Good idea, needs details
Published 12:01 am Sunday, January 23, 2011
The politics of higher education is, as Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson suggested last week, complicated.
No single entity oversees the state’s college and university system. Rather, it’s run by a loose network whose components exist in silos — individual campuses, boards and councils repr
esenting community colleges and university presidents, and a statewide board working to coordinate it all. Then there’s the governor and the Legislature, who make ultimate decisions on policy and funding.
Even in years when the state budget is healthy, decisions don’t come quickly or easily. Stephanson knows that better than most, having spent the past few years leading an uphill campaign to bring a permanent four-year university presence to Snohomish County.
That effort continues. And the hill remains steep.
Now, however, a willing partner — enthusiastic, even — sits at the top of that hill. Washington State University President Elson Floyd wants to address the still-unmet need for thousands of four-year degrees in Snohomish County by launching what could become a robust role here for the crimson and gray.
Stephanson and Floyd propose putting WSU in charge of University Center of Puget Sound, a consortium currently run by Everett Community College on its campus. It’s an idea loaded with promise for local students and benefits for the entire state, one that includes expanding the production of engineering degrees here — a crucial need for Boeing and other aerospace companies with large numbers of engineers nearing retirement.
Yet the initial pushback it received last week indicates more work needs to be done. The state Board for Community & Technical Colleges wrote a letter to WSU opposing it Thursday, citing concerns that a new site, management and operating functions could reverse progress already made at University Center.
Amid cuts to higher education budgets, fears and suspicions are natural. Such concerns can only be assuaged with details. A few we think would make sense from the start, for continuity and cost-effectiveness:
•Protect the programs and collaboration that exist at University Center, where some 500 full- and part-time students currently are being served by eight institutions offering four-year and graduate degrees.
•Keep the current director, EvCC Vice President Christine Kerlin, in that position as a WSU employee.
•Don’t change sites. The current University Center on the EvCC campus is the perfect place from which to grow WSU’s presence here, and co-locating WSU and EvCC offers the efficiency of shared resources.
Assuming these and other pertinent questions are addressed, this looks like a logical progression in the state and local effort to produce more baccalaureate degrees, and to keep more aerospace jobs here by supplying the sector with more home-grown engineers.
The path remains uphill, but with one of the state’s two research universities willing to plant its flag firmly in Snohomish County, it’s worth the climb.
