Evergreen VP Ruta Fanning Joins Higher Education Coordinating Board Staff

June 14, 2000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For information, contact: Craig McLaughlin, Evergreen, (360) 867-6042

Whitney DalBalcon, HECB, (360) 753-7815

Evergreen VP Ruta Fanning joins Higher Education Coordinating Board staff

Leaves Evergreen June 30; appointment as deputy director becomes effective July 10

OLYMPIA – Ruta Fanning, vice president for finance and administration at The Evergreen State College, has announced that she will be leaving Evergreen at the end of June. On July 10, Fanning will become deputy director of the Washington State Higher Education Coordinating Board, according to Executive Director Marc Gaspard. She succeeds Linda Schactler, who is leaving the HECB to pursue a career in the private sector.

“As much as I love being at Evergreen,” said Fanning, “this new position will give me a chance to get back to statewide policy work. That’s always what I have enjoyed most.”

“We have been privileged to have Ruta with us for the past four years,” said retiring Evergreen President Jane Jervis. “She has made significant changes in the staffing and operations of Finance and Administration during her time here, and she has been a wise, tough-minded, and funny counselor in the policy deliberations of the college. I have both enjoyed working with her and learned much from her.”

“Ruta is a widely respected administrator, and I had been looking forward to working alongside her at Evergreen,” said Thomas “Les” Purce, who will become Evergreen’s new president in July. “Now I am excited about working with her at the HEC Board, where her considerable skills will help not just Evergreen but the entire higher education system in Washington state.”

A longtime higher education and state government administrator, Fanning joined Evergreen as a vice president in March 1996. Before that, she served as director the state Office of Financial Management, management and budget director for the state Department of Corrections, and staff coordinator for both the House Appropriations and Senate Ways & Means committees. Fanning has a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Washington and a bachelor’s degree from Pacific Lutheran University. In addition, she completed a program for senior executives in state and local government at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Purce will determine the process for replacing Fanning after he takes office July 1.

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