Here is an excellent article about ASU and the changing face of global higher education from this past week's Newsweek.

Michael Crow is overseeing one of the most radical redesigns in higher learning since the modern research university took shape in 19th-century Germany. Since taking over as president of Arizona State University in 2002, he's not only doubled the budget to more than $2 billion a year, hired dozens of world-class researchers and rapidly raised the academic profile of what used to be a mediocre school; he's also transforming the way Phoenix-based ASU sees itself—and helping reinvent the university for the global age.

We are keeping tabs on an interesting and quite vigorous debate on Canadian environmental policy that’s raging north of the border at the Calgary Stampede in oil-rich Alberta. Liberal leader Stéphane Dion’s “Green Shift” plan calls for raising taxes on activities that produce high carbon emissions coupled with broad-based tax cuts for individuals affected by the resulting rise in prices. The CBC reports that:

Dressed in a Stetson and a checkered cowboy shirt, Harper told a crowd of Conservative party faithful Sunday night at a Calgary Stampede barbecue that Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion's plan to shift taxes toward carbon-emitting industries and away from individuals would devastate the Canadian economy.