CWU Presidential Installation 2022

CWU Presidential Installation 2022

CENTRAL WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY INSTALLATION OF THE 15TH PRESIDENT A. James Wohlpart, PhD

Fulfilling the Promise of Higher Education: Elevating Engaged Leadership and Learning at Central Washington University

THURSDAY | MAY 19, 2022

I t would be impossible to stand before you today and not feel deeply humbled and deeply honored. I have spent the last year or more listening to all of you and to many of our alumni and supporters. What I have heard, repeatedly, is that what you do makes a difference. You matter. You matter because you show up every day to help our students on their journey. You matter because of the wide variety of roles you play in this journey, and how all of those roles add up to a learning experience that transforms our students’ lives, their families’ lives, and their communities.

So I open with gratitude and deep humility.

To the Trustees who have gathered for this installation, thank you for the way in which you hold this community in your hands and your hearts. And thank you for trusting me with the work of leading Central Washington University as its 15th president. To the leadership of the faculty, the classified employees, the exempt employees, and the students: I have worked closely with you during my first year to deepen our commitment to shared governance and shared leadership. Your dedication to making Central a stronger, more vibrant university—and your partnership in that work—is deeply appreciated and valued. To the community members, local civic and business leaders, and public health officials who are present and to those who could not be here today, thank you for your collaboration with Central Washington University. Together, we make this region vibrant, resilient, and thriving. We rely on you for so much. Indeed, we could not do what we do without your support. To the legislators and legislative staff present, and to our donors, alumni, and supporters, your support of higher education in the state and of Central Washington University in particular is the foundation for the great work we do in transforming lives; without your recognition of the vital importance of higher education to our economic, civic, and social life, we would not be able to take our work to the next level. To the administration of the university—directors, department chairs, deans, vice presidents, and former presidents—we must always remember that we are stewards of the state and trustees in our own right to the health and vitality of our university. In everything we do, we must collaborate with our university colleagues as partners and expand our collective capacity to think institutionally. To the staff across the university, here in Ellensburg and at our Centers, thank you for the support you provide to all of us and to our students. You often work behind the scenes to keep things going—and we don’t always do enough to honor your great work. But without your dedication and commitment to student success and learning, I know that our project would falter. To the faculty who are dedicated to their disciplines while also recognizing the importance of a broad liberal education, thank you for upholding the time-honored traditions of learning and balancing those traditions with a spirit of innovation. You understand that we cannot maintain the status quo when there is so much at stake. Page 1

To the students. You are why we are here. Every day that I walk on any of our campuses I remember that your time with us is a gift and that we have the responsibility of making certain that your time is richly rewarded—not just through preparing you for a profession, not just through inspiring your civic agency, but most importantly through assisting you on this miraculous journey of finding out who you are, why you matter, and how you can offer yourself in service to the world around us. Every one of us has mentors, those who work with us directly and those who we watch and learn and grow from. I am richly blessed with many mentors, from my father and mother, to the faculty who taught me so well at the University of Tennessee and Colorado State, and to many of the faculty, staff, students and administrators at Florida Gulf Coast University and the University of Northern Iowa. I have learned so much from all of them. And each of us is supported by a network of family and friends. I am blessed that many of the faculty and staff and students who I have worked with over the years have become close friends who I cherish to this day. Thank you to my mother Pamela for her steadfast support; to my brother David, my sisters Kathryn, Bridgett, and Heidi, and my kids and best friends Zachary James and Kathryn Keene—you are my safety net, the place I come back to when I need to be reminded who I am. Most importantly, I am blessed with a remarkable partner. Sasha, you are a bright light shining in the world, each and every day, even in the most challenging times. You are my intellectual partner, my emotional and psychological partner, my spiritual partner. Without you, none of this would be possible. Thank you for dancing with me across this fragile and beautiful Earth. We should take a moment to acknowledge the land on which Central Washington University resides. It is the historic home of the Yakama people. The federally recognized Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation is made up of Klikitat, Palus, Wallawalla, Wanapam, Wenatchi, Wishram, and Yakama people. The Yakama people remain committed stewards of this land, cherishing it and protecting it, as instructed by elders through generations. We are honored and grateful to be here today on their traditional lands. We give thanks to the legacy of the original people, their lives, and their descendants. I read this statement as a reminder that the land is not owned. It is, rather, a gift that is inherited. In taking responsibility for that gift, we must think of the seven generations—of how we will pass this gift forward and create a legacy worthy of our inheritance. Reading this statement should disrupt our usual ways of thinking and being in the world—our epistemology and ontology—to help us think beyond ourselves to something bigger. I aspire to this new way of thinking and being in all that I do. Page 2

Let me begin with a story.

