ASU moving Thunderbird graduate classes to downtown Phoenix campus

PHOENIX — Graduate classes at the Thunderbird School of Global Management will be moved to downtown Phoenix over the next few years, Arizona State University announced Tuesday.

In a release, ASU said all Thunderbird graduate students — along with the Thunderbird Executive Education program — would be relocated to a new building in downtown by 2021.

“Locating Thunderbird with other ASU schools and departments on the downtown Phoenix campus will provide greater community embeddedness and enhanced resources for Thunderbird students and faculty,” ASU President Michael M. Crow said in the release.

Thunderbird’s undergraduate programs will still be taught at the campus near 59th Avenue and Greenway Road.

Crow also said the move to the building near First and Polk streets would give students more access to both private- and public-sector companies based near downtown.

“This is an incredible opportunity for Thunderbird to broaden its mission and have an even greater impact on students and the businesses and organizations with which the school partners,” Allen Morrison, the CEO and director general of Thunderbird, said in the release.

Thunderbird will be the sixth ASU college based in downtown.

The school also said it was working with the city of Glendale to repurpose the 140-acre Thunderbird campus near 59th Avenue and Greenway Road.

“The city of Glendale has been a wonderful home for Thunderbird over the past 71 years,” Crow said. “We are making a commitment to Glendale and to the entire West Valley to utilize the Thunderbird campus for the benefit of the community.”

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