Washington State University has grown in both size and quality over the past 15 years. WSU Cooperative Extension and the College of Agriculture and Home Economics have played a major role in this growth and will continue to be key players for the university in the new millennium. During this decade and a half, important strides have been made in fulfilling WSU's land-grant mission, and preparing our university for greater service. Our perspectives for the future must be grounded in our historical progress and accomplishments, while we also respond to influential trends affecting the country's many public universities.

Access To Education

Together we have expanded access to a quality WSU education in substantial and long-term ways, to the benefit of our students and to the economy and social fabric of our state. These strides include growth in scholarship endowments and development of our nationally respected Extended Degree Program as well as our three new campuses and 11 learning centers that bring WSU learning opportunities to communities statewide.

The seeds of the branch campuses and learning centers were planted early this century by Cooperative Extension working statewide. We are thankful for each county government's support of its Extension office. And, we also thank our state's community colleges. Our centers and branch campuses cooperate with Extension offices and community colleges for the benefit of students.

We fulfill the deepest meaning of our land-grant mission as we extend educational opportunity. The hard work of faculty and staff—in partnership with alumni and friends, with Washington communities and businesses, and with Washington legislators who value higher education—has made this progress possible.

Progress Through Partnerships

Recapping the major highlights of WSU accomplishments over the recent past, we see that many resulted from influential partnerships with individuals and organizations committed to higher education and its positive contributions to our society.

Cooperative Extension has always been about partnerships with county government, with state agencies and with other regional organizations. In times of decreasing budgets, these partnerships are important in extending the value of Extension funding to meet the needs of Washington citizens.

The Quality of a WSU Education

Our faculty and academic leaders have worked very hard to reform and enhance the quality of undergraduate student education. National recognition for many aspects of our educational programs provides positive testimony to our accomplishments.

New buildings on all of our campuses and major building renovations on our main campus provide modern facilities for research; for our growing library collections; and for teaching. Nine buildings have been constructed for the college in the past 15 years in Pullman, Puyallup, Buckley, and Prosser. One example is the Dairy Forage Facility in Buckley.

Credit for WSU's quality within the college also goes to those supporting a variety of college programs. They include commodity groups, agricultural associations, foundations, individual donors, and the state legislature.

Thanks to the new learning centers, Extension is now positioned to deliver non-credit learning and facilitate Extended Degree Programs and locally-needed degree programs, an important new role for the 21st century.

Quality Public Service

The public service work of WSU Cooperative Extension is second to none. From 4-H, serving a wide range of interests of today's young people, to the Master Gardener Program, responding to gardening needs across the state, Extension continues to be lauded for service to Washingtonians in their home areas.

Quality Research and Scholarship

WSU today is a national caliber research university and, as an academic community, we have come to value the influential and beneficial interplay between teaching and research. That change in thinking has helped fuel our progress in research and scholarship. We can see that progress in a number of ways:

• Thirteen years ago, WSU had no elected member in the National Academy of Sciences, the country's highest honor for scientific researchers. Today, six WSU faculty members—including four from the College of Agriculture and Home Economics—are Academy members.
• The WSU Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources was established in 1991. It built a statewide constituency for sustainable agriculture and received the first distinguished professorship—named for the late Paul Lauzier, farmer and rancher and a lifelong supporter of agricultural and educational causes—in Cooperative Extension in the counties
• The WSU Energy Program in Cooperative Extension received a $4.8 million five-year grant for an Industries of the Future Clearinghouse project.
• WSU-wide grant and contract expenditures have increased 131 percent since 1985, from 36.8 million dollars to 84.9 million dollars in 1998. In the past 10 years, Extension has received almost $50 million in gifts, grants and contracts.
• At WSU, there are 96 endowed distinguished professorships or academic chairs. Twenty-six of the professorships or chairs are in the College of Agriculture and Home Economics. The permanent funding for the professorships and chairs allows WSU to recruit and retain excellent researchers and scholars.
• In the 1999 legislative session, WSU gained funding for two significant research efforts including the College of Agriculture and Home Economics' Safe Food Initiative and the Advanced Technology Initiative, which supports precision agriculture and other efforts.

The momentum in research support that we have been seeing recently will continue to build, all around the WSU system.

Diversified Political and Financial Support

As we approach the 21st century, WSU has achieved a substantial and long-term broadening of political and financial support in the state of Washington and beyond.

In the past, we could count on three members of the 9th District to be intensely interested in the WSU's progress. Today we have active support from state legislators in the districts including our branch campuses and learning centers and the areas where we have partnership programs in fields such as agriculture, education and nursing.

We are also fortunate to have a federal delegation from the state of Washington that values higher education and WSU's unique land-grant mission.

Working together, we must continue to envision new possibilities for advancing the good work of our faculty and staff and determine where to advocate for funding for those efforts.

The National Picture

As part of national trends in higher education, major universities made a major shift from emphasizing teaching to emphasizing learning, and we've recognized the close interconnection of quality research and quality teaching.

Also, institutions have dramatically increased the use of technology in all areas of university work. WSU Cooperative Extension has historically been on the forefront in using technology to deliver programs. The state satellite communication system is a good example.

And, universities have adopted a model of “delivering education” to students, recognizing that not all can come to a campus. Geographic service areas and state boundaries are gone as limits on public universities.

Higher education is undergoing a major transition here at the end of the 20th century. This is an exciting, but challenging time as WSU faces stiff competition on all sides.

WSU Well Positioned for the 21st Century

How well is Washington State University positioned for the 21st century? Given the major trends and issues facing public universities, it would appear we are very well positioned. We:

• have developed a spectrum of education that allows us to serve a growing student population both on and off our campuses.
• are working continuously on the quality of our instructional and research programs.
• have expanded our political support base and diversified our sources of income, giving us a broader base on which to build our future.
• are poised for an expanded marketing effort to prospective students to build wider public appreciation of our quality programs.

Given past successes, visionary planning, and your continued support, I am confident that Washington State University Cooperative Extension and the College of Agriculture and Home Economics will continue to play major roles in the life of our state for many years to come.