PULLMAN, Wash. — Washington State University President V. Lane Rawlins has named Hal Dengerink, campus executive officer and dean for WSU Vancouver, as special assistant to the president to work on the recently announced recommendations for WSU’s newer campuses. He will fill the position on a half-time basis while continuing in his Vancouver campus leadership role.
“Hal Dengerink is a natural choice to work with me and Provost Bob Bates on this over the next two years, given his long service as a faculty member and administrator on the Pullman campus and his influential leadership of the WSU Vancouver campus,” Rawlins said. “He is one of the architects of the recommendations to move toward a WSU system from the branch campus concept.”
In January, President Rawlins briefed the Board of Regents on a series of recommendations that would give the Spokane, Tri-Cities and Vancouver campuses more autonomy to develop academic programs that directly meet the needs of their areas of the state. The recommendations call for a thorough review and revision of many aspects of academic and administrative procedures.
“It is time now to move toward a Washington State University system, granting our newer campuses greater autonomy to serve the distinctive needs of their regions while maintaining those strengths and efficiencies that come from a university system,” Rawlins says. “It is time to recognize that they are in fact unique campuses, not simply branches of the Pullman campus.”
Some 3,750 of WSU’s 22,000 students are enrolled for classes at the three newer campuses. They were officially established by the Washington Legislature in 1989.
Dengerink has been CEO and dean for WSU Vancouver since 1989, serving previously as associate dean of the then named College of Sciences and Arts and as director of the Clinical Psychology Training Program. He joined the WSU psychology faculty in 1969.
He is active in the Vancouver community, serving currently on the Board of Trustees of Southwest Washington Hospitals and Clark United Providers, the Board of Directors of Columbia River Economic Development Council, and the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commemorative Committee.
He holds a bachelor’s degree from Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Mich., and master’s and doctoral degrees from Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, all in psychology.
