There goes the scholarship,
right?
Yeah,
It's gonna be a while.
We're a safe distance away right now.
You could see the comedy of this if you knock over the lamp,
and that knock over the table,
then there goes a pot and the pot hits a painting.
It puts a hole in the painting.
OK.
Alright,
no pressure.
We are
Tentatively ready?
This camera
The scammers are
OK,
we're rolling.
You're ready.
But I'm gonna be.
Matt's gonna get us,
get us all.
Hello,
this is Emily Holdaway,
Courtney Volmering,
and Matthew Gernstead interviewing Doctor Craig and Ambassador Barbara Barrett
on February 5,
2019 at 2 p.m. in Fountain Hills,
Arizona.
Wait a minute,
we're not.
We're not in Fountain Hills.
Paradise Valley.
You just did that to see if you're trying to test our mics.
It's keeping you on your toes.
We'll re-record.
We'll take it out.
Hello,
this is Emily Holdaway,
Courtney Volmering,
and Matthew Gernstead interviewing Doctor Craig and Ambassador Barbara Barrett
on February 5,
2019 at 2:31 p.m. in Paradise Valley,
Arizona.
This interview is part of the Barrett Oral History Project.
Our goal is to preserve a record of
Barrett's history in honor of her 30th anniversary.
So thank you,
uh,
first of all,
so much for taking the time to sit down with us and share your experience.
We will be breaking this interview down in 3 chronologically arranged parts,
personal history,
the beginnings of Barrett the Honors College,
and the future of the college as Doctor and Ambassador Barrett see it.
Emily,
Courtney,
and I will each ask questions from one section.
We'll begin with personal history.
For both of you.
What were your own experiences as college students like?
Can you identify any programs or perhaps services from
those experiences that inspired what Barrett has become today?
Well,
my personal experience was to go to Arizona State University.
So yes,
there's a bit of overlap,
and there's something very close to what
has become the honors program at ASU.
When I was admitted to ASU
on the admission document it said something
about
honors at entrance.
I noticed that,
but that's the only time I ever
had any
impact
from it,
just that it was on the document.
There was no program,
or at least there was none that I was ever further informed about.
But so there was something that got us as far as honors at entrance,
but it didn't mean anything so far as classes were concerned
that I ever knew
subsequently.
So.
I,
uh,
I,
uh,
was at ASU,
had that recognition of something called honors,
but
didn't know anything more about it.
Though
at ASU,
uh,
we recognize that
the honors program is something that brings a great deal of
opportunity for students.
So,
uh,
my personal
experience
led,
uh,
to us at least having
an understanding of honors.
I attended another
Pac-12 school,
Stanford,
um.
Which I believe is
unfortunately beaten ASU several times in football recently.
Um.
Uh,
Stanford
effectively didn't have an honors undergraduate program.
Uh,
at the time I attended
the university,
it had about
6000 undergraduate students,
6000 graduate students,
so 1500 freshmen were pretty much,
uh,
um,
Uh,
academic achievers from the standpoint that getting into Stanford.
Uh,
it was not as difficult at that time as it is today,
but I,
someone made a mistake and let me in.
Uh,
the thing that I recognized,
uh,
mostly about
undergraduate university
education
is that it really is a key that opens all doors,
and,
uh,
we were both fortunate enough to be able to attend the university on
basis of scholarships
that others provided and.
Uh,
neither of us really had the financial means to,
uh,
attend a university without that
financial help.
So what we've done
perhaps in turnaround basis is to,
uh,
in our
later years when we're capable of giving something back,
we've chosen to support education first and foremost
for other people who were in a position like we were.
Well,
continuing along this theme of the importance of education
and your history with ASU in particular,
Ambassador Barrett.
On your profile for the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans.
A quote from you reads,
Education is the key to success.
It is the first major decision a young person must make and the most important.
You came to Arizona for college and then made your life and career here.
Can you share with us,
uh,
why you chose ASU first of all,
and to what extent ASU fueled your extraordinary professional success?
Well,
I came to ASU because my father had been a cowboy
in the American West,
especially in Arizona,
and I wanted to see this place that he had spoken so highly of.
He had said,
when your kids get old enough,
I want to take you to Arizona.
He died before he could do that,
but
I thought,
well,
there's a way I can see Arizona
and at the same time get that college education he knew was so important that he had,
he didn't have one.
So I wrote at the time
there weren't such things as online references,
so I wrote to each of the three major universities and ASU had the prettiest catalog.
So I came to ASU
because of the quality of the catalog,
and that would be counterpart to the quality of the website today,
but I came to ASU not knowing
nearly enough to make a good decision,
but it was a great decision,
as it turned out.
Um,
so it was accidental that I happened to get to ASU,
but it was,
uh,
fortuitous in the long run.
So I came to Arizona
to go to Arizona State University.
The impact on my life has been
transformational
in that it is the education
that did turn the key
to open doors to many opportunities in my life,
and
many of those
have been so very rewarding.
And therefore we think
it important to give back.
And,
uh,
also for Ambassador Barrett,
your Horatio bio further states
that you drove,
uh,
twice a week
for a total of 240 miles round trip to finish your master's degree at ASU.
Uh,
so
thinking about that,
can you tell us more about that experience
and the challenges you had to overcome while you were obtaining your master's?
For my master's,
I was,
uh,
living and working in Prescott,
um,
but I,
to finish my master's,
I took a couple of night classes
at ASU.
So it's about 120 miles each way.
