UWT Chancellor Mark Pagano announces resignation and move to teaching
University of Washington Chancellor Mark Pagano will resign within the year and begin teaching engineering and technology, the school announced Monday.
It was Pagano’s decision, and the school will begin looking for a successor immediately, UWT said.
Pagano, appointed in March 2015, is only the fourth chancellor at the downtown Tacoma school, which opened in 1990. Enrollment increased by 1,500 students during his time at the campus. UWT’s academic programs all transitioned to schools under Pagano’s leadership.
Like other colleges and universities across the country, UWT has faced challenges as it worked to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Classes, most of which are conducted remotely, resumed Sept. 30.
The urban campus consists of new and refurbished warehouse buildings. Retail businesses including Starbucks and small independent operators fill the ground floor along Pacific Avenue. Some of those businesses were hit by vandals in June following an otherwise peaceful civil rights protest.
In his remaining time, Pagano will work on funding a new academic building, Milgard Hall. When he gives up the chancellor reins, he will become a faculty member at UWT’s School of Engineering and Technology.
Pagano said in 2015 that meeting the needs of UWT’s urban students was one of his primary goals when he arrived at UWT. He called UWT the state’s most diverse four-year campus.
Fifty-six percent of its 6,000 students are the first in their families to go to college; 57 percent of the student body are people of color; and 18 percent of students are connected to the military.
UWT just completed its 10-year capital campaign which raised close to $57 million — $10 million more than its goal.
In a celebratory event in August, Pagano thanked the city that “put its arms around us and nurtured us into being.”
When it first opened, UWT was a two-year school. It went to four-year in 2006 and began offering student housing.
In January, UWT and partners announced that 52 of the 104 studio units at the Koz on Market development at South 17th and Market streets would be offered at affordable rates for UWT students facing housing hardships.
Talk of a law school at UWT has been ongoing since 2016. Opening dates have been proposed and then postponed. The most recent opening date, discussed before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, was 2021.
Pagano served as provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at Montana State University in Billings before his UWT appointment. Prior to that, Pagano spent 19 years at Indiana’s Purdue University.
This story was originally published October 19, 2020 at 3:18 PM.