When I graduated from high school in 1981, I was absolutely determined that I would never attend college. Having sat through 11 years of school (I did not attend kindergarten and I skipped third grade), I was not going to be caught anywhere near another educational institution. I had been in touch with Richard Proenneke who had built a cabin at Upper Twin Lake in Alaska and thought that I would apprentice under him, to learn to live off the land, in solitude, truly self-sufficient and alone. We corresponded for several years in the late 1970s about my venture. He told me that I should go to college to see how I could serve others, and then, if I still wanted to, we could see about a trip to Alaska. As I reflect back on that time in my life, what I know now is that my desire to leave society was because of the gaps that I saw in front of me, gaps in meaning and purpose, gaps in equity and justice, gaps that no one seemed to be addressing. Poverty. The degradation of the land. Racial injustice. The Vietnam War. What I hadn’t experienced was the type of education that is offered here at Central Washington University. In the last year, I’ve had dozens of meetings with alumni, donors, friends, and supporters, and they keep telling me the same thing: Central is a special place. It is special because for every student, someone, a faculty member, a staff member—one of you—took the time to see the potential in that student, and then helped that student realize that potential. One moment in time that provided a foundation for a lifetime. This is what you all do—the faculty and staff, and also the students for each other—that makes Central Washington University special. You allow students to be seen. You validate them not just as students, but as colleagues, as individuals with purpose and meaning. In the coming decade, we must maintain—and even elevate—this laser focus on student engagement and success, which fosters professional preparation, civic agency, and personal fulfillment. For our nation is at a crossroad and the choices we make now will impact generations to come. Will we come together as a nation to meaningfully engage the pressing issues of our time? Can we weave the tattered fabric of our civil society back together in order to get on with the work before us—or will we remain polarized and paralyzed? I strongly believe that the crossroad our nation faces runs squarely through higher education—and if we can pivot and provide the intentional and meaningful learning experiences needed in the 21st century, we can alleviate the paralysis and enter the arena to engage the work before us. But the status quo will not do; the status quo brought us to the brink. Page 3

I believe further that our responsibility at Central Washington University is paramount to this wider agenda of fulfilling the promise and potential of higher education. Tomorrow, we will ask the Board of Trustees to approve our new vision and mission statements which assert that we will lead the way in building a community of equity and belonging that fosters culturally-sustaining curriculum, pedagogy, programs, and systems which equip students for the adaptive challenges of the 21st century. With this new vision and mission we have the opportunity to take our outstanding work to the next level and realize the fullest, deepest promise of higher education in this tumultuous time—to do our great work through the lens of equity in order to build a community where everyone is welcomed for the person they are and the person they are becoming. At the foundation of our work must be the engagement and success of an increasingly diverse student body. This must be the lever that drives everything we do. And we must consider student success broadly through three pillars: first, ensuring the professional preparation of our students; second, developing their civic capacities; and, third, assisting them in developing a sense of purpose and meaning. I will touch on each of these three pillars in the rest of my remarks. Pillar One: Professional Preparation Surveys of employers over the last 15 years have been calling for graduates to achieve certain outcomes to enable their successful transition into the world of work and community. On behalf of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, Hart Research Associates has conducted one of the most extensive and iterative surveys of employers, starting in 2006. The key finding that has repeated in every survey is the priority employers place on the development of proficiency in a broad range of skills, which they consider more important than learning in a narrow discipline. That is, this broad learning matters more than a major. These skills include: • Communication, both written and oral • Teamwork, especially with diverse individuals • Critical thinking and analytical reasoning • Information literacy

