WSU Tri-Cities: Future of WSU Tri-Cities includes housing, expanded educational offerings and growing world-class research

Washington State University Tri-Cities realized an average enrollment growth of 12 percent annually throughout the last four years. As that upward trend continues, so does our expansion of on-campus housing, program development, world-class faculty and specialization in research.

Corporate Pointe Developers won the bid process and are now partnering to create a unique on-campus housing option. Corporate Pointe will construct an apartment complex that will be completed in seven phases. The first, which includes 165 beds, a pool and a social center, will open in time for the start of the school year in August 2018.

As WSU Tri-Cities has grown by nearly 50 percent since 2013, we have seen a significant increase in academic space limitations. This January, the Washington state Legislature approved funding for the design of a new academic building for WSU Tri-Cities. The academic building will provide our students with state-of-the-art teaching labs, classrooms and more that will directly support their educational experience.

Following are just a few of the many faculty accomplishments this year:

We welcomed a partnership with Washington River Protection Solutions this spring to fund two projects that will benefit the Hanford nuclear site. A team of WSU Tri-Cities faculty, composed of Akram Hossain, Scott Hudson, Changki Mo and John Miller, are designing an autonomous vehicle that will analyze vapors at the Hanford Site. Another WSU Tri-Cities team, led by Srinivas Allena, is developing an ultra-high performance cementitious material to encapsulate low-level radioactive waste in Hanford tanks.

Paul Strand, WSU Tri-Cities professor of psychology, is one of a team of WSU faculty leading the online implementation of a k-12 truancy prevention program that benefits schools statewide. WSULearning and Performance Research Center houses the online implementation of the Washington Assessment of the Risks and Needs of Students.

Peter Christenson, assistant professor of fine arts and digital technology and culture, developed a scholar residency program at WSU Tri-Cities that welcomes artists, engineers, urban planners and more to campus, where students and community members learn first-hand from their expertise.

We are excited to welcome a number of new academic programs and celebrate the expansion of several others:

• As a slow transition beginning this fall, students pursing an educational emphasis in viticulture and enology across the WSU system will complete their academic careers at WSU Tri-Cities.
• The Columbia Basin suffers from a lack of certified k-12 teachers, and WSU Tri-Cities has helped to fill the gap. We were awarded the largest state alternative teacher certification program grant.
• Beginning fall 2017, WSU Tri-Cities welcomed its first College of Medicine cohort. Students complete regular intersession experiences at WSU Tri-Cities during their first two years of the program and complete their last two years of the program full-time in the Tri-Cities.
• We are working with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to develop a teacher endorsement program in computer science, which would be the first program of its kind in Washington state.

Under the leadership of President Kirk Schulz and our new Chancellor Sandra Haynes, who started this month, the WSU system continues to make improvements to better serve our state. Our goal is to be recognized as one of the nation

This story was originally published April 2, 2018 at 2:32 PM with the headline "WSU Tri-Cities: Future of WSU Tri-Cities includes housing, expanded educational offerings and growing world-class research."