Arizona State University Office of University Initiatives

UI helps ASU think outside the box. We help ASU be creative with its resources and its programming in order to maximize its potential impact on Arizona and the world at large. Through intense collaboration with other offices and departments across the university, we help to shape and then make manifest ASU’s goals.

ASU’s growth is being guided by the eight design aspirations that President Crow outlined in his inaugural speech. Those design aspirations are the ideas behind the New American University. The Office of University Initiatives’ (UI’s) top priority is the communication and conceptualization of the New American University.

ASU’s goals as an institution, referred to as the design aspirations, are to leverage place; to transform society; to promote knowledge entrepreneurship; to conduct use-inspired research; to cultivate a focus on the individual; to promote intellectual fusion; to socially embed itself within the community; and to engage global problems. In order to help ASU achieve these goals, UI also takes on a wide variety of projects that cut across university departments and programs

Those projects can be split into four basic categories: general New American University programs and communication, Education, Entrepreneurship, and Social Embeddedness. Each project usually follows a distinct trajectory:

• Conceptualization: First, we help with the brainstorming about a project. We figure out what it might be, what ideas are involved, what people could be involved, and what resources we would need to do it.
• Development: We begin to develop key relationships and locate the resources we need.
• Implementation: The project begins to come to life. We figure out what works and begin to move forward.
• Piloting: This is usually the first public part of the project, an aspect that has partners, resources and a message around it. We are very mindful about real-time evaluation, how things are going, what needs to change and if the project is effective.
• Institutionalization: The institutionalization of a project means that it is supported administratively, academically and culturally by the university.

UI is a cultural catalyst at ASU. We think about what ASU needs, and how to help the university address those needs. We connect ideas, people and resources to make an impact.