Yesterday was UW student lobby day in Olympia and more than 100 students dressed in colorful purple shirts were a visible presence in the state capitol for much of the day. As I waited to testify on one of the Governor’s primary Washington Learns bills in the Senate Higher Education Committee, the room slowly filled to capacity with a bevy of purple-shirted Huskies who certainly caught the eye of committee members as well as the assembled gallery of higher education legislative officers.
As for the hearing itself, the hearing was on SB 5806 which is sponsored by Sen. Mark Schoesler (R-Ritzville) and contains most of the substantive higher education recommendations from the Governor’s Washington Learns Initiative. Of primary importance to the UW is the first section of the measure which establishes the Global Challenge States as the primary competitive comparison group to benchmark funding for all higher education institutions including the UW.
If you would like to see how UW funding measures up against the competition, check out the State Relations website and look for the UW vs. Global Challenge States under the 2007 briefing papers section.