Recently, someone asked Beverly Naidus why she gave up the glamour of the New York art world to teach socially engaged art to college students — on a university campus that doesn’t even have an art degree.

Naidus didn’t flinch.

“I told her, ‘I don’t think you understand,'” Naidus says. “The art world is not enough. We have to be doing more in this time, and I have to be teaching.”

It wasn’t enough, she explains, to be making art that exposed the tragedy of chemically caused illness, nuclear nightmares, women’s body hate, racism and exploitation of the environment—some of the subjects typical in Naidus’ art. She needed to spread her message on a broader scale.

“The world is a mess, and we need to be out there getting other people involved in transforming it into something better,” she says.

Naidus, an associate professor in 91̽��Tacoma’s Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences program, cut her artistic teeth in New York City. As an 11-year-old, she learned to ride the bus into the city from New Jersey and began visiting museums. All forms of art interested her, from dance and theater to painting and poetry, as a way to process her thoughts.

“My parents were the children of immigrants,” she says. “The dream was for me to become a businesswoman, a lawyer, a scientist or a doctor. But I had an affinity for the arts. Art helped me find coherence in a very chaotic and confusing world and helped me to feel less alienated and more empowered.”

In high school, Naidus considered anthropology or sociology as a career until a teacher told her she had an artistic gift. But she still hesitated. Family members warned her away from a career in art, she says. “I heard, ‘Don’t be an artist. Don’t be an artist. You’ll starve.'”

In college, though, Naidus realized she could do both: study all of those “serious” topics and make art about it.

“Art making gave me a frame in which to process all the things I didn’t understand, and it also allowed me to integrate issues in new ways,” she says. “I never went back to tell that high school teacher he was right. But I did send him announcements for my exhibitions in New York.”

Naidus has always created very personal art—for her, it’s a way of working through intense emotions and complicated ideas. She processes nightmares, pain, rage and self-doubt in her work. In the 1980s, while she was living in Southern California, Naidus began to feel ashamed that her body didn’t look like the models in magazines and concerned for her feminist friends, who were all on diets. She researched the causes of women’s body hate. A passionate series of drawings and collages led to the publication of a book (One Size Does Not Fit All) and, eventually, a course at 91̽��Tacoma called “Body Image and Art.”

Illness and environmental issues are other themes that run through her work. Smog and pesticides in the Los Angeles area gave Naidus an environmental illness and eventually provoked her to give up her tenure at Cal State Long Beach and move away. She turned that experience into another body of art work — Canary Notes: the Personal Politics of Environmental Illness — and 91̽��Tacoma class, Eco-Art: Art Created in Response to the Environmental Crisis. Her art has also focused on cultural identity, racism, war, global warming, genetically modified food and more.

In her courses, students are encouraged to examine their lives, their communities and the world as well as art. It’s common to see groups of her students engaging in art projects that express social messages. One year, students set up shop in the central campus square and encouraged passers-by to lie down and have their outlines drawn in chalk. The result was a celebration of body shapes and sizes. Another class addressed the human cost of war with an anti-war installation that prompted debate across campus (with many naysayers unaware that some of the student artists were veterans themselves). For a recent class, students invited women from across campus to join them for a series of photos that captured their individuality and strength.

“I have been so blessed to have students who are just on fire after they take my classes,” she says. “Many of my students have had very little exposure to art. In our classes they have an opportunity to learn about social issues of interest to them, like body image, war, labor or globalization, develop some formal skills and then tell their own story in an art work.”

Naidus’ career in education inspired her latest book, Arts for Change: Teaching Outside the Frame (New Village Press, 2009). The book explores the motivations and challenges of teaching socially engaged arts in a university setting and includes the stories of 33 other practitioners around the world. Part of her intention is to help other art instructors successfully engage students and teach them to use art to raise consciousness.

Naidus continues to exhibit her work, and more recently has begun to use her art to imagine a healed world rather than focusing on its problems. She and another artist are currently turning part of the Beall Greenhouses on Vashon Island—an historic area now full of toxic soil—into a sacred garden filled with audience-participatory altars to seeds using permaculture. Naidus, a Vashon resident, calls it “eco-restoration art.”

In the meantime, she’s created a new interdisciplinary arts curriculum for 91̽��Tacoma and has co-created a new major, Arts in Community, that awaits funding and approval.

