Chapter Twenty - A New American University
“American public higher education is just not in the right game anymore,” said Ray to a group of ASU advocates in 2009. “There is too much risk that a mistake by public leaders or even by us will be grievously damaging to long-term societal interests. We need to change the game. We need new rules that create a healthier environment for the public business of higher education. “We need a new compact. We need a new idea and we have it right here. It exists in the form of a New American University and your presence here suggests you agree. Help us institutionalize this vision here at ASU and then help us lead a patriotic movement to spread it across the American highereducation landscape.” Ray had called upon his audience — and supporters of higher education everywhere — to be founders of the New American University. Meanwhile, the foundation was primed to bolster its role in the advancement of ASU. In April 2010 Bill Post, who for 38 years had served Arizona Public Service and its holding company, Pinnacle West Corporation, in a variety of leadership positions,was elected by the foundation board of directors as chair of the august group. Post was a natural to assume the reins of the board, having held president and CEO responsibilities for APS, sitting as president of Pinnacle West and serving both companies as chairman of the board. He was re-elected in 2012 to serve a second two-year term. Next up was the introduction of a new foundation CEO, necessitated by Ray’s departure to the University of Tennessee. R.F. “Rick” Shangraw Jr., who took the reins as chief executive officer of the ASU Foundation in November 2011, was no stranger to the university. Prior to joining the foundation he served as ASU’s senior 184 |
ASU Foundation for A New American University
vice president for the Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development and director of the Global Institute of Sustainability. He was responsible for ASU’s growing annual $350 million research portfolio, which placed ASU among the top 20 research institutions in the country without a medical school. Before joining ASU, Shangraw was the founder and CEO of Project Performance Corporation, a research and technology consulting firm specializing in environmental, energy and information management issues. He was appointed a professor of practice with ASU’s School of Public Affairs within the College of Public Programs and the School of Sustainability in addition to l eading the foundation. Crow was instrumental in raising ASU’s endowment fund from $100 million in 2002 to $500 million a decade later, said Shangraw, noting, “President Crow raised the reputational status of the university while simultaneously finding more people who had affinity toward the university. Probably the most important thing he did was start talking about the really big societal challenges ASU was solving. So, he went away from this concept of just ‘give to ASU because you’re an alum’ to ‘give to ASU because we are solving a lot of the world’s big problems.’ That resonated with donors.” It was an approach that certainly resonated with philanthropist Julie Wrigley, who in 2004 made a $15 million contribution to ASU to establish the university’s groundbreaking Global Institute of Sustainability. From that institute grew the world’s first School of Sustainability, which opened at ASU in January 2007. That same year, Wrigley made another $10 million investment in the university by bringing four of the world’s leading sustainability scholar-researchers to fill professorships focused on renewable energy systems, sustainable business practices, global environment change and complex system dynamics.