Koenig Looks Back On Time As Interim Dean

On August 15th, Dr. Wendy Powers became the new dean of Washington State University’s College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences, replacing Dr. Andre Wright who left for the University of Oklahoma in April 2021.  But, the College of Ag was not without leadership during that time.

Between Dr. Wright and Dr. Powers was Rich Koenig, who has been a fixture at WSU since 2003.  When looking back at his year-plus as interim dean, Koenig said the college was able to accomplish a lot of great things.

“I think it’s been emerging from the pandemic and getting back to some semblance of normal.  We’ve been able to do some hiring, we’ve got some more in the pipeline, that’s good news, we had a lot of positions that were held open during the pandemic.  We brought students back, and we did that safely and they had a great experience.  I met a number of students over the last academic year, they really appreciated being back face-to-face.”

When it comes to the farming community, how does Koenig want them to look back on his time as interim dean?

“My hope is that the ag industry continues to have confidence in this college, we have not strayed from our fundamental mission to support agriculture both teaching, research but also extension as well.  So, we’re still committed to that mission, and we’re still committed to the industry.” 

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