Tag: pacific university

Forest Grove, Ore. – Pacific University, in Forest Grove, and Willamette University, in Salem, are negotiating a deal to merge into what would become Oregon’s largest private university.  Provisionally, the new institution would be called the University of the Northwest. 

Willamette President Steve Thorsett says the goal is to leverage the power of a larger school, while maintaining the individual campus personalities, “Both of these institutions originated in the 19th century as early models of this great American invention: the liberal arts college, and the human scale that came with these academic residential communities. And we don’t want to lose that.” Pacific University President Jenny Coyle says both schools would maintain their respective campuses in Forest Grove and Salem, but would be better positioned to offer future professional programs and career pathways. Thorsett adds, “A big piece of what we’re trying to do here is to build those pathways and that’s a lot easier to do as a big, unified university.”

Coyle admits the proposal is – in part – in response to changing political and social opinions on higher education, “We do believe that by coming together and hopefully being stronger together, we’ll be able to navigate headwinds that we haven’t even thought about right now because we will have much larger scale, much larger capacity.”

Thorsett says the boards of both schools are ready to move forward, but more work is needed, “We are two very old nonprofit organizations and those two organizations first need to merge. We’re at the very early stage. If everything moves forward smoothly, that process could be finished by this summer.” But, he says, that only begins the federal approval process, which could take another 12 to 18 months.

So what does that timeline mean for the diplomas of this year’s freshman class? Coyle tells KXL News, “We’ll have one degree granting institution, in theory, as we move ahead. But diplomas – we have flexibility to make sure that our students can still have Pacific pride and Willamette pride.”