University of Washington, Tacoma - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The University of Washington Tacoma (UW Tacoma) is a four-year undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate campus in downtown Tacoma, Washington

Tacoma, Washington

Tacoma is a mid-sized urban port city and the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. The city is on Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, and northwest of Mount Rainier National Park. The population was 198,397, according to...

. Students can choose majors in business, education, nursing, computer science, information technology, criminal justice, social work, environmental science, urban studies and interdisciplinary arts and sciences. Classes are offered day and evening, for full- or part-time students.

UW Tacoma is one of three campuses in the University of Washington

University of Washington

University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...

. The other campuses are in Seattle

University of Washington

and Bothell. UW Tacoma opened in leased space in 1990, and opened its permanent campus in 1997.

History

Following the establishment of The Evergreen State College in Olympia

Olympia, Washington

Olympia is the capital city of the U.S. state of Washington and the county seat of Thurston County. It was incorporated on January 28, 1859. The population was 46,478 at the 2010 census...

in 1967, interest in additional higher education opportunities in the South Sound continued to grow. In 1986, the Higher Education Coordination Board suggested branch campuses for both the University of Washington and Washington State University

Washington State University

Washington State University is a public research university based in Pullman, Washington, in the Palouse region of the Pacific Northwest. Founded in 1890, WSU is the state's original and largest land-grant university...

. Tacoma and Bothell were chosen as new UW campus sites, and three locations were selected for new WSU campuses: Vancouver

Washington State University Vancouver

Washington State University Vancouver is the Vancouver, Washington branch of Washington State University. WSU Vancouver's approximately campus is located on the southeast side of Mt. Vista approximately eight miles north of the Columbia River...

, the Tri-Cities and Spokane

Washington State University Spokane

Washington State University Spokane is the urban campus of Washington State University, a land-grant research university founded in 1890 in Spokane, Washington....

. The initial goal of the new campuses was to provide further education for the growing numbers of community college transfer students, as well as "time bound, place bound" students with limited access to educational opportunities in programs with "demonstrated regional needs."

The nascent University of Washington Tacoma campus opened its doors in 1990 in downtown Tacoma's historic Perkins Building

Perkins Building

The Perkins Building is a historic building in Tacoma, Washington. The 8-story building housed the offices of the Tacoma Ledger/Daily News. It was the tallest reinforced concrete building in the Northwest and the first building on West Coast to have a basement parking garage...

. The 8 story structure was chosen in part for its capacity; during UW Tacoma's early years and construction of the permanent campus further south, enrollments comprised a maximum of approximately 401 juniors and seniors. During this time, downtown Tacoma's appearance and local reputation began to change. The decision to site the new UW campus in downtown Tacoma and not in an outlying area of the city is often cited as one of the most important factors in the city's urban renewal. The somewhat unorthodox choice to renovate some of Tacoma's oldest remaining industrial structures for campus classrooms and offices, instead of razing the buildings and erecting new ones, has since been heralded for its foresight. A former cluster of blighted, decaying buildings was given new life, and soon after businesses began opening en masse in the immediate area for the first time in decades.

The current campus celebrated its long-awaited opening on May 29, 1997. Since the opening of the first building, several others have been renovated. The campus library formerly served as the Snoqualmie Falls Power Company's transformer house. Building names such as Mattress Factory and West Coast Grocery (the latter within the Academic Building) recall the structures' earlier uses. Transportation within the downtown area was improved with the addition of Sound Transit's 1.6 mile Tacoma Link light rail line in 2003.

Following several years of transfer-only undergraduate admissions, UW Tacoma admitted its first freshman class of approximately 150 students in Autumn of 2006. UW Tacoma expects to continue to increase enrollment and add additional buildings. In March 2011, the campus opened the renovated Russell T. Joy Building, the last of the formerly blighted warehouse buildings along the campus' Pacific Avenue boundary.
[{Tacoma School of the Arts]] Students also use UWT classroom space for their humanities classes. In return, the college uses their artistic resources for evening classes.

External links

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