dent Rny Burnell os "blond-haired, bronze
skinned bubblehead*"—are alive and
rocking, a more serious, solid school hums
beneath the surface In this, its 101st year,
ASIJ is striving mightily to gain academic
respect And as statistics indicate—and a
conscientious look around the campus dem
onstrates— the student body is older, more
seriousand more conservativethan its first
glance appearance
The problem is, it’s hard to ignore the
beauties of ASU The 600-acre Temf>e cam
pus is nearly as spectacular as an Arizona
sunset ASU boasts strikingly eclectic ar
chitecture, including Frank Lloyd Wright’s
hist building—a fanciful, carousellike con
cert hall that looks as if it could fly away at
any moment And ASU has greened the
desert: exotic flora line the walkways, and
grass is watered rice-field style, so that the
grounds are verdant. Students treverse the
campusonopen-uirbuses, stylish mountain
bike* or skateboards Fashion is self-con
sciously casual; hair might be unruly, but
seldom unkempt Senior Mark Duskin, no
slouch in the looks department himself,
laments: "Sometimes it feels like I’m walk
ing through a genet icexperiment."
Undtr rna tunact: amu s attractions no,
however, run more than skin deep Now
the nation's sixth largest university, it of
fers a choice of 122 baccalaureate degrees.
Although a full third of its undergraduates
concentrate in the business school, ASU
authorities rank its College of Fine Arts in
the top 10 nationwide, and several other
departments— including business, law and
engineering—in the top 30. Strong stute
funding and grantsmanship huve helped
the school accumulate state-of-the-art
equipment, such us one of the world’s most
powerful electron microscopes.
ASU also pays its academicians relative
ly well: associate professors earn $31,885
per year, $2,000 above the national aver
age, and the faculty boasts such luminaries
as engineer David K Ferry, who helped
develop the world’s smallest transistor,
and former business dean William Seid
man, who now chairs the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation. Patrick McGowan,
former chairman of the respected political
science department, observes with a laugh:
"It's very easy to recruit first-rate fuculty
here—especially if you bring them in Janu
ary." ASU is also u bargain. Tuition has
been held to only $090 per year for Arizona
students; out-of-stuters pay a modest
$3,844, but after one year they can qualify
as residents and pay the instate fee
Yet even Tempe has clouds. One of the
blackest hovers over the powerhouse ath
letic teams In the past, they have produced
such sturs as baseball’s Reggie Jackson and
football’s Danny White, and contended reg
Rays ’n’ plays: Sun Devils in action
MKIHA PRODUCTIONS, ARIZONA STATU UNIVKNSm
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SUck transit: ASUstudent transpi>rt
ularly for Pac 10 and national champion
ship But now the Sun Devils seem to col
lect as many scandalous headlines as
trophies Between August 1983 and Janu
ary 1985, Pac 10 or NCAA sanctions were
leveled against the baseball, basketball,
wrestling, track and gymnastics teams for
various rules infractions.
Neither the heavily recruited athletes
nor the golden girls and boys on fraternity
row represent typical ASU students. They
are more likely to be commuters (87 per
cent live off campus) and older than most
undergraduates (the median age for all stu
dents is 25'/i). Many are transfers; atypi
cally, ASU has more seniors than fresh
men, a significant proportion married and
working at off-campus jobs.
This contributes to the sense of isolation
born of ASU’s size: growing with sun-belt
rapidity, enrollment has jumped from
17,000 i n 1964 to40,5581ast yea r. Com pa red
to smaller, more residential schools, "it’s
harder to meet people here, harder to es
ablish relationships that are enduring,”
says Robbie L. Nayman, ASU’s director
ofcou nsel ing und consu 11at ion M usic grad
uate Don Slutes calls his school "the
McDonald’sofhighereducation—you drive
up, get your education and drive away."
Wsr of the minds: As at practically every
other college, students tend to call their
peers largely apathetic, but ASU’s student
government and newspaper flame with
ideological battles between political and
religious conservatives on one side, and
moderates and liberals on the other. Says
law student Jay Heiler, a conservative and
former editor of the student newspaper,
the State Press, "There’s warfare going on
for their minds.”
Political conservatism should come as no
surprise in Barry Goldwater’s Arizona—
and ASU is theonly university with its own
chapter of the John Birch Society. But
ASU’s conservative tide derives much of its
strength from an unusual source—the fun
damentalist City of the Lord, a charismatic
"covenant community” (recognized by the
Roman Catholic Church, though not offi
cially affiliated with it). This 350-member
group and like-minded students have been
gaining clout since the late 1970s, when
they rid the campus of X-rated movies. Re
ligion frequently intrudes on secular mat
ters. One student-government officer, for
example, recently supported her argument
against funding gay-student groups by
quoting from an open Bible. Ray Burnell, a