Tag: Government Relations

The EWU government relations team enjoyed productive meetings during Senate Committee Days. Every November and December, prior to the start of the regular legislative session in January, the Senate and House convene to reorganize policy and fiscal committees. In addition, committee chairs hold work sessions on salient issues. Chair of the Senate Higher Education Committee,…

By 2021, 740,000 jobs are expected to open in Washington state. Sounds encouraging, except for the fact that only 40% of Washington’s high school graduates go on to earn a college degree, apprenticeship, or other credentials by the time they reach 26. For the Eastern region of the state, specifically, that number drops to 36%. It is…

Today is Day 102 of the 2017 Regular Session. 3 days to go! And…budget negotiations between the two chambers are at a standstill. We expect the legislature to adjourn on Sunday without a budget and for the Governor to immediately call the first special session. So, while budget negotiators are holed up in the capitol…

Today is the 82nd day of the 2017 Regular Session. 23 days to go! Last week, the Senate released their budget proposal and this week was the House’s turn. Below you will find a comparison of the two budgets. So far, we have only seen the Senate’s capital budget. It included $60 million for the…

Today is Day 67 of the 2017 Regular Legislative Session One of EWU’s operating budget priorities this year is investment in a new Computing and Engineering degree pathway. If successful, EWU would be the first comprehensive regional university in the state to have CpE, joining UW and WSU in the offering. The effort to launch CpE…

Today is Day 65 of the 2017 Regular Legislative Session. 40 more days to go! Since our last post, we have now passed House of Origin cutoff and returned back to committee work. This means that for a bill to still be alive, it must have passed off the floor in the chamber that it…

Today is Day 40 of the 2017 Regular Session–and House of Origin policy cutoff! So, what does policy cutoff mean? It means that today is the last day to pass policy bills out of committee. Bills that are not voted out of their policy committee by end of day today are “dead.” Unless they are…

Today is Day 31 of the 2017 Regular Session. Last week, we had Trustees Murphy, Wilson, Tanaka, and Manning in town for the annual Trustees and Regents day. We had over 30 Trustees and Regents participating from nearly every public college and university in the state. Over the course of the day, Trustees met with…

Today is Day 24 of the 2017 Regular Session Last week, Dr. Cullinan joined us for two days in Olympia. She presented before the Senate Ways and Means Committee on the impact of recent state investments in EWU as well as her work on the Graduation Project. You can watch her presentation at www.tvw.org. Dr.…

President Cullinan is in Olympia today meeting with legislators and taking about student success. Below is a guest post from her on the Graduation Project at EWU and many of the new initiatives EWU is pursuing to ensure every student is successful. This past spring, we graduated 3,000 students. One of the joys of university…