SPOKANE, Wash. – Washington State University (WSU) is undergoing a significant system-wide redesign aimed at modernizing its campuses and addressing the state’s changing needs.
WSU operates several satellite campuses across Washington, each designed to work seamlessly within the WSU system.
In a video, WSU President Elizabeth Cantwell stated that the redesign’s purpose is to modernize the university to meet Washington’s current needs.
The project began in October 2025 and is currently in its first phase, which involves information gathering. Surveys are being conducted to understand community needs better and will remain active until December.
According to statements made during Thursday’s Board of Regents meeting, the goal is to have a final proposal ready by June 2025, a timeline that several called ambitious.
WSU Provost Chris Riley-Tillman discussed potential outcomes of the redesign with Non Stop Local’s Belle Lewis (Questions and Answers have been edited for clarity):
Q: I’ve been going over the committee meetings from this morning, and I’m really interested in this restructuring plan that you had a short presentation on. What can you tell me about that?
A: Well, it depends on your questions. I’m not sure I would call it a restructuring. I think that insinuates that there would be significant changes of campuses or of something of that nature. I think it’s more of a redesign, where we’re looking where we have been successful? And we can build on that. And what are areas where it looks like we might not be meeting the regional needs of a particular campus. And so, how can we be as efficient with the state resources and the tuition dollars that we have and provide the best experience we possibly can to our students and our alumni and our variety of stakeholders that WSU has.
Q: So I do have a chance to take a look at the survey that was part of that presentation. Is that one of the means of data collecting that WSU is doing to determine how and where they’re best serving the community?
A: It is. Yes.
Q: And what other means of information gathering is WSU using in this kind of introductory stage or in addition to the surveys?
A: The firm that we’ve used for the redesign process, Design Plus, has been meeting with individuals in different locations. They were in Vancouver, I believe, last week. And I’m not sure of the dates exactly, and did in-person meetings with faculty, staff, students, and community members, stakeholders. We’re really looking to get to, key, business stakeholders and regions and, and get a feel for what the workforce needs are going to be directly from them. And there’s ways you can get that data in other places, but it’s not the same as talking to the actual industry leaders in the region. What are the different areas that they’re going to need to hire? Where have they seen workforce challenges? We want to make sure that we’re aligning our course offerings.
Q: WSU is still in the information gathering part of this process, So is it too early to say what these redesigns will look like?
A: Yeah, we’ve been strategic (the president, myself and the VP of Finance and operations, are not directly involved with it.) I’m the project sponsor or champion or whatever term we’re using there. But we really want the members of the co-design council to look at the data, and be able to provide a variety of options and recommendations. Ultimately, for the president and the board of Regents, so that we don’t, you know, prejudice the whole process. WSU has wonderful experience across all of our campuses, fantastic faculty and staff. I’ve been here for a year and a half, and our president’s been here for a little over half a year. And so, we are really coming in with a fresh, open set of eyes and and really open to, you know, the different options that are available. We want to make sure that process gives us the best options.
Q: As they’re making these options in these recommendations, what sort of things could those recommendations include? What sort of changes?
A: Well, I mean, I’ve asked the president multiple times is anything off the table. And she has said multiple times nothing is off the table. We have our core, infrastructure and our sites and, and we’re going to build off of those strengths. The state has invested significant capital in building out, we have a fantastic slate of buildings and capabilities across the state. You know, the idea that, we’re going to move something large, people get anxious. But, you know, I’m dubious about that path. We know we have some internal challenges, for example, with complex budget models, which caused some interesting day to day working challenges. You know, we need our students to be able to much more flexibly use our multi campus structure, throughout their educational journey. When I arrived at WSU, I was incredibly excited that we had locations, you know, north of Seattle, Vancouver, Tri-Cities. Spokane. We’ve got a phenomenal, I mean, frankly, the best online offerings that the state has, in our global campus and obviously the historic campus in Pullman. But it’s not as easy for students to navigate that as it should be. It should be that a student could go to Pullman for two years and then needs to be in Seattle for a year, whether it’s on the Everett campus or on the global campus. And we want to make sure that it is as flexible, and as efficient as possible so that we can maximize the number of our students who start with us. And, then compete with us.
You know, I certainly think everybody is looking to have as lean of administration as possible so that we’re driving as much of the tuition in the state, dollars into programs, faculty and staff that directly impact the student experience. And so we’re looking at any place where we can, you know, spend as little as possible at that level and, and drive resources down into the constituent units. And so we’ve, we’ve made a few alterations up and to this point, going into this process, but we really want this to play out and get the recommendation and so on on what, what people think would be the best path.