Um,
so I would work,
uh,
the full workday
in Prescott,
hop in the car,
drive down,
try to get here
before the 6:30 start time of class or 6:40,
and then,
um,
Finish class and
hop back in the
car,
drive back up to Prescott,
work the next day and come back down that night,
uh,
but it
It was important to get that master's
and that ended up being
a big
benefit to me in the long run,
master's in
the time public administration.
I was,
I,
public administration was willing to work with me.
I was
looking to get as much
international business experience or education as I could.
And business college wasn't very flexible in their requirements,
but public administration was,
so I took as many business courses,
geography courses,
law courses,
science and
and political science courses as I could
to get that master's degree.
And for uh Doctor Barrett.
Can you tell us about your experiences as
an undergraduate that sparked your passion for technology
and more specifically how those experiences informed your leadership at Intel?
Well,
during high school I was um.
Pretty good in math and science and uh but I had my
sights set on becoming a forest ranger
and my senior year in high school.
Crawford came to me one day,
entered his class,
and he said,
Craig,
you're good at math.
And I told him I couldn't possibly afford to go to Stanford.
Exorbitantly expensive at that time.
Tuition was $250 a quarter at that time,
but
that was a lot of money
in 1957.
Anyway,
long story short,
I filled out the application.
I knew Stanford did not have a forestry department,
so I needed to major in something else,
and
there was a prospective major in the application form.
I
elbowed my good friend Tom Hessler sitting next to me.
He was going to San Jose State University.
I said,
Tom,
what are you going to major in?
And he said,
metallurgical engineering.
I kind of said,
what's that?
And he said that has something to do with metals.
And I said,
OK,
sounds like a pretty good major.
How many L's are there in metallurgical?
So I wrote down metallurgical engineering.
Turns out I got it.
I was probably the only prospective freshman.
Applying to Stanford to major in metallurgical engineering,
they had an undergraduate scholarship.
I received that scholarship
and I was able to attend,
uh,
but
Uh,
not
majoring in my
lifelong desire of forestry,
majoring in engineering.
And Silicon Valley
as a
site or as a place,
as an entity was just starting at that time
and it was filled with technology and opportunity and
Sputnik was also just going up at that time and so the US was
uh
engaged in a
hurry up program in terms of
space research.
Materials were a big part of that.
Biological engineering became material science.
And also
this integrated circuit was just being
established at that time.
So it,
it was a hotbed of technology both at the national to local level,
and Stanford had a pretty good engineering school,
so I just got hooked on it.
And
Pardon?
H E S S L E R.
And then for uh both of you,
uh,
which of your many extraordinary professional
accomplishments give you most pride.
So I don't find myself
uh too prideful of
what I've done,
but I,
I do take a lot of joy from
things that I've worked on or been a part of,
um,
I guess
representing the United States of America
in a foreign country,
um,
really was a great joy.
Also a big responsibility.
So I guess serving as ambassador was
something that I took a great deal of joy in
the training as an astronaut.
I took
great joy
in
passing those tests,
figuring out
if I could pass those tests and passing them all,
um,
that mattered,
but
I think
I,
I
found a great.
Pleasure in
being a part of
making things happen in the government and not in government,
working with the women
aviators,
pilots in the Defense Department
to open the roles so that women could fly fighters and bombers
which they had previously been allowed to
fly only up through tankers and transports,
but not fighters and bombers.
So working on projects like that,
working on things.
that were deemed impossible and then getting them done,
that's where I take a lot of joy.
Well,
3 things come to mind in various stages of my
professional activities.
One is,
uh,
Being an Intel Corporation almost from the start
and helping to grow that company from a startup to a $50 billion company with a
major presence here in Arizona
as the number one
semiconductor manufacturer in the world.
Uh,
the second thing is,
uh,
Barbara and I own a,
uh,
resort in Montana,
and in 2014 that was rated the number one hotel slash resort in the world.
You see there's a commonality of number ones in here.
And the third thing is,
uh,
and over the last decade I've been working
in the charter school business and we have a
series of charter schools,
uh,
27 nationwide,
20.
Uh,
two of them here in Arizona.
And last year,
our charter schools out of 25,000 public high schools were rated 123458,
and 14 out of 25,000.
So we're the
kind of the number one.
High school educator in the United States.
So those 3 number 1s I,
I take great pride in.
And by the way,
uh,
when you take pride in those things,
you're really taking pride in.
The people that you work with and the people that accomplish it,
it,
it's not so much you're doing,
but
it didn't tell it was literally tens of thousands of people
in the charter school business there's,
you know,
1000 teachers and administrators,
so you,
you're really
taking great pride in the accomplishments of others that you're a part of.
Well,
since you brought up a bassist Doctor Barrett,
I'll flip a question here
and we'll go directly into this one.
so in a YouTube video titled,
uh,
Craig Barrett on American Public Education reform,
uh,
you stated education is the combination of talents and action.
Um,
considering this first of all,
can you tell us what fuels your passion for education?
Education is,
uh,
clearly the key that opens all potential doors
and uh
if you have a a quality education and passion for what you do,
there's almost
unlimited opportunity for you.
If you don't have that education,
you're much more limited and there's been
so much written about this in the press in terms of
job opportunities,
earning potential and everything,
so education is the opportunity that every young child should.
Get that opportunity whether they take advantage of it or not,
it's up to them,
but
the child should have that opportunity.
And
there are 3 basic fundamentals of,
of a quality education system.
And by the way,
this topic has been studied for the last 60 or 70 years.
There are a number of seminal reports
published in the United States going back to the 1950s when
people noticed that public education was slipping.
They've all said exactly the same thing over that 60 or 70-year time period.
