30 years strong: WSUV grows into educational, economic force

As Washington State University Vancouver approaches its 30th anniversary, there are few left on campus who have been there since its early days in Bauer Hall at Clark College.

Renee Hoeksel, executive associate dean for nursing, is among them. A longtime nurse who left the profession briefly to earn her bachelor’s degree, Hoeksel began working at WSU Vancouver in 1990. It was a year after the branch campus was established, and she spearheaded the development of a nursing degree program created in response to Southwest Washington’s growing workforce needs.

After years of nursing in Portland hospitals, Hoeksel said she wanted to pass her own experiences along to other nurses.

“If I ever have an opportunity to give back in any way, to any nurses who are trying to get their degree, I’m going to do that,” she said.

Hoeksel’s journey at the university, in some ways, reflects that of the university itself — a story cobbled together in the interest of increasing degrees in Southwest Washington after overcoming initial logistical challenges. Today, WSU Vancouver sprawls over 351 acres, with about 3,500 students enrolled in the college’s 33 degree programs.

And nearly three decades later, WSU Vancouver’s eye is turned toward growth. There’s a new life sciences building slated for construction in the coming years, as well as undergraduate housing, a new venture for what’s traditionally been a commuter campus in Salmon Creek.

For Hoeksel, that growth represents not a shift in the university’s mission, but an extension of its efforts to boost education levels in Clark County.

“The basic mission of what we’ve been after in order to improve access to education in Southwest Washington hasn’t changed,” Hoeksel said. “We just have a bigger toolkit now.”

‘Power of education’

Chancellor Mel Netzhammer, who has been at the university since 2012, described WSUV’s growth over the years as a symbol of the economic opportunity that comes with earning a degree.

“That says something about the power of education to the people who live here,” he said.

To what extent WSU Vancouver is responsible for increased educational attainment levels in Clark County is hard to pinpoint. The university, however, estimates that of the 14,371 living WSU Vancouver alumni, 8,328 reside in Clark County. About 95 percent, or 13,652, live in the Portland metro area.

Census data shows bachelor’s degree attainment has trended upward in Clark County in the last 20 years, from 22.1 percent in the 2000 Census to 27.9 percent in the 2012-2016 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates.

Mike Bomar, president of the Columbia River Economic Development Council, said having a university in Clark County has been key in attracting employers to the area, especially in computer science and health care fields.

“Employers who need talent know there’s a resource,” Bomar said.

Despite the growth, Bomar said Clark County’s population remains about 10 percentage points below overall bachelor’s degree attainment in the Portland metro area. Still, he said, having a university presence in town is a visible reminder, especially to potential first-generation college students, that higher education is attainable.

“We can turn the page on multigenerational poverty,” he said.

Paula Martin, 53, was among the first graduates from WSU Vancouver. She graduated in 1993 with a business and accounting degree.

After settling in Vancouver after serving in the U.S. Army, she enrolled at Clark College then eventually at the WSUV campus, which at the time was still located in Bauer Hall. The library at the time, she recalled, was “dinky,” the student body office was a converted closet and the bookstore wasn’t much bigger.

Still, Martin said, her small class sizes combined with access to work-study opportunities on campus were instrumental in her later career success. Martin went on to earn her master’s in business administration and law degree at Willamette University, and worked in Clark County for 20 years.

“You get to keep more talented people home if they’re educated and have an opportunity to work in the local economy,” she said.

Residence hall

WSU Vancouver is currently in the midst of rewriting its master plan document, a largely bureaucratic process setting the vision for campus facilities slated to be adopted later this fall.

“It’s a really very high-level look,” said Kelly Keane, a project manager with WSU Vancouver.