WSU to resume classes in Deccio Center

YAKIMA, Wash. -- A learning center in Yakima that Washington State University closed earlier this year is reopening.

The university is in the process of hiring a new director and will again offer classes at the Deccio Higher Education Center, located at Yakima Valley Community College, starting in January.  

YVCC President Linda Kaminski has yet to receive official word about what changes WSU has planned.

“Community and business leaders, as well as the students who used the center, convinced us of the importance of this center to the Yakima area,” said WSU President Elson S. Floyd in a news release on the reopening. “We came to the conclusion that the center’s impact justified the money we are spending there.”

WSU had a couple of classrooms at the Deccio building that were not used this year. It also vacated office space it shared with Central Washington University.

Because of increasing enrollment, YVCC is using the classrooms vacated by WSU. WSU has continued to offer its nursing classes at another building on campus this fall.

The cost of operating the Yakima academic center is $90,000 annually, which will come from “internal reallocation,” the news release said.

WSU closed its Yakima center, along with eight others, as part of $54 million in budget cuts to balance its budget. The university does not have plans to reopen any of the other learning centers it closed.

WSU offered classes at the Deccio Center, which opened in 2003, in partnership with Yakima Valley Community College and Central Washington University.

-- Yakima Herald-Republic