• Intercultural literacy

Over time, employers more greatly emphasized the need for graduates to have applied their learning solving real-world problems in real-world settings. This call led colleges and universities to implement more extensive engaged learning experiences than in the past, including not just internships but also service learning, project-based learning, undergraduate research, and study abroad. Interestingly, according to Samuel Mohler’s The First 75 Years , Ellensburg Normal School implemented applied learning practices in the 1920s and received national recognition for leading this transformation in learning. Page 4

An interesting shift began in the 2010 survey with the economic downturn, with the recognition of the rising complexity of the world of work. The result, in subsequent surveys, was a desire on the part of business leaders to have colleges and universities prepare graduates not just for entry level positions but for advancement. The need for graduates to demonstrate a capacity for innovation has resulted from the tumultuous times we have experienced over the last decade. As a result, institutions of higher education must again pivot towards more fully emphasizing an integrative education that includes interdisciplinary learning, multicultural literacy, collaboration skills, and information literacy. Significantly, such a shift would prepare students not only for their professions, but also for civic agency and lifelong learning—for a life of engaged, purposeful, and passionate fulfillment of their being. And, if institutions of higher education are going to make a shift away from silos and disciplines and hierarchies, the leadership of these communities must follow suit, to become more democratic, to elevate shared governance and shared leadership, to embrace multiple cultures and communities, to model our values not just in the classroom but across the university. And as we do so, we must also remember that we are about more than the professional preparation of our students. We are about so much more. Indeed, institutions of higher education are the bedrock of a vibrant and high functioning democracy. In 2012, the U.S. Department of Education assembled a National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement. Their report, A Crucible Moment: College Learning and Democracy’s Future , noted that “The completion of postsecondary education and the acquisition of 21st century critical thinking skills in the liberal arts and sciences are an economic necessity as well as a social imperative. To fulfill America’s promise in our global society, our educational system at all levels, from early learning through higher education, must serve our nation both as its economic engine and its wellspring of democracy” (v).

Pillar Two: Civic Engagement

The motto of our great nation, e pluribus unum , translates as “out of many, one.” It seems to me that we have forgotten how to weave our desire for individual rights into the fabric of our communal responsibilities. Indeed, it seems we have forgotten that the very source of our individual rights is the foundation of this great nation: our democracy, which calls us to engage and participate but also to accept that my own personal predilections may not carry the day, that because I am tied to something much bigger, much greater than my own whims and desires, I must participate in what is best for my community. In 1946, President Harry S. Truman, growing concerned at the large number of veterans returning home from the second world war, commissioned a study of higher education. The commission determined that higher education should bring three things to all Americans: Page 5

• “Education for a fuller realization of democracy in every phase of living.

• Education directly and explicitly for international understanding and cooperation.

• Education for the application of creative imagination and trained intelligence to the solution of social problems and to the administration of public affairs.” As noted, in 2012, the U.S. Department of Education issued A Crucible Moment, which investigated the role of higher education in democracy. The report outlines the type of education necessary to reattach us to the promise of our great nation, an education “informed by deep engagement with the values of liberty, equality, individual worth, open mindedness, and the willingness to collaborate with people of differing views and backgrounds toward common solutions for the public good” (3). As we model this type of civil discourse at Central Washington University, we must build an environment of meaningful engagement with others who have different backgrounds and world views, from all parts of the state, the nation, and even the world. As Ronald Daniels notes in his recent book, What Universities Owe Democracy , “Effective democratic citizens reason and argue and tolerate and participate—they aspire to achieve the best version of their community and engage their fellow citizens and the political realm in that project” (93). And they do so with individuals who come from different backgrounds, have different perspectives, and operate from different value systems. As we work together to embody a new vision and mission at Central Washington University, we have the opportunity to demonstrate our commitment not only to be culturally responsive, but to be culturally sustaining—to truly elevate and sustain the various cultures, languages, literacies, histories, and communities that our students, faculty, and staff bring to our university and to the broader Kittitas Valley community. This is the great work that the 21st century calls upon us to take up, and given the opportunity we have as an institution of higher education to lead this work, our responsibility is great. We will need to try new strategies and approaches as we embody our new vision and mission, and some of them may fail—but failure in building a community of equity and belonging is not an option. Too much is at stake—too many lives and too much potential. Indeed, it is through the active engagement with the world around us that we deepen our learning into wisdom and become committed to something bigger than ourselves: we see, in that act of solving an intractable problem with others, that our work matters, for it can make the world a better place to live, work, and learn.

