At Arizona State University's Undergraduate Commencement on Monday evening, Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Rafael Reif told the Class of 2018 that they now had the ability and responsibility to hold open doors that will allow others to pursue an education and better themselves.
Before Reif's remarks at Chase Field in downtown Phoenix, he and ASU President Michael M. Crow sat down with Adriana De Alba, who graduated this week from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at ASU, for a wide-ranging interview that included discussion of what each institution does to provide access to higher education and what the two university presidents admire about their colleague's institutions.
De Alba started with a topic that ties the three of them together: what it was like to be the first in their families to go to college and how that has affected their leadership at two of the world's most innovative universities.
Providing access to higher education
Mutual admiration society
Full interview
Videos by Deanna Dent and Jamie Ell.
More Sun Devil community
2025 in pictures: ASU photographers share some of their favorite moments of the year
From football games to lab work to graduation, our photographers in Media Relations and Strategic Communications see it all throughout the course of the year.So we wanted to know — what were…
Finishing what she started: ASU grads’ lifelong pursuit of education becomes a reality
Makita Hogans has tried her hand in higher education for years, but her commitment to her newly born son put her vision for a degree on the back burner.“I made the choice to raise my son. His future…
NASA Brooke Owens Fellow, Space Grant alum awarded Dean’s Medal for approach to science education
Lindsey Tober was looking for a way to combine her creative side with her passion for science when she found the technological leadership degree at Arizona State University and ultimately used it to…