Central Washington University has officially opened its doors in Sammamish.

At an official ribbon-cutting ceremony at the facility on Oct. 12, city, university and state representatives spoke on the work involved in opening the new branch and what the new school will offer students and the city.

Located on the former Mars Hill Church property, CWU-Sammamish opened its doors on Sept. 20, offering 17 classes in its first quarter. CWU President James Gaudino said the school will help act as a gateway for higher education for nearby residents, beginning with general education for undergraduate students and Running Start programs with students from Eastside Catholic, Eastlake and Skyline High School.

Lt. Gov. Cyrus Habib also spoke at the event, stating that CWU has been an example of an institution that is working to address many of the problems of accessibility and flexibility in higher education. Habib disagrees with the statement that college isn’t for everybody, but said people who challenge him on that topic make compelling points. However, it’s on those counterpoints that CWU is working to find solutions to, Habib said.

“The lack of flexibility, the lack of affordability, the lack of access, the inability to have stackable credentials, the difficulty of getting dual credit programs to have a pipeline from high school to community and technical college,” Habib said. “… All of those are well-founded objections, and when I respond to those objections the institution that I find myself citing more and more, is President Gaudino’s Central Washington University. Because on every one of those scores I just described, every one of the obstacles, all that friction in the system, President Gaudino and this institution have placed themselves centrally in solving and that’s exactly what these educational centers are accomplishing.”

CWU Associate Provost of Extended Learning and Outreach Gayla Stoner said that in addition to general education classes and Running Start programming for the large high school population in the area, the campus will also have continuing education and professional development classes.

“Right now we have about 75 students and we just launched Sept. 20, and we have another 20 or so in our continuing education, professional development classes. Almost 100 students between the two,” she said.

From the city’s perspective, the buildings use as a higher education facility seemed like a perfect fit. Sammamish Mayor Bob Keller and City Councilmember Don Gerend described how the city bought the property and how they formed this partnership with CWU.

Keller said the City Council was on a retreat at the time the property went up for sale, and discussion on if they should buy it began immediately. Gerend said there was a lot of discussion as to what the city would do with it, but once the suggestion for higher education came up, it seemed well-suited for the city.

The city began discussions with Bellevue College and Cascadia College, and with a letter of intent from the schools to look into creating a Sammamish branch, bought the property for $6.2 million.

“We asked them for a letter of intent, they signed the letter, we had the letter in hand and that was our holy grail to get this building. So then we negotiated and came to an agreement with the seller,” Keller said.

After six months, both Bellevue College and Cascade College declined the offer to expand into Sammamish. It was then that the relationship with CWU formed. CWU is currently leasing the building with an option to buy and are subleasing their gymnasium space to the Sammamish YMCA as well.

The support for the Running Start program is an important aspect for the city, as CWU would be able to increase the services they provide their students instead of the institution being a remote location for a specific program or major.

“We did a lot of due diligence and the conclusion was we wanted Running Start,” Keller said. “We have such a high concentration of students here, we want to make sure we are catering to them, not a specialization from another institution.”

Gerend said the campus was well-matched because of the large high school population in Sammamish. A Running Start program within the city would be a way to keep students from having to commute into Bellevue.

“We’ve lived here since 1979, our son did running start at Bellevue College, but he had to drop out of high school because Bellevue College is far, whereas these students do not have to drop out of activities at the high school. They can hop over here for class, it’s the perfect structure here,” Gerend said. “Students, whether they do Running Start or not, they can start their college here while living at home. It’s a great option financially.”

CWU-Sammamish is located at 120 228th Ave. NE, Sammamish. Evan Pappas/staff photo

President James Gaudino welcomes everyone to the event and describes what classes and services the new campus will offer. Evan Pappas/staff photo

Lt. Gov. Cyrus Habib speaks about his experience with higher education and commends CWU for its work to make education more accessible for people in Washington. Evan Pappas/staff photo

Sammamish Mayor Bob Keller explains the work that went into forming a relationship with CWU and how the campus will benefit the community. Evan Pappas/staff photo