Arizona State University

Arizona State University (ASU or Arizona State) is a public research university located in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area of the State of Arizona. With an enrollment of 70,440 students in Fall 2010, it is the largest public university in the United States by enrollment.

Founded in 1885 as the Tempe Normal School for the Arizona Territory, the school came under control of the Arizona Board of Regents in 1945 and was renamed Arizona State College. A 1958 statewide ballot measure gave the university its present name.

ASU offers programs in the liberal arts and sciences, engineering, journalism, business, law, nursing, and public policy. The university is broadly organized into 14 divisions and is spread across four campuses: the original Tempe campus, the West campus in northwest Phoenix, the Polytechnic campus in eastern Mesa, and the Downtown Phoenix campus. All four campuses are accredited as a single institution by the Higher Learning Commission.

ASU's athletic teams compete in Division I of the NCAA and are collectively known as the Arizona State Sun Devils. They are members of the Pacific-12 Conference and have won 23 national championships.

1880–1929
Originally named the Tempe Normal School, the institution was founded on March 12, 1885, after John Samuel Armstrong first introduced House Bill 164, "An Act to Establish a Normal school in the Territory of Arizona to the 13th Legislative Assembly of the Arizona Territory. Instruction was instituted on February 8, 1886 under the supervision of Principal Hiram Bradford Farmer. Land for the school was donated by Tempe residents George and Martha Wilson, allowing 33 students to meet in a single room.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the school's name was changed from Tempe Normal School to the Normal School of Arizona. Before becoming a college, the Normal School enrolled high school students with no other secondary education facilities. Under the 30 year tenure of president Arthur John Matthews the school was given all-college student status. The first dormitories built in the state were constructed under his supervision. Of the 18 buildings constructed while Matthews was president, six are still currently in use. Matthews envisioned an "evergreen campus," with many shrubbery brought to the campus. He also implemented the planting of Palm Walk, now one of the feature landmarks of the Tempe campus. His legacy is being continued to this day with the main campus having the honor of being declared a nationally recognized arboretum.

During the Great Depression, Ralph W. Swetman was hired as president for a three-year term. Although enrollment increased by almost 100% during his tenure due to the depression, many faculty were terminated and faculty salaries were cut.

1930–1989
In 1933, Grady Gammage, then president of Arizona State Teachers College at Flagstaff, became president of Arizona State Teachers College at Tempe, a tenure that would last for nearly 28 years. Like his predecessor, Gammage oversaw the construction of a number of buildings on the Tempe campus. Dr. Gammage oversaw the development of the university, graduate programs, and the renaming of the Arizona State College to Arizona State University in 1958.

By the 1960s, with the presidency of Dr. G. Homer Durham, Arizona State University began to expand its academic curriculum by establishing several new colleges and beginning to award Doctor of Philosophy and other doctoral degrees.

The next three presidents—Harry K. Newburn, 1969–71, John W. Schwada, 1971–81, and J. Russell Nelson, 1981–89—and Interim President Richard Peck, 1989, led the university to increased academic stature, creation of the West Campus, and rising enrollment.

1990–present
Under the leadership of Dr. Lattie F. Coor, from 1990 to June 2002, ASU grew to serve the Valley of the Sun through the creation of the Polytechnic campus and extended education sites. His commitment to diversity, quality in undergraduate education, research, and economic development underscored the university's significant gains in each of these areas over his 12-year tenure. Part of Dr. Coor's legacy to the university was a successful fund-raising campaign. Through private donations, primarily from the local community, more than $500 million was invested in targeted areas that significantly impact the future of ASU. Among the campaign's achievements were the naming and endowing of the Barrett Honors College, the Katherine K. Herberger College of Fine Arts, and the Morrison School of Agribusiness and Resource Management at the Polytechnic campus; the creation of many new endowed faculty positions; and hundreds of new scholarships and fellowships. On July 1, 2002, Michael Crow became the university's 16th president. At his inauguration, President Crow outlined his vision for transforming ASU into a "New American University"—one that would be open and inclusive. As the only research university serving the metropolitan Phoenix area (and one of only two in Arizona), Crow stated that ASU is in a unique position to evolve together with the city into one of the great intellectual institutions in the world. Further, Crow initiated the idea of transforming ASU into "One University in Many Places" by merging ASU's several campuses into a single institution, sharing students, faculty, staff and accreditation.

