If you’re into massive transformations (and frankly, who isn’t?), it seems like June is the month for you.
The sixth month, already set to see the release of the second “Transformers” movie, will likely also see proposals for the evolution of the Arizona university system.
As part of the Arizona Board of Regents’ strategic plan for developing the state universities, the presidents of the three schools are being asked to outline their long-term ideas for transforming higher education. The board’s aims include adding lower-cost options for students seeking bachelor’s degrees, boosting research activity on the main campuses, expanding partnerships with community colleges and finding a new model for state funding, and they are hoping the three presidents are up the task, providing the ideas to make the regents’ plans a reality.
While the basic tenets of the regents’ goals — affordability and excellence — sound like music to our ears at the moment (even though the question “With what money?” is easily added to their wish list of university growth), it’s still too early to tell how they will look in a long-term context, as the plans are not set to face a full assembly of regents until June.
That’s great and all, but naturally, this timeline poses a threat to our editorial writing. As the proposals are not due for another three months, there are no specifics yet to laud excessively or gripe and/or grumble about.
However, the delayed release of the presidents’ proposals of revolution has a silver lining: We get to make our voices heard.
President Crow, we hope you’re listening to our none-too-jokey ideas for advancing ASU into the next decade:
- A satellite campus that is actually a satellite. The moon will suffice.
- Scrap support of the light-rail system and build a new mass-transportation system — the time has finally come when we need to have a Valley-wide lazy river.
- Erase all dormitories. Replace with tree cities.
- Efficiency is key. Take every person on campus whose job title we don’t understand and lump them into one department (likely named the Department of Mysteries so as to entice Harry Potter to enroll at ASU).
- Retire Blackboard, strike up an accord with Facebook. One new notification: That idea is totally bomb.
- Change the “S” in ASU to Sustainability. Let’s not try to act like it wasn’t heading that way anyway.
- Combine all sports — intramural and intercollegiate — into one giant assemblage of athletic outlets. You call it “crazy;” we call it “awesome ball.”
- Teaching ASU 101 as one massive seminar class, comically piling thousands of freshmen at a time into Gammage. (No, but really, that seems like an economical idea that should be seriously considered.)
- An official University-wide naptime needs to be adopted. It would save on electricity, power, air conditioning and heating costs. And come on, it already happens unofficially every day.
- Basically, make ASU into a slightly more magical version of Disneyland, please.

