[2] In 1990, the Washington State Higher Education Coordinating Board approved placing the campus at Salmon Creek, a community north of Vancouver.

In Fall 2006, WSU Vancouver admitted freshmen and sophomores for the first time and began offering lower-division courses.

The science resources and instrumentation possessed by the campus consist of GC/MS, HPLC (UVvis), DNA sequencer, TOC/N, RT-PCR, Flame ionization detector, two Phantom cameras, a scanning electron microscope, an Instron tensile tester, and a confocal microscope, along with a fully functional cleanroom.

Another student-run organization is the Salmon Creek Journal, a visual arts and literary magazine created by students, alumni and faculty.

In the novel Fifty Shades of Grey, the main character, Anastasia Steele, attends and graduates from WSU Vancouver.

[10] In response to this association, Avantika Bawa, a professor of Fine Arts at WSU Vancouver curated a 2013 show of student work titled 'Better Shades of Grey'.