‘We needed a name for the press release’: President Thorsett, panelists clarify merger details at ASWU-hosted Q&A
- Amelia Hare, Staff Writer
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
President Steve Thorsett and Provost Jennifer Henderson spoke at an Associated Students of Willamette University (ASWU) hosted Q&A on Thursday, March 12, clarifying details about the planned merger between Willamette and Pacific universities after the Willamette board of trustees met in February. Panelists then took questions from student attendees about the status of the merger and what it means for Willamette and Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) students.
ASWU President Stevie Bergstrom (‘26), who organized the panel, expressed in an email to students, she “wanted to create an opportunity for students to hear directly from university leadership and ask their own questions.”
Below are key details and responses panelists provided to students about the merger status.
Changing academic programs
Henderson assured that “for students here at Willamette in Salem, it should look and feel exactly the same” after the planned merger. Thus far, specific discussions about curriculum changes and coordination about degree pathways and graduate programs have been limited because changes in curriculum cannot be made until after the federal approval, Henderson said.
Henderson added that the schools are looking at adding more accelerated degrees and potential changes to specific programs.
“The graduate programs will have different kinds of structures, possibly,” she said. “But the undergraduate units, on purpose, will remain as individual colleges.”
Before the merger is complete, they hope to set up priority admissions pathways for Willamette students for some of Pacific’s graduate programs, including pharmacy, social work and education, with more pathways planned after the merger.
Concerns were raised by one student at the panel regarding understaffing issues and students not being able to fulfill their major requirements. In response, Henderson said, “My commitment is to focus on the programs we have here, and a commitment to the liberal arts. … You have pinpointed the concern in really important ways, and I absolutely pay attention to it.”
Another student raised the concern of Willamette potentially cutting programs that Pacific does better. In response, Thorsett stated the importance of interdisciplinary programs liberal arts colleges are known for and that a small college size is essential to this experience.
“The secret to this whole project has been finding a way that we can build an institution that captures that ability to keep the small personal scale that Willamette and Pacific students have, and is larger in overall scale to provide better efficiencies,” Thorsett said. “So that’s why we’re not talking about merging the undergraduate colleges.”
The schools’ name(s)
The shared name of the two institutions has been the most frequently asked about aspect of the merger, Thorsett said, adding that in conversation with the former president of Willamette’s accreditor, she noted that oftentimes, “the name problem” can stop mergers from advancing.
In response to an attendee’s disappointment about the proposed name, “University of the Northwest,” potentially replacing the Willamette name, panelists noted that the name is still being decided, with nothing set. As it stands, the two universities are looking to create an umbrella name, while keeping the distinct titles of their respective colleges.
“This is the one question asked the most by everyone,” Henderson joked. She later said, “Willamette will be on the diploma, even if there is an overarching umbrella name.”
The two schools’ umbrella name is similar to how PNCA has its own identity as an institution despite being under the overarching Willamette name, Thorsett added.
Regarding the “University of the Northwest” name in particular, he noted that it was initially chosen because “we needed to have a name for the press release because we needed to be able to explain crucially that this was not a merger in the sense that we are two organizations that were being squashed into one.”
In conversations since the announcement, he expressed that it is unclear if that name will survive and noted that the final name will be voted on by the board of trustees. But, he added, in informal conversations with branding firms, they’ve helped focus more on the identity the schools want to create.
“We need a name that has a certain audacity to it but also doesn’t have a lot of preexisting meaning because we need to grow into that name,” Thorsett said.
Throughout the development of this merger, Thorsett conveyed the sentiment of protecting “the value and distinctiveness and what it means to be a Bearcat.”
Budget and endowment
The largest changes to the university structure will be on the administrative end, which could include measures like consolidating library systems, information technology departments, financial information systems, human resources and alumni databases to reduce cost for both universities.
“It is one of the only ways to save money and cost for students that doesn’t change the experience of students in the classroom,” Thorsett said. “You can merge all of those and save duplicated costs there.”
Thorsett communicated that one beneficial piece of this merger has to do with the budgets.
“The two institutions [Willamette and Pacific] may not only be the two oldest institutions in the Northwest, but also two of the most financially healthy at this point.” This creates a profit opportunity for the two universities, as while “we are wealthier than they are, they have a stronger business model,” Thorsett said.
Thorsett also explained that both schools must have balanced budgets before being able to merge.
Willamette’s endowment currently stands at approximately $317 million, according to the 2025 Impact Report. Pacific’s total restricted net assets is approximately $110 million, which includes approximately $70 million in endowment funds. In terms of yearly operating budgets, however, Pacific has a larger operating revenue than Willamette does.
President Thorsett assured that “there is no sort of general endowment that gets mixed and re-spread” across the two universities in the merger. The endowments will remain separate for the schools.
Merger timeline
Thorsett said that currently the schools are in “the due-diligence phase,” wherein the two schools are sharing university information, such as contracts and bonds, with each other and seeing what is involved in accreditor and federal government approval. The two will then decide in May whether or not to move forward with the partnership. November of this year is the earliest the two could legally merge with one another, “and then that starts a process of the federal government that takes another 18 months,” Thorsett said.
He added, “Even if things move smoothly, we are two years away from a real merger.”