Q: I noticed several of the Board of Regents saying that this would be major changes potentially for WSU. Could those major changes include potentially combining campuses or closing one campus if that best served the community?
A: I mean, again, my president said anything is on the table. I am dubious that at this stage we would look at something that significant. Again, we’ve spent significant state dollars building our campuses, and I think we’ve got some real strategic advantages where we are. But how we manage them, how we go about the student life experience, how we most effectively budget, how the faculty, the staff and the student life experience are in those places, I think those are the primary questions. How do we manage the assets that we have? But again, I know, I don’t want to prejudge where we’re going to go through this process. I mean, the whole point of working with an outside design entity, you know, really allowing anonymous feedback to us. I mean, we very strategically went out and gave people multiple pathways to provide information, back into the co-design council that is not, tainted by the thought that somebody would know who said it. And so, so I’m trying to be very careful to say “I don’t know,” but our goal is going to be to be as efficient as possible, really maximize, the impact we have on Everett, Vancouver, Tri-City, Spokane, Pullman and, and, you know, we are in every county in the state, through extension and through global, and do that in a way that, where as efficient, as effective as possible.
Q: So let me know if this is a correct summary of what you’re saying is that, you know, nothing’s off the table, but in your opinion, that’s not super likely.
A: But I think there are things that are more likely and less less likely. So, you know, I, I think that’s a good interpretation of that.
Q: But, regardless of that, still, major changes as a result of this process?
A: Every university should be going through a process of where they’re seriously considering everything that they’re doing right now. If they’re not doing that, I, I’m, I’m dubious of the long term outcomes. And so, yeah, I expect significant changes. When, when the president was hired. When I was hired, there was a clear mandate that we need to take a hard look at the system and make it as effective as possible for the citizens of Washington. Who paid for this? Either intuition dollars or state dollars. And just really quick.
Q: I mean, sounds like as you’re hired, this is one of the mandates that you take a closer look. Was there any other sort of factors that have contributed to doing this process now versus a year from now?
A: Well, I mean, we have our new president, right? And so it’s a logical time to do it. There’s also been slightly interesting headwinds for higher education right now. So, I’ll smile about that a little bit. But between the state economic challenges and the federal approach to higher education right now, that certainly has accelerated our curve. I think we might have thought we had more time to ease into something like this. I think the other piece is, you know, we hired a president, President Cantwell, who is very action oriented. And if we know we need to go through this process, then we should go ahead and do it, and start making the changes as quickly as possible.
This is one of several, major initiatives that we have going on right now. So I would love it if this was the only piece. But, we’ve got a very, very large, student life and student experience initiative going on right now that will dramatically change, how we interact with students and will make us far more effective at getting a larger percentage of our students from the day they first arrive on one of our campuses all the way through, through graduation.
I mean, bluntly, in challenging times, you can either really engage in thoughtfully thinking about how your institution can become more effective. Or you’re going to struggle. And, we’ve taken this as an opportunity to focus on on positive change for the future.
Q: We have been hearing from people that are a little bit nervous about, you know, the potential that things might get shuttered or moved around, that they might lose their job or a campus could be closed. Do you have any sort of insight or message to those individuals who might have those concerns?
A: Yeah, I’m very sympathetic. You know, change is always difficult. It’s always anxiety provoking. I’ve been in this industry for 26 years. You know, I think I had a nice, six years rolling up to the initial recession, and it’s just been one thing or the other, and it has been a whole series of changes.
I guess what I would say is, whenever we go into one of these situations, it’s easy to imagine the worst possibilities. But I really hope our faculty, our students, our, our staff, our, our broader stakeholders and community members can also envision the possibility of a really unique land grant university, to be granting one degree with one faculty across five physical locations and globally.
We are an innovation in that space, right? We have a degree. WSU has incredible opportunities in places like Vancouver and Tri-Cities and in Spokane and Everett. And, I really hope people can imagine a world where we have far more efficiency so we can drive more money into the individuals who are directly impacting the students’ day to day lives.
And we’re being much more effective in workforce production in areas that really have a dire need for that workforce. I understand the anxiety. I mean, I get anxious like everybody else does. I mean, these are interesting times. I guess, as, as one would say, but the possibilities are also incredibly exciting.
