Michael M. Crow[1] (born October 11, 1955) is an American academic and architect. He is the 16th and current president of
Arizona State University, having succeeded
Lattie F. Coor on July 1, 2002. During his tenure at ASU, he is credited with creating the
New American University model.
Crow was born in
San Diego,
California, on October 11, 1955, the eldest of four siblings.[5] His mother died when he was 9 leaving his widowed father, a sailor in the
United States Navy, to raise the children on his own. As is common with
military families, they moved many times during Crow's childhood. Crow was a
Boy Scout who earned the rank of
Eagle Scout in 1969.[6] By the time he had graduated from
Warren Township High School, he had attended 17 different schools.[7]
Crow left Iowa State in 1991 to take up an appointment as Professor of Science and Technology Policy, at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs. He was a protégé of
Jonathan Cole, Provost and Dean of Faculties at Columbia, and his administrative career progressed rapidly. Within two years, Crow was appointed Executive Vice Provost, Columbia's third highest administrative post.[12] At Columbia, he was instrumental in developing the university's digital online education strategy and in creating the
Columbia Earth Institute.[11] In 1999, Crow was asked by
Director of Central IntelligenceGeorge Tenet to become chairman of the board for
In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital firm.[13][2]
In 2002, Crow was appointed the 16th and current President of
Arizona State University. In 2006 he was made a Fellow of the
National Academy of Public Administration and in 2008 received an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, Iowa State University.[14][15] Crow celebrated the 20th anniversary of his presidency in 2022, at which time the
Arizona Board of Regents named him the Arizona Board of Regents President of Arizona State University.
Crow is married to Sybil Francis, who holds a Ph.D. in political science from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is CEO of the Center for the Future of Arizona, which she co-founded with
Lattie Coor in 2002.[18]
The couple has one daughter and resides in
Paradise Valley, Arizona. Crow also has a son and daughter from a previous marriage.[7][19]
Selected publications
Books
Public Values Leadership: Striving to Achieve Democratic Ideals (with Barry Bozeman) (2021)
ISBN978-1421442013
The Fifth Wave: The Evolution of American Higher Education (with William B. Dabars) (2020)
ISBN978-1421438023
Designing the New American University (with William Dabars) (2015)
ISBN978-1-4214-1723-3
Limited by Design: R&D Laboratories in the United States (with Barry Bozeman) (1998)
ISBN0-231-10982-2
Synthetic Fuels Technology Development in the United States: A Retrospective Assessment (with Barry Bozeman, Walter Meyers, and Ralph Shangraw) (1988)
ISBN0-275-93083-1
Articles
"Toward a Platform for Universal Learning". Not Alone (June 22, 2022).
"Improving Intellectual Infrastructure in American Higher Education" (with William H. Dabars), The Hill (July 31, 2021).
"The Next 75 Years of US Science and Innovation Policy: An Introduction" (with Robert Conn, Cynthia Friend, and Marcia McNutt), Issues in Science and Technology (July 12, 2021).
"The Emergence of the Fifth Wave in American Higher Education" (with William B. Dabars), Issues in Science and Technology 36, no. 3 (Spring 2020): 71–74.
"The Arizona State University Interplanetary Initiative: Envisioning and Creating our Human Space Future" (with Lindy Elkins-Tanton and Evgenya L. Shkolnik), New Space 8, no. 3 (2020): 1–4.
"Science Institutions for a Complex, Fast-Paced World" (with Marcia McNutt), Issues in Science and Technology 36, no. 2 (Winter 2020): 30–34.
"Higher Logic" (with Derrick Anderson), Trusteeship (Association of Governing Boards of Colleges and Universities) 26, no. 3 (Summer 2018): 26–31.
"Design Thinking in Higher Education: Towards Adaptive Enterprise" (with Clark Gilbert and Derrick Anderson), Stanford Social Innovation Review 16, no.1 (2017): 36–41.
"Revisiting ‘Public Administration as a Design Science’ for the Twenty-First Century Public University" (with R.F. Shangraw), Public Administration Review 76, no. 5 (September/October 2016): 762–763.
"Public Administration and the Imperative for Social Progress". Public Administration Review 76, no. 2 (March/April 2016): 215–216.
"Innovating Together: Collaboration as a Driving Force to Improve Student Success" (with Bridget Burns and Mark Becker). EDUCAUSE (March/April 2015): 10–20.
"Look, Then Leap." Nature 499 (July 18, 2013): 275–277.
"Time to Rethink the NIH." Nature (journal)|Nature 471 (March 31, 2011): 569–571.
"Differentiating America’s Colleges and Universities: Institutional Innovation in Arizona." Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning (September/October 2010): 34–39.
"Organizing Teaching and Research to Address the Grand Challenges of Sustainable Development". BioScience (American Institute of Biological Sciences) 60, no. 7 (July/August 2010): 488–489.
"Toward Institutional Innovation in America’s Colleges and Universities." Trusteeship (Association of Governing Boards of Colleges and Universities) 18, no. 3 (May/June 2010): 8–13.
"American Education Systems in a Global Context". Technology in Society 30, no. 3 (July 2008): 279–291.
"Enterprise: The Path to Transformation for Emerging Public Universities." The Presidency (American Council on Education) 10, no. 2 (Spring 2007): 24–30.
^Bozeman, Barry; Crow, Michael Maurice (December 1991). "Red tape and technology transfer in US government laboratories". The Journal of Technology Transfer. 16 (2): 29–37.
doi:
10.1007/BF02371354.
S2CID153732388.