The School of Social Transformation celebrated its official launch Wednesday after being formed in response to University budget cuts and administrative restructuring.

The school, operating within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, acts as an umbrella over the African and African-American Studies, Asian Pacific American Studies, Justice and Social Inquiry, and Women and Gender Studies programs.

“The School of Social Transformation brings together four vibrant academic fields of inquiry,” director Mary Margaret Fonow said at the opening ceremony.

The event also included comments from University vice president and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Quentin Wheeler, dean of social sciences Linda Lederman and ASU President Michael Crow.

The School of Social Transformation was created to build each program’s strength by combining resources and creating transdisciplinary discussions of modern social dilemmas, Fonow said.

“President Obama said last year in his commencement speech that the challenges we face as a nation are unprecedented,” she said. “I thought, boy, am I lucky to be in the School of Social Transformation.”

The school’s uniquely diverse faculty is taking on that challenge, Fonow said.

“Diversity is something we are and something that we study,” she said, adding that the School of Social Transformation has a diverse faculty, allowing for advanced intellectual discussion from varying spectrums of thought.

“I’m not conceding to Rush Limbaugh the discourse on race and gender,” she said, which brought laughter from the audience.

Crow said the School of Social Transformation is part of ASU’s effort to meet the needs of an advancing society.

“The notion of us being done, us being fully evolved, us having fully grasped what liberty and justice for all actually means ... the answer is, we’re a long way from it,” he said.

To work toward an end goal, Crow said, there needs to be an increase in activism, political change and engagement within the community and the University.

“First and foremost, our job is to educate,” he said.

An important part of education is the creation of a learning environment where any topic can be discussed, he said.

“If we’re just doing things like everybody else, if we’re just replicating what other places are doing ... then we’re failing,” Crow said. “We need to design unique intellectual enterprises like the School of Social Transformation.”

The launch ceremony was followed by a discussion of gender, race and justice led by panelists Mark Anthony Neal, professor of African-American studies at Duke University, and Celine Parrenas Shimizu, professor of Asian American, film and media and feminist studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Budget cuts in Arizona’s university system brought several academic studies, including the four diversity studies, into the School of Social Transformation.

Besides the School of Social Transformation, combining academic
fields created the School of Government, Politics and Global Studies and the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies within
the College of Liberal Sciences.

Psychology freshman Jake Augeri said he was impressed by the cooperation and innovation shown by the faculty behind the School of Social Transformation.

“I think it’s cool to see ASU working toward new ways of study and how to make humanity better,” he said.

Reach the reporter at jessica.testa@asu.edu.