CWU BOARD MEETING & STATE OF THE UNIVERSITY ADDRESS AGENDA October 22, 2026
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2026
Location: Moehring Event Center
10:00 Call to order
• Approval of the Agenda • Approval of July Retreat minutes • Official Communications • Public Comment
10:20-12:00
President’s Report
12:00-12:45
Adjourn for lunch ( No business will be conducted)
12:45-12:55
Stop by Students First Center – Bouillon
1:00
Call to Order
1:00-1:20
Board Finance and Administration Committee
1:20-1:35
Board Executive Committee and Governance
1:35-1:50
Board Student Engagement and Success Committee
1:50-2:15
Board Academic Affairs Committee
2:15-3:15
Shared Governance Leaders Updates
3:15-3:30
Kittitas County Hazard Mitigation Plan Adoption
3:30-3:45
Break
3:45-4:15
Report and Discussion on Clarifying Authority, Roles, and Responsibility
4:15-4:30
CWU Policy Process
4:30-4:45
Action Agenda
4:45
Expected Meeting Adjournment
Last updated October 12, 2026
Central Washington University Board of Trustees October 22, 2026
ACTION – Approval of the minutes of the Board Retreat of July 16-17, 2026
We recommend the following motion:
The Board of Trustees of Central Washington University hereby approves the minutes of the Board Retreat of July 16-17, 2026.
Submitted:
Dania Cochran Chief of Staff
Approved for Submittal to the Board:
Jim Wohlpart President
Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes Board Meeting Moehring Event Center July 16-17, 2026
Draft
JULY 16, 2026 EXECUTIVE SESSION
The board convened in executive session at 8:30 a.m. for 60 minutes for the purpose of reviewing the performance of a public employee, per RCW 42.30.110 (1)(g). The executive session ended at 9:30 a.m. Trustees and Staff Present: Jeff Hensler, Chair Erin Black, Past Chair Jeff Charbonneau Ray Conner, Trustee
Zabrina Jenkins, Trustee Robert Nellams, Trustee Jim Wohlpart, President BOARD MEETING Trustees Present Jeff Hensler, Chair Erin Black, Past Chair Jeff Charbonneau Ray Conner
Zabrina Jenkins Robert Nellams Staff to the Board: Jim Wohlpart, President Patrick Pease, Provost, and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Joel Klucking, Board Treasurer and Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration Veronica Gomez-Vilchis, Interim Vice President for Student Engagement and Success Dania Cochran, Board Secretary and Chief of Staff Ellen Evans, Assistant Attorney General Kim Dawson, Executive Assistant to the President/Board of Trustees Executive Staff: Tishra Beeson, Dean of Undergraduates Studies Ruben Cardenas, Associate Vice President, Student Engagement and Success Hung Dang, Associate Vice President, Enrollment Management Elvin Delgado, Associate Vice President, Faculty Success
Paul Elstone, Vice President, University Advancement Zoe Higheagle Strong, Associate Vice President, Tribal Relations Rodrigo Renteria-Valencia, Dean of Graduate Education, Research, and Strategic Initiatives
Chair Hensler convened the board meeting at 9:45 a.m.
Approval of Agenda Motion 26-29: Ms. Jenkins moved that the Board of Trustees of Central Washington University approve the agenda of the meetings of July 16-17, 2026. Mr. Nellams seconded the motion, which the board unanimously approved. Prior to approving the May meeting minutes, Chair Hensler clarified that university procedure was used for hiring the consultants, which was discussed at the May meeting. Approval of Minutes Motion 26-30: Mr. Nellams moved that the Board of Trustees of Central Washington University approve the minutes from the regular meetings of May 21-22, 2026. Ms. Jenkins seconded the motion. The motion was approved. Official Communications Since the last meeting, the board received three communications, which were included in the briefing materials: The Board acknowledges receipt of the following communications: 1. Email dated June 22, 2026, from Justin Mills, WA State Auditor’s Office, regarding CWU’s 2024 and 2025 Accountability Audit. 2. Email dated June 24, 2026, from Justin Mills, WA State Auditor’s Office, regarding the conclusion of CWU’s accountability audit for fiscal years 2024 and 2025. 3. Letter dated July 2, 2026, from the Faculty Senate Executive Committee, regarding their quarterly update to the Board. Public Comment Dr. Naomi Petersen, Department of Curriculum, Supervision, and Educational Leadership, made public comment on shared governance. President’s Report President Wohlpart provided an update on CWU’s Strategic Plan. We are now three years into our strategic plan. Since it is a living document, it can be reviewed and updated as we see fit. This is the board’s opportunity to give feedback on the direction of the institution. At our last meeting, we had a great conversation about becoming a learning community. It is essential that we become a learning community if we are going to meet the moment that is before us. A learning organization is one that develops the capacities to learn and grow individually and collectively. This means investigating, critiquing, and being willing to let go of old mental models. We must develop our capacities to learn in new ways and develop new ways of doing things. We developed a unifying value of student success with three core values: engagement, belonging, and stewardship that guide our strategic plan.
