Thinking Creatively
Washington pursues a unique college "co-location" plan

 

By William Trombley
Senior Editor

BOTHELL, WASHINGTON
PART OF THE STATE of Washington's solution to the "Tidal Wave II" problem is to locate a brand new community college and a branch of the University of Washington on the same campus in this suburban community, 20 miles northeast of downtown Seattle.

If all goes well, the combined Cascadia Community College-University of Washington campus will open in three years with a full-time equivalent enrollment of 2,000--1,200 at UW Bothell, 800 at Cascadia. Eventually, full-time enrollment is expected to reach 10,000.

"The public expects higher education to think a little more creatively," Earl Hale, executive director of Washington's Board for Community and Technical Colleges, said in an interview. "We're a little bit on the spot here. We have to prove that we can make the higher education enterprise more effective and less costly at the same time."

"This is good public policy," said David Habura, the energetic president of Cascadia Community College. "We believe we can improve access, produce better educational results and do it all more efficiently."

But both Habura and Hale are aware of the pitfalls, especially the problem of persuading faculty members and administrators of a two-year community college and a four-year university branch campus to cooperate with each other.

The plan calls for the two institutions to share facilities such as a library, bookstore, cafeteria and parking spaces. Classroom and laboratory space also will be shared but on a limited basis.

The arrangement, known awkwardly as "co-location," should be especially beneficial to community college students, who will see first-hand what it takes to transfer to a four-year school. It is hoped that Cascadia and UW Bothell faculty members will develop curricula jointly and will devise ways to ease transfer from the community college to the university.

"We're trying to build on the strengths of both systems," Hale said.

The joint venture grew out of projections that the state would have to find room for an additional 84,000 postsecondary students by the year 2010.

UW Bothell Dean Norman Rose said the University of Washington's share of this growth would be an estimated 21,000 students, of whom two-thirds are to be accommodated at the Bothell and Tacoma branches, not on the main campus in Seattle. Both Bothell and Tacoma are upper-division (junior and senior) campuses, mainly serving students who work full-time and attend classes in the late afternoon and evening.

This meant rapid growth for the Bothell branch, and plans were made to move from leased space in a business park to a permanent campus not far away.

At the same time, the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges was planning a new two-year campus to serve the fast-growing population northeast of Seattle.

Key legislators decided it made little sense to build separate campuses a few miles apart, so the 1994 bill creating the Cascadia Community College District said the new two-year school should be "co-located" with UW Bothell, "to ensure that properly prepared students from community colleges and other institutions are able to transfer smoothly to the branch campus."

Habura, who had been deputy director of the state community college board, was named president of the new Cascadia Community College. At first, he was skeptical about the joint venture--"I was afraid that eventually the community college would be eaten up by UW," he said--but now is an enthusiastic proponent of the idea.

"I think we can provide greater opportunities and more efficiencies," Habura said. He believes co-location will make higher education accessible to many more students, and that exposure to university students (and perhaps even university professors) will provide a richer educational experience for those who attend Cascadia. They will also have access to a larger library than most community colleges can afford.

"A lot will be determined by the faculties," Habura said. "We have the prospect of being able to do some interesting things cooperatively and to operate more efficiently, but only the faculties can make it happen."

About 70 percent of Cascadia students are expected to be potential transfer students, many of whom probably will choose to stay on the campus and attend the University of Washington branch. Others will earn two-year degrees in computer-related fields and other "white collar" technical areas.

UW Bothell will benefit because students who are deficient in English or mathematics will be able to take remedial classes at Cascadia.

Although one of the major reasons for locating both schools on a single campus was to save money, state officials now doubt that the savings will be substantial.

Building one campus instead of two will result in construction cost savings of ten percent or less, according to a study by a Seattle management consultant firm. Once the campus is built, joint tenancy will yield "some savings on the operating side but I don't think they'll be significant," said John Fricke, of the state Office of Financial Management.

The new campus will be governed jointly by the University of Washington Board of Regents and the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges. Dean Rose of UW Bothell described this as "an organization with nobody in charge."

In meetings that consume vast amounts of time, energy and good will, administrators from the two institutions are deciding who will run what.

The two boards must agree on a combined budget for Cascadia and UW Bothell. Because the University of Washington professors earn more and teach less than their community college counterparts, this will be tricky.

The state now provides more money for the university than for the community colleges, for both construction and operating costs, so a new funding formula must be worked out for the new campus.

Finding money for the new venture will be difficult in tight budget times, said Fricke. "We now have 32 community colleges that don't get enough money," he said. "This will be number 33."

But the most difficult hurdle for the hybrid campus to overcome may be what David Habura called the "two cultures problem."

In the pecking order of American academic life, a "university"--even a branch campus like UW Bothell--ranks higher than a two-year community college, and much effort goes into maintaining the distinction. To expect administrators, and especially faculty members, from these two kinds of institutions to work cooperatively may be asking the impossible.

"Walls are built up," Habura said. "They (university people) are afraid we're going to water the soup...That's going to be a problem throughout this process and we haven't solved it yet."

Compounding the difficulty is the fact that the six-year-old Bothell branch is struggling to create its own identity, separate from the main University of Washington campus.

"We are committed to making this work," said Dean Rose, the top administrator at UW Bothell.

But state officials said the University of Washington has been cool toward the co-location idea until the last year or so, when Richard McCormick, the university's new president, began to make more encouraging sounds.

Habura is optimistic. "I'm one of those stupid individuals who really believe people can work together," he said. "I know very well all the problems this project has, but I believe we can work them out."

"We need to find a way to provide higher education in a cost-effective manner to larger numbers of people," Earl Hale said. "If this isn't going to work, then we should push on to other things. But first we have to give this our best shot."