Under Crow's leadership, and aided by hundreds of millions of dollars in donations, ASU embarked on an aggressive years-long research facility capital building effort, resulting in the completion of the Biodesign Institute and several large interdisciplinary research buildings. Along with the research facilities, the university faculty was expanded, including the addition of three Nobel Laureates. In addition, ASU's Downtown Phoenix campus was vastly expanded. Several of the University's colleges and schools were relocated to the downtown campus, and new programs, such as a biomedical collaboration with the University of Arizona were established in downtown Phoenix.

The economic downturn that began in 2008 took a particularly hard toll on Arizona, resulting in large cuts to ASU's budget. In response to these cuts, ASU underwent several rounds of reorganizations, combining academic departments, consolidating colleges and schools, and reducing university staff and administrators.

Campuses and Locations
ASU's academic programs are spread across four campuses in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area; however, unlike most multi-campus institutions, ASU describes itself as "one university in many places," meaning that it is not a university system with separate campuses, and not one main campus with branch campuses. Inter-campus shuttles and light rail allow students and faculty to easily travel between the campuses. In addition to the physical campuses, ASU includes a fifth "virtual campus" for online and extended education.

Tempe campus


ASU's Tempe campus is located in downtown Tempe, Arizona, about eight miles (13 km) east of downtown Phoenix. The campus is considered urban, and is approximately 642 acre in size. The campus is arranged around broad pedestrian malls and is completely encompassed by an arboretum. The Tempe campus is also the largest of ASU's campuses, with 58,371 students enrolled in at least one class on campus.

The Tempe campus is ASU's original campus, and Old Main, the first building constructed, still stands today. There are many notable landmarks on campus, including Grady Gammage Memorial Auditorium, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, Palm Walk, which is lined by 111 palm trees, Charles Trumbull Hayden Library, the University Club Building, and University Bridge. In addition, the campus has an extensive public art collection, considered one of the ten best among university public art collections in America according to Public Art Review. Against the northwest edge of campus is the Mill Avenue district (part of downtown Tempe) which has a college atmosphere that attracts many students to its restaurants and bars. The Tempe campus is also home to all of the university's athletic facilities.

West campus


The West campus was established in 1984 by the Arizona Legislature and sits on 250 acre in a suburban area of northwest Phoenix. The West campus lies about 12 mi northwest of downtown Phoenix, and about 18 mi northwest of the Tempe campus. The West campus is designated as a Phoenix Point of Pride, and is nearly completely powered by a 4.6MW solar array. This campus is home to the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, and selected programs of the W.P. Carey School of Business.

Polytechnic campus


Founded in 1996 as "ASU East," the ASU Polytechnic campus serves 9,752 students and is home to more than 40 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in professional and technical programs through the College of Technology and Innovation, and selected programs of the W.P. Carey School of Business/Morrison School of Agribusiness and Resource Management, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, the School of Letters and Sciences, and College of Nursing and Health Innovation. The 600 acre campus located in southeast Mesa, Arizona, approximately 25 mi southeast of the Tempe campus, and 33 mi southeast of downtown Phoenix. The Polytechnic campus sits on the former Williams Air Force Base.

Downtown Phoenix campus


The newest of ASU's four campuses, the Downtown Phoenix campus was established in 2006 on the north side of Downtown Phoenix. The campus has an urban design, with several large modern academic buildings intermingled with commercial and retail office buildings. In addition to the new buildings, the campus included the adaptive reuse of several existing structures, including a 1930's era Post Office that is on the National Register of Historic Places. Serving 13,567 students, the campus houses the College of Nursing and Health Innovation, College of Public Programs, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and School of Criminology and Criminal Justice.

Colleges @ ASU
In response to demands for lower-cost public higher education in Arizona, ASU is developing a number of small, undergraduate-only college locations throughout Arizona. Colleges @ ASU locations will be teaching-focused, and will provide a selection of popular undergraduate majors. The first is being planned for Lake Havasu City with programs available as early as fall 2012.

