News & Updates

Washington Higher Education Coordinating Board Executive Director Ann Daley has co-signed a letter along with dozens of other national higher education leaders to presidential candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain urging them to address the nation’s major higher education challenges.

The letter states that by the end of the next President’s first term, the U.S. will have created three million more jobs requiring a bachelor’s degree with not enough graduates to fill them and that global competition will require research and innovation on a scale that even the U.S. is not prepared to sustain.

The letter further calls for the next President to increase by one million the number of postsecondary degrees and certificates and to increase investments in basic research.  A white paper which provides more details on the proposal was also sent to the three major candidates.

UPDATE: This editorial in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer talks about this letter from national higher education leaders and calls on the major presidential candidates to focus more on higher education.

Here are a few items of note from the state capitol that made news this past week.

• TVW, the state’s public affairs network has a new President.  Greg Lane, former deputy chief of staff to Attorney General Rob McKenna assumed the helm of Washington’s “C-SPAN” station on May 1.  Lane succeeds former TVW President Cindy Zehnder who left last fall to become chief of staff for Governor Christine Gregoire.  Lane also becomes my new landlord as the UW Office of State Relations Olympia office is located on the second floor of the Jeanette C. Hayner Media Center (TVW’s office) here in the capitol city.
• Rep. Geoff Simpson (D-Covington) was arrested this past week on a charge of fourth degree assault and interfering with a domestic violence report.  Simpson is chair of the House Local Government Committee and is currently serving his fourth term representing the 47th legislative district which is in southeast King County from the Renton Highlands, to Kent and Black Diamond.  Simpson has denied any wrongdoing and House leadership has not yet taken any official action.  UPDATE:  Seattle Times chief political reporter David Postman reports this afternoon that after meeting with Speaker Frank Chopp, Simpson has relinquished his chairmanship of the House Local Government Committee.  No word on his replacement although the Vice Chair is Rep. Dean Takko (D-Longview).
• The race for Superintendent for Public Instruction (SPI) is getting more crowded.  Former state legislator and House Education Committee chairman Randy Dorn has announced his candidacy for state schools chief.  Dorn is currently executive director of the Public School Employees of Washington.  He joins Richland superintendent Rich Semler (who was recently endorsed by the Washington Education Association) as the two chief challengers to incumbant Terry Bergeson who is seeking her fourth term this fall.
• Tim Eyman has taken out a second mortgage on his home to finance his latest statewide ballot measure.  Recently, Eyman’s initiatives have been bankrolled primarily by Woodinville investor Mike Dunmire who apparently has other uses for his money.  Eyman’s latest proposal is Initiative 985 which among other things would open up carpool lanes to all vehicles in off-peak hours and direct monies from red-light fines to go towards congestion relief projects.

Here’s a story that popped up on the web a couple of days ago summarizing the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) most recent fiscal survey of the states.  SPOILER WARNING: you might get depressed if you read any further.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog you know that budget misery is infecting many states in the U.S. and heightening the anxiety of most higher education leaders therein.  The spring 2008 survey by NCSL of state fiscal conditions makes it clear that bad budget times appear to be spreading, with almost half of the states predicting budget gaps by fiscal year 2009.

Of more concern is the general “mood” of legislative fiscal directors.  Although budget deficits and sluggish revenue growth seem to be common problems everywhere, only four states are downright “pessimistic” about the future.  Arizona, New York, Delaware, and yes, Washington fall into the most dire “pessmistic” category.  Most states seem “concerned” or “stable” with three states actually feeling “optimistic” including the oil and mineral-rich empires of Alaska and Wyoming.  You guys just wait until we invent that hydrogen-cell car!

While I know the Washington state budget outlook for next session is certainly not rosy, we do enjoy a pretty sizeable budget surplus that should come in handy next year when it’s time to tally-up the debits and credits.  So, let’s try and keep our chins up and reject that negative “stinkin’ thinkin'”  Let’s decide now to feel “melancholy about next session as we pine for the days of large budget surpluses way back in the olden days of 2007.

Now that session is almost a distant memory, I’ve had some time to attend to other duties, one of which is providing an update on what’s happening in other states that are home to the UW’s global challenge peer universities.

You may recall that since the passage of legislation in the 2007 session establishing the so-called “global challenge states” as the official comparison states for measuring Washington’s progress in improving education funding, we have tried to keep much closer tabs on budget and policy matters in those states, particularly the impacts on research universities.

Today, I have posted the Spring 2008 Global Challenge State Update to the Spotlight section of the website, providing information on California, Virginia, Massachusetts, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey and Maryland.  As you might expect, with the exception of Colorado and Connecticut, most states are experiencing various levels of fiscal distress and our peer universities are facing some potentially significant budget cuts, particularly in California and New Jersey.

We’ll check back in with these states later this summer to report on how their legislative sessions wrapped-up.  In the meantime, I hope you will find this report informative and useful.

Western Washington University is close to naming a new president.

Bruce Shepard, the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay is expected to be chosen by the Western trustees as the school’s 13th president at their meeting this Friday.  Shepard, 61, has been chancellor of the Green Bay campus since 2001.  He came to the school from Eastern Oregon University where he was provost.  He also spent more than two decades at Oregon State University as a political science faculty member and as state government liaison and in other administrative posts.

Shepard replaces Western president Karen Morse who is retiring September 1.

Governor Christine Gregoire announced this morning that Valoria Loveland, Director of the state Department of Agriculture is retiring.  Loveland, a former state senator and Franklin County Treasurer, has served as agriculture director under both Governor Gary Locke and Governor Gregoire.

