ASU President Michael Crow Named to TIME100 Climate List, a First for a University President

Arizona State University President Michael Crow has been named to the 2024 TIME100 Climate list of leaders and innovators driving real climate action.

The list includes leaders across a range of fields, from policy to business to education. TIME’s editors spent months vetting names from across the economy. They prioritized measurable, scalable achievements and recent action over commitments and announcements.

Crow is the first university president to be named to the TIME100 Climate list.

He is joined by such fellow honorees as World Bank President Ajay Banga; Claudia Sheinbaum, president of Mexico; Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex; Bill Gates, founder of Breakthrough Energy and TerraPower, among other enterprises; Jennifer Granholm, secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy; and Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis. This is only the second time the magazine has released its climate list.

The ASU president said the TIME100 Climate honor “is a welcome recognition of our university’s unique approach and impact.”

“We’re not focused on ‘the sky is falling’ or scare tactics — fear only inspires shortsighted, ill-conceived actions,” said Crow, who had been previously honored by the magazine when it named him one of the 10 best college presidents in 2009.

“We’re instead focused on finding solutions and results to some of society’s biggest challenges.”

Crow’s nearly four-decade-long conviction that the world’s leading universities are uniquely positioned — and have full responsibility — to lead in restoring and maintaining our relationship with the planet has driven many of his actions as a leader. His career path is full of early-stage actions and “firsts,” such as founding Columbia University’s world-renowned Earth Institute (today part of Columbia’s recently formed Climate School) and the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes.

Since becoming president of ASU in 2002, he has transformed ASU into a powerhouse of climate-related action from Hawai’i to Bermuda, from deserts to rainforests and everywhere in between.