Newsletter | July 12, 2021: Graduation times and a 1,000 acre land purchase
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Monday, July 12, 2021
This week, learn about why 4 years is no longer the expected time to graduate, why Whatcom Land Trust bought over 1,000 acres of land and more about Camie Anderson, a Western alumna in our first community feature.
On Campus
Why do Western students take more than four years to graduate?
Most students would associate an undergraduate degree with a four-year time frame. Yet, the most recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics indicates that about 56% of first time bachelor’s students took four or more years from first enrollment to complete their degree. The median time to degree completion for undergraduates receiving their first degree was 52 months or about 4.33 years from first enrollment.
At Western Washington University, 2021 data from the Office of Institutional Effectiveness shows that 4.44 years was the average time to conferment for first-year undergraduates. Running start students averaged 3.51 years, while transfers reported 2.93 years...
Whatcom Land Trust buys over 1,000 acres of land from commercial logging company
Whatcom Land Trust purchased 1,130 acres of land along Upper Skookum Creek from commercial logging company Weyerhaeuser to preserve the land, provide public access and restore critical habitat for spring Chinook salmon.
The Whatcom County Council voted 5-1 at their June 1 meeting to allocate $1.25 million from the Conservation Futures Fund to support the purchase, which cost $3 million total...
Camie Anderson, who works at Everett, Washington-based Shockey Planning Group, Inc. was recently promoted to Vice President and Principal with the firm. Camie joined Shockey Planning Group after graduating with a degree in Planning and Environmental Policy from Huxley College in 1999. During her 21-year career at Shockey Planning Group, she has been fortunate to be a part of several educational facility (K-12) projects for a multitude of school districts throughout the Puget Sound area where she leads the districts’ permitting and SEPA review efforts. It is fitting, as one of her favorite classes while at Western Washington University was Environmental Studies 436/536 where she learned about SEPA from Dr. Lynn Robbins. School projects are some of her favorite projects as she gets to experience the excitement and joy in the faces of children when they get to enjoy and learn in these new or renovated spaces when she visits upon project completion. She is delighted when she sees new schools serve as a centerpiece of a community or neighborhood. The Managing Principal and founder of Shockey Planning Group, Reid Shockey, also attended Western Washington University in the Fall of 1963 through Winter of 1966 before transferring to the University of Washington. Reid got inspired in planning by an Urban Geography course at Western and ultimately graduated with a planning degree from UW. A surprising connection between Reid and Camie is that they realized one day that they both a geography class taught by Dr. Debnath Mookherjee, albeit thirty-ish years apart! Photo courtesy of Camie Anderson
