Arizona State University's New West Campus

Arizona State University's

On the northwest side of metropolitan Phoenix, a vision born in a 1972 social psychology class is becoming a reality. For most of the students in that Glendale Community College psychology class, the exercise of planning a West Campus of Arizona State University was merely a project to be completed and forgotten. But not for Barbara Ridge. For this mother of four, who had just recently returned to school, and her husband, Sterling, the assignment developed into a crusade. With several other disciples of the dream, they formed the Westside Citizens Committee for Higher Education and girded for a campaign that would seriously tap their energies for a dozen years.

The first major hurdle involved convincing officials of Arizona State University in Tempe that a westside campus was appropriate. Did metropolitan Phoenix really need another public university? Well, it would eventually, the ASU spokesmen agreed at a public meeting at the Glendale college, but they insisted that such a project was 25 years down the road. Westside supporters were drily amused to learn that the ASU representatives were a half-hour late to the meeting because, they explained, they had underestimated the time needed for the drive from Tempe.

"Twenty-five years" wasn't what the committee-or the 200 westside residents who jammed the meeting-hoped to hear. So next they petitioned the Arizona Legislature to create such an institution.

Their request fell on deaf ears. Not until 1976, after a furious letter-writing campaign inundated House and Senate members with 2,000 handwritten pleas for support, was a feasibility study undertaken. A year later, the study committee decided it was time to establish upper-division and graduate-level educational facilities on the west side. (Lower-division students were already well served by Maricopa County community colleges.) The committee urged ASU to begin meeting the need within three years.

"Naively, I thought it would be a downhill slide from there, and that we would have a westside university by 1980," says Barbara Ridge. "I didn't realize that the battles were just beginning."

Still, ASU did respond. In 1978 it began offering extension courses in the West Valley. So many more people enrolled than university officials expected that a much expanded schedule was offered in the 1980 spring semester. But classes met in rented space, and no westside campus materialized. Even after State Senator Anne Lindeman located 300 acres of state land for a campus between 43rd and 51st avenues south of Thunderbird, it seemed ASU West would remain just a dream indefinitely. Senator Lindeman was one of Barbara Ridge's earliest recruits in the west campus crusade and one of the most important.

In 1982 Barbara's husband, Sterling, who had just retired as Glendale mayor, decided the legislative effort needed extra impetus and won a seat in the House of Representatives. Confronting the likes of Lindeman, Ridge, Senator Lela Alston, and Representative (now Senator) Pat Wright, opponents of the measure found it dif ficult to slow the westside push. Finally yielding to strong communityand legislative pressure, the Arizona Board of Regents endorsed "the development of a modified, upper-level, primarily nonresidential branch institution of Arizona State University." And in 1984 the legislature enacted a bill directing the regents to maintain a West Valley campus and approved the necessary funding.

"It's rather been like raising another child," said Barbara Ridge. "If we had known all along that it would take this much time to create the campus, I wonder how many would have stuck it out."

To fulfill the needs of the westside community, ASU West has developed some nontraditional solutions: "a different concept in higher education from what most of us are used to," says former Representative Ridge.

Intentionally avoiding a duplication of the offerings of the Valley's two-year community colleges, ASU West is an urban, senior university, offering only upper-division and graduate classes leading to bachelor's or master's degrees in arts and

sciences, applied science, business, engineering and technology, education, and human services. The first building erected was the library. There are no varsity athletic programs.

Joan Smith (a pseudonym), a fourthgrade teacher who attends class part-time to complete her master's degree in elementary education, is typical of the student body at the westside campus. With her book bag balanced over her left shoulder and her three-year-old daughter perched on her right hip, she makes a strong case for ASU West.

"It will take me several years to complete my master's," she says. "But I wouldn't have been able to do it at all if I had to go to the campus in Tempe. Its program seems to have been designed for people who do nothing but go to school. Most of the courses I needed were only offered during the day. I have a family and a job. ASU West has classes scheduled mostly in the evenings-and it's so much closer to home."

The Maricopa Community College District, with two-year schools sprinkled throughout the metropolitan Phoenix area, early on recognized the advantages a senior university would bring not only to its own system but to the public at large. District officials enthusiastically offered their resources in support. Soon after completion of Fletcher Library, westside school and public libraries agreed to form the West Valley Library Network. This system electronically links the libraries of Glendale Community College, the City of Glendale, and the American Graduate School of International Management with the new West Campus library. The campus also shares a computerized catalog system that provides access to collections at ASU main campus libraries.

