Downtown Phoenix campus

Traditional therapy doesn’t often include basketball or badminton. But for several veterans at the Phoenix VA medical center, meeting twice a week at Arizona State University to shoot hoops and hit shuttlecocks has helped them feel better physically and mentally.

Faculty members at ASU’s School of Community Resources and Development collaborated with the Carl T. Hayden Veterans Administration Medical Center to bring the students from the school and veterans together.

Chris Herbst says that running 55 miles at a time can be so brutal that he enters a state he calls “the pain cave.”

Herbst, a faculty member at Arizona State University, is an ultramarathon runner, competing in races that are twice as long as a typical marathon.

But beyond the discomfort, he finds incredible beauty and peace of mind while pounding the trails for hours at a time.

Only a year and a half have gone by since Jon Gould arrived at Arizona State University, but as he leaves for California, he said the school he has headed is in excellent shape and poised to do even greater things in the near future.

Gould, a Foundation Professor who has been director of ASU’s School of Criminology and Criminal Justice since January 2020, will be the new dean of the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine. His last day working at ASU is Oct. 5.

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