Good education
has the foundational pillars of
great teachers who know their subject material.
High expectations.
You are in education.
Anybody who's been involved in education
really knows that when
a professor or teacher tells you how high to jump,
uh,
you can jump that high that they put the bar a little higher,
you
struggle,
but you can get a little higher.
So high expectations,
it's terribly important.
And the third thing is accountability.
Accountability
on the student side
for
working hard and education is hard work to learn the material.
Hard work on the
Teacher or professor's side
because teaching is hard work and hard work on
the administrators who put all of this stuff together.
So those three foundations,
great teachers,
high expectations,
and accountability.
Have been the foundation for every study of education reform
in the United States for 60 or 70 years.
What's happened in 60 or 70 years,
people have commissioned another study to talk about it,
and they found the same thing.
Great teachers,
high expectations,
and accountability are important.
The,
the system has been amazingly resilient
to change.
It is just stuck in its own
format.
Uh,
one of the things.
I noticed immediately though,
in my association with basis schools
and my association with the Honors College,
the Honors College operates on those three foundational principles.
Great teachers.
High expectations and accountability.
And uh you can't succeed in education without those three things.
Can you pinpoint a moment where um
You know,
you realize that.
You could be part of the education reform movement,
make a contribution to it.
Uh,
what specifically happened in your professional or
personal life that might have inspired that?
Well,
that,
my time at Intel,
we were very
interested in math and science education because we're hiring
the best and brightest engineers
and we wanted the
supply of uh
great engineers to be larger.
And so we got involved in K-12 education,
math and science because that's the foundation
behind university educations.
And
I was able to participate on 3 or 4 of these seminal studies that I talked about.
And uh we always concluded the same thing,
and we always wrung our hands saying,
well,
we're always saying to do this,
but nobody ever does anything.
Barbara and I
were invited.
Uh,
roughly a decade ago,
uh,
to
visit a basis
school,
school was just starting in Scottsdale,
and I think we
went and sat in an 8th grade math class and an 8th grade chemistry class.
And I was literally blown away.
By the level of the material that was being taught in the 8th grade.
The competency of the teacher.
And the,
and the response and performance of the students.
And
I said to myself,
You know,
this is what we've been talking about
as a country for 50 or 60 years.
This is it in real live action.
I want to be part of that.
And so as soon as I retired from Intel I.
I agreed to join the board and.
As would have it,
I went to my first board meeting.
I opened up my board book,
and I saw
the first action item on the board agenda was
to elect me without anyone asking me
to be
president and CEO of this
organization,
and I didn't object.
And so we've been doing it now for about
10 years and I've mentioned the results before.
Results are,
are spectacular.
Uh,
and
what we strive to do again
is to give
as many young
youngsters as possible the opportunity for great education,
the opportunity,
and we can't make them do it.
We're a,
a charter school,
an alternative school.
People have to come and decide they wanna go to basic schools,
but we make the opportunity available to people and if they
take advantage of it,
they get absolutely the best K-12 education in the world.
Bar none.
One of the things that is kind of fun to see in this
is that on the K-12 level
at base schools,
Arizona is excelling.
The,
the top 5
high schools in America are here in Arizona.
Uh,
out of 25,000,
1 through 5 are Arizona schools.
When it comes to the college level
and we see the honors college being rated the
most,
the gold standard
of honors colleges,
uh,
at the university level,
plus Embry-Riddle is doing a great job.
Other universities,
Grand Canyon,
NAU and the UFA,
uh,
there is great
undergraduate education here,
and Thunderbird has been rated number one in the world on.
Uh,
international management.
So
ASU
is one of
a
plethora of
first-rate Arizona educational institutions.
We sometimes beat ourselves up
about our education,
but in fact we do a great job here.
Before we
continue,
we're gonna stop and restart these cameras.
Um,
they
record for about 20
something minutes and then they will auto shut off,
so this is a way for us to
make sure that we actually
manage that.
Great.
All right,
refresh.
Perfect.
So how would both of you define your leadership philosophies?
What attributes do you think all successful leaders ought to have regardless of
where they happen to work or what their goals might be?
And Ambassador Barrett,
in your case,
I'd be curious to know how your time as ambassador to Finland might have
changed your thoughts on leadership,
your perspective on that issue.
Well,
all,
all leaders,
all quality leaders,
uh,
you'll find
that integrity,
honesty is a key.
You don't,
that's sort of a prerequisite going in.
Without that,
there is nothing.
But respect for others
and respect for the time
of other people is really an essential also
for quality leadership.
Then having a passion
and a goal in mind,
leadership
isn't productive unless there is
a goal intended and a passion that goes behind it.
So I'd say integrity
plus respect
plus a goal
makes up good leadership.
I'd echo
everything that Barbara just said and.
Pulling a little bit from my
engineering background,
uh,
engineering is really an education of solving
problems,
technical problems.
And one of the first things you recognize is
you can't solve a problem unless you can clearly define it,
and the art of problem solving is an issue of
clearly defining the problem and collecting information and a hypothesis and
testing that hypothesis to see if it works to solve the problem.
So I think a
problem solving capability,
and it may be very different in the technical world and in the
political world or the business world.
But
the problems are all there
quite often.
Ineffective leaders get
tied up because they really have not clearly
defined the problem they're trying to solve.
They can't communicate
the problem they're trying to solve to their subordinates and to others.
So that,
that bit of engineering training and
putting a plug in,
not against.
Business schools and lawyers and such,
but
the most common
educational background
of Fortune 500 CEOs happens to be
Come on,
help me out.
Engineering.
