V. Faculty have attempted to alert President Wohlpart to these concerns, but cannot because President Wohlpart governs by intimidation, fear and retaliation.
Faculty have attempted to raise these concerns with President Wohlpart through established channels, including shared governance bodies and faculty leadership, but meaningful engagement has not been possible. Faculty report a leadership climate in which disagreement is met with intimidation, personal grievance, and retaliatory behavior, creating a chilling effect on open communication. As a result, faculty are discouraged from offering candid feedback or raising concerns about institutional decisions. This has contributed to deteriorating morale, undermined shared governance, damaged trust, and impeded the collaborative problem-solving necessary for the health of the University and the success of its students. In our experience, we have found President Wohlpart’s interactions with faculty to be condescending, defensive and closed to feedback. We’re especially concerned about his interactions with women 14 and faculty of color. In conversations with faculty leadership, the President regularly emphasizes his unilateral authority to make decisions. While he does have authority over most areas of the University, his focus on his own power and authority undermines trust and relationship building. In addition, he does not demonstrate respect for the structures and culture of CWU and regularly references how things were done at his previous institution. He continues to resist learning about the unique and important qualities and needs of CWU and CWU students. Not only does this approach harm faculty, but it also harms students and the long-term health of the institution. CWU deserves a leader whose focus is on the full success of the University as a model learning community by harnessing the expertise of that community to ensure the success of CWU students.
14 One example of concerning interactions with women observed by faculty was raised during the Faculty Senate meeting on Nov. 1, 2023, when a faculty member (a former CWU provost) brought forth a concern about the high number of women in leadership who had, at that time, left CWU, requesting, “Senior leadership needs to work better to understand why we lost these valuable women of our community and how can we do better in the future.” The administration’s response did not address the underlying concerns of allegations of misogynist behaviors on the part of President Wohlpart toward women in leadership (allegations that come, in a few cases directly, from the women leaders who left CWU in the two years after beginning his tenure as CWU president). Faculty Senate meeting minutes accessed Jan. 17, 2026: https://www.cwu.edu/about/university-leadership/faculty-senate/_documents/faculty-senate- minutes/2023-24-faculty-senate-minutes/cwu-231101-fsminutes.pdf
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