A New Chapter for Washington State University
Washington State University’s land-grant mission has guided us for more than 135 years — fueling opportunity, advancing knowledge, and serving generations of people in Washington. That mission continues to shape our direction as we build a stronger, more connected WSU that is easier to navigate, more responsive to regional needs, and better equipped to serve students, communities, and partners in a rapidly changing world.
Through the System-Wide Redesign, we are strengthening WSU’s ability to serve every region of the state with greater clarity, coordination, and impact. We are moving forward with purpose, as one university system building the future together.
WSU’s Six Strategic Pillars
Access and Student Success
Providing student access to exceptional, affordable and lifelong education throughout WA and the world.
Academic Excellence and Modernization
Modernizing the WSU academic core through curricular and teaching innovation with digital tools to prepare students for the future.
Innovation and Use-Inspired Research
Expanding our role as a research powerhouse, dedicated to solving state-specific and global challenges.
System-Wide Integration and Institutional Agility
Redesigning the WSU system for fiscal transparency, strategic alignment and efficiency.
WSU as the 21st Century Land Grant
Improving the health and well-being of the communities we serve.
Elevate the Cougar Identity and Brand
Strengthening our brand for lifelong Cougar identity.
Background
Over the past year, the WSU Co-Design Council played a central role in guiding the System-wide Redesign, helping WSU examine its strengths, challenges, and opportunities as one statewide university system. Their work was informed by more than 1,700 students, faculty, staff, alumni, university leaders, community members, and partners across Washington who shared their perspectives through discovery sessions, workshops, and co-design conversations.
President Cantwell’s listening sessions across the WSU system also served as an important source of data, giving students, faculty, staff, and community members a direct opportunity to share their perspectives on WSU’s priorities, challenges, and long-term direction.
Together, this input helped shape five strategic recommendations that will guide the next phase of work and move WSU toward a more coordinated, responsive, and connected university system.
Strategic Recommendations
Operating System
Decision Making Authority
The opportunity
To establish a systemwide decision authority and responsibility framework that replaces informal, influence-based decisions with transparent, consistent role-defined authority.
Operational + Org Structures
The opportunity
To implement a centrally coordinated, locally embedded organizational model that standardizes operations through standard operating procedures, workflows, and processes while preserving campus-level execution.
Data & Investments
The opportunity
To refine its systemwide KPI measures and develop a data framework that aligns metrics, funding decisions, and performance accountability.
Value Creation
WSU Your Way
The opportunity
To create a seamless, systemwide learner experience that allows students to move fluidly across programs, campuses, and modalities.
Regionally Responsive WSU
The opportunity
To establish a coordinated regional engagement model aligning regional needs and external partnerships with system priorities.
Presidential Updates
Understanding WSU’s Systemwide Redesign
Building tomorrow’s WSU
2025–2026 Impact in Action Report
Integration & Institutional Agility
Building a Unified, Efficient, and Adaptable WSU
WSU is a system with many parts. Redeveloping our institutional structures enables us to better serve the university’s academic, research, and service goals. These improvements standardize operations, enhance accountability, and build an administrative function that adds clear value to the WSU mission.
Swindell named vice provost for Undergraduate Education
WSU names Sandra Haynes EVP for statewide campuses
Jon Haarlow to lead Washington State Athletics
Academic Excellence & Modernization
Reimagining Offerings for a New Era of Education
A strong academic core is essential to our long-term success. WSU is aligning academic investments with the evolving needs of Washington’s workforce by modernizing curriculum and prioritizing high-demand majors and programs that prepare students for careers in critical sectors.
These decisions reflect a commitment to student success, economic impact, and responsible stewardship of public resources.
WSU earns top rankings in Princeton Review’s 2027 Best Colleges guide
Master’s degree in artificial intelligence gets underway
Construction management program expands to meet demand
Cougar Identity & Experience
Fostering Community and Lifelong Engagement
The WSU Cougar identity is built on determination, excellence, and togetherness. Investments in WSU’s visibility and reputation drive student recruitment and retention, as well as institutional pride and alumni engagement.
WSU debuts new commercial during 2026 Boeing Apple Cup
The flag that never misses
‘WSU in the Puget Sound’ kicks off
Strategic Investments & Impact
Aligning Resources to Increase Sustainability and Drive Outcomes
WSU is making strategic investments in areas that reflect our key priorities: student success, academic excellence, and innovation with real-world impact.
Understand the steps we are taking to ensure WSU remains not only relevant—but indispensable—to the people we serve.
Regents approve university’s FY27 operating budget
Regents approve resolution in support of WSU Athletics
WSU makes nearly $4B economic impact on Washington
Systemwide Redesign FAQs
Responses by President Cantwell, provided Sept. 28, 2026.
I would start by saying that WSU is already a nationally and internationally competitive research university. Our task is to build on the considerable strength we already have and make certain that the impact of our work is recognized at the scale it deserves.
One measure of that strength is our research enterprise. WSU reported nearly $462 million in research and development expenditures in FY2025, a 14.5% increase in a single year and the fifth consecutive year of growth.
But national and international standing is not something I believe we should pursue simply for the sake of rankings. Our reputation should be built on doing our mission exceptionally well: attracting and graduating more students, producing research with consequence, building areas of distinctive research strength, translating discovery into solutions, and demonstrating the value of WSU to Washington and beyond.
That is the work of the next several years, and we should expect to see progress continuously rather than waiting for a single date or ranking to tell us we have arrived. Our goal is to show momentum with more research, stronger partnerships, greater visibility for our faculty and their work, and a clearer national understanding of what WSU contributes as a modern land-grant research university.
Resource allocation has to begin with mission and strategy where WSU can have the greatest impact.
At the center of that work is student success. We want to serve more students, retain more of the students who choose WSU, and see more of them graduate and move successfully into their careers and communities. That means investing in the academic programs, student support, technology, and pathways that help students succeed.
A second priority is research with consequence. WSU has built significant momentum in its research enterprise, and we intend to build on it. That means supporting our faculty, strengthening areas where we have distinctive expertise, creating opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration, and positioning WSU to compete for substantially greater external research investment.
And our land-grant mission remains fundamental to how we make these decisions. Our Extension network, research and extension centers, health programs, educational programs, and partnerships give WSU an extraordinary ability to reach communities throughout Washington. We need to use that network to connect our teaching and research more directly to the needs of the state.
Those priorities will not eliminate the need for difficult choices. In fact, greater strategic alignment requires us to make choices. But it gives us a clear test for those decisions: Does this investment improve student success? Does it strengthen research and innovation? Does it increase our impact for Washington? And does it help us operate as a more agile and effective university system?
The President’s Big Ideas Initiative is about investing strategically in areas where WSU can have significant impact and grow our research strength.
Track 1 brings together expertise from across the WSU system in areas where we have strong potential for growth and external investment, from AI and quantum innovation to precision biology and nuclear research.
Track 2 focuses on our land-grant mission by supporting research that addresses real-world challenges facing Washington communities, in partnership with state agencies, industry, nonprofits, and others.
Ultimately, this is what I mean when I talk about research with consequence: building on WSU’s strengths, encouraging collaboration, attracting new investment, and turning our expertise into meaningful impact for Washington and beyond.