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- Title:
- Liz Heath interview
- Interviewee:
- Heath, Elizabeth, 1940
- Interviewer:
- Wadland, Justin
- Date Created:
- 2018-05-15
- Role:
- Community member
- Department:
- University of Washington Tacoma Advisory Board; Sound Nonprofits; Communities in Schools of Lakewood
- Subjects:
- South Puget Sound Higher Education Council Tacoma-Pierce County Economic Development Board (EDB) community outreach community involvement urban revitalization urban development higher education Sam Smith Washington State University Bill Gerberding Ryan Petty Rod Hagenbuch Fred Haley Urban Waters place-bound students nontraditional students
- Biography:
- Liz Heath (b. 1940) is a nonprofit consultant whose work centers around community involvement in Tacoma, Washington. She is currently the principal at Sound Nonprofits, a consulting firm that offers guidance and tools to small and mid-sized nonprofits. Prior to that, she was the founder and executive director of The Nonprofit Center (1999-2011), which developed resources for nonprofits in the South Puget Sound region, and the principal at Morgan Heath Consulting (1986-2003). She holds a BA (1962) from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. In the late 1980s, Heath served on the Tacoma-Pierce County Economic Development Board (EDB) and worked on bringing public higher education to the South Sound. The EDB assembled the South Puget Sound Higher Education Council, a community group, to provide a local perspective and identify community needs. In 1988, Washington State's Higher Education Coordinating (HEC) Board designated University of Washington--rather than Washington State University or other contenders--to be the university to open a branch campus in Tacoma. Heath then served on UW Tacoma’s advisory panel, which was involved in the selection of the founding faculty, and she became the panel’s vice chairwoman in 1993.
- Description:
- Liz Heath starts the session by explaining her involvement in the late 1980s with the Tacoma-Pierce County Economic Development Board (EDB) and the South Puget Sound Higher Education Council, where she worked with Ryan Petty, then the director of EDB, on the project to found UW Tacoma. She recalls the community activism that successfully brought public higher education to the South Puget Sound region. She discusses the assessments of community needs, the vision for a liberal arts curriculum that would offer a practical degree to place-bound students, and the decision made by the Washington Higher Education Coordinating (HEC) Board to eventually select University of Washington as the institution to make this happen. The session shifts to the political aspect of establishing UW Tacoma. Heath describes the legislative support the University received, naming, in particular, Brian Ebersole, former Washington State Speaker of the House, and majority leader Dan Grimm. The conversation continues with a glimpse into the initial interviews for the founding faculty, which Heath attended as a member of the UW Tacoma Advisory Panel. In the concluding part of the session, noting her encounters with students and alumni of UW Tacoma, Heath states that this is perhaps the most important work she has done in her life. The interview ends with Heath’s reflection on various perspectives on community that, she says, are shaped by the environment.
- Location:
- United States--Washington (State)--Tacoma United States--Washington (State)--Seattle
- Type:
- Sound; Text; StillImage
- Format:
- cpd
- Preferred Citation:
- University of Washington Libraries, University of Washington Tacoma Library, UWTOH201804