I was just down in Arizona on Monday doing and interview with ASU President Michael Crow for a magazine piece. He is a very interesting person, a promethian character who has set out to transform ASU and higher education in general. His greatest ambition is to bring more underrepresented students into the university at the same time as he raises the standing of the university as a serious and accomplished educational institution. Most universities will try to do one or the other–raising standards and becoming more exclusive and selective, or lowering standards (although they never say this) to bring in and keep more students who otherwise not be admitted. And Crow seems to be succeeding.
The way he is doing this is by leveraging what they have to massively invest in infrasturcture and programs, making sure that all the programs work together and have high standards, and getting much more funding from federal research sources.
What is really interesting to me is that he is obviously a very emotional guy and deep down what he does is driven by emotion. A key factor in his life was that his mother died when he was around 11 and as the oldest child he had to take over a lot of the household duties. But he approaches everything in a very analytical way and doesn’t seem to have much regard for emotional approaches. He is not a politician, a profession that is driven by emotional connection. He once got kicked out of Governor Janet Napolitano’s office when she called him in to chew him out and he said “are you going to respond to the facts or respond to your emotions.” She slammed the door behind him so hard that her security detail came running, thinking it was a shot.
My guess is that he is discovering or rediscovering the necessity of emotional leadership in change. At the end of the interview I asked him what advice the 55 year old Crow would give to the 45 Crow who started the job ten years ago. And he said that he had come to realize the importance of making sure the students achieve, rather than just setting up a system and structure that allowed achievement. I took that to mean that he needed to inspire the desire to achieve among the students, not just making it possible for them to do well, but making them believe and strive to get there. You can design the perfect engine, but emotion is the fuel that makes it run.