EVERETT — The new chancellor at Washington State University North Puget Sound is focused on adding programs, bringing in more students, completing the new building on North Broadway and transforming the Pullman-based university’s offerings in Everett into an official branch campus.
Paul Pitre, 54, was named chancellor effective Sept. 1. He’s been dean at WSU North Puget Sound since 2014.
“I’ve seen that we have some exceptionally bright students, very capable,” he said. “Even though we are small, we’re still growing. I just see so much opportunity for us to grow as an academic organization on one hand, but also as a community resource.”
WSU’s presence in Everett have been expanding in recent years. Enrollment has increased, as has the university’s footprint on North Broadway.
In 2012, there were 23 mechanical engineering students enrolled in a WSU program in Everett. Now there are about 200 students in five programs: mechanical, electrical and software engineering, hospitality business management and communication. Two new programs — data analytics and organic agriculture — are set to start soon. Data analytics is on track to start in January for spring semester, and the agriculture courses would roll out for fall semester of 2017.
Organic agriculture would be the first new program in the WSU building under construction on North Broadway, across from Everett Community College’s main campus. It’s scheduled to open in fall 2017. The four-story, 95,000-square-foot building is designed to be home to WSU North Puget Sound and the Everett University Center, a consortium of colleges and universities that Pitre also is charged with managing.
The university center provides transfer programs in partnership with four-year universities. Students can stay in Everett to finish their degrees. There are nearly 600 students enrolled in programs at the center.
“We’re developing as an urban campus, so I think it really is focused on access,” Pitre said. “What we get is a population of students who, for whatever reason, cannot relocate to a more traditional campus … Students here don’t have to relocate, so they can keep a job if they have one. They don’t have to move their family. They don’t have to bear the cost of any additional living expenses.”
Roughly a third of the students at WSU North Puget Sound are the first in their family to go to college. Nearly half are at least 25 years old and one in 10 are veterans.
As soon as 2019, the Everett campus is expected to welcome medical students in their third and fourth years of courses through the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. The plan is for those students to spend their first two years taking classes in Spokane at the main campus, then do clinical training with local health care providers.
“We’re definitely part of the WSU system, so we have the benefit of 126 years of experience and background that comes to us from our other campuses,” Pitre said. “I think we are unique in that we are young, we’re kind of the baby of the family. I think WSU North Puget Sound at Everett has the ability to be on the frontier and the forefront of education. Being a newer academic organization in 2016 means that we have the ability to really grow and develop programs in new ways.”
Kari Bray: 425-339-3439; kbray@heraldnet.com.
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