“It would be wonderful if we had this version of an art major,” she says. “But I’m just grateful that we’re able to do what we do in this program. We need art in this time, probably more than we ever have before. People are in such deep states of despair and fear right now, and art allows us all to see the world in a new way and imagine how to create a better one.”

Naidus will read from Arts for Change this summer at the Elliot Bay Bookstore in Seattle. The date of the reading has not been set. Check for details and more information about the book.

When Ben Warner was approached by a group of teenagers looking for a fight, he could have hopped on his longboard and skated off to safety.

But the 91̽��Tacoma senior cared enough to try to talk it out. And when that didn’t work, he took a long ride — and hatched a plan to use his board to bring hope to a legion of kids.

This March, Warner, an Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences senior from Lakewood, and two friends will embark on a longboarding trip from San Diego to Savannah, Ga. Their goal is to raise money and awareness for Boys & Girls Clubs, boosting an agency that helps keep kids off the streets.

“We didn’t have a lot when I was growing up, but I had Boys & Girls Club,” he said. “It kept me focused when I was a kid. Some kids, they don’t have anyone telling them they can be better.”

Earlier this year, Warner was out on his longboard—a long, wide version of a skateboard that’s popular among racers and distance skaters—when he decided to make a nighttime visit to the Southeast Tacoma neighborhood where he grew up. As he looked at his old family home, he heard someone call out a crude greeting from the street.

He spun around to find three boys, all about 14 years old, approaching him. One was carrying a hatchet. The other two carried a bat and a tire iron. All three wanted to fight. Warner just wanted to talk.

He asked the kids why they chose this path in life.

“I told them, ‘You’re better than this,'” he said. “One of the kids said to me, ‘No, I’m lower than dirt. I’ll die a Crip just like my dad.'”

An older gang member intervened, telling Warner to leave. He skated away, but couldn’t shake the image of the three boys throwing their lives away in front of his childhood home. So he just kept on riding. He thought about neighborhoods breaking down, about the rise of gang violence and the loss of human connection. He thought about his own youth, when family members told him college probably wasn’t in his future. He thought about the Boys & Girls Club volunteers who had helped him learn to believe in himself—and wished the boys who had confronted him would find a similar positive influence in their lives.

After skating about 15 miles, he realized it was up to people like him to make that happen.

Working with IAS Lecturer Steve DeTray and staff at Boys & Girls Clubs of South Puget Sound, Warner hatched a plan to use his longboard to gain awareness for the issue. His ambitious trip will take him and his friends on a two-month, 3,000-mile trek across the southern United States, followed by a support vehicle and a film crew. Along the way, they’ll speak at local Boys & Girls Clubs, meet with local youths and encourage people of all ages to volunteer at a club, coach or even just show up to watch a baseball game.

“We believe that increasing this social capital will help build communities and encourage the youth of America to further their education and become more fit,” Warner said.

And the trip is more than a fundraising effort—Warner is using it to craft an internship with Boys & Girls Clubs. Success will not only earn money for the agency, it will earn Warner the last credits he needs toward his IAS degree with a minor in nonprofit management. After he graduates at the end of winter quarter, Warner hopes to enter the Master of Education program at Pacific Lutheran University. He wants to be a teacher.

The group hopes to leave on March 21 and arrive in Savannah in late May. They are currently skating 40 miles a day to train and seeking sponsors to help raise the $20,000 they’ll need to fund the trip. Money raised above that amount, through sponsorships and fundraising efforts along the route, will support Boys & Girls Clubs. They hope to raise a total of $100,000 for the agency.

“Boys & Girls Clubs of South Puget Sound helped me with so much in my life,” Warner said. “A stronger Boys & Girls Club could really change a community.”

Learn more at Warner’s Web site: . 

Jean-Paul Willynck, a senior Urban Studies student at the 91̽��Tacoma, has been appointed to a one-year term as the 91̽��student regent by Gov. Chris Gregoire. Willynck is the first-ever student representative to the Board of Regents who does not come from the University’s main campus in Seattle.

“For any student, it is a tremendous honor to be chosen as a student regent. And in recent years, the student regents have worked hard to be knowledgeable about student issues on all three campuses,” Chancellor Patricia Spakes said. “In fact, the students themselves made it one criterion of their selection process this year. In nominating Jean-Paul, they recognized how important the three-campus perspective has become.”

