November 19, 2012

Change Takes Root in the Desert

Embracing inclusiveness, Arizona State U. pursues transformation on a grand scale

A Research University for All People 1

Laura Segall for the Chronicle

Arizona State's Tempe campus serves almost 60,000 students.

By Goldie Blumenstyk

Tempe, Ariz.

By itself, Arizona State University's transformation over the past decade into the nation's biggest public university wouldn't be all that significant.

Yet by the measures on which it prides itself—its 9-percentage-point increase in freshman-to-sophomore retention rates, its 48-percent