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Chair Hensler stated that as we move forward, it is important that we understand the priorities of the institution, and we need to make decisions about where we want to put our resources moving forward. Much of the first goal under the unifying value of student success deals with enrollment and retention numbers. First Time in College (FTIC) numbers dropped for the first time since the pandemic. Chair Hensler noted that the FTIC numbers have been the same for about five years. He applauded efforts to date but would like to see more effort into getting that number higher. He added that we need to start thinking creatively and outside of the box. We cannot keep doing what we are doing. Trustee Conner added that we are drawing from a much smaller pool. We need to be more creative about what we offer to get students interested.
Trustee Nellams noted that we all need to get our arms around our new reality of 8200 students.
President Wohlpart summarized retention data. We dropped from a 93 percent fall to winter retention last year to 92 percent. Our fall to spring retention last year was 89 percent. This year it is 86 percent. The projected fall to fall retention rate, which we will not know until October, is 70 percent. President Wohlpart added that we developed the current strategic plan when we did not have a Strategic Enrollment Management Plan. A question for the board to provide feedback on is, do we need to continue to have this level of detail in the university strategic plan or can we now refer to the SEM plan? Elevating Culturally sustaining practices is at the heart of our second goal. As part of our shift from having a centralized office of diversity, equity, and inclusion, we are now in the process of developing a shared leadership model of equity and belonging. The third goal in our unifying value of student success is the work we are doing to elevate the holistic well-being of our students, including providing services for their mental well-being and basic needs. President Wohlpart noted that we have done a very good job of increasing awareness of and use of our services on campus. Like many rural places, Kittitas County and Ellensburg do not offer robust health services, so our health clinic on campus is an essential part of keeping our students healthy. In addition, we have a very strong basic needs office and food pantry. Basic needs provides access to resources for students who are housing insecure. They served 117 students last year and distributed $190K in emergency funds. President Wohlpart commended the Washington Student Achievement Council who provides a lot of the funding for this. The money comes from the state and is designated to assist students. The Wildcat Pantry served over 1400 students last year, with over 10,000 visits, and 85,000 items distributed. In terms of financial literacy, we have been expanding our outreach through Money Savvy Wildcats. Under Core Value 1: Engagement, CWU has been focusing on building partnerships in the local region and integrating our economic development activities with the city and county. In addition, our Business Community Services has been approved by the Washington State Department of Commerce to be the sole applicant for a federal designation as the state’s Small Business Innovation Research center. The U.S. Department of Small Business Administration, the Washington Department of Commerce, and the Governor’s Office has selected CWU and Business Community Services to be the sole small business
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applicant for the State of Washington. This could unlock a lot of federal dollars for us to work across the state on small business innovation. Also related to elevating relationships, we entered into an MOU with the Yakama Nation Tribal Council led by our own liaison, Dr. Higheagle Strong. The presentation to the Tribal Council and the signing of the MOU completed a process that was started in 2019 but was disrupted due to the pandemic. The MOU calls for a closer collaboration with the Yakama Nation to support Native students and elevate awareness of Native American achievements in our local regions. That work will be facilitated by an advisory council. Our April 27 th ceremonial celebration and listening session, which featured seven tribal council members, a state senator, and a member of the administration was a model for relationships with tribal nations. The second goal under the core value of engagement focuses on increasing opportunities for students. Our Office for Student Leadership and Civic Engagement (SLICE) does great work with our students, but we do not have the time or capacity to develop and implement a Civic Action Plan. This is a place where we have decisions to make about how we want to go forward in this area with limited resources. President Wohlpart noted that it is his belief that a strategic plan should guide the university and be used to make decisions about where resources go. If we are not going to do something, it should probably be taken out. The Vision, Mission, Values, and Strategic Plan should be living documents, and this is an important moment for the institution to think about what our goals are. Chair Hensler stated that if we make something a priority, we need to make sure we are allocating resources to it. We need to narrow the focus of the strategic plan to things that we know we can accomplish. The strategic plan needs to continue to develop and should be a guiding document for the university and its priorities. Trustee Black added that there is an opportunity to engage a process to re-evaluate the strategic plan. President Wohlpart explained that any changes to the strategic plan would have to come from the university community and then be voted on by the board. The last initiative under the core value of engagement focuses on our work within University Advancement, building partnerships between the Foundation, Alumni Association, and the university community. This area is very strong. One example is CWU’s Night at the Mariners event. Five years ago, this event had 1000 attendees. This year, attendance was 3000. The goal for next year is 3200-3500. Under Core Value 2, which is belonging, President Wohlpart explained that this is perhaps an area where we could manage things differently in our equity and belonging work. As a university, we believe that welcoming and integrating diverse perspectives, cultures, histories, languages, literacies, and ideas is essential to our work. President Wohlpart summarized employee data and explained that all the data is available on the CWU dashboards. He added that the question about focusing and spending resources on the things that are central to where we are in this moment in revising the strategic plan, all that goes hand in hand. We need to decide if we shift our model from an attrition model for managing our budget to a more strategic model. Trustee Nellams stated that when we developed the current strategic plan, we were not looking at a model of 8,000 to 8,200 students. If this is the number we are projecting for the next five years, then we need to go back and look at what we can and cannot do.
