From CREATING INTELLECTUAL COMMUNITIES, Volume 1, Number 2, 2007
For colleges and universities east of the Mississippi River, one of the most prevalent challenges today is to keep students living on campus longer and to develop a strong sense of intellectual community. But for schools west of the Mississippi, this challenge has a very different twist – namely, how do you accomplish this in the midst of an enormous enrollment boom that shows no signs of letting up?
A map of U. S. colleges and universities will clearly show the significantly greater number of schools in the East versus the West. And while the number of schools in the West is slowly growing, the real question is how those schools will keep pace with the tremendous increase in population growth and employment in the region. The impact of this population growth is even greater for public universities, where the demand for higher education is not only increasing in numbers, but in the variety of students seeking that education. As the Hispanic population explodes in the West, public colleges and universities are faced with the added challenge of building well-regarded academic schools and cutting-edge research programs, while meeting the demands of a more diverse population.
“The single biggest question faced by our university is: How do we operate the university of today while working to become the university of tomorrow?,” says Arizona State University President Michael M. Crow. Although ASU is not alone in this growing trend, it is clearly leading the way.
“This decade is perhaps the most crucial in the history of ASU, representing unprecedented growth and change,” says President Crow. “Arizona continues to be one of the fastest growing states in the United States, and ASU currently assumes 95 percent of the net growth (among the three state universities) in the university system. In order to accommodate the diverse academic, residential, and cultural needs of a flourishing university community, we must build an institution that fits the needs of both current and future generations.”
