TCAC

List of Appendices

TCAC Background Information--Appendix 12

The Power of the UW Name and the Value of a UW Degree

In my view, the major connectors bridging UWS with UWB and UWT clearly are the first two letters in all the names, and, of course, the common central administrative structure including the Board of Regents, the President and the Provost.

In this memorandum, I offer you my perspective of the power of those two letters--UW--for the new campuses. Even before UWB and UWT opened in 1990, the "UW" in their names provided instant recognition to prospective students, faculty and staff, allowing these people and others in our region:

• to assume for the new institutions the widely-know, high levels of quality and distinction associated with the historic UW (the latter developed over more than a century by students, faculty and staff) and

• to expect that a degree earned from UWB or UWT would have a value equivalent to that of the historic UW.

The alternative, a brand new university without any clear connection to the historic UW, e.g., Bothell Stat University, clearly would have received a more skeptical response and therefore would have developed an accepting audience of students, faculty and staff much, much more slowly.

Besides anecdotal evidence to support the posits listed above (i.e., many questions over the years directed to UW personnel by legislators, students and others about the equivalence of the three degree certificated themselves), we can turn to the responses by UWB students to questionnaires given them each fall since 1994. One question asks them to list in priority order the reasons for attending UWB. Overwhelmingly they have selected as the first priority, the answer "reputation of a UW degree." The answer to another question, "to which schools did you apply?", is consistent with the idea that the students who come to UWB are primarily interested in the UW "brand name" given that 79% applied to only UWB and 11% applied to both UWS and UWB. (Please see Appendix 1.) Finally, in the graduate survey conducted by the Office of Educational Assessments and in student evaluations of instructors that I have examined, there is a clear basis for saying that UWB graduates are at least as satisfied with UWB as are UWS graduates with UWS. (Please see Appendix 2.)

In my opinion, all those faculty and staff who have joined the ranks at UWB or UWT have willingly, eagerly and successfully assumed the responsibility, implicitly suggested above, or providing programs of no less quality than that of the historic UW. Accordingly, because of the shared name, UWS faculty, staff, students and alumni have a built-in interest in the quality of the offerings at UWB and UWT, just as they have a built-in interest in the quality of those offerings at UWS which are not in their own particular area of research, scholarship and teaching. In short, due to the fact that the activities within each of the three campuses can have an impact, positive or negative, on the shared portion of the name, faculty, staff, students and alumni at any one of the three campuses automatically have an interest in the offerings of the other two. All this seems to me to be true quite aside from the presence or absence of formal three-campus governance structures, accreditation connections, tri-campus advisory councils, etc. Having said this, I in no way mean to diminish the influence of such structures and connections. Obviously, effective structures and organized connections can be very powerful forces in their own right. Even son, these powerful forces also would not obtain in UWB were Bothell State University.

At some point in the future, UWB and UWT will be large enough and will have graduated enough students such that each will have its own unmistakable reputation aside from that of the historic UW and, now, of UW. (UCLA was a branch campus at one time.) In fact, UWB and UWT are already moving in that direction. As we anticipate that future time, it is particularly important in the intervening years that both the real value and the perceived value of UWB or UWT programs be no less than that of the historic UW and, now, of UWS. Thus, each proposal or situation relating to the three campus university should be carefully scrutinized to ascertain whether the forcing functions of that proposal or situation tend to enhance the value of any of the UW degrees and programs or to diminish them, obviously in the latter case via unintended consequences. Further, any concerns about the quality of offerings within the UW, particularly at UWB and UWT because their "track records" are still in the formative stage, should be brought before an appropriate forum as soon as the concerns emerge. Further, these concerns must be addressed swiftly, thoroughly and fairly in that forum. Only in that way will we avoid the damage to the three-campus university, which will be caused by any unfocused, informal, negative commentary about quality, particularly of UWB and UWT. Clearly, no issues are more important to the future success of the UW than those surrounding quality. Accordingly, I urge you to establish the appropriate fora with utmost care.

NJR:kt

TCAC List of Appendices

Tri-Campus Advisory Committee
tcacadmi@u.washington.edu
Modified: August 5, 2000