Cascadia Community College: Finding the “Cascadia way”

Abstract

Not often is there a chance to build a general education curriculum from scratch. That is exactly what we did at Cascadia Community College in Bothell, thirteen miles north of Seattle, Washington. It was an opportunity to incorporate the best that research on students, curriculum design, and teaching and learning could offer. Yet we needed to develop a general education program-indeed an entire community college curriculumwithin the context of some very conventional forces. This chapter describes how the general education program at Cascadia came about and what we learned along the way. The BeginningIn early 1990, a Washington State master plan study revealed that the greatest projected number of underserved students was on the northeast shores of Lake Washington, thirteen miles from Seattle. In that same year, the University of Washington (UW) opened a branch campus in temporary quarters in Bothell. This was one of five public university branch campuses established by the legislature that year to provide time-and place-bound students with upper-division undergraduate studies.In 1994, the state legislature created Cascadia Community College, recognizing the growing need for a comprehensive community college in the region. Cascadia and the University of Washington, Bothell, also were to share the same campus location and, to the extent possible, were to share services. The governor appointed a five-member board of trustees for the community college.