Hec Backs Big Move For Ewu Board Calls For Interim Leader, Exit From Spokane

A state education board is calling for an outside expert to take over Eastern Washington University.

The Higher Education Coordinating Board staff will recommend today that an interim chief administrative officer manage the university while EWU sorts out its future.

That would wrest control of the school, with its 6,900 full-time students, from outgoing President Marshall Drummond and administrators at Showalter Hall in Cheney and the downtown Spokane Center.

“We’re asking Eastern to make some fundamental changes to its mission and role, to get back to a more focused mission,” said Marcus Gaspard, executive director of the HEC Board.

Recommendations parallel parts of a bill sailing through the Legislature that would give Washington State University control of the Riverpoint Higher Education Park and all upper-division programs offered in Spokane. Senate Bill 6717 is co-sponsored by Sens. Jim West, R-Spokane, and Eugene Prince, R-Thornton.

But the HEC Board recommendations go further than the West-Prince bill. They call for the sale of EWU’s four-story downtown Spokane Center building and creation of an Intercollegiate Center for Applied Sciences at Riverpoint to consolidate EWU’s health science programs. Those include dental hygiene, physical therapy, communications disorders and nursing.

Furthermore, the recommendations would eliminate the Joint Center for Higher Education and give WSU the keys to the Spokane Intercollegiate Research and Technology Institute at Riverpoint, an idea that West opposes.

EWU would have until June 1 to develop a new mission statement as a Cheney-based four-year university. It also would have to make arguments for retaining nearly two dozen programs in Spokane or returning them to Cheney.

EWU Provost Niel Zimmerman said the recommendations are better than the West-Prince bill because they require a period of study and debate before taking action. But he worried that the result could be the same number of students between schools, they’re making it more difficult for us to be successful,” Zimmerman said. “There’s a bit of a slippery slope here.”

Gaspard said there are no plans to evict Eastern.

“We expect to have partnerships between Eastern and WSU,” he said.

Eastern, which moved its business school to Riverpoint just two years ago, has about 1,300 full-time students enrolled in Spokane. WSU has 280, excluding pharmacy students who will return next year in Spokane.

West, who in December proposed merging WSU and Eastern, said he will continue to push for passage of his bill because it does not conflict with the HEC Board recommendations.

“If anything, they (HEC Board) are more severe,” West said. “That has weight because they’re the neutral, third party with lots of experience.”

WSU officials declined to respond because they had not yet seen the recommendations.

The HEC Board, a nine-member citizens’ group appointed by the governor, will come to Spokane Feb. 12-13 to vote on staff recommendations.

Eastern faculty and staff are organizing a rally at Riverpoint on Tuesday in support of keeping its programs on the 48-acre campus.

The HEC Board staff did not recommend anyone for the interim chief executive job. The appointment, Gaspard said, would give Eastern time to settle the Spokane tussle, stabilize enrollment and conduct a thorough presidential search.

A similar move was made at Evergreen State College in Olympia in 1990 when administrator Thomas Leslie Purce became interim chief administrator for two years. Purce now works for WSU in Pullman.

Eastern began a search last fall to replace Drummond, whose resignation is effective this June.

Eastern also is operating under an emergency agreement with the Legislature to use $3.2 million in tax dollars to pay faculty salaries and to beef up recruitment efforts. The school needs to attract an additional 800 students or face the loss of 100 of its 420 full-time faculty positions and other cuts.

Mixed messages from business leaders about what changes were needed in Spokane prompted the HEC Board staff to recommend spending $350,000 to $500,000 to study the economy and assess the need for university programs in the community. The studies would be finished by July 1.

Separately, WSU would develop a plan by Sept. 1 for managing Riverpoint and course offerings in Spokane.

, DataTimes MEMO: What’s next? The Higher Education Coordinating Board meets in Spokane Feb. 12-13 to vote on staff recommendations. Call 360-753-7800 for more information.