So that,
that problem solving capability,
I think is key
to leadership,
but
Integrity,
uh.
Truthfulness,
walking the walk,
uh,
and being part of the solution are absolutely key
to great leadership.
And um,
are there any influential people in your
life who modeled those qualities and perhaps um
Gave you the sense that those are important for leaders to have going
back to perhaps your career as college students or in the professional world.
Well,
I'd say,
let me get this one first,
OK?
um.
First of all,
the person sitting on my left is the most
important example of leadership that I've seen.
Barbara
has an attitude that
Uh,
nothing is impossible,
and nothing is too difficult.
If you
rally the resources and you spend some time thinking about it,
you can accomplish a fantastic amount.
She
sets
super high expectations for herself in every way,
and so I,
I just had to jump in and
say I respect that,
and she's the best role model that I had.
Now any more time.
You know,
I,
I think
your question though probably
deals with
people who are more influential in your life at certain periods of your life.
I mean,
you maybe have a high school teacher,
you maybe have a college professor,
you maybe have a
supervisor at work,
you maybe have someone else,
you may
marry a great spouse,
uh.
You know,
I have
my math teacher in,
in high school that I talked about earlier.
I have great respect for and sent me,
and of course,
uh.
Uh,
my boss at Intel,
Andy Grove,
was
a phenomenal human being,
and along with
a couple of the founders of Intel,
Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore,
were just
icons,
and working for them was a
tremendous experience.
But you know,
when
all said and done,
this one has been the most influential on me.
Top that.
No,
I just want you to keep talking.
So that's actually a um
a wonderful transition to the final question of my section.
Um,
you know,
obviously the most incredible thing about you both is your,
you know,
dynamic as partners and as donors to
Yonners College,
among other,
you know,
worthy initiatives.
Um,
how did you two meet?
Go ahead.
How did we meet?
We met on a
typical
July day in Phoenix,
Arizona.
It was
112.
And hiking at that time on the.
Mountain.
Called Squaw Peak at the time,
we named Pasqua Peak.
We were hiking at
the.
Dusk
6 o'clock,
6:30 time frame
we were the only two people on the mountain.
Turns out,
yeah,
112 degrees clears out some of the riffraff and
hiking
and Barbara was up the top first and
And uh I came huffing and puffing up.
Uh,
behind her and uh she was sitting there admiring this gorgeous Arizona sunset and,
and,
uh,
we started to talk and.
And uh
I just
kept talking and then walked down the mountain.
Uh,
together and uh.
I probably muttered something like,
you know,
like.
Really enjoyed talking to you,
with you and
you know,
maybe we can go get a drink someplace.
And she says,
you know,
typical engineer,
look at yourself,
your pair of shorts and
tennis shoes and t-shirt.
And
she said,
uh,
But you know,
I'd like to continue to talk and so she suggested that we
go to an Alpha Beta supermarket in Forty-Fourth and Camelback
and go in to get a couple of soft drinks and
some stone fruit.
There's a bank across the street at that intersection with a fountain,
so we went over there and
took off our shoes and.
Dangle our feet in the fountain and talk for another
3 or 4 hours and ate peaches and nectarines.
It's the summer and we had stone,
stone fruit,
cherries,
peaches,
nectarines,
apricots,
and shared life stories.
If I may,
how did you know
that she was the one?
So do you wanna
It didn't take long to figure that out.
No,
which,
uh.
Uh,
her background,
what she was doing,
uh,
just how she addressed
issues and problems and what she thought was important in life.
It was pretty cool.
Well,
thank you both,
and Emily will now begin the second part of our interview and
ask about what led to your relationship with the Honors College.
Um,
so just,
um,
first off,
um,
what led you both to make the decision to
donate to ASU to make the honors college fair?
It's so funny.
We had no idea it was going to be the Barrett,
the Honors College.
We donated because we thought that the honors mission
was important.
We were both involved with a variety of the colleges on campus,
and
we noticed that the honors college
there were goals for each college on how much they were supposed to
target for
donations during a capital campaign,
and the honors college had almost none.
Um,
was very low on their goals
that we thought
the honors college is what will dictate
the future reputation for Arizona State University,
so we made an aggressive for us,
a stretch
donation,
um,
to the honors college
instead of to piecemeal to the various colleges that we were involved with,
and we had no
expectation it was going to be renamed,
um,
and,
and
in fact.
We,
um,
we,
that was not at all anything we had considered or discussed or thought,
um,
but
We got a call from the then president asking when could we meet with him,
when could we together meet with him and his wife.
And so
we found a time
when I was changing planes at the airport.
Craig was going to meet me at the airport.
We were going to go together
to whatever our next destination was.
And so I said,
we're going to be at the airport together for 20 minutes while I change planes,
and Craig is going to get on the same flight.
So
Lady Corps and Elvacore came to the airport.
It was before TSA restricted.
They came to our gate
and said
the door,
the Board of Regents has voted.
To rename the college
in our name.
We,
we were so
stunned by it.
We stood there and started to cry.
They started to cry.
KJ,
the one of the basketball players for the
Phoenix Suns and subsequently mayor of Sacramento,
came,
got off a plane and saw.
Knew us
and saw us all standing crying and was wondering what was going on.
So just as representative we didn't make a donation with any expectation
that there would be a name change.
It was completely a stunning surprise
and um
and
we were asked
that if they would allow us to name the honors college that
that might help inspire others
to make donations to the university and we hope that it has.
But it has been a great source of joy for us
to have our name on a college
that has such extraordinary students,
faculty and administration.
So
the joy continues
beyond that tearful moment at the airport.
