WSU, Olympic College team up

The Washington State University College of Engineering and Architecture has decided to offer a four-year mechanical engineering degree at Olympic College in Bremerton.

“We don’t have official permission yet from the (Washington) Higher Education Coordinating Board,” said associate dean Robert Olsen. “We had to officially request that. But we are moving forward anticipating that they will give us permission.”

Olympic College received $189,000 from the Washington Legislature to begin offering a four-year degree in engineering or business in partnership with a university in the state.

Olympic College officials approached WSU last summer with the possibility of working together.

If approved, the program would become available to students beginning in the fall. Olsen said the board is expected to meet in early March.

“It takes a while simply because when you submit something they need time to examine it … and time to deliberate on it,” he said.

Olsen said college officials have already begun announcing the program to interested students.

If the board gives the program the green light, WSU “would be able to provide education in the Bremerton area, which had not been available before,” Olsen said.

“It means that we are living out our land-grant mission to provide services to the entire state,” he said.

Olsen said the way the program would work is that students would complete their first two years through the Olympic College and the next two years would be completed through WSU.

He said WSU would have a full-time faculty member and several adjuncts in Bremerton teaching courses.

The courses for the program would be delivered through distance courses using a variety of technologies to be taught by faculty in Pullman, with face-to-face courses taught at Olympic College by the local WSU faculty, and through concentrated labs to be taught at the WSU-Pullman campus during summer session.

Jennifer Hayes, spokeswoman for Olympic College, said college officials are glad the process is moving forward.

“We are very excited about the initial agreement that we have going with WSU,” she said.

Hayes said that in the interim while community college officials wait for the board’s decision, they also will try to work out the details for the program, such as the admission requirements. She said college officials are “very optimistic” about the board approving the program.

She said there would be a focus on students from Olympic College to get into the program, but college officials hope students from other community colleges in the area would be able to transfer as well.

“It would be an opportunity for the region,” she said.