Higher education in the Tri-Cities: what’s new, what’s different, what’s needed?

MyTri2030 recently highlighted education as one of the key focus areas for its shared vision of the future. This community emphasis on education isn’t new.

In 1955, a growing Tri-Cities was basking in the economic benefit of the third post-war expansion of Hanford facilities when community leaders celebrated the startup of the new Columbia Basin College (CBC) in some rundown former naval air station buildings at the former Pasco Naval Air Station.

Three years later, Richland voted to incorporate. Their enthusiasm of being “the Atomic City of the West,” included a realization that in spite of the creation of CBC, the nearest four-year university was located fifty miles away in Walla Walla.

The Tri-Cities needed its own university and community leaders raised the money to transform GE’s small, graduate level program into the Joint Center for Graduate Studies operated by the University of Washington, but offering credits at Washington State University and other regional universities.

In 1965, the program was relocated to an expansive new campus in North Richland and the first building was funded from community donations. A TRIDEC committee was able to negotiate the transition of the Joint Center into the Tri-Cities University Center administered by WSU in 1989. It became one of WSU’s three branch campuses in 1990 and began accepting undergraduate students in 2007.

Higher education is a vital component of what we are, and hope to be, as a competitive community.

We fought hard to bring Columbia Basin College and Washington State University Tri-Cities to our community. The institutions have responded, increasing program offerings, building new facilities, and attracting growing and more diverse student bodies, but, with what some might say, a mixed record of success.

Now, both institutions have collaborative new leaders who have been here less than 18 months — enough time to figure out what’s working and develop plans to fix what’s not. They have publicly embraced an increased level of collaboration and cooperation with the community and each other.

The next meeting of the Columbia Basin Badger Club will explore these issues with the new leaders of these two institutions, Dr. Rebekah Woods, president of CBC, and Dr. Sandra Haynes, chancellor of WSU Tri-Cities.

We will ask them about their joint initiatives, institutional missions, areas of healthy competition, and conflict in fulfilling those missions.

Who do they seek to serve and attract in a time of a shrinking demographic of college-age students? How prepared are their students for college? Do they compete for fundraising? Are there potential areas of cooperation for fundraising? What is their experience with student housing? How seamless is transferring from CBC to WSU and what about joint degree programs?

All of this, and more, at the next meeting of the Badger Club, Thursday, March 28, at the newly renovated Shilo Inn, located at 50 Comstock Street in Richland. Tickets are available by visiting our website at https://cbbc.clubexpress.com/.