A lease for a new academic building on the Olympic-Poulsbo campus has been approved by both Olympic College and Western Washington University’s Board of Trustees.
Western’s current building does not have enough space to accommodate different academic programs, Western’s chief of staff Becca Kenna-Schenk said. Approval for the building’s ground lease was confirmed at the Board of Trustees meeting on June 14.
Since 1993, Western has offered bachelor’s and master’s degree programs on the Kitsap and Olympic Peninsulas through their “Western on the Peninsulas” program.
The $73,800,000 proposed budget for the project would come almost entirely from state funds. If Western receives funding, the building should open by the 2026–27 academic year, Kenna-Schenk said.
“We’re pretty confident that we do have a lot of support,” Kenna-Schenk said. “It’s not official, but that will be our top priority on the capital budget.”
Over the last 10 years, she has noticed the expansion of Western’s academic programs.
“The Olympic region is one of the most underserved areas of the state when it comes to higher education access,” Kenna-Schenk said. “If you live, say in Port Angeles, the closest four-year institution prior to Western’s presence would have been to go down to Seattle.”
Kenna-Schenk noted a rise in regional population growth spurred interest from Washington’s legislature to expand access for residents on the Kitsap and Olympic peninsulas to a four-year education.
Current program offerings include childhood education, secondary education, cybersecurity, business administration, environmental programs, human services and natural resource management.
Decisions on what degree programs to offer are largely guided by workforce demand and community input, Kenna-Schenk said, providing an example of a new master of social work program to mitigate the shortage of behavioral health specialists throughout the state and region.
As Western wraps up its pre-design phase, Kenna-Schenk said the university will submit an initial report to the governor’s office by Monday, July 1 for the state’s capital budget process.
“We don’t know for sure at all right now whether we will receive the funding we need to do the design and construction phases, but we’re hopeful we will,” she said.
By the end of next April the university will hear about the funding outcome from the capital budget, Kenna-Schenk added.
Olivia Capriotti is a Dow Jones summer news intern, specializing in data journalism. Reach her at oliviacapriotti@cascadiadaily.com.
