As the University of Arizona Goes, so Goes Tucson

As the University of Arizona goes, so goes Tucson, the city where the university is located.

As Tucson goes, so goes the University of Arizona (UA).

Things haven’t been going very well for either of them.  Both have been operating well below their potential for a long time, and both are suffering from problems that are largely self-inflicted.

UA is having a financial crisis, a leadership crisis, and a morale crisis among faculty and administrative staff.  And, as will be discussed momentarily, it has been surpassed reputationally by other state universities, including land-grant colleges like itself.

The City of Tucson has high poverty and what comes with poverty:  crime, human misery, blight, and low K-12 test scores.  The surrounding county isn’t much better.

The Tucson metro area of nearly 1.1 million people is an economic backwater compared to many other Sunbelt metropolises, including compared to Phoenix, the megapolis a two-hour drive north on Interstate 10.  This is in spite of Tucson having a milder climate and a prettier natural setting than Phoenix.

It hasn’t helped Tucson that UA has been a laggard in commercializing innovations and spinning off startups that have grown into high-paying enterprises.

An aside:  In the spirit of leveling with the reader, I have connections to the University of Arizona.  My son has done well from earning a bachelor’s and master’s in engineering from the university, and a former provost at the university was a client of my management consultancy while she was at UA and then while she was at another university.

I have lived and worked in big cities, small cities, corrupt cities, rich cities, impoverished cities, declining cities, and rising cities.  Tucson tops all of them in provincialism, insularity, hubris, denial, and an aversion to prosperity.

Tucsonans take pride in their kindness, humanism, and concern for the disadvantaged.  At the same time, paradoxically, they have embraced a governing ideology, a controlling political monopoly, and corresponding public policies that have hurt people by keeping the metropolis poorer than it would otherwise be.

The University of Arizona has similar traits.

Consider UA’s search for a new provost.  Of the three finalists, one has taken a post elsewhere, and another was lambasted by faculty.

Curiously—or maybe it isn’t so curious—the rejected candidate had a track record of cutting costs, which would seem to be a top requirement given UA’s financial woes.  But when he gave a presentation to faculty members, he apparently didn’t recite the correct platitudes and banalities about the disadvantaged, especially about so-called Hispanics.

According to a story in the Arizona Daily Star, over 100 faculty signed a letter bashing the candidate for his “very odd and concerning response” about being a provost at a “Hispanic serving institution.”

(Source: “U of A faculty members endorse 1 provost candidate, bash another,” by Ellie Wolfe, Arizona Daily Star, April 17, 2024.)

The above story further quoted the faculty letter as follows:  “Our sense is that he has neither an understanding of nor a commitment to the values that define us as a land grant, and that constitute important areas of strategic opportunity and competitive advantage.”

The newspaper story went on to explain:

Hispanic serving institution is a federal designation by the U.S. Department of Education of universities with 25% or more total undergraduate Hispanic student enrollment.

Land grant universities, established by law in 1862, were initially created to teach agriculture, science and engineering. Now, the universities provide education, research and outreach meant to benefit their communities and address societal needs. The UA is one of 57 land grant universities in the country.

That’s almost laughable, considering that the politics and policies at the university and in the city have done little to reduce poverty and make metro Tucson more prosperous.

An aside:  To level again with the reader, I earned two degrees long ago at a university that had a large Mexican student body.  (They referred to themselves as Mexican back then, not Hispanic, just as I referred to myself as Italian, not White.)  My Mexican buddies and I were in ROTC together and went through officer basic training and artillery training together.  I also lived in the barrio of San Antonio, where I had my car stolen, my rims stolen another time, and got caught in the middle of a gun battle.

Contrast my experience with the provost candidate preferred by the UA faculty.  She is a dean at Pennsylvania State University, located in State College, Penn., where Hispanics comprise four percent of the population.  Yet the aforementioned letter from UA faculty said that they were impressed with her “commitment to the values of diversity and engagement of community that are central to our identity as a Hispanic serving institution and a land-grant university.”

If it sounds like blather, looks like blather, and smells like blather, it might be blather.

Speaking of blather, it’s particularly “blatherous” when university faculty talk about their commitment to community.  It’s difficult to find a work environment more cutthroat, backstabbing, petty, and status conscious than universities.

In addition to the search for a provost, another search has begun at UA to replace President Bob Robbins, who has announced his retirement date.  It is critical for the future of UA (and Tucson) that the right person be found, but it’s difficult to be optimistic in view of past leadership.

The reputation of UA has suffered under its leaders while the reputations of other universities have shined under their leaders.

A case in point is Purdue University, the land-grant college in tiny West Lafayette, Indiana.  News coverage abounds about how the recently retired president of Purdue, Mitch Daniels, the former governor of Indiana, had frozen tuition, improved the school’s already stellar reputation, established collaborative relationships with large corporations, and built a research park that has just attracted SK Hynix to construct a $4 billion advanced semiconductor fab and packaging plant.

Imagine what such a facility would do for the reputation of UA and for poverty in Tucson.  It would do a lot more than the current blather is doing.

Daniels also had groomed his replacement.  He has been replaced by Dr. Mung Chiang, the former dean of engineering and executive vice president for strategic initiatives.

Purdue receives special recognition in the New York Times bestseller, Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be, by Frank Bruni. The book decries the obsession of parents to get their kids into one of the Ivy League colleges and makes the case that there are plenty of excellent schools outside of the Ivy League.  In addition to Purdue, another land-grant university, Texas A&M, is recognized in the book.

Only one university gets an entire chapter in the book:  Arizona State University, which is located in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe.  ASU President Michael Crow is lauded for changing the reputation of the university from a party school to a school of excellent academics.  Corporations have ranked it as one of the top five sources of qualified graduates.

By contrast, the University of Arizona receives two brief references in the book.  One reference is about a student who passed through UA and then went on to earn a degree at a more prestigious university.  Another is about a student who attended UA’s School of Architecture but then applied her architectural knowledge to her true love of the theater, where she got her start by designing stage sets in New York.

In closing, perhaps Tucson and the University of Arizona deserve each other.  But Tucson residents and UA students don’t deserve their provincialism, insularity, hubris, denial, and blather.

Retired in Tucson, Mr. Cantoni can be reached at craigcantoni@gmail.com.