WSU President Elson S. Floyd and Interim Provost Dan Bernardo recently approved the creation of two new task forces to evaluate and improve current academic and administrative systems at WSU branch campuses.

“We are a broad-reaching research and land-grant institution with multiple locations, so the goal is, how do we plan in the future to connect and improve each of these?” said Brian Pitcher, vice provost and chair of both of the committees.

The Urban Campus Academic Issues Identification Committee will take inventory of all of the academic issues at each branch campus. The committee will investigate academic program approval, educational delivery, and more.

The WSU Administrative Systems and Operations Task Force will focus on looking at the overall effectiveness of administrative processes at the branch campuses, as well as marketing and student services.

“It’s quite natural that there would be one to look more at the administrative issues and one that looks more at the academic operations,” Pitcher said. “We want to identify and inventory all of the issues related to how we design programs related to campuses and then prioritize these.”

One of the main questions that will be addressed is how to ensure the university is effective in the delivery of academic programs and services across all areas of the state, he said.

When the satellite campuses were established 25 years ago, there was a more centralized leadership and unity between all of them, Pitcher said.

“As they’ve matured they’ve become quite different from each other,” Pitcher said. “The needs of the Spokane campus are now much different than the needs of the Vancouver campus, which are different than the needs of the Tri-Cities campus.”

New leadership in the last year at each branch campus has made now a good time to map out a plan for the future and to make changes that will benefit all of the WSU campuses, Pitcher said.