We were
very impressed at the time.
Ted Humphreys was the
dean of the Honors College and
Uh,
very impressed with what Dean Humphreys had done
and Lattie Kor was president at that time.
Uh,
it was a good friend of ours,
and we were impressed that Laddie was
so,
uh.
Actively supporting
the goals of the honors college and
the.
We,
we made the decision really,
we were going to have dinner with Lottie and Elvacore
at their home in
South Phoenix and we were on the way down driving,
it took us about 30 minutes to drive and
And
we had already made a,
a smallish commitment
to the Capitol campaign and we
Uh,
we hadn't had anything to drink,
so I can't blame it on that.
But,
but we,
uh,
on the way down driving,
we decided,
well,
let's,
let's make a major gift,
uh,
and let's,
uh,
let's really help out.
central core part of the
university insofar as
the president of the university is concerned and
Dean Humphries was concerned.
And uh
And I,
I guess the last person that cried was
when Laddie told
Ted Humphries,
he called him in his office and told him about the donation.
Ted broke down in tears.
So I mean,
everybody associated with it
was crying.
We were impressed with what Dean Humphrey had done
and uh the caliber of students that were being recruited
and the outcome that was being produced,
the significance of the program.
So,
and it's just gotten better since then.
Did it take a little bit getting used to having
a college named after you like,
hey,
I go to.
Was that like weird at all?
I still refer to it as the honors college because I can,
I can't,
uh,
come to think of
that name,
uh,
which I associate with
the name,
but not,
but it's,
it's hard
still.
It's,
it's also a great motivation to behave yourself when
something's named after you in a public sense.
At the,
at the naming ceremony,
we said,
normally you name things after people that have died and we
don't have any plans along those lines in the near future,
so
that's been almost 20 years now.
Um,
so what drives you to continue donating to new programs in?
Well,
the
Honors College has
grown in
the last two decades,
uh,
very substantially.
It,
it is the,
truly the academic heart.
Of the largest public university in the United States.
Um,
it is the same size student-wise as
the premier
private universities in the United States.
You take
Stanford,
Yale,
Harvard,
Princeton,
Brown,
any of these
schools.
Uh,
the honors college is the same size as the undergraduate population
of those universities
with essentially the same academic
standards.
So it has uh.
It has blossomed.
It has continued to improve and get better.
And frankly,
we get.
Super hyped up,
uh,
the two graduation ceremonies a year,
the winter and,
and the spring
graduation ceremonies that we
Try to attend them
and uh
especially in the
winter graduation ceremony where
we had time to shake the hands of each graduate and
Kind of.
You have 10 seconds to
what are you gonna do next and blah blah blah and and congratulations and we're just
super hyped up
at the end of that by the quality of the
of the students that we've met during the graduation program
and we obviously interface with uh
Mark Jacobs,
the current dean,
quite a bit and go to some of the poster sessions for the
research projects and
are just
super enthused about the quality of the education and as Barbara pointed out.
Arizona is not.
Highly thought of education-wise
in the United States.
But uh
the honors college is clearly the number one honors college.
In the United States and is recognized by just
essentially everyone with that.
And so we just
are thrilled
with the result and
Continue to be thrilled by the interaction with the
students and all the good things going on.
Each student that crosses that stage
gives us extraordinary joy
at seeing
and hearing even just a snippet of what they plan
next,
whether they're
going immediately into the workforce or
going immediately into graduate school or taking
a gap year,
and when we hear
the thesis topics that they're doing,
it's really quite remarkable
to see what the what these young people are accomplishing.
You ask why we continue to invest.
We think it's a great program,
but
like the world is changing,
and we want to provide some opportunities for the school to change with it.
And
as we see
honors colleges and other top universities across the country emulate
what the honors college is doing now,
we have to keep moving forward in order to retain the leadership role
that the honors college has had.
And we recently
um funded the
idea of
an enhanced
global engagement side of the curriculum
and with that we've
worked to bring
um in
lecturers and speakers,
uh,
people like Condoleezza Rice or.
President Vera Freiberger,
the former president,
first woman president of any of the
former Soviet
nations,
uh,
to live on campus,
Vera Freiberger was president of Latvia,
and we mentioned,
uh,
the former defense minister of Finland
having people
like that,
and I've mentioned
the ones I've mentioned have all been women.
I
Notice,
um,
but also Katie Coleman,
the astronaut
friends and,
uh,
to have people like that,
role models like that come on campus
are part of what we think helps to enrich
the experience
that a small school like
the honors college inside the mega university of Arizona State University,
um,
we,
we're
delighted to continue to fund
some of those kinds of enhancements
to keep the lead
that the gold standard has had in the past.
And I,
I think it's really,
uh,
significant that if you look at the
distribution of students in
the honors college that it
It's
a mixture of
science students,
engineering students,
business students,
social
science students.
I mean,
it's a
great spectrum
of bright,
bright young people,
uh,
getting together
and
Again,
when you go back to the,
the fundamentals of a great education,
you know,
high standards and.
Uh,
accountability,
and,
and that's exactly what we see at the Honors College.
You overseen various development?
18 years
What major decision
You
know,
we have
absolute great
confidence in the leadership
of Arizona State University and
Uh,
lattie Cour.
As president,
when we got involved with the Honors College,
had a
very soft spot in his heart for the Honors
College and thought it was super important to ASU.
Uh,
Michael Crowe,
as soon as he
arrived on the scene.
Following Laddie's,
uh,
presidency,
uh,
announced that he saw the Honors College as the academic heart
of ASU and that
what you could have is a,
just a phenomenal.
