Washington Higher Education Coordinating Board Executive Director Ann Daley has co-signed a letter along with dozens of other national higher education leaders to presidential candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain urging them to address the nation’s major higher education challenges. The letter states that by the end of the next President’s first term,… Read More

Here are a few items of note from the state capitol that made news this past week. TVW, the state’s public affairs network has a new President.  Greg Lane, former deputy chief of staff to Attorney General Rob McKenna assumed the helm of Washington’s “C-SPAN” station on May 1.  Lane succeeds former TVW President Cindy Zehnder… Read More

Here’s a story that popped up on the web a couple of days ago summarizing the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) most recent fiscal survey of the states.  SPOILER WARNING: you might get depressed if you read any further. If you’re a regular reader of this blog you know that budget misery is infecting… Read More

Now that session is almost a distant memory, I’ve had some time to attend to other duties, one of which is providing an update on what’s happening in other states that are home to the UW’s global challenge peer universities. You may recall that since the passage of legislation in the 2007 session establishing the… Read More

Western Washington University is close to naming a new president. Bruce Shepard, the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay is expected to be chosen by the Western trustees as the school’s 13th president at their meeting this Friday.  Shepard, 61, has been chancellor of the Green Bay campus since 2001.  He came to the school from Eastern Oregon… Read More

Governor Christine Gregoire announced this morning that Valoria Loveland, Director of the state Department of Agriculture is retiring.  Loveland, a former state senator and Franklin County Treasurer, has served as agriculture director under both Governor Gary Locke and Governor Gregoire. In a prepared statement, Gregoire praised Loveland for expanding the markets for Washington state agricultural products.  Today, agriculture… Read More

Take a look at yesterday’s New York Times Sunday Magazine which is dubbed “The Green Issue” featuring a bevy of articles to help all of us keep our carbon footprints that much smaller. In the “Learn” section of the magazine, the first item is titled “How Green is My Campus?” and features the environmental stewardship… Read More

While the Washington State legislature adjourned their 2008 session more than a month ago, many state legislatures are still meeting, with most of the hard work remaining over the next couple of months. In California, the budget deficit appears to be getting worse with most of the revenue shortfall coming from lower corporate income taxes. … Read More

It was about three years ago this month that the Governor’s proposal to direct the state’s tobacco settlement bonus dollars into a new Life Sciences Discovery Fund to advance state research efforts in health sciences passed the state legislature.  The bill was a major victory for the Governor in the 2005 session and something the UW and… Read More

Dave Ammons, the “Dean” of state political reporters in Olympia and a 37-year veteran state government correspondent for the Associated Press is stepping down.  After almost four decades covering the state legislature, Governor’s office and state government in general, Ammons (a UW Communications grad) will become a state employee himself, as he assumes the job of… Read More