Willynck, who expects to graduate in June 2009, was one of more than 3,000 students to apply for the position this year. An active participant in 91̽��Tacoma’s student Legislative and Advocacy Committee, he has lobbied for child care, campus safety and tuition subsidy bills in Olympia, and advised legislators on student perspectives of the proposed 91̽��campus in Snohomish County. He also established a new campus group to deal with student transportation issues and has planned a series of forums on campus to address parking and alternative transportation.

“I’m pleased to appoint Jean-Paul as the 91̽��Student Regent.” said Governor Gregoire. “He has shown strong leadership on priorities that matter for all 91̽��students — whether lobbying the Legislature for increased campus safety or founding the Commuters’ Association of 91̽��Tacoma to lend broader student voice to community dialogues — and will be an excellent advocate for 91̽��student priorities.”

Representing all of UW’s 40,000 students on three campuses is a unique opportunity, said Willynck, adding, “I look forward to getting better acquainted with the Seattle campus while helping students in Seattle become more familiar with Tacoma and Bothell.

“I believe this is a tremendous opportunity to help 91̽��Seattle students and leaders understand that the Tacoma campus truly is a part of the UW,” Willynck said.

Willynck has extensive international experience and has studied human rights, international law, development and democracy in Norway, Namibia and Asia. He is currently traveling in Thailand. Although Willynck will be involved in the broad range of issues that are reviewed by the board, he is particularly interested in tuition, student fees and capital construction. He intends to take some classes at 91̽��Seattle to become more familiar with the issues addressing students there.

Brian Coffey, director of 91̽��Tacoma’s Urban Studies program, said Willynck is a self-confident and articulate student whose work as a student leader and advocate has prepared him to represent the University’s students on the Board of Regents.

“Jean-Paul clearly has a strong understanding of what students need,” Coffey said. “I don’t think he will be shy about speaking up regarding student issues and concerns.”

Since 1998, the 91̽��Board of Regents has included a student regent who is tasked with bringing a student perspective to the board’s decisions while acting in the best interests of the University and the state of Washington. The student regent has full voting power on the board.

91̽��Tacoma has named Sharon Parker as its new assistant chancellor for equity and diversity. Parker, of Olympia, is responsible for institutional diversity initiatives and oversees the Diversity Task Force and the Diversity Resource Center.

“I want to address all aspects of the University from a standpoint of how people here are represented,” she said. “ 91̽��Tacoma should be a welcoming and supportive environment for everyone.”

Parker comes to 91̽��Tacoma with a wealth of experience as a diversity researcher and administrator. Most recently she operated her own consulting practice assisting education and industry leaders in developing, managing and evaluating their diversity initiatives.

Previously, as a visiting scholar at Claremont Graduate University, Parker co-led a statewide diversity research and evaluation project. She also has been president of the American Institute for Managing Diversity in Atlanta, Ga., and has held positions at The Evergreen State College, The Union Institute, Stanford University, the National Institute for Women of  Color, the National Commission on Working Women and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

Parker holds a bachelor’s degree in Slavic languages from UCLA and a master’s degree in bilingual education from Antioch University. She is currently completing her Ph.D. in education at the University of Auckland.

For their 25th wedding anniversary, Douglas Louie surprised his wife, 91̽��Tacoma Professor of Education Belinda Louie, with an elaborate, expensive gift she can’t wear, drive or even touch.

But his gift — a $25,000 donation to one of Belinda Louie’s pet projects, the children’s and young adult literature collection at the 91̽��Tacoma library — will benefit generations of children and college students. The gift establishes the Professor Belinda Y. Louie Children’s and Young Adult Literature Library Endowed Collection and allows the library to expand its collection of books for young readers and other patrons who are interested in children’s literature.

“I surround myself with books, and I want to leave a legacy of the love of books,” Louie said. “By helping the library expand this collection, we are encouraging both children and adults to love books.”

The Louies will be honored for their gift — and for a new work of art they commissioned for the Library — at a reception at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 13 in 91̽��Tacoma’s Library.

The books are used primarily by 91̽��Tacoma Education students who are researching children’s literature and by students with children, according to Library Director Charles Lord.

“Children’s books are great for researching cultural norms and customs,” Lord said. “They contain a lot of useful information and images capturing the spirit of different cultures. With this endowment, we can pursue creating an outstanding global collection of children’s literature.”

