A Senate bill that would have turned The Evergreen State College in Olympia into a branch campus of the University of Washington is dead, an official said Thursday.
Evergreen’s Director of Government Relations, Sandy Kaiser, delivered the news during a daylong Board of Trustees meeting.
“The policy cut-off date and the fiscal cut-off dates have come and gone, which means that bills that did not pass out of their committees are essentially dead for the (legislative) session,” she said. “That means Senate Bill 5424, which would have abolished Evergreen in 2026 in favor of a health sciences branch campus of the University of Washington, will not get a vote.”
The legislation, which was proposed by Republican Leader John Braun, aimed to convert the school so that it could be used to address workforce shortages in health care.
The Centralia Republican said that Evergreen is an important part of the community. At the same time, there’s a dire need for more health care professionals, he told McClatchy in January.
Kaiser and Evergreen President John Carmichael recently met with Braun, she said, and updated him on Evergreen’s growing enrollment and its strength in STEM studies. They also talked about expanding health sciences study at the four-year public liberal arts college.
“I would call it a constructive meeting,” Kaiser said.
Prior to meeting with Braun, there also were a series of meetings with other lawmakers, she said.
“We are making a strong case for Evergreen, students, staff and faculty,” Kaiser said.
President Carmichael, too, made his own case for Evergreen during the meeting. He shared comments he had received from the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, an accrediting body for schools in the greater Northwest, including Washington state.
“Accreditation is the quality assurance standard for higher education,” he said, adding that Evergreen’s programs are regularly reviewed on a seven-year cycle.
“Every year, or every other year, we owe them a significant report,” Carmichael said.
He then read aloud to the board the commission’s comments on the school’s most recent report: “When additional materials were requested, the content and quality were exceptional. Our review team considered it a privilege to review the reports, and wants the institution to know that it was excellent, great work.”
“I think that is just further evidence, if any is needed, that what we’re doing is is recognized in the larger world,” he said.
