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Crow should say ‘no’ to $10,000 bonus for ASU’s ranking
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Well, at least it helps that undeserved “party school” label to fade.
But Arizona State University’s having risen from the third to the second tier of American colleges and universities, according to U.S. News & World Report magazine, is no cause to give ASU President Michael Crow $10,000.
Sure, under Crow’s leadership, the university has made significant strides toward greater national and international recognition for its academic offerings. But as the Tribune’s Ryan Gabrielson reported Aug. 18, U.S. News’ process, which includes asking university presidents and provosts to comment on other schools’ reputations, has been frequently criticized as too subjective and benefiting private schools whose reputations are based on how many applicants they exclude.
And many colleges are becoming less enamored with that process. Only 51 percent of college administrators U.S. News asked to complete a survey did so, 7 percentage points fewer than last year, Gabrielson reported.
ASU Provost Elizabeth Capaldi, the university’s top academic official, told Gabrielson that the ranking “is not something I hope anyone is using to decide what college they are going to.” While saying that it was “nice” to be ranked higher rather than lower, Capaldi said that, “But you have to be realistic about it, and it’s not how we measure our own performance.”
Crow should not accept a $10,000 bonus his contract calls for him to receive from the Arizona Board of Regents if ASU cracked the second tier (it is now ranked 124th in the nation). Instead he should donate it to ASU’s general scholarship fund. Given his well-into-six-figures salary plus other bonuses, he hardly needs it.
Putting it into scholarships will put some distance between ASU and these rankings, as well as help some students better afford the now more ballyhooed ASU’s steadily rising tuition rates.
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