You can't grow branch campuses by starving them
Let's review some of the bidding in the controversy over building a new University of Washington branch campus at Everett. I and a colleague in the UW Geography Department, William Beyers, performed original analyses for possible branch campuses for the University of Washington.
The preferred solution was for three campuses: one in Tacoma (the greatest unmet need); one in South Everett (Snohomish County had the second-greatest unmet need); and one in Eastgate, to serve eastern King County. As the cost of three campuses was deemed as unaffordable, a Bothell area site was obviously the optimum (minimum travel) compromise between the Everett and Eastgate sites.
Further, it was deemed economically indefensible to have two branch campuses in one county. If an Everett campus were built, the UW Bothell campus could not survive as a branch campus.
The Tacoma and Bothell campuses have had relatively low enrollments, compared to projections. That's not surprising. These campuses are not very attractive because they are not really "branch campuses" in any comprehensive and competitive sense. Of course, they needed to be four-year institutions rather than upper-two-years-only, as they started out. Their budgets and faculties are far too small, and the course offerings far too limited. If they were truly "branches" of the University of Washington, they should mirror some significant part of at least the university's undergraduate offerings, including a wide range of traditional disciplines.
No matter how dedicated the faculty and administrations, you don't grow in starvation mode.
Comments:
Posted Thu, Jan 10, 10:12 p.m. inappropriate
If UW-Bothell was designed exclusively for commuters, then, per Prof. Merrill, where are they?
If not, then where are programs to attract students not just to university-level voc-tech, but an institution of higher learning in the broader sense. The main UW campus has a sense of community, both on and off campus I get this from my youngest daughter, the hardest working senior in the history of the UW just back from studying abroad at the Univeristy of Nantes in France and currently at Lavalle University in Quebec studying Canadian politics, modern political thought, poltical strategies and tactics, and other similar subjects all in French - all under UW auspices. Pardon a very proud father's digression.
Community...There's a campus with diverse offerings, a surrounding neighborhood that caters to it, and something for all the senses. Whether UW-Bothell will ever get that is an open question. Right now it doesn't seem like it.
While the campus has been an economic boon to Bothell, what is needed in Bothell for it to be a boon to the campus? To attract not just more students, but a sense of college life and community? And what does the college need to do to be more to the community? Can it have - or borrow from the main campus - the arts, outreach efforts to the community, or programs where more interaction between college and non-college sectors can mix and mingle.
In the meantime, it sort of sits there, with most people, me among them, simply passing it by.
The Piper
Posted Mon, Jan 14, 11:21 a.m. inappropriate
UW-Tacoma: I live in Tacoma and have watched the UW-T neighborhood with great interest. It has really boosted Tacoma's south downtown area, which is particularly important because this area also contains the museums and most other tourist draws. The UW-T development has been performed with much historical preservation in mind, making a relatively new school feel like it's been there forever because the buildings have. The UW deserves every accolade they have received for the UW-T campus.
Development aside, the campus was much-needed in Tacoma, which has two excellent private liberal arts universities but no real affordable, public options until UW-T came along. Liberal arts is great, and Tacoma's U. of Puget Sound is better than any liberal arts school in the Seattle area, but at over $30K a year, a lot of residents are excluded. This article cited lower than predicted admissions at UW-T, but the reasons are not lack of interest or need.
Anyway, to my point: I'm frustrated to read about the state considering investing so much in a new branch campus when it hasn't fully funded the existing branch campuses. In Tacoma, I know of at least one private developer (Tacoma's Gintz Group) who owns a building in the UW-T's master plan boundaries. UW-T wants his building, but doesn't have the funding to buy it at this time. Yet UW-T has effectively blocked Gintz from realizing their investment by developing the building in any other way, such as a condo, because they do want the building for themselves -- just not yet. So now Gintz is losing money on the building and can't do anything about it -- can't develop it into a profit-generating project, can't sell it because of the UW-T opposition. So it sits empty, holding down the neighborhood in the process.
How is it fair that the state is considering spending so much to start something new before finishing what it started in a city that needs the development more to begin with? Finish what you've started, Washington!