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Trustee Conner added that we need to revise the strategic plan based around our new reality.
The second goal under the core value of belonging relates to becoming a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). These designations have gone away at the federal level, so this goal should probably come out of the strategic plan. Some of the initiatives under this goal could be included in the Strategic Enrollment Management plan. Chair Hensler stated that goal number two under belonging needs to be removed, but some of the initiatives could be reallocated or positioned into other areas. Goal three under belonging is essentially around recognizing that we must work to create a diverse university community and foster a sense of belonging. We are doing this work. However, we may want to rethink some of the initiatives based on what comes out of the Shared Equity and Belonging Leadership group. President Wohlpart summarized the final Core Value 3, which is stewardship. The first goal under this core value relates to implementing a university wide sustainability plan. This plan is complete and being used. In addition, Dr. Susan Kaspari is offering summer workshops for faculty to build sustainability into their courses, which is an initiative under the sustainable practices goal. The second goal under stewardship relates to understanding and elevating shared governance and creating leaders in place. We have completed a collaborative process for studying shared governance with faculty, staff, students, and administrators. Those individuals were selected by the shared governance leaders of those groups, and the Board of Trustees approved that document last May. The last goal under stewardship relates to our budgeting. The board asked for the creation of a five-year financial plan and the creation of a sustainable financial model, which Vice President Klucking’s area has developed. We still have work to do to build our reserves. In terms of fundraising, in the last four years, we have raised on average about $8M a year. In 2025-2026, we raised $13.1M. This is a record. In addition, our endowment has grown from $37M to about $75M. President Wohlpart explained that to revise the current strategic plan, we would have to develop a process with all the shared governance groups. This would include developing communications to the university and deciding the best way to get feedback and direction. Updating a strategic plan should not be like creating a strategic plan from scratch. It will be taking things out that we are not going to do and adding things that we will be focusing on. It should be a streamlined process. Framing the revision of the strategic plan to match our budget reality will be key. Chair Hensler asked that during the October meeting the board get an update on where we are with the strategic plan, including a timeline.
Trustee Nellams would like to make sure that during this process our new reality is being communicated, and folks know this needs to happen now.
Trustee Jenkins added that it will be critically important to have a structured enterprise-wide framework to evaluate the stop and defer work. We need to make sure we are evaluating everything and
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identifying where we have opportunities to stop some work or shift our strategic focus. This framework needs to be set from a leadership perspective with accountability. Campaign Goals and Update Trustee Jenkins began by reporting that the “save the date” postcards for the campaign launch went out to about 2000 alumni, donors, and friends. The purpose of today’s presentation is to familiarize everyone with the campaign’s vision and key priorities, to highlight the campaign's major themes, and to answer questions and gather feedback. One of the most important messages is that this campaign is much more than just raising funds. It is designed to engage more alumni and friends in the life of the university, to strengthen lifelong connections to CWU, to grow and sustain a stronger culture of philanthropy, and to build long-term support and advocacy for the university. Vice President Elstone reported that we had a record fundraising year this past year. In addition, we have raised just over $55M in the last 5 years towards campaign. The total dollar goal for the campaign will be announced October 9. The campaign priorities have been organized around three key themes: opportunity, experience, and impact. Associate Vice President Adams explained that for the last couple of years they have really been focused on hearing and understanding donor and alumni interest. Engagement means building our base of support through meaningful engagement. This is defined by growing internal and external partnerships, deepening two-way communication, creating personalized donor journeys, and increasing student and alumni engagement. They use a model from CASE that has established definitions for categories of engagement: • Philanthropy: financial support that is meaningful to donors and supports the institution’s mission and strategic goals. • Experiential: meaningful experiences that inspire alumni, are valued by the institution, promote its mission, celebrate its achievements, and strengthen its reputation. • Communication: interactive, meaningful, and informative communication that supports the institution’s mission, strategic goals, and reputation. • Volunteerism: formally defined and rewarding volunteer roles that are endorsed by and valued by the institution. An engagement dashboard has been developed that gives insight into the four modes and how we are currently engaging with our constituents in each of the modes. Associate Vice President Connelly introduced some of the priorities in the three themes. Part of what has gone into the work of identifying the priorities is thinking about the team and the relationship building, donor-focused work that they do, aligning with the mission of the institution. Over the last year, conversations with deans, vice presidents, and the athletic director took place to identify priorities within each of the three pillars. Provost Pease and President Wohlpart confirmed the priorities to make sure we were all moving in the same direction. The priorities were then connected to the strategic plan for the university and the strategic enrollment management plan. The pillars are really a framework that allows us to tell the broader story. Within opportunity, we are talking about access and ways in which we can reduce barriers, financial barriers, and other barriers for students to attain a CWU education. Some of those opportunities include scholarships, the Wildcat Pantry, and an emergency fund. In addition, the library introduced a More Book, Less Buck program last year to bring more affordable course materials to our students. Within the experience pillar, we are talking about high impact
