Chancellor Pagano’s Jan. Town Hall addresses fundraising and academic planning

Chancellor Mark Pagano held his monthly Town Hall meeting Jan. 24 in William Philip Hall where he gave up­dates on his family, the UW representa­tives’ trip to the Rose Bowl, the continued partnership with the Tacoma Art Mu­seum, the Koz Apartments on Market and the current amount of money raised for the fundraising campaign. Dr. Ka Yee Yeung and Dr. Jill Purdy also provided an update about the current state of the academic planning process and where they expect to be in the future.

The chancellor explained how the university is in discussion right now with the possibility of renegotiating or amend­ing their contract with the Tacoma Art Museum. Currently, UW Tacoma pays $5,000 a year to allow faculty, staff and students to access the TAM for free. The partnership is set for only 500 students to use their facilities annually, but the number of UWT members accessing the TAM has reached over 1,000 students within the past year. This increase in ad­ditional usage is the reason why the TAM is looking to renegotiate their current deal with UWT.

During their update, Yeung, chair of Faculty Assembly, and Purdy, executive vice chancellor for Academic Affairs, discussed their progress and plans for academic planning. This encompassed topics such as establishing new degree programs and making changes to degree names, as well as integrating more fac­ulty input into the plan.

“This process started in autumn 2017 as a joint effort between faculty mem­bers and UW Tacoma, and also admin­istration leaders,” Yueng said at the town hall. “The goal of the academic plan is to guide the future development of aca­demic programs in a manner that is faculty-driven and with evaluation that would be both comprehensive and also campus-wide. The scope of the current planning process includes new degree proposals, but in the future academic planning will include all academic of­ferings, including majors, minors, fee-based programs, certificates, etc.”

To end his town hall, Pagano stated that the winter quarter enrollment count is currently at 5,209 students, which re­tained 96.9 percent from the total num­ber of 5,375 enrolled students in fall quarter 2018. Pagano credited the high winter enrollment and retention rate to the faculty and staff of UWT.

“You know, a lot of campuses across the country, when January comes, they drop five, six [or] eight percent, and, you know, that is okay for them,” Pagano said. “But that doesn’t happen here. This place … does not have a significant drop. Look where we are: we are at 5,209 for winter quarter … which is 1.7 percent higher than last January, but the amazing thing is it’s 11.7 percent [higher] from three years ago … It’s an amazing thing we do here. And it is because of you all.”