Justification for Vote of No Confidence
Shared governance is a core responsibility of university leadership and a defining feature of academic integrity at Central Washington University (CWU). This commitment dates to the 1940s, 1 when the Faculty Senate and Faculty Code were established to ensure meaningful faculty participation in institutional decision-making. 2 These practices align with nationally recognized standards for shared governance, including the 1966 Joint Statement on College and University Governance, 3 and have been reaffirmed through guidance from the AAUP, ACE, and AGB. 4 President Jim Wohlpart has engaged in actions that undermine the Faculty Senate’s role and the academic mission of the institution through a persistent pattern of decisions that erode faculty participation in shared governance and consolidate power in decision- making within upper administration. For these reasons, we do not have confidence in President Wohlpart’s leadership of CWU and affirm that his actions devalue the academic mission of the institution to the detriment of the well-being of CWU students, staff, and faculty. The following five areas, independently and taken together, constitute sufficient grounds to justify a vote of no confidence. I. President Wohlpart has failed to carry out the Board of Trustees’ directive to “elevate” shared governance and work collaboratively with faculty. This failure erodes faculty trust and poses an existential threat to the University. Despite good-faith efforts by the Faculty Senate (see Appendix A) and others to collaborate with the administration and build collective trust, President Wohlpart has adopted an authoritarian rather than collaborative leadership approach, violating the 1 The Faculty Senate at Central Washington University (the Central Washington State College) began as the eleven-member Faculty Council in the fall of 1946. An important point is that administrators were, in 1946, considered to be faculty. Importantly, everyone's vote was weighted the same, from the president to the most junior faculty. The Faculty Council evolved into the Faculty Senate in September 1963. The earliest Code in the collection is the “Code of Personnel Policy and Procedure” in 1947. The Code was renamed the “Faculty Code of Personnel Policy and Procedure” in the early 1950s. To learn more, visit the CWU Archives and Special Collections (CWUASC), where these documents are housed (some of which are digitized under the CWUASC’s Faculty Senate Archive), Accessed Jan. 17, 2026: https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/fac_senate/ 2 The Procedures for Faculty Consultation can be found in Section II, Part D of Faculty Code, pp. 9-10. Importantly Part C outlines areas meriting significant faculty consultation. Accessed Jan. 17, 2026: https://www.cwu.edu/about/university-leadership/faculty-senate/_documents/facultycode.pdf 3 See the 1966 Joint Statement, pp. 123. Accessed Jan. 17, 2026: https://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/2025- 07/Statement_on_Government_of_Colleges_and_Universities.pdf 4 AAUP = American Association of University Professors; ACE = American Council on Education; AGB = Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. To review these principles, you may access the statement via the AAUP’s website: https://www.aaup.org/reports-publications/aaup-policies- reports/topical-reports/statement-government-colleges-and (Accessed Jan. 17, 2026)
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