Can you dig it, Warriors?
For the second consecutive year, Arizona State University is the nation’s most innovative school, according to U.S. News & World Report rankings.
The widely touted list compares more than 1,500 institutions on a variety of metrics. The latest review, released today, is based on a survey of college presidents, provosts and admissions deans around the nation. ASU has taken the top spot in each year the innovation category has been considered.
The back-to-back No. 1 rankings demonstrate that the news magazine’s annual poll recognizes ASU’s overarching approach, rather than a single initiative or moment, university officials said.
“We do things differently, and we constantly try new approaches,” ASU President Michael M. Crow said. “Our students’ paths to discovery don’t have to stay within the boundaries of a single discipline. Our researchers team up with colleagues from disparate fields of expertise. We use technology to enhance the classroom and reach around the world. We partner with cities, nonprofits and corporations to support our advances as the higher-education economy evolves. This ranking recognizes the new model we have created.”
Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology took the No. 2 and 3 spots, respectively, maintaining last year’s positions. Georgia State, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Carnegie Mellon, the Georgia Institute of Technology, Northeastern, Portland State, Purdue and Michigan filled out the rest of the top 10Because of a tie there are actually 11 schools with a top 10 rank. .
Voting panel members nominated up to 10 colleges or universities making the most innovative improvements for curriculum, faculty, students, campus life, technology and facilities.
In the year since its first No. 1 ranking, ASU has extended its global reach by joining with universities in the United Kingdom and Australia in an alliance to meet education needs in developing nations. ASU also has launched the Global Freshman Academy, which allows students to take online classes and decide later whether to pay for the credits. The school has also defied skepticism over putting laboratory classes on the web and offers the first online, accredited engineering degree.