Uh,
academically oriented portion of the university.
And,
but not as a small isolated Ivy League school
but is uh embedded within a
essentially a 100,000 person
major public university.
And so we've,
we have,
uh.
Uh
Played some role in in,
as Barbara mentioned in the.
International opportunities and then the
kind of the Washington DC outpost for ASU and
such things,
but,
uh,
We really rely on the academic professionals.
Dean Jacobs and his staff and
Michael Crow and his staff.
To direct,
uh,
the academic operations of the Honors College,
uh,
you know,
we can,
we can say.
Uh,
you know,
you might think about this,
you might think about that,
but we leave the direction to the professionals.
Yeah,
I'd say we don't provide oversight.
They,
they,
they do,
and the Board of Regents and the,
and the president
provide oversight.
What we do on occasion is provide resources or provide access,
um,
but it's entirely at the options of the,
of the college to
use or not any of those.
By the way,
we do provide a ton of
high school students because a whole lot of basis graduates
end up going to the honors college.
Um,
what has been your proudest moment with the art?
I say every student that crosses the stage and
when we get the privilege of shaking their hands,
that's for me a really great joy.
Um,
so
we love every,
every occasion we have to have contact.
We're not underfoot.
We don't come over uninvited to campus,
but
when we are there,
uh,
just meeting the students and seeing what they've achieved
and will be achieving,
those are
great sources of joy for us.
Occasionally the poster sessions on the research projects
uh
that are carried out,
I mean they're they're really invigorating and a
chance to talk to students one on one
about what they're doing a little bit more detail,
but
interacting with students is the
is the most rewarding feature.
think that
colleges.
It's so fun to see.
We,
we,
um,
a week and a half ago I met with a
number of the leaders of
one of
the US service academies
who was saying how can we do,
uh,
some of the things that are happening at,
at the honors college and
so we know that some of the best.
Uh,
engineering schools across the country have taken a look at the honors college.
Um,
we've heard from,
we know that other honors colleges are being initiated,
uh,
with help from Arizonans who have paid attention to the honors college
and are looking to emulate as much as they can from the honors college.
So,
uh,
we see that
the Honors College is providing a great deal of leadership on a national scope
for universities
as ASU is as a whole.
When we think about access
plus excellence,
that's that defines ASU.
So access to to any.
Uh,
university capable student in our state,
um,
access to a higher education
plus excellence
with that,
uh,
opportunity that's given
by the honors college
to have very challenging,
uh,
self-inflicted challenging
work that the young people there
are doing.
So
Access plus excellence,
it's a pretty good
combination that has stood ASU and the honors college apart from
the universities across the country.
By the way,
you,
you can't have this discussion without.
Making reference to
the
honors
college dorm and its cafeteria.
You know,
I've visited literally 100s of universities and
I was going back to school.
It is not the sort of dormitory that Stanford had when I was a
freshman there and not the cafeteria that Stanford had when I was a freshman.
Uh,
the living accommodations are phenomenal and
the,
the sense of,
of this honors college being a cohesive unit
embedded within this
massive university,
I think,
is just,
uh,
speaks volumes for
opportunities for students there.
Uh,
but also the quality of,
of the,
uh,
enjoyment in the environment
that you can have there.
And that massive university isn't just massive,
but it is also demonstrating excellence
and innovation.
It is probably the most talked about university
in the United States today because
of the transformation taking place there
on.
Excellence and on access,
so it's a very exciting time.
Arizona,
I think,
is in fact living down that old reputation
of not being a place of academic excellence and proving itself worthy.
It's often been said that
Perception lags reality.
I think that Arizona's academic opportunities are
now
a reality
of excellence,
and a reputation will come along with that.
You may not know,
but
President Crowe lives
kitty corner to us,
only about.
75 yards
from where we're sitting now and,
and,
uh.
So I
get to see him.
You're driving to work and in and out,
but.
I've been meaning to complain to him about those buses around town which say
ASU #1 in innovation,
Stanford #2,
MIT 3.
So,
um,
but Barbara points out,
ASU has,
I think,
is it safe to say it's come a long way since you were an undergraduate there?
I think
my,
uh,
Latt
Coors leadership.
And then Michael Crow's is sort of a 12 punch that every other university
is envious of.
It really,
Laddie made it
a community-wide asset,
and Michael has made it a nationwide
school to be emulated.
So it's a pretty good
12 punch.
You couldn't have hoped to line it up
any better.
So we're ever so fortunate to have had the transformational leadership
of two great leaders in a row.
Yeah,
refresh.
You were testing at that time.
That was pretty long.
That was long.
Again,
we're good.
So what characteristics do you think define students who
Motivated
Because
they could get that ASU degree
without the extra work
of the thesis,
the leadership,
the extra courses,
the,
the
harder courses,
um,
so
this any student that chooses to go to Barrett is choosing
to do more work
than is necessary.
That's the kind of person who in the long run
is going to choose to take on
those insurmountable,
those challenges that are deemed.
Uh,
undoable.
Uh,
so
I think that uh
a student at the honors college is going to be defined
as someone who is
passionate,
aggressive,
willing to take on more
than what is required,
and then willing to pursue excellence in that
aspiration.
You know,
I,
I always define.
Um,
talent.
Uh,
in a prospective employee or university graduate is a,
a good education and passion for what they do,
and I see in the
honors
college students
passion,
and they're demonstrating that passion,
they're
a passion for educational excellence
over and above,
not just
the minimum number of courses to get out and.
Uh,
when I was.