"The ASU West library is more an informational access center than a warehouse of materials," says Helen Gater, director of libraries at the new campus.

Still, this system doesn't work for everyone, as Mike Jones (also a pseudonym), an ASU West junior working on his bachelor of arts in English, points out. He regards the library's modus operandi as somewhat time consuming.

"I have class two nights a week at two other [temporary] locations of ASU West," he says. "It's pretty hard to schedule library time at best. But to come to the library just to find I have to go to another library to get the books I need, or have to come back in a couple of days to pick up the books ordered from Tempe, is really inconvenient. I think the concept of an informational access library is great, but in practice it doesn't work very well if you're short of time."

The new branch campus of Arizona State University bears little resemblance physically to its century-old parent institution.

Like the school's academic structure, campus construction has been unusual and inventive. Landscaping was installed first, and the land surface was contoured to screen, at least partially, the construction from public view. Next, a utility tunnel went in; then the perimeter sidewalk.

The installation and location of the utility tunnel have allowed the construction of the rest of the campus facilities to proceed rapidly. The underground tunnel connects all present and future buildings to such central service units as heating and cooling plants, and it contains electric, telephone, gas, and water lines for the entire campus. Thus, workers do not have to excavate surrounding streets or campus grounds when new classrooms and offices are built.

The university is an "oasis for scholars,"

The extensive experience in architecture and urban planning that McSheffrey brought to the project significantly influ-enced the layout and look of the new campus.

"I felt strongly that the campus should have a particular ambience about it," McSheffrey said. "I liked the idea of interlocking courtyards, similar to those at Oxford and Cambridge. I also wanted segmented arches and arcades for the buildings."

Anderson DeBartolo Pan, Inc., a Tucson architectural firm, designed the ASU West Campus. McSheffrey worked closely with Jack DeBartolo, Jr., and made suggestions. Not all were taken, but he did have his way about the arches.

The extraordinary design qualities of the first building-Fletcher Libraryearned the Honor Award of the Southern Arizona Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the chapter's highest com-pliment. All the buildings on campus will follow the architectural style established by the library.

Timely construction became possible largely because of a lease-purchase plan sponsored in 1988 by Representative Ridge, which ensured funding for the entire first phase of five buildings. Prior to that, planners typically had faced annual struggles for capital funding.

The first classroom building was completed in January of this year. Horizontal bands of pale limestone and rose-colored brick, copper roofing, segmented lime-stone arches, arcades, and abundant use of glass give the emerging complex a rich, visually exciting yet dignified air.

True to McSheffrey's determination to ensure the campus will be inviting, shade trees will line the walkways. In the surface of the sidewalk that encircles the grounds, brass plaques will commemorate scholar-ship donors. Tall palms will border ASU West's impressive main entrance and ring the campus.

The desert perimeter and lush central plantings express McSheffrey's concepts, both physical and academic.

"I think of a university as an oasis for scholars," he said. "The sense of scholarly work and the searching out of knowledge and new ideas should be clearly present when someone first steps on the ASU West Campus."

The new institution already boasts an excellent faculty dedicated to guiding students toward those new ideas. Charles Connell, interim vice provost and dean of faculty, considers the group "first rate, cream-of-the-crop."

"When we first started hiring the faculty, we received 1,200 applications for fewer than a hundred openings," Connell said. "We were able to pick the best of the best. Many of these people have won prestigious awards and have published important works."

McSheffrey agreed that, without the help of such distinguished faculty and experienced administrators, creating a university of quality from the ground up in short order would have been an impos-sible task.

"I was lucky to be able to pick some of my own people," McSheffrey continued. "I feel I was a conductor of a lot of great players, and when you have great people, you can do great things."

Vernon Lattin, who has succeeded McSheffrey as vice president and provost in charge of ASU West, agrees that the opportunity to create a distinctive univer-sity is a rare privilege. "It would have been easy to clone ASU's programs, but that didn't fit the needs of our students," he said. "ASU West is the first state university in Arizona to be planned and built in this century."We are an institution of the future, with the future in mind.

"We still have problems to iron out, and the next five years will be critical in the development of this campus," Lattin continued. "It has been and still is hard work creating a university to fit specific community needs; and it will be hard work to live up to our expectations. But we are confident about our future."