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practices, career-connected learning, and internship opportunities. Finally, within the impact pillar, we are thinking about programs, facilities, and infrastructure. These include things like the MS in Mental Health Counseling, the Construction Management Endowed Professorship, the Center for Financial Planning and Well-Being, the Multicultural Center, the North Academic Commons, and the First- Generation Student Success Center. Vice President Elstone shared information on a new idea that emerged as a fundraising priority in the campaign. The First-Generation Student Success Center will create pathways from admission to graduation to career for students. First-generation students bring extraordinary strengths to CWU, which include resilience, perseverance, family and community commitment, leadership, cultural wealth, and aspirations for future generations. Yet, navigating college can be difficult. Nationally, first- generation students are twice as likely to leave college before earning a degree. We have strong programs like CAMP, TRIO, and JumpStart to assist these students. However, some of these programs are under threat of being cut by federal funding, so rethinking how we can support these students is very important. The idea is to bring together many of the different resources and have a one-stop shop that prioritizes focus and support for these students. The First-Generation Student Success Center is something we would build over time. Functions of the center would include a welcome center, peer mentoring hub, career preparation, workshops, community, alumni engagement, and family programming. It would be a place where students can find community, meet mentors, prepare for careers, connect with alumni, build confidence, celebrate milestones, and develop leadership. This would be a three-phase solution: Vice President Elstone explained the process for setting campaign goals. They have been gathering a lot of data to make informed decisions. They have been assessing staffing capacity. Goals need to be both ambitious and reachable. There will be lead goals and sub-goals. We may not hit all the goals, but that is okay if we are reaching towards them. The proposed campaign goals were shared without associated numbers. The numbers will be announced on October 9. The lead goals include total commitments, grow the endowment, and increase engagement of all constituents through the campaign. The sub goals will be around the dollars to be raised in each of the three pillars: opportunity, experience, and impact. Trustee Jenkins noted that one of the aspirations of the campaign is to grow our culture of philanthropy across the university community. As ambassadors for the university, each of us can play a role in advancing the campaign. Please attend the launch on October 9 and continue philanthropic support in ways that align with the campaign priorities. • Invest in the potential: The First-General Student Center fund. • Build community: supersize the peer mentorship program. • Create a home: a named, endowed Center, with matching state funds.
The morning session adjourned at 11:43 a.m.
Board members attended lunch with the Executive Leadership Team from 12:00-1:00 pm. No business was conducted.
The afternoon session was reconvened at 1:15 pm.
Board Committee Reports • Executive Committee and Governance
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o Committee Report Trustee Black reported that since the last meeting, one of the main things that the executive committee has talked about is strategic enrollment. They received information about enrollment and recruitment numbers for Fall of 2026. In addition, they have been updated on work that is happening around the shared equity and belonging leadership committee, including information about the Supervisor Summit. Other updates they received included information on three-year degrees, general education, the grand opening of the North Academic Commons, and the public launch of the campaign. They also spent time talking about the budget, the agenda for this meeting, and agendas for upcoming meetings. Trustee Charbonneau reported that the Board of Trustees Academic Affairs Committee (BOT AAC) has hosted joint meetings with the Faculty Senate Executive Committee (FSEC) and the provost, about every two weeks. Meeting cadence is a little slower in the summer. In the beginning, those meetings focused on common understandings and trust building. One of the major advances since then is that the group has been able to clearly articulate some of the concerns that the board had regarding faculty code and that process. The focus of late has been more on the onboarding of the consultant, Dr. Steve Bahls, who is coming in to help us gain an understanding of shared governance. There have been some other discussions of late trying to understand the Faculty Senate Executive Committee’s concerns about Cat Teams and Adaptive University. Trustee Charbonneau reminded the group that the BOT AAC and the FSEC have a SharePoint site where meeting details and high-level overviews of their work are captured. There has also been a little bit of discussion about AI within the university and what that may mean for us moving