Good morning! Yesterday, news was released here in America that Rob Walton, the eldest son of the founder of Walmart and the company’s CEO until 2015, donated $115m to my university to establish a new school that will focus on the future of conservation. What does this have to do with Montenegro, and what opportunity do we currently have that we must not miss?
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Who Is Michael Crow and Why Does He Matter?
Arizona State University (ASU) is the largest university in America. Imagine a school with 160,000 students, 22,000 employees, and a budget of $4.5bn, which cooperates with more than thirty universities worldwide, including our UDG.
However, ASU was not always what it is today. Until about twenty years ago, it was very popular, but more for its image as a “fun place to study” than for its contribution to science and academia. Although that was not entirely true even then, the arrival of one man at the head of this institution quickly changed everything.
Michael Crow, the son of an American sailor, grew up in modest conditions. His early experience with humanitarian work and awareness of the great social inequalities in a country that was landing on the Moon while still having houses with dirt floors, shaped his sense of mission: creating equal opportunities through science and technology.
I first visited ASU in 2016 as a guest of the State Department, together with the current Montenegrin Deputy Prime Minister Aleksa Becic and our Minister of Culture Tamara Vujovic. Then we met Dr Crow’s wife, Dr Sybil Francis, who led the Centre for the Future of Arizona. The work of this centre and their “Arizona We Want” programme inspired me so much that, through the Budva 2020 Foundation, which I founded after leaving the position of Deputy Mayor, I proposed a similar project for my city: “Budva We Want – Strategic Development Plan of Budva.”
I returned to ASU in 2018 through the McCain Institute, where I spent a year learning leadership from top people who worked at the highest levels of the American military and diplomacy.
Four years ago, encouraged by friends, I decided to continue my academic career. After a demanding and competitive process, I secured a scholarship and found myself here again—this time as a doctoral student and teaching associate at the School of Politics and Global Studies. So now I observe firsthand, on a daily basis, the development of a university that is a driving force behind the growth of Phoenix and Arizona.
The incredible rise and success story of Dr Crow, a specialist in university design, who invested his knowledge and life into ASU and gained the trust of many prominent Americans, including the Walton family, who are ready to invest their money in his vision, is remarkable. Besides the Waltons, there are many other institutions and companies collaborating with ASU: Adidas, Starbucks, Mayo Clinic, Intel, Dell, HP, and many others.
Crow’s vision is the New American University—his personal hallmark. It is “an inclusive, adaptive, and outcome-driven public research university that serves broad public purposes.” The university’s mission is immortalised in its charter, which clearly states:
“The university is measured by whom it includes and how they succeed, rather than by how selective it is.”
Being part of such a large system and feeling that even as a student, you can influence change gives an incredible sense of fulfilment. A small victory for me was managing to include the name of the Montenegrin language in the curriculum of the Centre for Critical Languages at the university. I also received permission to organise a study abroad programme next year in Montenegro and bring about twenty American students to Budva.
I succeeded in attracting the interest of several people at the univesroty for an endowment dedicated to Montenegrin-American studies. For this, however, I need the help of the Montenegrin state, which should reach out to ASU and establish a strategic partnership with it.
Arizona holds significant importance in the history of Montenegrin immigration. Bisbee and Miami are two Arizona towns with cemeteries of our immigrants and museums preserving the memory of the Montenegrin mining community from the early 20th century. Another Montenegrin woman unjustly forgotten is Olgivanna Lloyd Wright, granddaughter of Duke Marko Miljanov. Her husband, Frank Lloyd Wright, left a lasting mark on the architectural identity of Arizona and the entire United States. The university’s Gammage Theatre building is his work, and Olgivanna led the project on behalf of his foundation after his death.
Imagine if we, as a country with a budget smaller than that of this university, strategically connected with ASU and educated two or three generations of engineers, doctors, managers, IT specialists, and biologists there. If much bigger Kazakhstan could do it—why couldn’t we? Why should we miss this chance?
That’s all for today. Have a pleasant rest of the day.
Kind regards,
Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM analyst and columnist
(Columnists’ opinions and views do not necessarily reflect those of the CdM editorial board)
