PULLMAN, Wash. — Washington State’s newest president is getting ready to jump into her dream job this March.
“You have to be at a place where you think you can make a difference and where you resonate with the people,” said Dr. Betsy Cantwell, president-elect for Washington State University.
Cantwell will be taking over for the current president Dr. Kirk Schulz in April and will be the first female president of the university.
“We are all going to go through a lot of change together, and we need to know that our partners are in it with us,” Cantwell said.
Cantwell added that right now is a very important time for Washington State University. WSU athletics in particular have faced plenty of challenges with NIL and conference realignment completely changing the program’s future.
With a reformed PAC 12 on the horizon, Cantwell is excited to continue working with the university she just left. Before coming to WSU, Cantwell served as the president of Utah State for a year and a half, which will be joining PAC 12 next year. She said having a strong connection with her old university will help WSU and the conference move into a new era.
“We are going to be, in my opinion, at the vanguard of ‘how do we innovate in college athletics and make sure that we don’t harm any other parts of our mission’ but we are still delivering on the athletics mandates as well,” Cantwell said.
Dr. Cantwell believes athletics are a huge part of both the university and the larger Pullman community.
It’s not all about athletics, though. Cantwell helped raise nearly half a billion dollars in sponsored research expenditures and she wants to help WSU continue to invest in research.
“My role, if anything, will be to help us focus strategically on the two or three areas where we want to go big,” she said. “The future of energy might be one of them, that’s a really big deal for the state of Washington.”
Cantwell believes academics and athletics can coexist at WSU and hopes to see them working well together during her time at the university.
“I am a firm believer that even in this really interesting world where money is changing the face of college athletics, athletics will be an enormous part of our future,” Cantwell said.
She said she’s known Dr. Kirk Schulz for years and hopes he will continue to be a resource of WSU history as she transitions into her new role.
“Coming in with someone who will be collegial like Dr. Schultz and you can call and go ‘That statute?’ or whatever it is, it’s a gift,” said Cantwell.
She said she will take four to six months to travel to all of the WSU campuses once she takes over.
“I will start by doing some lengthy form of listening at all of our campuses,” Cantwell said.
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