forward. As we go into fall, the work of the BOT AAC and the FSEC is building towards the transition into the work Dr. Bahls will be doing with the campus. A survey will be conducted during the first part of fall quarter to garner baseline information for Dr. Bahls to develop a workshop or retreat around shared governance that fits with CWU and where collectively we are at in our understanding of shared governance. • Academic Affairs Committee o Committee Report Chair Hensler noted that he wants to make sure the conversation about a pilot program for three-year degrees continues. o Provost’s Report Adaptive University Update Provost Pease began by giving a shout out to the Department of Anthropology. He had the opportunity to hang out with students from a forensic anthropology class during a planned excavation of a staged crime scene. This is the kind of high impact practice that is a great hands-on experience for our students. He also shared that all the shared governance groups have been contacted about participating in a pre- planning conversation about the quarter to semester research. A 17-person steering committee has been formed to assist with this research. The first meeting of the group is next week. This is a research/investigation process to surface the areas we will need to investigate if we are going to make a change to semesters, a decision that will need to be approved at the board level. Provost Pease then updated the group on completed Cat-Team projects. Advising was the first CAT team out of the gate, so it is furthest along and currently in various stages of implementation. The work is focused on two primary areas. One is around advising leadership, training, and professional development. The second area is launching the first-year intake advising model, which began with this summer’s orientation. For this summer’s orientation, the model provides proactive developmental
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advising to first-year students to help them transition to the university. First Time in College students this year are beginning in this intake advising. This will help build readiness for transition into the major and prepare students to use advising with increasing independence. The three-year degree cat team has gotten a lot of attention. The idea of shorter degrees is still new around the country, but it is gaining momentum. All the accrediting bodies now allow three-year degrees to come through for review. They currently have strict guidelines and are thinking of these as pilot programs to see how they go. They want universities to test them out. The three-year degree Cat Team created recommendations that could be enacted if we decide to move forward. The plan for this moving forward is a four-step plan: • Faculty Senate will identify a Senate committee to vet all the recommendations. • The committee would then finalize rules/guidelines through a joint approval process of Senate and the Provost. • The committee will conduct a call for pilot programs to put through NWCCU approval. • Once approved institutionally by the Board of Trustees, pilot programs would develop proposals for the curriculum approval process and develop policies and finalized rules. A College in the High School Teacher Certificate is being recommended. This is a specialized credential that any department could create a program and plug in to. The specialized credential option would be for in-service high school teachers who would like to teach for CWU through College in the High School but do not have a master’s degree or other degree that might be required. The certificate would provide the needed content training for them to have a faster and lower cost pathway into credentialing. The Career Champions idea is a university-wide initiative designed to embed workforce preparation into everyday academic and non-academic life with students. It trains faculty and staff to integrate career readiness competencies established by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) into existing courses. The General Education Cat Team was charged with aligning general education with CWU’s vision and mission. Key recommendations from the team include adopting program learning outcomes, developing an institutional assessment strategy aligned with updating the program framework to improve transfer alignment, developing a writing across the curriculum program, and elevating career connections. This next year, a second team will work through approvals, additional considerations that are pending, and implementation processes. The First-Year experience, which is an extension of the general education conversation, was asked to explore options for a comprehensive first-year experience focused primarily on first time in college students. National research shows that a comprehensive, intentional, integrated, and student-centered first year experience can improve persistence, retention, and success overall. The program goals are to enhance student persistence, retention, and success, to embed career exploration and self- development, to develop a coordinated and comprehensive student support services, and to develop a seamless transition into and through the first year in college. The Cat Team recommended the following next steps: year-long cohorts, embedded peer support, faculty professional development, Housing and Residence Life co-support with academics, and proactive, developmental, relationship-based advising. Provost Pease gave a quick update on online strategies. This fall, Academic Affairs is going to launch a process to take what we know about our current online activities, including all the challenges, what’s good, what is not working well, and use this information as a starting point for conversations about what
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kind of online strategy we want to have. Provost Pease will bring forward a strategy report to the board in February 2027. For the summer orientations, Board members reiterated that the goal is for all students who leave orientation have a schedule for fall quarter.