The Library’s collection of children’s books was established about five years ago, after Belinda Louie and other faculty members requested it.

In addition to their monetary gift, the Louies have also promised to donate 5,000 books for the collection and commissioned a piece of Japanese paper-cut artwork to hang in the Library. The artist, Aki Sogabe of Seattle, is a well-known children’s book illustrator. The art will be unveiled at the reception Dec. 13.

Belinda Louie, a member of the 91̽��Tacoma Education faculty since 1992, is an expert in children’s literature, literacy instruction and teaching English as a Second Language. Douglas Louie, a physician, holds a doctorate in psychology. The Louies are also establishing a named scholarship for graduate students in Education.

The urban campus and restored brick warehouses of 91̽��Tacoma have earned recognition from the Sierra Club as one of the country’s best new development projects.

A report issued by the Sierra Club in December names UWT as one of a dozen American developments that are enhancing neighborhoods and the environment by reusing existing space and creating accessible places to live and work. 91̽��Tacoma has accomplished this by adapting old warehouses, adding retail and bringing thousands of students, faculty and staff to the neighborhood each week, according to the report.

“We are pleased to be singled out by the Sierra Club as one of 12 best developments in the nation and the only university to receive the distinction, UWT Chancellor Patricia Spakes says. “The honor recognizes the vision of our master plan, which intentionally established a strategy to create a vibrant urban neighborhood.”

The report says the UWT campus has become “a bustling addition to Tacoma,” adding to the growing demand for retail, hotels, housing and further redevelopment.

“The partnership between businesses, local and state government, and the 91̽�� has created a better Tacoma, reduced crime, increased economic activity, protected historically significant buildings, and created an area where it is easy to walk and use public transportation,” the report says.

As an urban campus located in a historic downtown district, UWT has capitalized on a unique opportunity to demonstrate successful sustainable renovation design. Many of its campus facilities are restored, century-old brick structures, originally industrial facilities that grew up around the terminus of the transcontinental railroad

In the area now occupied by 91̽��Tacoma, turn-of-the-century merchants moved dry goods, food, hay, flour and grains straight from their back doors to the train. However, by the 1920s, the district had started to fall into disrepair. By the 1970s, the neighborhood, Tacoma’s gateway to I-5, became dilapidated and crime-ridden.

Visionary community leaders felt that placing a university campus in the heart of the historic warehouse district would revive part of the city’s core. They were right: The University brings thousands of students, faculty, staff and visitors each year to the area. In recent years, the demand for retail, housing, hotels and further redevelopment in the neighborhood has skyrocketed. The area is unrecognizable from the empty, crime-filled neighborhood of 20 years ago.

“Establishing a new campus in downtown Tacoma was an example of local leaders — primarily businesspeople — getting fed up with an eyesore at the city’s gateway, and taking initiative to create a vision, put their own resources into that idea, and then work relentlessly to sell the idea to state and local officials and university administrators,” the report says.

An important element of the campus master plan is to create a rich urban setting to benefit both students and the surrounding community. The campus leases retail space to eateries, coffee shops and other businesses, drawing visitors to the university while providing UWT students, faculty and staff with places to eat and shop.

The campus has earned a number of additional architectural and preservation awards, including a landmark Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) silver certification for sustainable design from the U.S. Green Building Council.

The Sierra Club’s report is available online at .

Most people think of HIV/AIDS as a young person’s disease. Charles Emlet, a social work professor at the 91̽��Tacoma, says it’s not.

HIV is increasing among older people faster than many suspect, and the treatment of these individuals will become more important as the first baby-boomers hit 60 next year, Emlet says. The issue is beginning to attract global attention, and Emlet’s extensive research on the topic has netted him an invitation to help shape international HIV/AIDS policy this month.

On Nov. 22, Emlet will participate in an expert forum on HIV/AIDS and older people in Valetta, Malta, sponsored by the UN Institute on Aging. The workshop is part of a series of forums leading up to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting Nov. 25–27 in Valetta, a gathering of heads of state from the Commonwealth of Nations, an association of independent sovereign states, most of which are former territories of the British Empire. Participants in the HIV/AIDS forum plan to produce a platform statement on the topic that will be presented at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

“I’m thrilled to be invited,” Emlet said. “I hope the declaration that emerges will be embraced by the heads of government, and we can make a considerable step forward in helping people understand aging and HIV.”

