with undergraduate education.
"That's in many ways been the hardest for us to do because having competitive stipends for graduate students is a very expensive proposition," Coor said.
He said the university targeted areas of graduate study to be competitive on a national and international level. ASU's graduate-level education and business programs frequently rank among the top universities in the U.S. News and World Report annual rankings.
But some problems still persist.
In a time when many students are looking to attend universities with small student to faculty ratios, ASU's has increased from 26.3 in 1990 to over 30 in 2000.
Despite making efforts to improve faculty and staff salaries, ASU struggles to keep salaries competitive. ASU reallocated $17 million from other areas to salaries, but the efforts haven't been enough.
"Our progress has been quite modest," said Glick. "That's a major, major problem."
The average salary for a professor on the Tempe campus was $85,000 annually in 2000, up from just $65,900 in 1995, but that's still an average $8,700 below the 50th percentile of peer schools.
Emphasizing research
When the Carnegie Foundation recognized ASU as a Research I institution in 1994, it put the university in a whole new ball game.
"It put us on the national screen," Glick said.
Jonathan Fink, vice provost for research, said Coor made it clear research was a priority and delivered his message in a way the campus could understand.
"That was very encouraging to the faculty we have who are involved with research," Fink said.
Coor said the university's climb to Research I status was achieved after focusing on research goals and intensifying research efforts that were already under way. Since research awards are funded by grants from sources such as the federal government, foundations and corporations, officials sought to make ASU more competitive to secure the funds.
"You can't succeed if you can't compete," Coor said, "and so we simply invested and focused in ways that allowed us to compete on a systematic basis."
ASU expanded efforts in earth and planetary science, astrobiology and has recently been doing work in nanotechnology. The university was critical to the success of the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long Term Ecological Research project, which includes biological, social and physical scientists from the university.
The Arizona Biomedical Institute will soon call a state-of-the-art facility on the Tempe campus home.
Just last April, the Mars 2001 Odyssey launched with ASU's thermal emission imaging system on board.
"There's not been a project on Mars in the last decade that hasn't had a major ASU instrument," Coor said.
Fink said ASU's rise as a research university has meant attracting better faculty, which means attracting better students.
"When Lattie came in, we had some good faculty," Fink said, "but by emphasizing the importance of research, the message got that this was a place where that was important. We have been able to assemble some really top faculty here. They really have improved the level of teaching we have here as well."
Coor said research is important to many areas of the university.
"(Research) is the nature of this kind of institution," he added. "Research that not only is cutting edge and competitive and substantial, but also influences the quality of undergraduate education."
Two years ago, the Carnegie Foundation abandoned the Research I and Research II designations and now uses a different model to classify universities. Both ASU and the University of Arizona are members of Carnegie's highest category, Extensive Doctoral/Research Universities.
When the Foundation uses yet another new model in 2005, Fink said it is still unclear if ASU will be in the top tier.
Creating a knowledge-based economy
Now, more than ever, Valley businesses are taking notice of ASU. The university has partnerships with corporations such as Intel, Motorola and Ford, further integrating the university into the foundation of Phoenix's economy.
Avnet, a Phoenix-based Fortune 500 company, which now has offices in ASU's research park in south Tempe, is just one company that has growing ties with the university, Fink said.
"They are very excited about working with us on developing new initiatives in research," he said.
Coor's charisma and personal charm—and what Barbara Barrett calls the "Coor mystique"—has also been good for business relations.
"Through sheer force of personality in many cases, (Coor) introduced people to an institution they should have known a lot more about because it's right here," she said.
Since a knowledge-based economy is the key to the present and the future, ASU is establishing itself as a knowledge producer.
"We sought to ally with those in this community that realize that the more we could create high-quality research, connect that into the technology transfer process and produce high-quality graduates, we would strengthen the economy of this metropolitan area," Coor said.
Establishing economic partnerships with corporations was "an easy sell" because they recognize the value of a quality research institution and its importance to the local economy, he added.
"Those in the industry know it better than public officials," Coor said. "They want the brightest students, they want quality research, they want the students engaged in ways that when they come into the workforce they're the fountain of ideas that will create the next generation of the products and activities successful companies have."
Frustrations with the Legislature
While making the sell to Valley corporations was easy, the Arizona Legislature hasn't been buying.
"We know that there is no greater investment a society makes than in educating its citizenry and investing in the kind of economic development activity that we've talked about," Coor said. "That's been very hard to have understood with our elected officials."
Coor said there are two significant obstacles to sustained education funding. One is lawmakers' limited understanding of the significance of investment into education. The other is that, even in good economic years, the Legislature's cutting of taxes and restraining revenue while the state was growing so quickly has made less revenue available to schools.
He's frustrated and disappointed he hasn't succeeded convincing lawmakers to understand "the importance and value of what we are. I don't feel we have done nearly as well at that as I would have liked.
Valley leaders see Coor's frustration.
"It's not that all of the legislators don't get it," said Barbara Barrett, who ran for governor in 1990. "Many of the legislators do get it.
"The Legislature is such a battle, and there seems to still be some who feel compelled to bash education. Sometimes it's difficult to understand."
