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Bhajaria: Crow's vision needs student focus

bhajaria-nishant-mug
Nishant Bhajaria
COLUMNIST

"The New American University is ASU's vision for a university that is responsible for the economic, social, and cultural vitality of our region."

ASU President Michael Crow's vision of ASU's role as an institution is not exactly an exercise in humility. The New American University Web site describes laudable aims like providing quality education and generating economic growth with a focus on the individual.

As returning students know, and new ones will soon find out, Crow can make a used-car salesman look like the 40-year-old virgin. Crow and his team are very talented when it comes to describing mammoth objectives. What is less than glowing is their record when it comes to taking steps that make life easier and more rewarding for individual students at ASU.

Phrases like "social embeddedness" and "global engagement" tend to ring hollow when the ASU experience comes across as an empty box with a fancy wrapper. The question Crow needs to answer is: Has he taken any steps to make ASU more responsive to students' needs?

My recent experience suggests otherwise.

Over the summer, the Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering levied an additional fee of $400 on graduate students. The fee is supposed to pay for the specialized engineering curriculum that will lead us to Crow's goals. Unfortunately, neither Crow's office nor the school of engineering had the courtesy to put this announcement on their Web site.

ASU engineering students deserve to know if the extra $400 will be used to purchase new technology or mitigate an increase in the costs of technology that is already on offer. No such details have been forthcoming, either. Has the school of engineering passed on the entire cost increase to its students. Or is the amount arrived at after some assistance from the school?

Unfortunately, neither Crow nor engineering Dean Peter Crouch feel it's important to ensure students have all the information that they need. These gentlemen seem to just want students to get in line and pony up the money without asking any questions.

As returning students may also remember with horror, Crow once let a car dealer use a portion of Lot 59 - leaving students to fend for themselves. Crow never apologized or even responded to criticism.

Unless Crow changes his approach, students will believe his dreams have nothing to do with helping ASU students. His pursuit for the "New American University" will be perceived as an exercise to build his own reputation and advance his own name.

I doubt if Crow understands what it feels like to stand in line to get a parking decal. And being in a class of more than 80 students, while the professor rambles away, does not qualify as a learning experience either. These are the matters Crow needs to address before he tries to bring about "societal transformation."

Crow's efforts are likely to play well at conferences with well-heeled donors. Students, however, have more modest goals. A majority of them come to ASU to learn from someone qualified to teach. The "New American University" Web site has no details on how Crow plans to ensure these needs will be met.

And what about the famed ASU bureaucracy that could make the Soviet Union look like a well-oiled machine? Students are tired of shuffling from one office to another where all they hear is that someone else in some other office has the answers.

Crow's efforts are not all without merit. To be fair, he is a prolific fund-raiser and has succeeded in gaining name recognition for ASU. What he forgets is that the ultimate arbiter will be student enrollment. But if students feel ASU is changing in ways that do not benefit them here and now, community colleges will happily offer their services.

Nishant Bhajaria is computer science graduate student. Reach him at nishant.bhajaria@asu.edu.


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