Online Degree Programs
ASU offers more than 30 undergraduate and graduate degree programs through an entirely online program, known as ASU Online. The degree programs delivered online hold the same accreditation as the university's traditional face-to-face programs, and students earn many of the same degrees as those who attended courses in person. As of spring 2010, more than 3,000 students were enrolled at ASU Online. ASU Online is headquartered at ASU's Skysong campus in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Admissions
Admission to any of the public universities in Arizona is ensured to residents in the top 25% of their high-school class with at a weighted secondary GPA of 2.5 GPA, or anyone with 24 credits of community college work with a 2.0 GPA minimum. In 2009–2010, ASU admitted 91% of its first-time freshmen applicants. As of Fall 2008, the average first time freshman SAT/ACT scores were 1082 and 23.5, respectively, and 31% of first time freshmen were ranked in the top 10% of their high school class.

Barrett, The Honors College serves as its own college-within-a-university, and maintains much more strict admissions standards and provides a more rigorous curriculum with smaller classes and increased faculty interaction. Although there are no set minimum admissions criteria for Barrett College, the average GPA of incoming freshmen was 3.84, with average SAT scores of 1308/1600 and ACT scores of 29. The Honors college enrolls nearly 3000 undergraduate students, about 540 of whom are National Merit Scholars.

Academic programs


ASU offers over 250 majors to undergraduate students, and more than 100 graduate programs leading to numerous masters and doctoral degrees in the liberal arts and sciences, engineering, journalism, business, law,public policy. These programs are divided into 15 colleges and schools which are spread across ASU's four campuses.

Libraries
ASU's faculty and students are served by two dedicated general-topic libraries: Hayden Library, which is the largest of the ASU libraries and is located on the Tempe campus, and Fletcher Library, located on the west campus. In addition, the Ross-Blakley Law Library and the Noble Science Library are housed in dedicated facilities on the Tempe campus. Music and Architecture collections are housed in facilities within the schools of Music and Architecture, respectively. Smaller library facilities are also located on the Polytechnic and Downtown campuses. As of 2009, ASU's libraries held 4.4 million volumes.

Rankings
ASU's undergraduate program is ranked 132nd of 262 "national universities" by the 2012 US News and World Report ranking of US colleges and universities; and, for the fourth year in a row, ASU was ranked as one of the top "Up and Coming" universities in the US, for substantial improvements to academics and facilities. In addition, ASU is ranked 78th in the world by the Academic Ranking of World Universities and was named as one of "America's Best College Buys" by Forbes magazine.

For its efforts to be a national leader in campus sustainability, ASU was named one of the top 20 "cool schools" by the Sierra Club, was named to the "Green Honor Roll" by the Princeton Review, and earned an "A-" grade on the 2010 College Sustainability Report Card.

Several of ASU's graduate schools also appear among the top of the US News & World Report rankings, including the 27th-ranked W. P. Carey School of Business (along with its 4th-ranked program in Supply Chain Management and the 15th-ranked program in Information Systems), the 47th-ranked Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering (including five individual programs ranked in the top 30), the 40th-ranked Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, the 25th-ranked School of Public Affairs, the 35th-ranked Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, and the 21st-ranked College of Nursing. In addition, the individual Ph.D. programs in Psychology (36th of 240), Earth Science (17th of 108), and Criminology (12th) also earned high rankings.

Athletics


Arizona State University's Division I athletic teams are called the Sun Devils, which is also the nickname used to refer to students and alumni of the university. They compete in the Pac-12 Conference in 20 varsity sports. Historically, the university has shown great athletic dominance in men's, women's, and mixed archery; men's, women's, and mixed badminton; women's golf; women's swimming and diving; and baseball. The Sun Devils have played in the Fiesta Bowl five times, and in 1987 the ASU football team won the Rose Bowl, defeating the University of Michigan 22–15. Arizona State University's NCAA Division I-A program competes in 9 varsity sports for men and 11 for women. The Sun Devil mascot is named Sparky. The university is a member of the Pacific-12 Conference in all varsity sports. ASU's current athletic director is Lisa Love, formerly senior associate athletic director at the University of Southern California, and in her tenure is responsible for hiring new coaches Herb Sendek, the men's basketball coach, and Dennis Erickson, the men's football coach. ASU has won 23 national collegiate team championships in the following sports: baseball (5), men's golf (2), women's golf (7), men's gymnastics (1), softball (2), men's indoor track (1), women's indoor track (2), men's outdoor track (1), women's outdoor track (1), and wrestling (1).

