Leadership in Action in the Search for Human Origins

Monday I had the opportunity to attend the amazing Origins Symposium at Arizona State University. It was quite stunning to see that even in the midst of economic crisis, big, bold thinking goes on and big, bold visions are being turned into reality. Check out this video with an eye to these three examples of leadership in action:

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/4051690[/vimeo]

First is ASU professor Lawrence Krauss, a cosmologist and theoretical physicist who conceptualized the symposium and provided the organizing energy behind it. Second is ASU president Michael Crow discussing his vision for the university of the future. Third but not at all least, you’ll see a speech by the renowned theoretical physicist and author of one of the most popular science books ever written, A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking. The speech had to be delivered via video from his hospital room because he was too ill to attend the symposium. The space science he discusses is intriguing of course. But in the context of leadership, Hawking’s courage, persistence, and indomitable commitment to use the faculties he has rather than being defined by his disabilities offer the most powerful lessons.

The full video archive can be viewed here.

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Warped Priorities

The headline and precis on the e-mail I received just now punches me in the face:

FY09 STATE BUDGET CUTS FORCE ASU TO CAP ENROLLMENT,
FRESHMAN APPLICATIONS CLOSE MARCH 1, FIVE MONTHS EARLY

Budget cuts scale Poly and West campuses down to one college each;
Four dozen academic programs to be closed

Additional state budget cuts in FY10 could result in closing two entire campuses

I’m in Arizona for a few weeks, teaching a short course in “Women, Power, and Politics” at Arizona State University. Though this is not a regular gig for me and I have joked that I’m earning almost enough after taxes to pay for our car rental while we are here, I feel intimately involved–actually sick at my stomach–over the short-sighted budget priorities of the right-wing dominated state legislature and the new Republican Governor Jan Brewer, who took over after the state’s popular Democratic Governor and chief resister of such retrograde policies, Janet Napolitano, flew the coop to Washington to become Secretary of Homeland Security.

These cuts come on top of the university announcing last week that they would furlough all staff, top to bottom, for two weeks. I have to show I’m working nine fewer hours than my original commitment, and my princessly salary will be cut accordingly. This is not going to change my lifestyle much. But I think of what it means to people dependent on the university for their fulltime compensation–those who still have jobs that is. More than 550 positions, including 200 faculty, have been eliminated. Further, the state’s whacking back of educational funding extends to K-12 public schools also–and Arizona was already near the bottom of the 50-state heap in education funding.

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