By Carleen Johnson | The Center Square
(The Center Square) – Senate Minority Leader John Braun, R-Centralia, wants to transform The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., into a University of Washington Health Sciences campus.
Braun has proposed Senate Bill 5424 would redirect state resources “toward producing the intermediate health-care workers needed to respond to the ‘Silver Tsunami’ of people whose medical needs are expected to overwhelm the current capacity of Washington’s health-care system,” according to a news release from Braun’s office.
“It’s a push to repurpose Evergreen for a more urgent cause,” Braun said Tuesday during a media availability event.
The bill, if passed, would do away with The Evergreen State College.
“The Evergreen State College is abolished effective July 1, 2026, and its powers, duties, and functions are hereby transferred to the University of Washington under chapter 28B.20 RCW as the University of Washington health sciences campus,” the text of the bill reads. “All references to The Evergreen State College in the Revised Code of Washington shall be construed to mean the University of Washington health sciences campus. The University of Washington health sciences campus shall assume ownership responsibility for all land, buildings, and property of The Evergreen State College.”
Evergreen’s powers and property would be transferred to the University of Washington, with a formal review of all former Evergreen programs, “phasing out any by 2030 that do not align with the new campus mission,” according to the news release.
Braun said enrollment at Evergreen has been cut in half in the last 10 years.
“There are more students at Capital High School than there are at Evergreen right now, and that’s not to dimmish Evergreen’s important past and the role they played for many years,” Braun continued. “It was well regarded across the country, and we were getting students from all over the country but that’s not the case today.”
Braun said Evergreen is not delivering on its original mission and his bill would redirect that mission to meet the urgent need for an influx of healthcare professionals.
“We have an opportunity to repurpose and rebuild the organization in a way that serves our state’s needs by providing intermediate healthcare providers, nurses, physicians assistants, nurse practitioners, paramedics, and the list goes on of things we need in quantity and we’re not building enough of,” the senator noted.
The Evergreen State College is a public liberal arts college founded in 1967. It offers a nontraditional undergraduate curriculum in which students can design their own path to a degree or follow a predetermined path.
Enrollment plummeted due to fallout after the school hosted an event that asked white people not to come to campus for a “Day of Absence” in May 2017.
As reported by Fox News at the time, students shut down the campus and shouted down then-biology professor Bret Weinstein for merely questioning the event and attempting to dialogue with the students.
Weinstein ultimately resigned from his position.
A year later, he testified before the U.S. House of Representatives about the free speech crisis on college campuses in America.
SB 5424 has been assigned to the Senate Higher Education & Workforce Development Committee.
The Center Squared contacted Committee Chair T’wina Nobles, D-Fircrest, to ask if the bill would be scheduled for a public hearing. Olivia Heersink, communications specialist with Senate Democrats, said Nobles would have no comment at this time.
