News & Updates

Washington State University has selected a new Provost.

Steven Hoch, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky has been selected as the new Provost and Executive Vice President at WSU.  Hoch succeeds Bob Bates who is stepping down July 1 after six years in the position.

Hoch began his academic career as a lecturer in history at Trinity College in Connecticut.  He was an assistant and associate professor of history at Drew University in New Jersey and an associate and full professor of history at the University of Iowa.  He served as associate provost for academic programs at the University of Iowa before becoming dean of the college of arts and sciences at the University of Kentucky.  His research focuses on modern Russian history, European agrarian history and historical demography.

Here’s a link to the announcement from the WSU website.  Hoch’s official starting date will be August 1.

Here’s a story that popped up in a number of state newspapers this morning, including the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Since the arrival of President Elson Floyd last year, Washington State University (WSU) has been looking critically at its current academic structure with the notion of focusing limited resources on its highest academic priorities, particularly in those areas where WSU can play a leadership role.

Last week, retiring Provost Bob Bates issued a report which takes a comprehensive look at each of the university’s academic areas and making specific recommendations to curtail on increase activity.  By eliminating a lot of low demand majors and courses, the school hopes that core majors and courses can be improved.  Some of the recommendations include:

• Create an area focused on Environmental Sustainability by using resources currently invested in the School of Earth and Environmental Science, the Department of Natural Resource Sciences and the Department of Community and Rural Sociology.
• Dividing the College of Liberal  Arts into three divisions — social and behaviorial sciences; arts, culture and humanites; and interdisciplinary programs and area studies.
• Phasing out the undergraduate major in forestry.
• Reducing geology and focusing it on general education courses, basic science teaching and environmental research.

The next step is for each college to submit a preliminary plan to the Provost by June 15.  A final plan is due by September 26.

Don’t know if any of you have discovered the “Crosscut” website, but as a “Northwest-phile” I have really enjoyed dialing in once a day for a variety of stories gleaned from the major media outlets in the Pacific Northwest, including British Columbia which is more economically part of us than Ontario or Quebec (but that’s a rant for another day).

Pretty good article today by Crosscut’s publisher David Brewster about the plan floated by the UW about a decade ago to “privatize” the University.  I was on staff in the state legislature at the time and while a number of individual legislators were intrigued with the idea, as a whole, the proposal had little chance of being taken seriously.  Still, it’s interesting to think about that idea in the context of where the UW is today in terms of its relationship with state government.

More affirmation in the national press about the UW’s efforts to be as environmentally friendly a university as possible.

Forbes Magazine recently did a feature story on America’s greenest colleges and universities and the University of Washington was rated in the top ten nationally for our active participation in the Seattle Climate Partnership, our commitment to carbon neutrality and to making 100% of our energy purchases from renewable sources.

Speaking of bein’ green, a number of media sources have written stories on the possible creation of a UW College of the Environment, including this piece in this morning’s Seattle Times.  I’m going to start hitting the road soon talk to state legislators and other officials about this idea and solicit their feedback at the same time the University continues it’s own internal discussions about the proposed structure and shape of the organization.

Just last week I wrote about Rep. Shirley Hankins (R-Richland) announcement that she would not run for re-election this November to her 8th district seat.  At the time, Hankins was the 10th member of the lower chamber to announce they were not coming back to Olympia.

Well, make that eleven.  In an announcement yesterday that stunned the local Yakima political establishment, Rep. Mary Skinner (R-Yakima) who has represented the 14th district (Yakima, Union Gap, Selah and Naches) since 1995 is calling it quits after this term.  According to the Yakima Herald, her departure, coming less than a month before the June 6 filing deadline has left both parties scrambling to find replacements.

Skinner was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2006 but recently told supporters that her cancer was in remission and she was planning to run for re-election.  According to her written statement, health was not a factor in her decision not to seek re-election. The Yakima Herald also reports that Yakima mayor Dave Elder (a former member of the Seattle Mariners) is considering a run for Skinner’s seat.

