WSU-Spokane Hires Pr Coordinator Barbara Chamberlain: Nic Trustee And Ewu Student

Sat., March 7, 1998

Grayden Jones Staff writer

Wasting no time bolstering community support for its Spokane expansion, Washington State University has hired a college trustee, former state senator and Eastern Washington University student to handle public relations for the WSU-Spokane branch campus.

Barbara Chamberlain, a 35-year-old trustee of North Idaho College, joined WSU-Spokane last month as communications manager.

The position is new for expansion-minded WSU-Spokane and timed to coincide with legislative action that gives the university greater freedom to offer upper-division and graduate-level programs in Spokane.

A bill adopted by the state House of Representatives on Thursday also puts WSU in charge of the classroom buildings at the downtown Riverpoint Higher Education Park, which includes Eastern’s business school and WSU’s design institute.

“As WSU has grown, not everybody is sure about the great things we’re doing,” said Chamberlain, who has operated a desktop book publishing business in Coeur d’Alene. “I’ll be developing internal and external awareness of what we do.”

WSU employs “communication coordinators” at its branch campuses in Vancouver and the Tri Cities. But those branches have more than twice the enrollment of the 288 full-time students of WSU-Spokane.

Eastern, which has been waging a public opinion battle with WSU over who should govern academic programs and real estate in Spokane, employs one public information director and a half-time writer to communicate the achievements of its 420 faculty and 7,000 students. The skeleton staff is all that remains from administration cuts made in 1993 to save money.

“If it wasn’t for work-study (students), we’d be cooked here,” said Stefanie Pettit, the public information officer. “They (WSU) are very good at PR. Hiring someone now, particular if she’s a writer, means they have plans for something in Spokane.”

In addition to her connections in the Democratic Party, Chamberlain also holds a degree from WSU and is a member of Mensa, the international society of geniuses.

Chamberlain said she will continue to live in Coeur d’Alene and fulfill her six-year elected post at NIC.

Chamberlain and other trustees came under attack last year for firing NIC president Bob Bennett with no explanation. Students gathered signatures to recall Chamberlain and other trustees, but failed to get enough support.

Bennett declined to comment on Chamberlain’s abilities as a communicator, saying only that “we never had any conversations about it (his firing).”

Chamberlain said she expects to finish her course work this spring for a master’s degree in public administration at Eastern.

“I sort of bathe in higher education,” she said.

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