Holding up a bright red tomato, President Michael Crow compared the fruit to the development of innovation in ASU.
Crow stood in front of a crowd of students, teachers and community members on Jan. 13 to discuss innovation and the development of the University to it’s place as the most innovative in the U.S.
“This tomato — you think of it as food … but this tomato is a technology," Crow said. "Humans have altered this, innovated it over and over and over."
To Crow, that constant innovation and change was what helped the University rise to its current position.
But in this discussion, Crow also addressed the criticism that he and past presidents have faced.
Pulling up a chart showing a line linking point A and point B, Crow said he was told to “forget about innovation.” He said he was pressured to raise admission standards, build a medical school as rapidly as possible and essentially replicate what other colleges did before.
Crow said he thought he didn’t want to be just another “latecomer replicant of a school that got built somewhere else.”
He listed off some of the recent strides like NewSpace Initiative, Global Freshman Academy, Starbucks College Achievement Plan and working with Mayo Clinic, attracting a medical program instead of building one from the ground up.
With those programs, Crow said he intends to continue to innovate while opening the school up to a variety of students and lower income families. Crow urged the state to consider providing education with more funding to continue holding these standards.
“So many things are determined by your parents' income," Crow said. "I just view that as such an unfair thing."
Reach the assistant news editor at megan.janetsky@asu.edu or follow @meganjanetsky on Twitter.
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