UW News

February 19, 2004

Steven G. Olswang selected as interim chancellor at UW Tacoma

News and Information

Steven G. Olswang, UW vice provost and vice provost for international education, professor of education and adjunct professor of law, has been appointed interim chancellor of the University of Washington, Tacoma, effective April 16, UW President Lee Huntsman announced. This is subject to approval by the Board of Regents at the Feb. 20 meeting.

UWT Chancellor Vicky Carwein has accepted a position as president of Westfield State College in Westfield, Mass.

“Dr. Olswang has an immense amount of experience as a senior administrator at the University and has been involved with the Tacoma campus from its inception,– said Huntsman. “We are very fortunate to be able to call upon his substantial academic leadership and administrative skills during this time while we search for new leadership of the UW Tacoma. We’re very pleased he has agreed to do step in and take over the reigns.–

Olswang, 56, has a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Northwestern University, a J.D. from the University of Illinois, and a Ph.D. in higher education administration from the UW.

He came to the UW in 1974 as a graduate student and soon became an administrative intern in the Office of the President. He became assistant to the provost in 1976 and assistant provost for academic affairs in 1979, a position he held until 1985.

Olswang teaches several courses in the area of education leadership, including: Higher Education and the Law, School Law, Collective Bargaining and Faculty Governance in Higher Education, and Resource Allocation in Higher Education.

He has served on the Northwest Accreditation Association previously as commissioner of the Colleges Commission and currently as a commissioner on the Schools Commission. Olswang is a Fellow of the National Association of College and University Attorneys.

His salary will be $173,880.

UW Tacoma opened in 1990 with 176 students and has over 2,000 students today, primarily serving the South Puget Sound region. Over the past five years the number of students has grown an average of 16 percent a year. The average age of a UWT student is 31. The campus is housed in renovated historic warehouse buildings in Tacoma’s Union Station District.

Undergraduate degree programs include business administration, nursing, and urban studies, as well as the computing and software systems degree offered through the new Institute of Technology. The Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences program offers concentrations in psychology, mass communications, environmental science and a range of others fields. UWT offers an MBA, along with master’s degrees in nursing, education, social work and education, including the new master’s in educational administration program. The Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences program offers the Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies. The post-baccalaureate, one-year teacher certification (K-8) program provides students with bachelor’s degrees an opportunity to become teachers.

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