Drive an ambitious vision for WSU, aligning talent and resources to build a team to actualize impact
The next President will join WSU as its 2020-2025 strategic plan reaches its conclusion. In consultation with the university’s many stakeholders, both internal and external, they will envision the next chapter of WSU’s storied history and trajectory, bringing with them bold, innovative ideas and grand ambitions to drive growth, generate enthusiasm, and raise visibility.
The next President will lead the development and, ultimately, the implementation of a clearly articulated strategic plan as the roadmap for achieving the university’s goals. In doing so, the President will establish WSU as a leading system of higher education redefining what it means to be a model land-grant university in the modern era. As part of this vision, the President will bring a strong and demonstrated commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, ensuring that the university is representative of the population of Washington, including tribal communities, and provides a welcoming community where people of all backgrounds can thrive.
Advance excellence in research, education, and extension, including partnering with industry, business, and government agencies
In consultation with the Provost, other EVP’s, the Vice President for Research, Chancellors, Deans, and other leaders, the next President has ultimate responsibility for advancing WSU’s core missions across research and scholarly endeavors, educational activities, outreach through extension, and service.
While WSU has seen growth in research expenditures and grants in recent years, the national landscape has become increasingly competitive and further investment will be required to maintain and advance WSU’s reputation and status as a top-tier, R1 research university. The President will invest in the research enterprise, building out the required infrastructure to support productive faculty and reducing administrative burdens. The President will also champion and support other scholarly and creative work that enhances WSU’s impact and reputation, solves societal problems, and engages communities.
WSU provides a range of excellent educational opportunities for a variety of audiences. With a commitment to equitable and accessible education enabled by WSU’s multi-campus system and Extension offices in all 39 Washington counties and on the Colville Reservation, the next President will ensure WSU maintains and enhances both the quality of and access to its educational and outreach programs. The President will seek ways to increase enrollment across the multiple campuses and reach learners at all stages of their educational journey through online and in-person educational programs. The President will ensure faculty, staff, students, and the community are well supported in teaching and learning across the diverse range of disciplines offered by WSU.
Champion WSU’s reputation and rankings as Washington State’s research land-grant university, a leading institution on the regional, national, and global scale
As the university’s top advocate, the President will proudly communicate WSU’s achievements and contributions to a wide range of internal and external audiences, ensuring buy-in and support from all key constituencies, including state lawmakers, to maintain and, ideally, enhance investment in the institution. In doing so, the President will advance WSU’s position as a crucial resource to the state, as a driver of economic activity, as a provider of access to essential educational resources, and as a top producer of innovative solutions to society’s most pressing problems.
They will differentiate WSU from other educational organizations in the state, region, and nation, demonstrating the distinct value of the institution as Washington’s land-grant university with a focus on access to quality and equitable education that reaches every part of the state. In addition, the next President will promote the university’s achievements in research, extension, service, and related activity to a broad audience, enhancing the university’s ability to attract and retain top researchers and scholars in a range of disciplines.
Build and improve an effective and efficient systemwide organizational structure
In recent years, WSU has made significant progress towards operating as an integrated university system with all six campuses adhering to a common set of goals, practices, and policies through the OneWSU initiative. This is a revolutionary and distinct way of operating a university system that positions WSU to fulfill WSU’s land-grant mission across the state. However, the successful realization of this initiative remains incomplete and, at times, ambiguous for some stakeholders. Further, WSU is a highly matrixed system with Chancellors of each campus working in close collaboration with the President and the Chancellors’ leadership teams, with the Provost, academic deans, and other academic leaders ultimately responsible for academic quality across the system, and with the EVP and Finance and Administration team for operations and financial issues. As such, the President oversees a highly dynamic and multidimensional administrative structure, the effective management of which requires a high degree of organization and communication skills. The next President will provide strategic and operational leadership in this complex organization, ensuring clarity in roles and responsibilities and coordinating high-level decision-making in consultation with the Board of Regents and executive leadership of the University.
Galvanize efforts around enrollment, morale, budget, and athletics after the challenges of the pandemic years
The Covid-19 pandemic created significant upheavals for all higher education organizations—particularly public universities—and WSU is no exception. In recent years, WSU has made significant progress in improving its position relative to enrollment across all campuses, created a more transparent and structured budget process, transitioned to Workday for finance and human resources, and created more policies and structures to facilitate decision-making across the university. But, there is more work to be done to enhance these efforts and address associated decline in morale for faculty and staff. Further, recent shifts in the PAC-12 conference have created significant challenges for the university’s athletics program as well as across the university system. Additionally, WSU must embrace the rapidly changing NCAA landscape (e.g., student-athlete revenue sharing, name image & likeness, transfers, student-athlete employment, student-athlete well-being, and conference re-alignment) in order to continue competing at the highest level of intercollegiate athletics.
To address this, the next President will clarify and articulate the value of the WSU system, championing the benefits of shared processes and policies while keeping a careful eye on the responsible allocation of resources and the clear articulation of policies, processes, and organizational authority. The President will lead with transparency, collaboration, directness, and inclusivity across roles, campuses, and administrative functions and emphasize clarity regarding decision-making, reporting structures, and budgetary authority. Ultimately, the President will provide a unifying vision for the university that respects the individual needs and strengths of each campus and will enhance a strongly collaborative culture that drives the university to new heights.
It will be crucial that the next President tackle these challenges creatively and directly and project stability through data-informed analysis, thoughtful prioritization, and the ability to make and communicate highly reasoned and, at times, challenging decisions. Important early goals will include a comprehensive enrollment management plan, a decisive approach to budget management, and an inspirational leadership style that unites the WSU community around common aspirations.
Steward and increase WSU’s financial resources to ensure organizational sustainability and invest strategically in the university’s future success
Achieving WSU’s goals will require careful stewardship and strategic investment of existing financial resources as well as proactive development of new revenue streams. The next President will ensure limited resources are allocated strategically to support the core mission of the institution. They will build efficiencies where possible and thoughtfully invest in programs across the system with potential for growth and impact. In addition, the next President will seek to stabilize and grow revenue streams, including tuition, research grants and contracts, athletics, and philanthropy. Through close attention to these core revenue streams, the President will increase the university’s overall resources in support of enhancing excellence in all aspects of WSU’s mission while managing the cost of education for students.
WSU has made excellent progress in philanthropy, setting university records for philanthropic giving in 2022 and 2023. The next President will build on this momentum as a proactive and compelling fundraiser for the organization. The continued excellence of WSU will require the execution of significant future philanthropic campaigns, and the President will work closely with the Board of Regents and the WSU Foundation in engaging major donors personally and advancing the university’s culture of philanthropy.