• Finance and Administration Committee o Committee Report
Trustee Conner reported that the Finance and Administration Committee met earlier this week. Staff presented the committee with a preview of the FY26 operating results and a comparison of the FY27 budget to what was shared at the May board meeting. Despite a positive FY26, staff presented a FY27 budget that continues to include a structural deficit for the fifth consecutive year. The committee discussed efforts taken and planned to eliminate this structural deficit to stop relying on salary and benefits savings. More work needs to be done for this effort. In addition, the committee received an update of ongoing capital projects across the university and the planned submission for the capital state request. Finally, the committee heard updates on information security and internal audit. The group discussed looking at our strategy to begin to live into our new reality of being an 8100-8500 university. o Budget Presentation VP Klucking gave an update on the budget development process. The team, which consists of four staff from Finance, four academic affairs members chosen by the provost, VP Klucking, and Provost Pease. The group starts meeting in December and meets every two weeks to identify key drivers. The first major deadline is at the end of February, where based on enrollment prediction, they develop a budget for instruction. After February, the group is in constant revision mode adding or subtracting from the budget based on latest information. The President’s Budget Advisory Committee, which is comprised of 15 employees, based on shared governance constituency, meets quarterly at a minimum. These meetings are held to keep people informed of how the budget is being developed, so they can share with their constituents. VP Klucking also shares budget development with additional audiences that include the WFSE Bargaining Team, Teamsters Bargaining Team, PSE Bargaining Team, Faculty Senate, and divisional leadership teams. VP Klucking shared FY27 State/Local budget comparisons. Despite projected mild enrollment decline, revenues increased due to rates and state support. On the expense side, there is no estimate for salary/benefit savings yet. Some teams were shifted from self-support. We have some potential savings in waivers pending enrollment and student mix. There is also a 200-student enrollment contingency included in the budget. The expected bottom line is a $2.5M deficit. In the FY27 System funds the Wildcat Shop course materials fee offset lower than expected participation in housing and dining for revenues. On the expense side, good labor cost management was offset by higher repairs and maintenance. Our debt service coverage is expected to be between 1.3-1.4. VP Klucking then pointed out progress that has been made on liquidity – cash on hand. Since 2024, they have been actively trying to manage our cash to increase it over time. VP Klucking commended Erin Sargent, treasury manager, for being aggressive with cash management. The FY27 Athletics budget ($7.9M), which is an action item at Friday’s meeting, was shared with the group. VP Klucking reminded the group that at its May 2025 meeting, the Board approved the FY26 S&A budget and requested that the committee develop a revised recommendation for the remaining three years of the quadrennium based on feedback received. The proposed budget for fiscal years 2027-2029
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reflects a thoughtful allocation of fee revenue, informed by funding requests and the feedback provided following the committee’s deliberations. This budget is also part of the action agenda on Friday.
• Student Engagement and Success Committee o Committee Report
Trustee Nellams thanked Vice President Gomez-Vilchis and her team for advancing CWU’s mission by expanding access and opportunities, strengthening student belonging and well-being, and preparing students for successful careers through an integrated network of support. Recruitment efforts remain positive going into next year despite fewer potential students. It is noticeably clear that we are going to be dealing with a smaller pool so we will need to work together to manage that. Financial Aid distributed over $105M in scholarships, grants, loans, and work study. The strategic enrollment plan continues implementation with a focus on improvements in student retention, strengthening transfer pathways, and scaling wraparound student support. One new initiative is the seamless transfer partnership with Yakima Valley College. Student development and belonging remains strong. Over 5,000 participants engaged through the Multicultural programming, and over 2,000 students participated in the community engagement initiatives. Approximately 560 student volunteers contributed over 1,600 hours of community service, and 88 students completed the Wildcat Leadership Community. Student Employment and Experimental Learning continue to produce tangible workforce outcomes, and Career Services continues to prepare students for life after graduation. Student Health and Counseling provided more than 4,500 counseling appointments, and Case Management supported over 870 students. Health Promotion engaged over 4,200 participants through prevention, recovery, and wellness programming. On the federal grants side, over 900 students participated in the Educational Opportunity Center, and CAMP, HEP, and TRIO continue to strengthen college across the educational pathway. o SEM Update Associate Vice President, Hung Dang, gave an update on enrollment and recruitment. It has been a long 18-month recruiting season. The next two months are critical. This is where we close the deal. There have been three orientation sessions, so far, and there are five more to go. Currently, we are running about one percent behind last year. For First Time in College students, applications are up in Washington. For out-of-state applications, we saw a slight increase from Hawaii, Oregon, and California. This year, we started to market the Pacific Northwest Scholarship, which focuses on border states. The significant increase has been from Alaska, primarily Anchorage and from Western Colorado. International applications are down 21 percent, which is normal across the country right now. Confirmations are up by six percent. Transfer applications are trending ahead towards the goal of 799, and the enrollment yield is up seven percent. Typically, over 550 confirmations arrive through the summer. Given historical data, we project landing at about 800 transfers by the fall census. Overall total enrollment as of July 8, is running right around 1.6-1.7 percent higher than last year. Our retention rate for the fall 2025 cohort is running a little bit ahead of last year. Interim Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Tishra Beeson, shared the work that has been done over the last two years on Early Academic Alert. This is an initiative to identify students who are not meeting academic expectations early in the quarter so we can provide support and help them stay on track. Faculty, academic advisors, and academic success coaches play a role in providing support to students. The purpose is for intervention to happen early on. In a 10-week quarter, there is not a lot of time to intervene if these students are not identified early on. Faculty can directly submit an alert in their course, in Canvas, which is our learning management system. It is a very holistic wraparound attempt to make sure that the student is engaging in the types of behaviors we want them to, and that our team and staff are responding to them in an appropriate way. There are three types of alerts:
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• Medium Alert: should be used when there is still a reasonable opportunity for the student to recover with timely intervention. • High Alert: is reserved for circumstances where all reasonable efforts to engage and assist the student have been exhausted, and there is a clear need to connect the student with broader institutional support. • Wellington High Five: this is used to send a “Wellington High Five” to students when you want to recognize positive behaviors and growth. In 2024-2025, just over 2000 alerts came in. This year, 3227 alerts came in. Total students served in 2024-2025 was 1546, and this year, over 2000 students have been served. With all the outreach that is done, they still only get about a 56 percent response rate. Another area that affects retention is DFWI (D, F, Withdrawal, Incomplete). We know that a student experiencing a D and F or having to withdraw from a course in the year is a leading indicator for term-to-term persistence. At CWU, it drives retention down about 10 percentage points. Among our first time in college population, first year students who did not get a D, F, or W in their first year, from winter to spring, were retained at a 94 percent rate. Students who did get a D, F, or W only re-enrolled at a 54 percent rate. When we intervened and got students connected, the gap closed a bit and re-enrollment for spring was at a 70 percent rate. The goal here is to preserve academic momentum rather than the student experiencing disrupted momentum. Dr. Beeson added that students who met with a peer mentor last year in our First Time in College cohort were retained at 94 percent. Peer mentoring is a highly effective intervention.
