State of the University address highlights CWU’s successes and challenges

Just as they do every fall, members of the Central Washington University community gathered in the SURC Ballroom on Friday, October 23, for the annual State of the University address.

President Jim Wohlpart delivered a 30-minute presentation to an audience of approximately 200 faculty, staff, and administrators, touching on a number of key achievements and institutional successes that have taken place over the past year.

The president’s remarks were followed by a keynote address by retired Michigan State University scholar Paulette Granberry Russell titled “Advancing Equity and Belonging for All.” The former president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education served at MSU for more than 20 years, advising the institution’s diversity and inclusion efforts.

Attendees then participated in a group activity to help revise CWU’s Strategic Plan, and the afternoon culminated with a shared equity and belonging workshop hosted by Ángel Gonzalez and Elizabeth Holcombe.

“This work is not wholly new to us; it is the maturation and evolution of the meaningful work we have done around diversity, equity, and inclusion,” Wohlpart said. “We have created a committee of faculty, staff, students, and administrators deeply committed to taking our work to the next level.”

The president set the stage for the day’s activities by talking about CWU’s ever-evolving Strategic Plan and our shared commitment to living into our vision to be “a model learning community of access and opportunity.” As we aspire toward this vision, he emphasized how important it will be for CWU faculty and staff to embrace change, both now and in the future.

“I want to recognize that change is hard,” Wohlpart said. “Change includes loss, for it includes learning how to give up our usual ways of doing things and to show up in new ways. Our focus on learning together as a community is the key to our ability to thrive in a time when higher education is endangered and threatened. Our willingness to learn, grow, and change will allow us to live into a bright future.”

Wohlpart shared his gratitude for the many individuals on campus who have been doing their part to help CWU reimagine itself to meet this unique moment in our 136-year history. He focused on the value of building and nurturing strong relationships and commended the work our faculty and staff do every day to maximize students’ opportunities to be successful.

He also highlighted CWU’s pioneering efforts with geothermal energy and sustainability programming and our renewed focus on tribal relations. Each of these initiatives — and many more — can be traced back to our Core Values.

“Our Unifying Value of Student Success reminds us why we are doing what we do: to open doors that allow our students to realize their dreams,” Wohlpart said. “This should drive everything we do. Our responsibility is to create pathways into and through the university so that our students can achieve their professional goals. We do that through the supportive learning environment that we foster, allowing them to become engaged professionals, active citizens, and lifelong learners.”

After a series of opening remarks, the president pointed to many recent successes and ongoing challenges. He noted that while CWU’s fall enrollment number of 8,297 is considered “flat” compared to the fall 2025 figure of 8,334, we have seen a relative stabilization since 2021-22 when the enrollment of First Time In College (FTIC) and new transfer students “bottomed out.”

While overall enrollment is roughly the same as it was a year ago, CWU has taken enormous strides in our FTIC retention efforts, improving to 74% — up from 68% just five years ago. Wohlpart also highlighted CWU’s marked improvement in the retention rate for students of color, narrowing the gap from six percentage points to just one percentage point this fall.

“I want to thank all of you for the work you did focusing on increasing our retention of FTICs last year,” the president said. “We will not grow our way out of our current enrollment decline simply recruiting new students. We must also retain them.”

Another point of pride Wohlpart shared was CWU’s status as a national leader for dual enrollment programs like College In the High School and Running Start. CWU is by far the largest dual enrollment institution in the state and consistently ranks among the best in the nation.

“Last year we were third, but it’s looking like we may be number one in the nation for dual enrollment offerings this year,” he said. “That is a truly remarkable achievement.”

Although CWU has enjoyed a good start to the 2026-27 academic year, Wohlpart cautioned that we still face tremendous challenges due to the state's current budget shortfall. Despite these ongoing financial hurdles, CWU is one of few higher education institutions in the Northwest that has a balanced budget for Fiscal Year 2027. At the same time, the president conceded, this achievement has not come without a cost.

“Getting to this place has been hard work, and I want to acknowledge the way in which we have reduced our costs and our spending, even while, in some cases, we have not reduced our workload,” Wohlpart said, adding that the Board of Trustees has set a goal to review all of the work we are doing and to bring it into alignment with our workforce. “(Senior Vice President) Joel Klucking will be leading that effort along with a Steering Committee that includes representatives from our shared governance groups and our four divisions.”

The president went on to talk about the recently launched Futures Campaign, which has set an ambitious goal of raising $75 million to create access and opportunity for more Washingtonians. He lauded the CWU Foundation for already raising $57 million toward its campaign goal, after recently completing its best-ever fundraising year with $13.1 million.

“The campaign is not only about supporting our students and university now, but it’s also about building for the decades to come,” Wohlpart said. “We hope to engage more than 25,000 unique alumni and friends of the university in meaningful ways that will, in the future hopefully lead to them becoming donors as well. As you can see, we are well on our way to hitting this goal already.”