ASU President Michael Crow announces new academy on NBC’s ‘Today’ Show
Sep 16, 2015, 12:01 PM
PHOENIX — Former “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Brokaw joined Arizona State University president Michael Crow to discuss millennials and public service Wednesday, and to announce ASU’s Public Service Academy.
When introducing Brokaw, “Today” Show anchor Matt Lauer said the topic of millennials and public service has been a popular theme in Brokaw’s commencement speeches.
“I so admire [Crow] as a university president but also as guy who is willing to seize on ideas,” Brokaw said, adding, “I would come back from Iraq and Afghanistan and think we were putting all the burden on our military people — less than 1 percent of our population — and we have the millennials who feel disconnected from their government and from the idea of public service.”
Crow heard his speech, and so he started the Public Service Academy at ASU this fall, Brokaw said.
The new academy will train both civilian and military students, Crow said.
“Well, think of it like ROTC, but it’s to produce civilian leaders for civilian roles — so we’re building an academy where people will learn practical aspects of leadership, they’ll take their regular major, they’ll have scholarships, they’ll be training side-by-side with future military officers, and to produce these new kinds of leaders we’ve created this new academy, this new environment for them,” Crow said.
Crow and his wife, Sybil Francis, donated $1.2 million to, “to fund the directorship of the ASU Public Service Academy,” as reported by ASU News.
Lauer said Crow was “putting his money where his mouth is,” with the donation.
“Everybody regards him as one of the two or three greatest university presidents that we have in this country because he is so dynamic,” Brokaw said.
“A formal launch event is for the Public Service Academy is scheduled for early November,” according to ASU News.