Getting my PhDs,
some students did a statistical analysis of
what professor
should you work for
to have the highest probability of getting out in the shortest period of time
independent of what thesis topic you worked on,
and they made their selection on that
basis.
Uh,
my opinion was always,
uh,
show me somebody who is passionate about what they're doing,
passionate about their research,
and
that's the person you wanna hire long term.
Not the
person that's just interested in the
fastest way out or the easiest way to get through.
Would you explain the value of a varied education to a prospective.
Hey.
You wanna go to a number one rated academic institution
with all of the accouterments of a larger university,
great teachers,
they practice the foundation of a good education system.
Great teachers another subject,
high expectations,
accountability.
Do you really want
to
Graduate with.
Knowing a topic
or a series of topics really well and having passion
for what you do,
passion for what you wanna learn next,
passion for what you want,
where you wanna go next.
And
that opportunity is available and just like
uh when we do our.
Our basic schools,
uh,
it's a self selection process.
Students have to choose.
To go to a basis charter school.
Students have to choose to
go to the honors college.
They know what it's going to entail before they get there.
They know it's not going to be the easy way out,
that they're going to have to work hard,
but they're committed to that.
They have passion for that.
And
so
I would just tell them,
hey,
if,
if you have passion for what you wanna do
next and passion for getting a great education,
you wanna be surrounded by
people with equal passion,
this is the place to go.
If you just wanna get out in 4 years,
just go out and wanna get a degree and
that's all
the easiest possible way,
don't do it it's.
It's gonna be hard work.
Uh,
there are a lot of easier ways to do that.
But
You you
you
I think you discovered going through life that.
Um,
The,
the fastest,
easiest way is not always the best way for you.
What you really wanna do is enjoy what you're doing.
You wanna
love what you're doing.
You wanna have passion for what you're doing.
And so
before we keep going this card got full,
so I have to switch the card to the other one.
I was finished anyway.
OK.
There
See in the top corner the number.
Should we start again?
Didn't get any of that.
What?
We didn't get any of that.
Should we start again?
Uh,
oh no,
we got everything up until like the very,
very end of what you were saying about passion.
You gotta be passionate.
He says dead panic.
I'm
sorry about that.
I don't think there's another place in the country
where
you can get an Ivy level
academic
education
embedded in a massive university that has all the benefits of the multiple
course types
and the attraction
of,
uh,
Broadway performances and
the kinds of,
of,
um,
peripheral.
opportunities that a massive university provides,
so the combination
of academic excellence within a
small
community
embedded within
the massive university and all the benefits that
come from that in both courses of study and
and drawing power,
there's not another place in the country that has that combination.
Well,
least of all,
we forget.
Um,
Uh
We sent my granddaughter to
Stanford.
That's $60,000 a year tuition.
Uh,
and I think that an
honors college graduate.
As far as an undergraduate education is concerned,
it's the equivalent.
Of that.
Stanford
education
at a public university price and
you know ASU
is the honors colleges compared to the Ivy's
and essentially those are all private schools,
Stanford
private school,
uh,
but it's a public school
and it's affordable.
And that leads us on to the next question.
Um
Thank you for your time.
Um,
Courtney will begin the.
It's great.
Can you both tell us how you see
Evolving as an honors college within your lifetime?
Well,
I,
I think as Barbara eloquently put it earlier that,
uh,
nothing is stagnant or static in life,
especially education,
and what we're seeing today
is,
uh,
especially at ASU
and kind of sister universities like Purdue,
which I think is a pretty innovative university compared to ASU,
um,
changes in the way education is delivered,
whether it's face to face or online.
Uh,
changes in the opportunities to
study at other institutions while you're part of the home institution,
international study,
those sort of things.
So I,
I think that
ASU should continue to evolve.
In those fashions,
and they're not always easily predictable,
uh,
directions that you would go in.
One of the,
the obvious.
Uh,
predictable one is the international one,
which is
there's going to be more and more.
International cooperation in business and research
politics as we go forward,
so
giving people an opportunity to.
To view their country from the eyes of a foreign country,
I think it's a magnificent
part of education.
I was fortunate enough to do that a couple of times and
uh with the fellowships at
other universities,
but.
We have confidence in the leadership of ASU that
has
demonstrated
by its number one ranking in innovation that
these innovative opportunities will come forward
consistently
and we would hope that the
honors college and the rest of ASU
would accommodate them,
accept them,
mold them to fit.
ASU particular
uh
personality.
But
continue to move forward.
I would say the biggest
change in the future of the honors college
is that these extraordinary
graduates
are going to repay
their
benefits of having been
there
and they're gonna become advocates for the honors college
which will
make
our support pale in comparison.
Because
they're going to be giving back and they're going to help to
resource
the
drive for those new to meet those new needs
that will occur as time,
as the world changes.
And so
the biggest change will be
that
alum
will be playing a bigger and bigger role
in assisting the honors college to meet future needs.
What can be
gap
College more feasible for outstanding.
Um
That's a standard question.
Not facing
the honors college,
but facing all
higher ed choices going forward.
Uh,
uh,
one of the things I think,
uh,
it is very positive is that ASU.
I think has done a very,
very good job despite
decreasing state support in terms of providing
an affordable education,
um,
certainly.
Any tuition can be deemed unaffordable by the lowest.
Uh,
economic class and
uh I think the
university.
In my opinion,
has been committed to provide
uh tuition,
scholarships and opportunity to students who are financially,
uh,
hurting
to attend.
So I'm,
I'm.
I can applaud what uh
President Crowe has done in that respect.
