WSU And Ewu Now Share Turf
The presidents of Washington State University and Eastern Washington University exchanged letter jackets Friday at the dedication of a $17 million classroom building, the first major facility shared by the two schools.
When WSU President Sam Smith couldn’t get his left arm through his jacket sleeve, EWU President Mark Drummond helped.
The moment reflected the cooperation required for the first classroom building at the Riverpoint Higher Education Park.
“This has not been a smooth path,” Smith said. “We worked our way through this. We came out of it as friends. We came out of it as family.”
By 2010, the universities hope to have 5,000 students and faculty members at the Spokane River campus east of downtown.
“Your mind will be blown by what will be happening here,” Drummond predicted.
About 1,000 EWU business students and 90 WSU architecture and design students now take classes in the building, which opened in January.
Terry Novak, director of the Joint Center for Higher Education, which oversees the project, promised another ceremony when the building gets a name.
For now, it’s known only as the Phase One Classroom Building.
“It sounds like it’s on an Air Force base,” Novak quipped. University officials said privately the building would be named for a major donor if one materializes.
Designed by Integrus Architecture and built by Bouten Construction, both Spokane companies, the three-story building features a 200-seat auditorium and a display gallery. Construction was financed by state money.
Project leaders are planning their pitch to the 1997 Legislature for a second building for health-related programs.
Eventually, WSU plans to move out of rented space in nine downtown sites that now cost more than $400,000 annually, said Bill Gray, dean of WSU’s Spokane campus.
EWU also will move programs from leased space, but will continue to use a building it owns at First and Wall for journalism, creative writing and master’s in social work programs.
College officials foresee greater cooperation with Spokane businesses and easier access for Spokane residents. In addition, Riverpoint can help move the region’s economy toward an information and research base, the educators said.
At the ceremony, 10 students, dressed in WSU and EWU sweat shirts, cut a green ribbon.
One of the students, Spokane resident Stacey Chatman, 37, a junior in EWU’s business college, said she is happy she doesn’t have to commute to Cheney anymore.
Chatman, a mother of two and wife of a Fairchild Air Force Base employee, typifies the older, non-traditional student Riverpoint will attract.
Chatman hopes the new building will lure more involvement from Spokane businesses.
“It’s easy to sit in classrooms and hear lectures, but to actually know what they want out there is something else,” she said.
Guest speaker Barbara Uehling, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Business-Higher Education Forum, praised the “enormous breakthrough” of Riverpoint.
“I think you’re going to be noticed across the country for what you’re doing here,” Uehling said.
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