Serious misconceptions exist regarding HIV and AIDS in people over 50, Emlet said. The most common one is simply that older people don’t get HIV.

“There’s an assumption that older people aren’t sexually active, they don’t use drugs, even that they’re immune from diseases such as this,” he said. “Even international data on people with AIDS from the organization UNAIDS stops at age 49. But people over 50 do get infected and do deal with this disease.”

Emlet says that contrary to popular belief, people over 50 do get involved in risky behavior such as unprotected sex and drug use, which is leading to new cases of HIV in their age bracket. Other patients have had the disease for years. Thanks to advances in treatment, people with HIV can grow old — something that wasn’t true 20 years ago, when Emlet first became interested in the effect of HIV on the older population while working with AIDS patients in the San Francisco Bay area.

“When I started doing this work in the 80s, people with AIDS didn’t live long,” he said.

While working on an AIDS home-care project in 1987, Emlet’s caseload included several patients in their 60s and 70s. At first, he tried to offer them the same services he offered to younger patients. Many of the older patients refused.

“I realized that these people are unique, and they have to be treated differently,” he said. “They aren’t necessarily interested in things like support groups, or outpatient mental health counseling. To many of them, especially the Depression-era folks, that’s just not what one does.”

Emlet has focused his research on HIV and aging ever since. Recently, he’s investigated the services and social support systems available to these patients, as well as ageism and the stigma attached to HIV. Last year, he was named to the Governor’s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. He conducts most of his research locally, working with local service providers to meet and interview patients in the Puget Sound region.

He hopes the forum in Malta will generate international interest on the topic.

“Many people talk about how it’s an emerging issue,” he said. “I think it’s been emerging for a long time.”

91̽��Tacoma broke ground this week for Court 17, the new housing and parking complex to be developed through a public/private partnership.

Speakers at the event included Patricia Spakes, the new chancellor of UWT, Bill Baarsma, mayor of Tacoma, representatives from Lorig Associates, UWT’s partner in developing the project, and representatives from Berschauer Phillips Construction Co., the contractor building the garage portion of the project.

Court 17 is a public/private development consisting of a three-story, 309-car parking garage to help meet the parking needs of UWT students, faculty and staff, and a five-story, 129-unit apartment building. The garage will be financed, owned and operated by the University; the apartments will be financed, owned and operated by Lorig Associates, a Seattle developer.

The garage portion of the project is funded with $3 million provided for Phase 2 of campus construction, a $1 million low-interest loan from the City of Tacoma and $3.1 million in bank financing.

Developers expect the project to continue fueling the dramatic economic revitalization taking place around the campus in Tacoma. Housing will help draw people into the community to support amenities that will also benefit busy students.

Both the garage and apartment complex were designed by Mithun Architects of Seattle. The parking garage, which will be completed first, will be constructed by Berschauer Phillips and should be finished in late 2005. Construction of the housing, by Walsh Construction Co., will begin when the garage is complete. Apartments should be available for rental in late 2006.

UWT students and faculty will be given first choice when the market-rate apartments are available, but the general public will also be able to rent units in the complex.

Patricia Spakes believes it’s her destiny to be at 91̽��Tacoma.

And since Tacoma is the City of Destiny, she ought to fit right in.

Spakes, the new chancellor of 91̽��Tacoma, started work April 4 after moving thousands of miles from her old home in Pennsylvania. She takes the helm of UWT just as the future of the campus is about to be decided, a challenge she relishes.

“This job will take a tremendous amount of energy and stamina, and a sense of humor,” she said.

Spakes comes to UWT from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, where she was provost and vice president for academic affairs. She has also been vice president for academic affairs at Fitchburg State College in Massachusetts and held the same position at Arizona State University West, where she helped develop a plan to transition that university from upper-division to four year. She believes the experience will serve her well as UWT plans to make the same move.

“I’ve been on both kinds of campuses, and I think the biggest difference is identity,” she said. “At an established, four-year campus, you have a clear sense of what the university is and who it serves. On a smaller campus, these things are still undecided. You can be much more entrepreneurial and creative.”

After she left ASU West, Spakes kept her eye on small campuses around the country, hoping for another opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a new university. She was attracted to UWT early on, but knew family and job commitments might make the transition tough. She had promised the president at Shippensburg that she would stay on until he retired.

“I was watching this campus,” she said. “It seemed like a good match for my background and skills.”