Last Friday night, a party was held in the Temple of Justice in Olympia for long-time AP reporter Dave Ammons who is retiring after 37 years covering state politics.  Ammons is now commnications director for the Secretary of State.

Lots of folks were there it seems, including the two major candidates for Governor — incumbant Christine Gregoire and challenger Dino Rossi — who it seems had not been in the same room together for almost four years.

Here’s public radio reporter Austin Jenkins recap of the event.  Sounds like a swell party!

Add another name to the list of incumbant state legislators who will not return in 2009.

Rep. Shirley Hankins (R-Richland) announced yesterday that she will not seek re-election to her 8th legislative district seat.  Hankins becomes the 10th member of the state House who will not run for office this November.

Hankins, 76, has served in the state legislature for almost a quarter century.  Only retiring legislator Helen Sommers (D-Seattle) and state Senator Bob McCaslin (R-Spokane) have been around longer.  A moderate Republican who sometimes voted with the Democratic caucus, Hankins was involved in some recent controversy involving allegations reported in the Tri-City Herald that she was using her office to promote her daughter’s tire recycling business.  After a lengthy investigation, the Legislative Ethics Board levied a fine against Hankins last December.

Interesting report released on Tuesday of this week from Moody’s Investors Service and a follow-up story in the Chronicle of Higher Education yesterday.

For years now, higher education leaders have decried the steady decline in the percentage of higher education funding supported by state tax dollars and the corresponding shift in funding to tuition, private fund-raising campaigns and public-private partnerships.

The Moody’s report concludes that public universities are actually economically stronger today because of these changes, but, must now learn to actually operate less like governmental entities and more like large, complex nonprofit organizations.  Most importantly, states need to give them the flexibility to do so.

The Moody’s study finds that as state support has dropped as a percentage of overall higher education funding, many institutions have out of necessity become “fundamental economic engines” with deeper ties to local businesses and the surrounding community.  Moody’s praise this diversification but also calls for more professionalism among the membership of higher education governing boards who have the business background to make market-driven decisions.

State’s can help higher education insitutions take full advantage of these economic transformations by giving governing boards authority to set tuition and financial aid policies that will permit their institutions to attract the most students.  Moody’s contends that although legislators often want to keep tuition low for state residents, it makes better financial sense to attract students nationally and internationally and help local students with larger amounts of financial aid.

Food for thought for all state higher education officials, particularly as the state’s six four-year universities enter into discussions with the state on performance agreements later this year.

Today’s Everett Herald reports that Rep. Hans Dunshee (D-Snohomish) is recovering after being hospitalized for five days last month for a serious staph infection.  According to the article, Dunshee cut his leg getting in and out of his kayak and the cut became badly infected.

Dunshee is the Vice Chair of the House Appropriations Committee and a candidate to replace the retiring Helen Sommers as chair of the committee when the 2009 legislature convenes in January.  He was a major proponent of the UW North Sound campus in Everett the past two sessions, although legislation to create the new school failed to pass this year.  He’s running for his 7th term in the House of Representatives this fall from the 44th district which includes the communities of Snohomish, Mill Creek, Lake Stevens and Marysville.

Lots of news in the local paper’s recently about university presidential compensation which I’m sure most of you have read by now.

Here’s another story from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that looks at presidential compensation from the viewpoint of a state that’s beginning to think it might have become a farm team for training everyone else’s university leaders.

Bruce Shepard, the new incoming president at Western Washington University is getting a salary bump of more than 55% from what he was being paid at the University of Wisconsin – Green Bay, leading some in America’s Dairyland to wonder if the state should be doing more financially to retain it’s top higher education leaders.  The story points out that Shepard is the third Wisconsin system chancellor to leave this year for a higher paying position at another school outside the state.  Shepard himself is quoted as saying “We end up running a farm club for executive leadership.”

A number of other Wisconsin higher education leaders are leaving for reason’s having little to do with compensation, but the article also points out that the state perhaps does not value higher education the way it once did and that faculty salaries at Wisconsin colleges and universities also lag significantly behind their peer schools nationally.