I mean,
just,
uh
Two or 3 days ago,
I read an
op ed that he wrote to the state
asking for more support,
uh,
and,
and specifically calling out for,
uh,
the
accessibility of Arizona State.
And one of the
things that I think he,
he should be
absolutely applauded for is,
is,
uh,
approaching the whole issue
of.
A student body.
Quality student body not determined by
what small fraction of the applicants you
accept,
but a student body deter
determined by
what,
how many of the applicants you can accommodate.
And so I think the university is,
in my opinion,
has been very
cognizant of that whole issue.
And has,
uh,
the
face of the economic slowdown
a decade ago and
decrease in state support
has managed pretty well.
Um,
Uh
uh.
You know,
some of us,
uh,
I graduated,
uh,
from Stanford with a
A student loan of a magnificent amount,
I think $1500 at that time frame.
Uh,
but that was a lot of money
at that time frame and I,
and I,
I,
I don't think we should
Unnecessarily
saddle students with
student loans and,
uh,
especially financially struggling students.
And so the,
the
general trend I see not only at ASU but.
Many universities is to use
endowment,
use,
uh,
those funds for,
in fact,
scholarships,
such that any student who qualifies
should be able to attend.
Sarizona's constitution provides that,
uh,
university
education should be as nearly free as possible.
Uh,
you,
you might balance that with the you get what you pay for,
uh,
line,
and that
you don't want to diminish the quality of the education.
You want to make it accessible.
So.
That's the big challenge of our age
is to
uh have
students get access to a great education
and have uh the and have
that uh
be made possible by
imaginative funding
and we've seen a lot of that
by
both uh
presidents
Cre and Crow.
Um,
but that's going to be a continuing challenge is how we
make it accessible for students capable of doing university level work
and having them have a home
at Arizona State.
Ambassador
During some of the challenges you have spoken about.
Lessons you
I guess the lesson I would hope
for young people,
especially young women,
to have is
the lesson of just go for it,
see what you can do,
be energetic in those college years,
try diverse things,
find out what
it is
you really enjoy or what you really have an aptitude and,
and,
uh,
and.
A passion for,
but try a lot of diverse things.
I was forced to it because I
had to work 5 different jobs
at a time to pay for everything,
but those turned out to be very beneficial
realities in my life that
I wouldn't have thought at the time.
But even
Work like working at the bookstore ended up being something that in my later life
it was the bookstore that the FBI background checks
when I was going through clearances for government jobs.
They would always go to the bookstore and talk to
the owner of the bookstore who I worked for.
So,
I didn't do that by choice.
I did it by by necessity,
but some of those things
that forced me to try different
things at the time
were
beneficial in the long run.
Legacy do you both hope to leave for future Barrett students?
Opportunity.
I think that uh
what we
Have helped in a small way and what uh
President Crowe and Dean Jacobs do and the rest of
the staff is provide the opportunity for a wonderful education.
And that
wonderful education provides a follow on opportunity
to go out and do something wonderful.
Uh,
I would
just steal a quote from
one of the founders of the company that I worked for for 35 years Intel.
Bob Noyce was uh
Founder
Uh,
and
He
had a comment which is emblazoned in the lobby of Intel's headquarters,
which is.
Don't be encumbered by history,
go off and do something wonderful.
And that's what
the opportunity.
A good education gives you,
it gives you the opportunity to don't be
held back by
historical trends,
historical thoughts,
historical perspectives,
but
to go out and do something
new and wonderful.
And
A good education.
And love and passion for what you do
gives you that opportunity.
And we hope that all
Graduates of the honors college,
appreciate that.
I couldn't say it better.
I think that's exactly what we would hope our legacy would be,
and our hope would be
that through our support,
more students get access to that opportunity.
US diversity,
what bear.
Excuse me,
while we already supports students who are diverse in terms of race,
gender,
citizenship status,
and socioeconomic.
And the college continue to foster and
That is more supportive of diversity.
I think we need to just respect people
for what they bring to the table,
for what they do.
The packaging isn't what matters.
What matters is
a respect for each individual
and
a nurturing
of what's inside that package and to bring
that out and develop it for greater achievement.
Totally agree.
Thank you guys for your
If you have any more thoughts to share,
please feel free to reach out.
If you have any questions
Anniversary oral
Contact
Good job.
Well done.
And we finished with how many minutes left on the,
on the 3rd 15
minutes.
Oh
man.
Yeah,
I think you skipped over a couple maybe,
or you've
good.
Well done.
Could we possibly get some pictures with you guys?
It'd be a pleasure.
stop this
That's a lot of wonderful insight.
Thank you both so much.
My pleasure.
It's wonderful to see how much you light up.
Education.
You just lie down.
It's uh
Very simply,
it is.
The.
One thing that.
A generation is most responsible for,
which is providing that opportunity to the next generation.
And that only works.
Long term,
if you do that.
Well,
it's got dark in here comparatively.
Oh,
thanks.
It's all pretty stream of consciousness,
but good questions,
good questions help to elicit
um
insights.
What kind of backdrop are you looking for?
You want the painting or?
Sure.
It
was
Is it raining?
Oh,
how fun.
Did it rain?
Yeah,
it's raining.
It's all wet.
But if it isn't raining at the moment,
that will make it an even more beautiful.
and
it didn't go in my pocket.
It was just sitting on the couch.
Yeah,
we don't want a
nice shirt.
Thank you.
So while we're setting up
Uh,
Doctor Footer and I are hoping to put together an exhibition case for
this at part of this class that we teach history will assemble.
Do
exhibition design and this kind of thing.
So
if you
not now.