Washington State University Spokane

In 1987, the Washington State Higher Education Coordinating Board (HECB), the predecessor to the Washington Student Achievement Council, released its first master plan which concluded that existing upper division and graduate higher education programs in the State of Washington, particularly in its urban areas, were inadequate for the state's population. The conclusion was drawn based on the low rates of enrollment and completion of baccalaureate programs for Washington residents as compared to other states around the country.[4]

In 1989, responding to the HECB's conclusion, the Washington State Legislature along with then-Washington State Governor Booth Gardner,[5] established five branch campuses within growing cities across Washington (Bothell, Tacoma, Vancouver, the Tri-Cities and Spokane).[4] The new campuses were distributed between the state's two main public research institutions with the University of Washington establishing UW Bothell and UW Tacoma, and Washington State University establishing WSU Vancouver, WSU Tri-Cities, and WSU Spokane.

The newly formed campuses, including WSU Spokane, were charged with a mission to expand access to upper division and graduate higher education and to foster regional development. The upper division focus (which has since evolved as some of the campuses now offer four-year degrees) was meant to complement Washington's relatively large and geographically distributed community college system and to meet local labor market demand for higher education. Meanwhile, placing the new campuses under operation by Washington's research universities was meant to promote local economic development.[4]

While the other four campuses were established to focus on arts, sciences, and applied master's degree programs, WSU Spokane's focus was oriented toward health sciences, engineering, and architecture at the graduate level.[4]

By 2017, WSU Spokane, and the four other campuses that were established alongside it, had grown to the point where the Washington State Legislature decided to remove the "branch campus" designation from all five campuses in a nearly unanimous vote (91-6 in the state house and 48-0 in the state senate). The bill would be signed by Washington State Governor Jay Inslee shortly after.[6] The change was in nomenclature only and was made to symbolize the growth of higher education in the state in the roughly 25 years since the campuses were originally established, and to recognize that each of the campuses had matured and formed their own identities. It did not alter the governance and funding structure of the state's public research universities. Therefore, the campuses, including WSU Spokane, still report to their main campuses and do not operate with full autonomy and separate governance like affiliated universities in other state university systems in the United States (such as the University of California and University of Texas systems) do.[7]

On September 3, 2010, to recognize the university's long-term vision to advance WSU Spokane in the health sciences arena and recent parallel efforts to launch a medical school in Spokane,[3] the WSU Board of Regents designated WSU Spokane as the university's health science campus.[8]

In recent years WSU Spokane has expanded significantly. Thanks to intense community support, legislative funding to build a new facility for the pharmacy and medical sciences programs was approved, and private funding of second year medical education was secured. These actions prompted the College of Pharmacy to move in its entirety to the Spokane campus in 2013 and the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine to be created in 2014. Another recent effort was the establishment of a consortium of Empire Health Foundation, Providence Health Care and WSU Spokane that successfully applied for federal teaching health center funding for six new medical residency slots, with the possibility of another 12 or more if funding is continued. The effort moved responsibility of nearly all of the medical residences in Eastern Washington to the consortium's Spokane Teaching Health Center. A clinic for the residents and WSU students working in teams to serve low-income community members was finished in early 2016.