“Let’s face it, Cascadia is at the center of the known universe.”

Stepping down as head of the center of the universe after five years on the job, Cascadia Community College President William Christopher has made the above claim numerous times.

On at least this one occasion, he tempered it somewhat.

“At least on the Eastside,” he added.

In any case, in more ways than one, Christopher seems to genuinely believe his assertion.

Christopher, 65, will leave the school that shares a campus with the University of Washington, Bothell July 14. The Cascadia Board of Trustees selected Dr. Eric Murray to be the next college president during a special board meeting June 1.

Christopher said by the standards of academic institutions, at 10 years old, Cascadia is still a very young school. Still, Christopher insists the college has surpassed what its founders had in mind. For one thing, in terms of location, he insists it could not have been better placed.

Along with the UW-Bothell, Cascadia sits at the crossroads of a transportation hub consisting of Interstate 405 and State Route 522. With the still-recent addition of a 405/522 interchange leading directly to the campus, Christopher contends students from across Snohomish and eastern King counties have easy access to the schools by car or one of the 400 buses that come and go from the campus each day.

Christopher says he was following the progression of Cascadia long before becoming the school’s president. Serving at the time with Whatcom Community College, Christopher said he carefully followed the public and legislative discussion that led to the founding of Cascadia. He said that discussion revolved around creating a school centrally located to serve what was projected to be a burgeoning population on the east side of Lake Washington.

According to Christopher, state legislators and education officials also decided that while they were at it, they wanted to create a school that approached its educational mission a bit differently.

Five years after the founding of Cascadia, Christopher was ready to retire from the Portland community college district. Then he learned about the opening for the presidency of Cascadia.

“I knew what they had wanted to do,” Christopher said, adding he wanted to see how it was working out.

To start with, Christopher said “a stroke of genius” occurred when planners decided to co-locate Cascadia with UW-Bothell. He said the proximity to the university undoubtedly is one reason Cascadia has the highest transfer rate — that is, the rate of students continuing on to four-year schools — of any two-year school in the state.

Presently, some 70 percent of Cascadia graduates go on to four-year schools, about 42 percent to the UW-Bothell and about 28 percent to the UW main campus in Seattle.

“The school is working,” Christopher said, invoking a phrase he repeated several times.

Not incidentally, Christopher restated his opposition to the idea of moving Cascadia to a joint location with Lake Washington Technical College, an idea briefly floated earlier this year by state legislators. Setting aside all other objections, such as cost, Christopher said Cascadia serves a specific purpose, even with UW-Bothell now offering freshman and sophomore classes.

“We serve a different clientele,” he said, adding that clientele includes students who maybe can’t quite meet the UW’s admission standards. Plenty of non-traditional students roam Cascadia’s halls, as well, including older students looking for retraining or high-school students taking college courses through the Running Start program. Christopher said Cascadia has exceeded admission goals set by Olympia every year of its existence, even after UW-Bothell started offering lower grade-level classes.

A few other highlights of Christopher’s tenure at the school include some of Cascadia’s initial accreditation. Based in Washington, D.C., the national Washington Monthly magazine ranked Cascadia as the second-best community college in the country. Christopher said that ranking partly was based on the school’s graduation rate and the positive feedback from a student-engagement survey.

For the school’s future, Christopher said the ultimate goal is a student population of 4,000. The student body sits at about 2,500 presently.

Regarding his own plans, Christopher added he won’t be leaving the area, wishing to remain close to his children and remain involved in the local community.

“I don’t want to just ride off into the sunset,” he said.