Designing the New American University

"In this book, Michael Crow will ignite a national discussion on what the new American research university should look like. This new model is one that embraces students with a wide range of backgrounds and abilities while giving elite public schools a run for their research money. Crow proposed his idea--one that would fundamentally redesign the public research university--ten years ago when he became president of Arizona State University and now he has a decade of experience to support his plan. Designing the New American University offers a comprehensive critique of the contemporary American research university and spells out how these critically important institutions can reinvent themselves. The manuscript recommends measures to foster institutional evolution across various interrelated dimensions, represented by the model of the New American University--an egalitarian institution committed to academic excellence, inclusiveness to a broad demographic, and maximum societal impact. The model is evolutionary and dynamic and its "design aspirations" are interrelated and interdependent. The manuscript thus introduces readers to the imperative significance of institutional design, which is not merely adventitious to knowledge enterprises"--