Chair Hensler thanked the committee chairs and executive leadership team members for their reports.
Shared Governance Leaders Updates
• ASCWU Board of Directors ASCWU President, Jada Chaplin gave an update on ASCWU and the three main projects they have been working on: summer preparation, board priorities, and a data tracker. The team has been training on shared equity and creating a collaborative shared responsibility across the entire board. During their retreats, they use core toolkits that include values of mutuality, transparency, and collective accountability to evaluate the team dynamic, fix internal structures, and build trust. The group attended the American Student Government Association conference for new officers and members in Florida. They attended sessions that focused on an engagement playbook, how to get students to care about student government, and leading neutrality of merit. The conference was informative. One of their priorities this year is widening the circle. They really want to focus not just within the CWU community but externally. They also want to have more involvement and bring back traditions, so they will be utilizing outreach with digital marketing strategies. Another focus will be on the academic, mental, and physical health of students. One idea is to implement a student health advisory committee to champion wellness initiatives and address student stressors. The group also plans to work on lowering barriers for students by helping them understand what resources are available on campus and how to access them. They are currently modernizing their internal bylaws, job rules, and formal documentation by making their own structure transparent. In addition, they are expanding their experimental learning by mapping board members’ strengths to community needs and drawing from civic literacy frameworks. They have built a comprehensive master planning Excel tracker. This tool provides practice in collective accountability by categorizing every single meeting, activity, and event under four pillars. It assigns date points, collaborations, and collaborators so they can measure what works and pivot when needed.
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• Faculty Senate Professor Claridge gave an update on Faculty Senate. She noted that the Faculty Senate Curriculum Committee did not reject two College in the High School proposals. They were put on hold so the curriculum committee could get clarification on a couple of items. They will get them through as soon as they can during fall quarter. Dr. Claridge explained the complexity of online courses as a faculty member who advises students. She added that sometimes students need a flexible schedule due to personal circumstances. As this conversation continues, faculty would like to be involved in the conversation. Dr. Claridge noted that the Faculty Senate Gen Ed committee provided rationale for why we should not increase cap sizes. Part of it is that there is a national organization for composition that recommends the caps should be at 15. We are currently at 25. She added that students need so much intensive feedback from faculty in these courses that their concern is the impact on student success and retention. This is a foundational course that faculty feel very strongly must be controlled by faculty. Some concerns regarding shared governance were raised as well. Board members shared the concern about the lack of clarity with shared governance and stated that they would like to go through the process with the consultant, Steve Bahls, and figure shared governance out together. The board is focused on always doing what is best for the university. • Employee Classified Council Josie Rollins, Chair of Employee Classified Council, reported that the council has tripled in size from last year. The council has representation from across the campus which helps with the continued efforts to get unified information out to employees. The council continues to be included in large scale committees, and they are really thrilled to be invited to those conversations. • Exempt Employee Association Laura Brant-Hoefer, Chair of the Exempt Employee Association (EEA), thanked the board members who joined their last meeting of the year to get their feedback on how the past six months have gone. She added that exempt employees have mixed thoughts on how shared governance is going. She also noted that in her one-on-one conversation with Dr. Bahls, it was apparent that his work with other institutions did not include staff in the conversations, so we need to keep that in mind as conversations go forward. The EEA is gearing up for next year. Approximately 41 percent of exempt employees participated in voting for representatives, which is a little higher than year. The group will meet this summer for a retreat and talk about their goals for the year. Then they will start meeting on September 10 and will begin planning for the first Town Hall. Chair Hensler explained that the Board will move into executive session at 4:20 p.m. for 55 minutes, and that no action will be taken following the executive session. The public portion of the meeting concluded for the day at 4:16 p.m. EXECUTIVE SESSION Chair Hensler convened the Executive Session at 4:20 p.m. and announced that the session was expected to last approximately 55 minutes. The meeting room was cleared, other than board members. The purpose of the executive session was to review the performance of a public employee, as allowed by RCW 42.30.110 (1)(g). At 5:15 p.m., the executive session was extended an additional 25 minutes. The executive session ended at 5:40 p.m., and no action was taken following the executive session.
