SEATTLE — The president of Western Washington University, Bruce Shepard, announced Thursday he will retire at the end of the next academic year, after his eighth year on the job.
Shepard, who has been president of the state university in Bellingham since 2008, has guided the school through the recession and became a voice for all the state’s higher education institutions in Olympia during budget negotiations.
“It’s a bittersweet moment,” said Shepard, 68. Eight years is exactly what he promised Western’s Board of Trustees when he took the job. He said the ideal amount of time to lead a university is between seven and nine years.
“After a while you can get to be part of the problem,” Shepard said. “It’s healthy to have a change. It’s really healthy for the campus to use this opportunity to ask questions about not just what the next president should be but what the next Western should be.”
He has no plans to pursue a new full-time job when he leaves Western, although he does want to keep his fingers in higher education, as does his wife, Cyndie. She will be retiring at the same time from her role in Compass 2 Campus, a program she founded to encourage at-risk youth to stay in school and go to college.
They also hope to reconnect with each other in a new way; as Shepard notes, they have both been involved in higher education leadership their entire married life. He said he looks forward to spending more time with his wife, his two dogs and his coffee bean roasting hobby. He jokes that one of his retirement dreams is to work at a drive-thru espresso stand.
Karen Lee, chairwoman of Western’s Board of Trustees, said a national search would begin this fall after all parts of the campus weigh in on what they are looking for in their next president.
Shepard said he expects the Western job to be the premier job opening in higher education in the nation next year.
Before serving as Western’s 13th president, Shepard was chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay from 2001 to 2008. Before that he was provost of Eastern Oregon University and a professor of political science.
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