In a prepared statement, Gregoire praised Loveland for expanding the markets for Washington state agricultural products.  Today, agriculture exports are at record highs.

Loveland was elected to the state Senate in 1992 and became caucus chair in her second term.  In 1999, she assumed the chairmanship of the Senate Ways and Means committee where she presided for two sessions.  She was defeated for re-election in 2000 by Mike Hewitt who is currently the Senate Republican leader.

Loveland’s retirement is effective May 5.

Take a look at yesterday’s New York Times Sunday Magazine which is dubbed “The Green Issue” featuring a bevy of articles to help all of us keep our carbon footprints that much smaller.

In the “Learn” section of the magazine, the first item is titled “How Green is My Campus?” and features the environmental stewardship policies of the University of Washington for which we earned an A- on the College Sustainability Report Card, published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  The UW is one of only six schools to receive this mark, the highest given in the most recent survey.

Nice to get some national recognition for our collective efforts to improve the environment.

While the Washington State legislature adjourned their 2008 session more than a month ago, many state legislatures are still meeting, with most of the hard work remaining over the next couple of months.

In California, the budget deficit appears to be getting worse with most of the revenue shortfall coming from lower corporate income taxes.  We have mentioned previously that Governor Schwarzenegger’s budget called for 10% across the board cuts to all state agencies, including higher education.  While the state legislature has criticized those cuts, there have been no alternatives presented yet, such as tax increases or alternative reductions.

Today, more than 1,000 students from California’s colleges and universities are expected to descend on Sacramento for a 10:30 a.m. rally on the north steps of the State Capitol building.  They are expected to be joined by former state legislature and current Lt. Governor John Garamendi and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles).  Similar student rallies are scheduled in Los Angeles, San Diego, Riverside and Santa Barbara.

It was about three years ago this month that the Governor’s proposal to direct the state’s tobacco settlement bonus dollars into a new Life Sciences Discovery Fund to advance state research efforts in health sciences passed the state legislature.  The bill was a major victory for the Governor in the 2005 session and something the UW and many others worked hard to help get passed.

Well, here we are in 2008 and the first flow of monies from those bonus payments resulting from the Master Tobacco Settlement are coming into the aforementioned life sciences discovery fund.  Yesterday, the Life Sciences Discovery Fund announced a total of $22 million in research awards from the fund to five research projects, three of which will go to researchers at or associated with the University of Washington and on the other two awards, the UW is a collaborating organization.

The five grant awardees and their projects descriptions are:

• Gail Jarvik, UW.  An award of $5.3 million to build a new infrastructure that will enable clinical investigation using rapid, high volume analysis of genomic data in the area of medical genetics.  Collaborating organization include Group Health Cooperative, Rosetta Inpharmatics LLC and Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center.
• Patricia Kuhl, UW.  An award of $4.0 million to establish a regional child brain imaging center to utilize the latest in brain imaging technology to measure the young brain in action and explore the basic mechanisms, and the potential underlying problems, the drive early learning and lay the foundation for life-long learning.
• Martin Cheever, Fred Hutchinson/University of Washington Cancer Consortium Phase 1 Clinical Trials Program.  An award of $2.2 million to develop a phase 1 cancer clinical trials program for accelerating the development of new cancer fighting drugs.  Collaborating organizations include Wenatchee Valley Medical Center, Olympic Medical Center in Port Angeles, Skagit Valley Hospital and Clinic Cancer Care in Great Falls, Montana.
• Richard Smith, Battelle Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.  An award of $4.8 million to develop a new proteomics technology and apply it in search of blood biomarkers for liver disease and in subsequent use as a powerful tool in the study of cancer, diabetes and other conditions.  The University of Washington is a collaborating organization.
• Gerald Nepom, Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason.  An award of $5.6 million to apply genetic and immunologic discoveries to benefit people with autoimmune diseases, such as Type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis (MS) and lupus.  The University of Washington is a collaborating organization.

In their press release, the Fund states that these five projects were selected by the board from a total of 75 submissions that were evaluated by national experts convened by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  Although this is the first research competition to be funded from tobacco settlement funds, the Fund held an inaugural round last fall using private donor funds.  Another $7 million in grant awards will be made this July.

Dave Ammons, the “Dean” of state political reporters in Olympia and a 37-year veteran state government correspondent for the Associated Press is stepping down.  After almost four decades covering the state legislature, Governor’s office and state government in general, Ammons (a UW Communications grad) will become a state employee himself, as he assumes the job of chief spokesman for Secretary of State Sam Reed.

As the senior reporter for the AP news service in Olympia, Dave’s stories and columns have been picked up by a large percentage of the newspapers and radio stations in the state.  In an era where only the largest daily newspapers can afford to hire their own Olympia correspondents, Ammons has essentially been the journalistic voice of Olympia for much of Washington State.

You’d be hard pressed to find anyone in Olympia that doesn’t admire, respect and plain like the guy.  As both a legislative staffer and lobbyist, I always found Dave to be fair, balanced, inquisitive, discrete, and a gentleman through and through.  His longevity also gives him some institutional memory and perspective that is beginning to be a dangerously diminishing commodity in the state capitol.  Over the past few years, he has also found a niche as resident host of the TVW program “Inside Olympia” where he has proved to be a patient and capable interviewer of both prominent elected and appointed government officials.

Here’s a really nice piece about Dave written seven years ago by David Postman, chief political reporter for the Seattle Times.