Trustees Present: Jeff Hensler, Chair Erin Black, Past Chair
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Jeff Charbonneau Ray Conner, Trustee Zabrina Jenkins, Trustee Robert Nellams, Trustee Adjournment
Motion 26-31: Mr. Nellams moved that the Board of Trustees of Central Washington University adjourn the meeting for July 16, 2026. Ms. Black seconded the motion. The motion was approved, and the meeting adjourned at 5:45 p.m.
JULY 17, 2026 EXECUTIVE SESSION
The board convened in executive session at 8:30 a.m. for one hour for the purpose of reviewing the performance of a public employee as allowed by RCW 42.30.110 (1)(g). The executive session ended at 9:30 a.m. Trustees and Staff Present: Jeff Hensler, Chair Erin Black, Past Chair
Jeff Charbonneau, Trustee Ray Conner, Trustee (Zoom) Zabrina Jenkins, Trustee Robert Nellams, Trustee Jim Wohlpart, President
BOARD MEETING Trustees Present Jeff Hensler, Chair Erin Black, Past Chair
Jeff Charbonneau, Trustee Zabrina Jenkins, Trustee Robert Nellams, Trustee Staff to the Board: Jim Wohlpart, President Patrick Pease, Provost, and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Joel Klucking, Board Treasurer and Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration Veronica Gomez-Vilchis, Interim Vice President for Student Engagement and Success Dania Cochran, Board Secretary and Chief of Staff Ellen Evans, Assistant Attorney General Kim Dawson, Executive Assistant to the President/Board of Trustees Executive Staff: Tishra Beeson, Dean of Undergraduates Studies Ruben Cardenas, Associate Vice President, Student Engagement and Success Elvin Delgado, Associate Vice President, Faculty Success
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Paul Elstone, Vice President, University Advancement Zoe Higheagle Strong, Associate Vice President, Tribal Relations Rodrigo Renteria-Valencia, Dean of Graduate Education, Research, and Strategic Initiatives Call to Order Chair Hensler called the meeting to order at 9:45 a.m. President’s Performance Review Chair Hensler stated that as we reflect on the past academic year, the board would like to be candid to acknowledge that the university has been exceptionally challenged. He added that the university is not defined by challenges it faces, but by how it responds and moves forward. Over the past several months, the Board of Trustees has engaged extensively with faculty, staff, students, and alumni. These conversations have been meaningful and have deepened the board’s collective understanding of both the institution and President Wohlpart’s leadership. Through this process, the board has identified structural challenges, as well as important opportunities that will help to shape a more clearly defined and constructive path forward. While there is still significant progress to be made, the board remains confident in President Wohlpart’s ability to partner with the university and to lead CWU through the next phase with focus, transparency, and purpose. The Board has outlined three goals for President Wohlpart for this upcoming academic year: • Develop and implement a plan to create a culture of trust, where the members of the university community feel heard, respected, and included in the decisions that shape the university’s future. • Update the university’s strategic plan to level set the university to the new enrollment realities of 8200-8500 students. • Emphasis on fundraising as we approach the end of the comprehensive campaign. Chair Hensler stated that he wanted to take Chairman’s privilege and discuss two topics from Thursday’s meeting, which were orientation and shared governance. The board instructed the team to put every effort and resource forth to ensure that every student leaves orientation with a schedule for the year. Regarding shared governance, there have been a lot of misunderstandings and frustration that come from ambiguity in some of the work that we have been doing for the last four and a half years. We are now at the point of beginning our work with Dr. Bahls, and a timeline has been developed for this work. He thanked the Faculty Senate Executive Committee and the BOT Academic Affairs Committee for getting us to this point so that we can move forward. 1. During September, Dr. Bahls will finalize and implement the Shared Governance survey based on feedback and input. 2. In October, Dr. Bahls will lead a workshop on shared governance to develop clarity around authority, roles, and responsibility based on the 1966 join statement. He will then draft a Statement of Authority, Roles, and Responsibility based on feedback and input. 3. At the October Board meeting, board members will review and approve the draft statement. 4. Between November and January, shared governance groups will review the draft Statement of Authority, Roles, and Responsibility to provide feedback. The Faculty Code will be revised to align with the draft statement in a collaborative fashion.
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