A proposal to evict Cascadia Community College from the campus it shares with the University of Washington, Bothell is not finding support from other local colleges.
The new plan calls for Cascadia to merge with Lake Washington Technical College in Kirkland, which is, as of now, not equipped to handle the influx of over 3,000 students from Cascadia.
Rep. Hans Dunshee, D-Snohomish, said, “Right now, it’s pretty improbable because of the money it would take to build up Lake Washington Technical.
You would have to move all those students out of Cascadia, and you just don’t dump them in the parking lot there.”
He’s not the only one leery of such a plan.
Charlie Earl, the Board of Community and Technical Colleges’ Executive Director, also opposes the proposed merger.
“We flat out don’t support it,” he said. “We don’t think it is in the best interest of the state.”
And of course, Cascadia isn’t much pleased with UW either.
The president of Cascadia, William Christopher, said that the proposal is a “terrible idea.”
“I think the first question you have to ask is what is best for the students,” he said in an interview with the Everett Herald.
Well, UW is certainly thinking of what is best for their students.
Kenyon Chan, UW Bothell chancellor, said that the eviction “could potentially open up the Bothell campus to grow baccalaureate production.”
Chan also said that UW wanted to jump to 5,000 students for their Bothell campus in the next decade.
All this comes only a few months after the 52.3 million dollar project to open up a new south entrance to the campus was finished.
The timing of these events raises more than a few eyebrows.
Why now that the multi-million dollar project has been completed, providing better access to the campus and allowing for greater student traffic flow does UW want to kick Cascadia?
Perhaps UW is trying to boost its own enrollment at no monetary cost.
It might cost Lake Washington Tech a huge chunk of money to ready them for a 3,000-student influx.
Cascadia’s students will also suffer a loss of access to UW Bothell campus library and resources, but it won’t cost UW a dime.
Sounds fair right?
This isn’t even the only thing UW has been doing to impede the progress of their fellow colleges.
Back in February, Bellevue Community College was trying to become Bellevue College and add several four-year programs to their curriculum.
The main opponent to this plan was UW, again seeming to try to horde money for their branch campuses.
In the words of Rodney King, “Can’t we all just get along?”
All the major universities need to worry about themselves and not crush the “little guy” in the process.
It is possible to better each college without hurting the other colleges in the process.