The institution's name changes read like a biography of rising expectations. Territorial Normal School became Tempe Normal School, then Tempe State Teachers College, Arizona State Teachers College, Arizona State College, and finally - by a 2-to-1 margin of state voters in 1958 - Arizona State University. Each rename marked a leap in mission and capability. Under Arthur John Matthews, who served as president for 30 years beginning in 1900, the school constructed its first dormitories in the state and planted 110 Mexican Fan Palms along what is now Palm Walk, a century-old landmark. Matthews envisioned an 'evergreen campus' in the Sonoran Desert, and that vision persists: the entire Tempe campus functions as an arboretum today.

Grady Gammage's 28-year presidency from 1933 to 1959 transformed a teachers college into a comprehensive university. He oversaw the addition of graduate programs - the first Master of Arts in Education in 1938, the first Doctor of Education in 1954, and ten non-teaching master's degrees approved in 1956. His greatest architectural achievement came posthumously: the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Grady Gammage Memorial Auditorium, completed in 1964, five years after both Gammage and Wright had died. The building stands as one of Wright's final works and ASU's most recognizable landmark, its sweeping curves visible from the air as a distinctive element of the Tempe campus.

When Michael Crow became president in 2002, he articulated a radical vision: a 'New American University' that would be open and inclusive while achieving elite research status. The results have been staggering. ASU joined the Association of American Universities. Research expenditures tripled. Five Nobel Laureates joined the faculty. The university added more than 1.5 million square feet of research facilities, including the Biodesign Institute and the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability. Enrollment soared past 160,000, including over 81,000 online students. The institution expanded to four campuses - Tempe, Downtown Phoenix, West Valley, and Polytechnic in Mesa - connected by Valley Metro Rail and shuttle services.

ASU describes itself as 'one university in many places' rather than a main campus with satellites. Each campus carries a distinct mission: Tempe focuses on research and graduate studies, Polytechnic emphasizes professional and technological programs with hands-on laboratories and simulators, West Valley centers on interdisciplinary degrees and liberal arts, and Downtown Phoenix houses programs in nursing, public policy, law, journalism, and the Thunderbird School of Global Management. The Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law moved to its new home, the Beus Center for Law and Society, on the Downtown Phoenix campus in 2016. The West Valley campus runs nearly entirely on solar power and holds designation as a Phoenix Point of Pride.

Rising above campus, 'A' Mountain - officially Hayden Butte - bears a massive letter A, a tradition dating to 1955. The mountain and the palm-lined walks below define ASU's visual identity. Traditions run deep here: the Victory Bell clangs after football wins, Lantern Walk illuminates homecoming nights, and the Sun Devil mascot draws energy from the mythic heat of the desert itself. Despite the rapid growth that saw enrollment double under some presidents, ASU has maintained the campus culture that distinguished it from the beginning - a place where the future arrives faster than expected, much like Arizona itself.