In a speech Friday, the normally all-business ASU President Michael Crow used some uncharacteristically colorful language. He coined a new term in describing his vision for ASU: a "major metropolitan research multi-versity."
MULTI-versity? What does that mean, after all? Should we start telling people we attend ASM, instead of ASU? Will the street on the north side of campus be renamed "Multiversity Drive"?
Hmm. Apparently "multiversity" is a word, because it's not tripping the spell-check function of the word processing program being used to type this column.
How about that! According to Dictionary.com, the premier information source for online Scrabble players, "multiversity" is defined as "a university that has numerous constituent and affiliated institutions, such as separate colleges, campuses and research centers."
It seems obvious, then, that Michael Crow has used his numerous CIA connections to infiltrate the Internet (yes, the whole Internet) and insert said definition into the American lexicon.
But we here at The State Press, always eager for a new $10 word, are beginning to think this whole multiversity thing makes some sense. After all, there are plenty of "multiple" things here at ASU.
Multiple students! Yeah, let's start there. There are so many students, in fact, that finding a parking space is nearly impossible, and getting hit by a bicyclist is a near-daily occurrence.
Multiple palm trees! Sure, they don't compare to the palm trees in, say, their natural tropical habitat, but they still provide minimal amounts of shade and plenty of dead palm fronds to trip over.
Multiple thefts! As a recent ASU Police report shows, the numbers of stolen bikes, cars and computers usually multiplies each year.
But why stop there? ASU also has multiple scantily clad girls on Palm Walk and, perhaps not entirely by coincidence, multiple STDs.
Multiple ASU administrators and, wouldn't you know it, multiple tuition increases.
Multiple bars near campus and, as if on cue, multiple minor-in-possession arrests.
Even with all these examples, there are still plenty of things ASU could do to promote Crow's vision of a multiversity.
For example, shouldn't there really be two Nipples of Knowledge? With only one Nipple, isn't ASU a physiologically abnormal campus?
And of course, we have multiple ASU campuses already, but why not have some more? We should hit all corners of the compass rose: ASU Southeast, ASU North-by-Northwest ... you get the idea.
Obviously, there are many multiple sides to the nonexistent multiversity debate. So many, in fact, that we can't even comprehend them all. So write to us at state.press@asu.edu, and fill us in.
In fact, write multiple times.