Campaigning for leadership
Coor said that while the state should provide the basics to public universities, ASU needed to find alternative sources of income to reach lofty goals.
However, the "margin of excellence," as Coor call's it – recruiting top faculty and providing the right resources – increasingly needs to come from the private sector.
ASU's Campaign for Leadership is the most successful university fundraising effort in state history. Many thought the campaign's ultimate goal was too high at $300 million, but when all was said and done, the campaign put $560 million into ASU's coffers.
"It was doubted by conventional wisdom that he wouldn't have been able to make the $300 million goal," said Barrett. She said conventional wisdom wasn't correct because a capable leader, a focused vision and a worthy institution were involved. "Once Lattie and his lieutenants started to articulate the vision and the importance, it was so correct that it was indisputable, and people signed on to the plain reality that it was the right thing to do," Barrett added.
Reputed as a solid fundraiser at Vermont, Coor said nearly 80 percent of the $560 million came from the metropolitan Phoenix area, a feat in itself.
"It's a testimony in the belief in this university and the recognition in this community of the importance of the university to our collective futures," he said.
Coor said the success of the Campaign for Leadership has allowed ASU to heavily increase endowed faculty positions. When Coor took office, there were just six endowed faculty positions. Today, there are more than 80.
An Obligation for Diversity
Coor said one of ASU's most significant achievements over the past 12 years has been establishing a more diverse university. In 1990, about 11 percent of ASU students were minorities. Today, that number is more than 20 percent, a number that was, according to Coor, achieved only because of the entire university's efforts.
"We made a commitment to say this is something very important we're going to do and we won't alter our standards to do it," Coor said. Coor made the effort to recruit more actively than in the past and measure the university's success on the issue.
"It's just like the commitment to quality research and quality students. It's the same kind of steady, sustained, long-term commitment," he said, adding that ASU can now serve as a beacon to underserved communities and send the message that ASU is for them, too.
"This is the real world and you cannot educate people for the real world and the 21st century unless you are educating them in a diverse environment," said Glick. "Since students learn from other students, having students of different backgrounds, different interests and different cultural groups helps them be educated."
Coor said, "We are about to become one of the first states in America that has no majority" ASU's Southwestern location, he added, creates a special opportunity and an obligation to ensure than diversity is represented in the student body and faculty.
Declining athletics and a scandal
While ASU was gaining academic notoriety, Sun Devil athletics struggled.
Other than a 1997 Rose Bowl appearance and Sweet 16 appearance in the NCAA basketball tournament, there have been few football and men's basketball highlights during Coor's years.
During the 1993-94 season, two ASU basketball stars took money to keep the team from making the point spread in an embarrassing showcase for the university that was laid out on the pages of Sports Illustrated and made into a cable-television movie.
"The pain of point shaving in men's basketball is with us every day," Coor said. Despite problems in the past, he thinks current Coach Rob Evans has the program on the right path.
"We see a level of integrity and commitment to putting that all behind us and building a program for the future where students are successful academically and athletically," he said.
Coor said graduating athletes at a higher rate than the rest of university is a goal for the program, but so far, the goal hasn't been reached.
Only 44 percent of ASU's student athletes are graduating on time. At 43 percent, Oregon State is the only Pac-10 school with a worse rate.
If the rate doesn't rise, the future of ASU athletics could be in jeopardy.
Last year, the Knight Foundation Commission of Intercollegiate Athletics, a national group of current and former university presidents, suggested that if universities don't graduate half of their players, the schools should be suspended from postseason play.
"We are not where we want to be in athletics," Glick said. "We don't get enough people to the games and we have some budget problems."
Budget problems have long been a problem for ASU athletics. When football coach Bruce Snyder was replaced with Boise State coach Dirk Koetter, athletic director Gene Smith was angling to put together a money-making product.
But with a losing football record, the athletic department turned in yet another loss in 2001.
Coor attributes some of those problems to high competition. In addition to an already existing professional basketball franchise, three new major sports—professional football, hockey and baseball—have the Valley home since 1988.
The road ahead
Barrett credits Crow's appointment to Coor's success. "I don't think the ASU of a decade ago would have been able to attract someone with the credentials and capability that Crow brings," she said.
Coor, who will still teach public affairs at ASU, said he's also pleased with Crow's appointment.
"He understands that transitional role and the foundation we have built and he is deeply committed to taking that trajectory onto the next level," he said.
Coor said Crow will face many challenges, including working in a more competitive university environment for top faculty.
He's also excited about what's ahead for ASU.
"I think it will grow in quality and strength and reputation over the next decade at an even greater rate than it has in the past decade," Coor said, adding that ASU may serve as a model for the 21st century of a major university in large metropolitan area.
As Coor will become number 15 on the list of former ASU presidents, many are searching for his legacy, but he already knows what he wants it to be.
"That I believed in this university and this community and this state as a place that could compete with the very best, and at the same time could cherish its historic values of openness and optimism and a belief in the future," Coor said.
Barrett said Coor has laid the foundation for great things in ASU's future.
"He has not only done a great deal, but has set the stage for a great deal more positive action to take place," she said.
Reach the reporter at sethiscott@yahoo.com.