Then last year, the chancellor’s job opened up just as the Shippensburg president decided to take early retirement. The timing, it seemed, was perfect.

Spakes approached her husband, Jerry Finn, about applying for the job, with some trepidation. Was he ready for one last great adventure before they retired?

“Where?” Finn asked.

“Tacoma,” Spakes replied.

“OK,” he said.

With that, the decision was made.

Spakes was hired after an extensive national search process that lasted nearly a year. 91̽��President Mark Emmert appointed her to the position in January.

“This search did what such searches are supposed to do, scour the country for the best talent out there and find someone with fresh perspectives and innovative ideas to bring to this important leadership position,” Emmert said at the time. “Patricia Spakes has all of this and more. She is a wonderful academic leader and will be an asset to the 91̽��, Tacoma, the community it serves, and the higher education community in our state. She will make an impact, and I’m very excited about the future of our Tacoma campus under her stewardship.”

Two weeks into her new job, Spakes said she is forming an impression of UWT and preparing to begin addressing pressing issues at the University.

“UWT is a campus full of hard-working, dedicated people with a great vision,” she said. “The potential here is enormous.”

Her first acts as chancellor will likely focus on the expansion of UWT to a four-year campus. The bill allowing this change passed the State Legislature just this week; under its provisions, UWT could see its first freshmen in 2007. Before that happens, Spakes and the UWT leadership team must develop a new lower-division curriculum and address issues of campus life, student services and facilities to meet the needs of freshmen and sophomores.

“We have to decide what new services we need and whether our organizational structure is right to move forward,” she said.

Spakes will approach these issues by developing a plan for proceeding. She hopes to involve the entire UWT campus in this planning process.

Also at the top of Spakes’ agenda is addressing diversity issues at UWT.

Spakes holds a doctorate in social welfare from the University of Wisconsin, a master of social work from the University of South Carolina, and a bachelor’s degree in sociology/social work and English from Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C. She has been provost and vice president at Shippensburg since 2001. Her husband will be joining her at 91̽��Tacoma as a professor of social work.

Working on the same campus will have “advantages and disadvantages,” Spakes said. “I know we will both become invested in our community through this campus.”

UWT Advisory Board member Ray Tennison, a member of the committee that recommended Spakes as a finalist for the position, said her appointment is great news for the South Puget Sound region.

“The community leaders involved in the process were very impressed with her and her community orientation. She not only has a visionary approach to higher education administration, she clearly articulates the possibilities and challenges faced by colleges and universities.”

Spakes said she looks forward to meeting these challenges at UWT.

“A new campus like this one is a huge unknown,” she said. “What will the future look like? How will we get there? We still don’t know. It’s very challenging, and for me, that makes it more fun.”

With the state poised to allow the first freshmen at 91̽��Tacoma in 2007, a new agreement promising transfer students nearly three-quarters of UWT’s undergraduate seats has been signed by 91̽��President Mark Emmert and representatives from the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges and the Higher Education Coordinating Board.

In the agreement, which formalizes 91̽��Tacoma’s long-standing commitment to serving as the next academic step for transfer students, the 91̽��promises that at least 1,300 of UWT’s upper-division FTEs (full-time equivalent enrollments) and at least 72 percent of available UWT undergraduate seats will be reserved for qualified community college transfer students. The agreement formalizes UWT’s commitment to expand access for upper-division transfer students even as it moves toward adding freshmen and sophomores to the campus, which currently serves only juniors, seniors and graduate students.

Legislation is currently moving through Olympia that would allow UWT to begin accepting lower-division students in 2007. With the addition of freshmen, 91̽��Tacoma will be able to help meet the state’s need for expanded four-year opportunities. But the addition of lower-division courses at UWT will also be a clear benefit to transfer students, creating richer opportunities for juniors and seniors to round out their major with study in related fields.

The agreement also promises that community college students will have ample information to use for academic planning and full access to UWT majors. Partners in the new agreement believe that students attending any of UWT’s partner community colleges should be in a position to know that if they succeed well at their community college and meet the high standards for admission to majors at UWT, there should be a space available for them at UWT when they complete their lower-division studies.

The agreement calls for co-admission and co-enrollment agreements to be completed by December of 2006. It will remain in effect through the 2010-2011 academic year, when it will undergo a review. Text of the agreement is posted on UWT’s Web site, .