Consistently Sharpe

Either Phil or Sue Sharpe sat on Western’s Board of Trustees for almost all of the 21st century.
Story by Mary Gallagher, Photos by Luke Hollister

This month’s Board of Trustees meeting was the first in 22 years without a Sharpe at the table.

Sue Sharpe, ’77, B.A., and ’84, MBA, completed her second term on the WWU Board of Trustees in September; her 12 years followed a decade of service by her husband Philip E. Sharpe.

During their collective tenure, the Sharpes saw the inauguration of two WWU presidents, the creation of two colleges, the construction of eight buildings and the extensive renovation of five more.

But they probably made their biggest mark at Western by leading nationwide searches for the two most recent presidents. Sue Sharpe chaired the search committee for Sabah Randhawa in 2016, and Phil Sharpe led the committee that brought Bruce Shepard to Western in 2008. Then they each took on the role of chair of the Board of Trustees to see those presidents through their first two years in office.  

Trustees are appointed by the governor to serve as the university’s highest governing body, responsible for overseeing the operations of the university. The group delegates most responsibilities to the president, whom the board selects and supervises. They also approve budgets, tuition rates, real estate purchases and the university strategic plan, and award degrees and tenure. 

“The board is a constant counselor,” Sue Sharpe says. “They’re people committed to the future of this university, and they look at it differently. While the board oversees the university’s fiscal health and the wellbeing of the students and the broader campus community, they remain focused on Western’s needs five years from now, 10 years.”

Both Phil and Sue Sharpe brought different strengths to the board, they say. 

Sue Sharpe, for example, is committed to process, her husband says. 

“Process produces results,” he says. “Sue understands that if you struggle hard to find the right process, you have a very high likelihood of getting the proper result.” 

Sue Sharpe

The Sharpes, whose two daughters are Western alums, both have significant records of community involvement. Sue Sharpe’s career was in health care administration at both St. Joseph and St. Luke’s hospitals, predecessors of PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center. She later worked in healthcare consulting, helped lead community coalitions to expand healthcare access in Whatcom County, and spent a decade as the executive director of the Chuckanut Health Foundation. 

Together, the Sharpes led an election campaign in the late ‘90s to pass the bonds needed to renovate Bellingham High School. 

And Phil Sharpe’s strengths lie in his thoughtfulness and objectivity, Sue Sharpe says. 

“He’s a great listener. If I’m looking for a really thoughtful, detached opinion or insight, I turn to Phil,” she says. “He’s not one that needs to speak a lot, but when he does, you pay attention. He’s always prepared.” 

After he retired from the Board of Trustees, Phil Sharpe returned to campus to sit in on three classes, including a class on the history of the South. He thoroughly enjoyed listening to lectures by History Professor Mart Stewart and learning what the students thought, he says, but as a class auditor he couldn’t get involved in class discussions. 

“I was hearing students’ perceptions of what happened during the Civil Rights Movement, which I actually lived, and that’s their reality,” he says, “It doesn’t matter whether it relates to how I perceived that event.” 

Phil Sharpe served as the unofficial historian for the Board of Trustees. He gave several after-dinner presentations to the board about important figures in Western’s history, including President Charles Fisher, who was unfairly dismissed from the university in 1939 under false accusations that he held communist beliefs, and President Charles Flora, who saw the campus through the political upheaval and campus protests of the 1960s. Flora “took Western through an incredibly tumultuous time and did it with great grace and great personal angst,” Phil Sharpe says. 

Phil Sharpe

Phil Sharpe is a retired attorney in Bellingham who was a member of the Whatcom Community College Board of Trustees for 10 years before coming to Western. He also served on the Bellingham Public Facilities District board, which funds arts infrastructure projects such as the construction of the Whatcom Museum’s Lightcatcher building. 

When Phil Sharpe concluded his service on the WWU Board of Trustees in 2012, the board renamed the university’s annual Community Engagement Award in his honor. 

He also shared stories with his fellow trustees about former Athletic Director Lynda Goodrich, and her athletic achievements despite the limitations and indignities she experienced as an athlete and coach before Title IX. “She blew down the doors on virtually everything she did,” Phil Sharpe says. 

Both Phil and Sue Sharpe look to the past for clues on how to expand access to higher education in the future – something they’re both passionate about. 

“My parents’ generation went to schools where, for the most part, there was no tuition,” he says, “because it was thought that their education was creating value for society.”

It wasn’t that long ago that students could fund their college education simply with a summer job, says Sue Sharpe, whose grandmother attended Western during its early years as Bellingham Normal School. During the recession of 2008, the state vastly reduced support for higher education and tuition went from funding about 30 percent of the operating budget to about 70 percent.

Phil Sharpe worries particularly about student loan debt. 

“We can’t have a society where we say to people, if you want to realize your potential you do it with a yoke around your neck for the next 20 years, and we’re going to get the benefit of your enhanced skills, your knowledge and your training.” 

The financial barrier to higher education is huge, Sue Sharpe says. “To me, we don’t want to make higher education exclusive, particularly at a public university. I think that is our greatest challenge.” 

Sue Sharpe’s first experience with the Board of Trustees was as a member of the Associated Students executive board, making the case for official student representation on the university’s highest governing body. 

Phil and Sue Sharpe smile for the camera on a sunny late afternoon in front of Old Main

Later, when she was on the board herself, student trustees were among her favorite board colleagues. “They have unbelievably helpful insight and really help define the issue, probably differently than we would have,” she says. 

“I think we both in different ways have had the benefit of engaging with a really exceptional group of people” on the board, Sue Sharpe says. “But what some people don’t fully appreciate is that a board member in themselves is not effective or meaningful. It’s the collective group that really provides the leadership. 

“Those relationships are really important,” she continues. “I just love how you can collectively see the future – and that’s not easy to do. And if you can get on a board with people who are selected for the right reason, and you have the right president, you have momentum. It’s not the contribution of the individual, it’s the effectiveness of the collective.”