�� celebrates 30th anniversary of statewide expansion

Maegan Murray — Fri, 17 Jan 2020 19:28:49 +0000

By Addy Hatch, �� News

Among their work in a busy 1989 legislative session, Washington lawmakers created a state Honeybee Commission, scrubbed the term “workmen” from state laws in favor of “workers” – and called for five branch campuses to be created around the state.

The new campuses of Washington State University and the University of Washington were to offer only upper-level and graduate programs, targeting older and part-time students and community-college transfers. The campuses were also envisioned to play an economic development role in their communities of Spokane, Vancouver and the Tri-Cities for ��, and Bothell and Tacoma for UW.

Thirty years on, the campuses are fulfilling those goals and more.

��’s three original branch campuses now enroll more than 7,000 students. Their mission has expanded to include a wide range of programs to undergraduate, graduate and professional students. Importantly for a land-grant university dedicated to educational access, the campuses serve a big percentage of first-generation and minority college students as well as military veterans.

The economic impact has been significant. Together they employ about 1,700 full- and part-time workers and the total value of construction projects for new classrooms, laboratories and offices over time has been in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

“The Washington Legislature’s action positioned �� to better serve residents across the state,” said �� President Kirk Schulz. “It was a novel solution at the time, but it worked. Students have been able to access a top-tier education near their homes, families and jobs, and the campuses have become economic drivers for their communities.”

�� the campuses

Though they share the rich Coug tradition and are co-equals under the One�� strategy, each of the three original branch campuses has a distinct identity:

�� Health Sciences Spokane

Vice President and Chancellor – Daryll DeWald

Enrollment – 1,685

�� Spokane is now �� Health Sciences after the Board of Regents designated it the university’s center of health sciences education in 2010. The College of Nursing, College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine all are based there.

�� Tri-Cities

�� TRI-CITIES

Chancellor – Sandra Haynes

Enrollment – 1,813

�� Tri-Cities has close partnerships and research collaborations with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the region’s wine industry, among other programs. Its campus includes the state-of-the-art Ste. Michelle Wine Estates Wine Science Center and the Bioproducts, Sciences and Engineering Laboratory established with the help of PNNL.

�� Vancouver

Chancellor – Mel Netzhammer

Enrollment – 3,585

�� Vancouver is the only four-year research university in southwest Washington. It offers bachelor’s to doctorate degrees in a picturesque setting, with the 350-acre campus featuring miles of recreational trails and mountain views.

The campuses are also cultural centers, offering enrichment programs, recreation space and volunteers for events and civic boards. Last summer some 20,000 people visited �� Vancouver to view a rare, blooming corpse flower on campus. In the Tri-Cities, �� leads a coalition of agencies in the Hanford History Project, an effort to document, preserve and archive the history of the region. And in Spokane, students are credited with vaccinating hundreds of kids and adults each year at free immunization clinics held in schools, libraries and health fairs.

Just in time for the 30^th anniversary, a new benefit: third-year medical students from the �� Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine arrived on the campuses for clinical training in local hospitals and clinics. It’s a model that’s expected to attract much-needed doctors to rural and community settings.

The success of these first branch campuses – which have since dropped the “branch” from their name – served as a blueprint for development of �� Everett, and for the robust Global Campus that encompasses ��’s online education.

Said Schulz, “We’ll continue offering a high-quality �� education to students how, where and when they want it. We can thank the visionaries who called for the branch-campus expansion 30 years ago for starting us down that road.”

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$2.2M to fund English learning development for teachers

Maegan Murray — Wed, 05 Oct 2016 20:59:13 +0000

By C. Brandon Chapman, College of Education

VANCOUVER, Wash. – Washington State University has won a five-year, $2.2 million grant to increase the number of certified K-8 teachers with bilingual and English learners (EL) endorsements and to provide professional development to improve EL instruction.

One of the main goals is to build on the strengths and talents of experienced paraprofessionals. The project will provide full scholarships to a minimum of 52 paraprofessionals to complete their bachelor’s degrees in education with EL endorsements. It is anticipated that at least 30 percent will be bilingual.

Other goals of the project, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, will be to improve parental, family and community engagement and build resources for local outreach and national replication.

EL teacher shortage

None of the 295 school districts in Washington had their ELs meet all reading or math standards during the 2013-14 school year, according to the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. ELs had much lower pass rates in reading than the student population at large, said EL professor Gisela Ernst-Slavit from the College of Education at �� Vancouver.

Gisela Ernst-Slavit

“Washington schools are facing a crisis right now,” said Ernst-Slavit, who will work on the grant project with Judy Morrison, Yuliya Ardasheva and Sarah Newcomer at �� Tri-cities and Kira Carbonneau at �� Pullman.

The simple solution is to increase the quantity of EL teachers. But Washington – like most states – is experiencing an overall teacher shortage, especially in the central and southwestern parts of the state.

“As a result, what we see are schools using stop-gap measures to fill voids,” Ernst-Slavit said. “That includes emergency certifications and using substitute teachers instead of full-time teachers, which does a disservice to both teacher quality and student learning. Ultimately, student achievement suffers.”

Tri-Cities, Vancouver districts partner

Nowhere is this more apparent than around the Tri-Cities. While the state average of EL students per district is 10.5 percent, Pasco, for example, has 52 percent.

Pasco schools – along with those from Evergreen, Grandview, Kennewick, Prosser and Richland – are partner districts in the project, which is called Equity for Language Learners-Improving Practices and Acquisition of Culturally-Responsive Teaching (ELL-IMPACT).

“Collaboration between mentor teachers and our teacher education programs is at the core of this project,” said Ernst-Slavit, citing the �� researchers’ specialized knowledge, expertise, cultural backgrounds and research perspective. “This is the kind of collaboration that places the college in a unique position to address the needs of our state by providing access and opportunity to our diverse communities.”

Contact:
Gisela Ernst-Slavit, �� Vancouver College of Education, 360-546-9659, gernst@wsu.edu

The post $2.2M to fund English learning development for teachers appeared first on �� Tri-Cities.

������ Vancouver Archives - ������ Tri-Cities

������ celebrates 30th anniversary of statewide expansion

������ the campuses

������ TRI-CITIES

$2.2M to fund English learning development for teachers

EL teacher shortage

Tri-Cities, Vancouver districts partner

�� Vancouver Archives - �� Tri-Cities

�� celebrates 30th anniversary of statewide expansion

�� the campuses

�� TRI-CITIES