In September 2009 criticism over the seven-figure salaries earned by various coaches at Arizona's public universities (including ASU) prompted the Arizona Board of Regents to re-evaluate the salary and benefit policy for athletic staff.

Arizona State Sun Devils football was founded in 1897 under coach Fred Irish. Currently, the team has played in the 2007 Holiday Bowl, 1997 Rose Bowl and also won the Rose Bowl in 1987 as well as the Fiesta Bowl in 1982, 1975, 1973, 1972, and 1971. In 1970 they were co-champions of the NCAA Division I FBS National Football Championship. Additionally, the Sun Devils were Pac-10 Champions in 1986, 1996, and 2007.

Extracurricular programs
Arizona State University has an active extracurricular involvement program (Sun Devil Involvement Center) with over 600 registered clubs and organizations on campus. Located on the 3rd floor of the Memorial Union, the Sun Devil Involvement Center (SDIC) provides opportunities for student involvement through clubs, sororities, fraternities, community service, leadership, student government, and co-curricular programming.

"ASU Cares" is the largest community service project sponsored by the university. It is an annual event that allows students to give back some time by helping residents and communities clean up, rebuild, and/or serve each other. Faculty, staff, alumni, members of the community and their families and guests are also invited to be part of this large ASU effort to help residents of the various communities surrounding the metropolitan area.

The Freshman Year Residential Experience (FYRE) and the Greek community (Greek Life) at Arizona State University have been important in binding students to the university, and providing social outlets. The Freshman Year Residential Experience at Arizona State University was developed to improve the freshman experience at Arizona State University and increase student retention figures. FYRE provides advising, computer labs, free walk-in tutoring, workshops, and classes for students. In 2003, U.S. News and World Report ranked FYRE as the 23rd best first year program in the nation.

Student media
The State Press is a daily paper published on Monday through Friday during the fall and spring semesters, and weekly during the summer sessions. The State Press covers news and events on all four ASU campuses. Student editors and managers are solely responsible for the content of the State Press newspaper and its associated website. These publications are overseen by an independent board and guided by a professional adviser employed by the University.

@west news is an independent, student-run newspaper covering news and events on ASU's west campus.

ASU has two radio stations. KASC The Blaze 1330 AM, is a broadcast station that is owned and funded by the Cronkite School of Journalism, and is completely student-run save for a faculty and professional adviser. The Blaze broadcasts local, alternative and independent music 24 hours a day, and also features news and sports updates at the top and bottom of every hour. W7ASU is an amateur radio station that was first organized in 1935. W7ASU has about 30 members that enjoy amateur radio, and is primarily a contesting club.

Student government
Associated Students of Arizona State University (ASASU) is the student government at Arizona State University. It is composed of the Undergraduate Student Government and the Graduate & Professional Student Association (GPSA). Members and officers of ASASU are elected annually by the student body.

The Residence Hall Association (RHA) of Arizona State University is the student government for every ASU student living on-campus. Each ASU campus has an RHA that operates independently of each other. The purpose of RHA is to enhance the quality of residence hall life and provide a cohesive voice for the residents by addressing the concerns of the on-campus populations to university administrators and other campus organizations; providing cultural, diversity, educational, and social programming; establishing and working with individual hall councils.

Faculty
ASU faculty have included former CNN host Aaron Brown, meta-analysis developer Gene V. Glass, and Pulitzer Prize winner and The Ants author Bert Hölldobler. Donald Johanson, who discovered the 3.18 million year old fossil hominid Lucy (Australopithecus) in Ethiopia, is also a professor at ASU, as well as George Poste, Chief Scientist for the Complex Adaptive Systems Initiative. Nobel laureate faculty include Leland Hartwell, Edward C. Prescott, and Elinor Ostrom.