PULLMAN — Washington State College’s twelfth president, Elizabeth “Betsy” Cantwell, will take the helm April 1 at a crossroads for each the college and the nation.
Cantwell is stepping down because the president of Utah State College to take the job in Pullman. Outgoing WSU President Kirk Schulz will function a senior adviser to help the transition by the top of the college 12 months.
Cantwell, 69, stated she needed to start out as quickly as doable so she may get a style of the spring semester earlier than beginning a brand new faculty 12 months.
She is taking on at a tumultuous second for greater schooling amid the unpredictability of the second presidency of Donald Trump and government orders threatening federal funding.
“The Trump administration is working in a calculated manner to change the way that we have conversations about our nation and ourselves,” Cantwell stated. “It’s a bit of chaos. I believe that’s on purpose.”
Universities like WSU want to remain the course to guard the pursuits of scholars and their schooling, Cantwell stated. They must be agile in case massive federal grants are completely canceled.
Cantwell, who stated she has no relation to Sen. Maria Cantwell, stated a significant problem is to handle selections shortly to maintain the establishment purposeful in a quickly shifting monetary panorama.
“We don’t have the luxury of moving slowly,” Cantwell stated.
One in every of Trump’s high targets is eliminating variety, fairness and inclusion packages within the authorities, colleges and the non-public sector. The Idaho State Board of Schooling in December scrapped DEI workplaces on the state’s faculties, together with the College of Idaho.
Cantwell stated she is dedicated to the rules of variety, fairness and inclusion, even when it must go by a unique identify.
“That work needs to be done no matter what,” she stated. “Our job as a land-grant (college) is to be sure that anyone that wishes what we provide has entry to that. That’s fairness.
“We have to put the programs in place, if they aren’t already there, that make sure that the people who come to us who are the first in their families to ever go to college have not just the ability to get here but the ability to graduate. That’s diversity.”
The college would possibly must be versatile with the language to explain it, nevertheless it ought to keep laser-focused on that objective, she stated.
“Before we used the term ‘DEI,’ it was still our land-grant mission to make sure that those who wanted to come to us could come to us,” Cantwell stated.
“We have done that for a long time, and we have to make sure that we continue.”
Cantwell will assume workplace throughout one other fast-moving transition because the college charts the way forward for its athletics convention amid the breakup and reconstruction of the Pac-12.
Cantwell is accustomed to the Pac-12, of which WSU is a component, since she labored in analysis administration positions for 2 former member colleges, the College of Arizona and Arizona State College, earlier than they left the convention in 2024. Utah State College will be part of the convention in 2026.
“The brand itself is amazing, and what we choose to do with it as a new Pac-12 is ours to make real,” Cantwell stated.
She stated it is a chance to innovate in a manner that serves college students and followers alike whereas acknowledging the realities of the brand new monetary panorama.
“I am a true believer in the power of college athletics for institutions like WSU, and you will not see me suggest that we somehow get out of this game. We are in college athletics at scale going forward, and we will figure this out.”
Her first precedence after taking workplace might be to carry a proper strategy of listening periods with totally different constituent teams as she will get to know the college neighborhood and its totally different targets. These teams would come with undergraduates, graduates, post-doctoral college students, pupil athletes, college and employees.
She would ask them questions comparable to: What may the college do higher? What ought to the college’s future be? What does she have to know?
Cantwell expects totally different teams may have totally different solutions to these questions, however she’s going to examine them for commonalities.
“The purpose is to reflect back to the community, after I do listening sessions, what we care about. Where are we together? Where are we not together? What do we think about our future?”