WSU president details changes ahead for the 135-year-old land-grant institution

Washington State University’s new leader envisions big changes as the school grapples with enrollment, research advancement and keeping its athletic programs relevant.

Betsy Cantwell, hired in February as president of WSU, outlined where she wants to direct the university during a meeting of the WSU board of regents in Spokane last week.

And she wants to address a stubborn identity problem, too.

Several of the regents all but threw their hands up in celebration after Cantwell laid out her vision and stressed that it is time for the university community to walk away from the underdog mentality that has haunted it for years.

Regent Howard Wright, founder and chairman of Seattle Hospitality Group and a 1976 WSU alum, said he was encouraged to hear Cantwell’s desire to dismantle “this sort of modest inferiority complex that we have, at least in my memory, had around for 60 years.”

“You’ve just addressed some blind spots that have never been addressed before,” Wright said.

“We are really looking at modernizing that 19th-century land-grant mission to meet 21st-century needs in the core pillars of a land grant, education, research and service,” Cantwell said as she broached the changes with the board.

In the five months since her first day, Cantwell has made a number of leadership changes, taken whirlwind tours of WSU’s satellite campuses , including Spokane’s, and met with business and government leaders.

On Thursday, Cantwell said a systemwide redesign is underway. She plans to come to the board next June with options for the members to choose a path forward.

The redesign is intended to fill the needs of the state of Washington and it’s residents for years to come, said Jenette Ramos, chair of the regents.

“How do we define the functions that we believe we will need to serve in 2035, and then draw the road map between here and there?” Ramos asked in introducing the discussion item.

The four-step process starts with gathering information, data, discussions with key stakeholders and presidential listening sessions over the next few months. Findings will be turned into plans and steps. After gathering more feedback, Cantwell hopes to start putting changes in place within two years.

Cantwell said the university community and the public will be able to engage and follow along through a soon -to -be -established online portal.

“I know that there have been various thought processes over the last years or so about the system and what it means and what we should be doing,” Cantwell said. “The purpose of this is very much to get to a set of actions that we commit to undertaking in order to get to a set of outcomes in a 10-year time frame that will adjust by the nature of the changing environment that we live in.”

The “strategic pillars” Cantwell detailed Thursday will guide the university as it approaches the redesign, as well as short-term rolling plans. Those plans will come annually, and every three years, rather than the five- and 10-year strategic plans of decades past.

“Building the traditional strategic plan that goes out 10 years around these is not an interest-area of mine, nor do I think it behooves the institution at a time when change, massive change, is happening year on year,” Cantwell said.

Cantwell and the leaders across the university system that helped round out the strategic pillars lumped them under six areas: access and student success, academic excellence and modernization, innovation and use-inspired research, systemwide integration and institutional agility, WSU as the 21st -century land grant and elevating the Cougars identity and brand.

WSU saw a post-pandemic decline in enrollment like many higher education institutions, but it has been slower to rebound than its peers.

Recruiting new students is part of the equation, but retention is an area where the university could improve, she said. Provost and Executive Vice President T. Chris Riley-Tillman said that for the past few years, around 20% of WSU students drop out before their second year.

Bolstering student support services, job placement programs and removing barriers to degree changes are just some of the ways Cantwell hopes to ensure those arriving at WSU leave with a degree in a timely manner and with job prospects.

The pursing excellence and modernization pillar calls on WSU faculty to get more involved, whether as an editor of a research journal, a board member for a government entity or joining national professional associations.

The number of new first-year students enrolled through the system’s online arm WSU Global grew by 11% year over year, according to university data. Cantwell sees an opportunity for more growth “by really looking at a dedicated strategy to focus on digital education and virtual learning models.”

“Again, we will have to do that,” she said. “That is imperative in our business, but it may take longer than a year.”

Cantwell’s research acumen was evident as soon as she with hired. It’s been a staple of her career as a former Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory staffer, senior vice president of research and innovation at the University of Arizona and Utah State University president.

By 2035, Cantwell wants to see WSU research output double. She acknowledged the challenges in bolstering research, including a bottleneck in the peer review process and funding shakeups at the state and federal level. But she stressed it’s vital to the university’s identity and future.

“If you listen to the way that many university systems are engaging directly with local holders of jobs, I think you can see that there is a very viable pathway for us to double research output and funding, focused on interdisciplinary hubs that solve real world challenges,” Cantwell said. “And agriculture, health, energy, those are core strength areas for us.”

The university system, spread across a multitude of disciplinary colleges and campuses across the state, is “aggressively, violently, whatever word you want to use, siloed,” Riley-Tillman said. He said improvements need to be to the organization flowchart and WSU’s top leadership team, Cantwell said.

In May she dissolved the controversial Pullman chancellor position created by her predecessor, and restructured the human resource and budgeting offices .

WSU will create a dashboard where the university community and members of the public can evaluate the financial information and systemwide planning to help weigh in on decision making, she said.

Much of what Cantwell shared this week could be attributed to the idea of what a 21st -century land-grant university could, and should, look like.

“This pillar is about serving our communities,” Cantwell said. “It’s about taking the knowledge and the resources and the people that we train at WSU and using them to improve the health and the well-being of people across Washington, and in so doing, beyond the state of Washington.”

The success of the university system, and its students, athletes, alumni, faculty and partners depends “on our collective identity,” Cantwell said.

The Cougars brand must be celebrated and fostered whether it is a laboratory breakthrough, athletic success or post-graduate accomplishment, she added. The university’s presence in the state, nationally and internationally can be fortified, she said, perhaps with a stronger presence in the Seattle area.

Rebuilding and protecting athletics is a week-by-week effort, she said. While WSU’s teams have found more solid footing in the rebuilt Pac-12 Conference, that membership needs to be maintained. And there are still stark challenges ahead surrounding name, image and likeness licensing, a settlement that resulted in billions in back pay owed to prior athletes on a national level and WSU Athletics’ fiscal standing.

The athletics department has had internal deficits for years. As of July the athletics program owes the nearly $100 million.

Cantwell said the financials will be closely monitored to ensure the department is hitting goals while the university looks for other ways to generate revenue. Cantwell also is working to gather more information from student athletes on how to best support them and attract top talent.

“We really need and will focus on cultivating a nationally competitive and character driven athletics program; these are measurable,” Cantwell said.