The Washington State University Press will reportedly close at the end of the year after university officials decided to eliminate the press’s $300,000 annual funding.
According to local reports, the press, which operates under WSU’s Department of Marketing and Communications, will be shut down then when its current funding runs out. “With the beginning of the fiscal year on July 1, 2024, Phillip Weiler, who’s our VP of University Marketing and Communications had to make a 7.5% cut in the budget for the group, and he decided to cut the funding for the University Press,” Linda Bathgate WSUP editor-in-chief told KIRO Newsradio. “We would close down as of December 31, 2024.”
The news comes two years after the 100-year-old press launched a new trade imprint, Basalt Books, to publish adult and children's general interest titles with a connection to the Northwest, and just months after the press announced a partnership with Whitworth University to launch a new academic imprint, Pines Press, dedicated to highlighting the region’s scholarship.
“We’re the only publisher that really covers the Inland Empire, Washington, Idaho, Oregon... and we work a lot with tribal communities to provide an outlet for their stories,” Bathgate told KIRO. “So we feel that this was a very short-sighted, and maybe not a well-thought-out decision, maybe just a financial decision, but without consideration to the repercussions.”