Pillar Three: Deep Purpose and Personal Fulfillment

My desire to leave education altogether after high school was driven partly by what I perceived at the time to be a narrow focus on career preparation. All of my friends were going to college to get jobs. I wanted something different: to find a pathway into a meaningful and purposeful life. Page 6

Let me be clear: professional preparation must be a central component of what we do. Like preparing students to be active civic agents, preparing students for the jobs of the future is an integral component of our work. It must drive our curriculum development, our pedagogy, and our co- and extra-curricular activities. But we must remember that professional preparation and civic agency are not the heart of what we do. At our core, we are about transforming students’ lives, their families’ lives, and their communities. This transformative project is not about producing widgets to fit into a corporate machine. It is about nurturing the growth of human beings—of offering opportunities that allow our graduates to become more fully themselves, realize their deepest, most profound potential, and flourish as whole and integrated human beings in healthy and whole communities. In The Heart of Higher Education , Parker Palmer and Arthur Zajonc connect teaching and learning to this more profound project. They note that “the ideals of a liberal education include integration across disciplines, connection to community, and alignment of one’s studies with the inner aspirations that give direction and meaning to one’s life” (7). What is truly at the heart of teaching and learning, as Palmer and Zajonc note, is “an education that embraces every dimension of what it means to be human, that honors the varieties of human experience, looks at us and our world through a variety of cultural lenses, and educates our young people in ways that enable them to face the challenges of our time” (20). To shift the teaching and learning experience towards a focus on the development of an integrated and whole human being would be radical—and natural, for it is truly how we, as a university, are different from other universities. Indeed, in 1898, Principal W. E. Wilson, the third leader of our historic institution, reported that Ellensburg Normal School was about more than training teachers; it was more fully about the “cultivation of the abilities and habits of the scholar” (Mohler 61). Under Wilson’s leadership, the curriculum was designed for “the strengthening and sharpening of the intellect, for the enlarging and liberalization of the mind, for the enrichment and invigoration of the whole life” (Mohler 62). As we offer a curriculum that advances the “whole life” of our students, can we do this work intentionally, and strategically, and developmentally? As Palmer and Zajonc note, “Our colleges and universities need to encourage, foster, and assist our students, faculty, [staff], and administrators in finding their own authentic way to an undivided life where meaning and purpose are tightly interwoven with intellect and action, where compassion and care are infused with insight and knowledge” (56). Can we develop a Central Experience that weaves together our curriculum and co-curriculum to foster an integrated and whole life? And do so through the lens of equity in order to build a community of belonging? Page 7

The Central Experience

What is wonderful about the project before us is that the work of professional preparation, civic agency, and deep purpose and personal fulfillment is not divergent—not three separate tasks we must take on. This work is emergent and interconnected. As we deepen our embrace of our new vision and mission, and as we set our sights on the horizon before us and the challenges that our students will face when they leave us, we have the opportunity to carefully and artfully craft a Central Experience that will equip our students to thrive in their careers and live purposeful and meaningful lives, and our economy and democracy to flourish. In order to take our work to the next level, we cannot ask about student readiness and must become focused on institutional readiness—that is, rather than focusing on the deficits that we perceive our students bring with them, we must focus on building the scaffolding necessary for all students to meet the challenges of the rigorous educational experience that the 21st century demands. We must prepare ourselves as an institution to help all of our students succeed at the highest levels possible and learn to value and sustain the richness of the identities, cultures, histories, languages, literacies, and backgrounds they bring with them. Indeed, can we emphasize, as a niche, the opportunity to learn from others who have different backgrounds from us? Can we model, as a university and local community, both inside and outside our classrooms, on and off campus, in Ellensburg and at our Centers, the ability to collaborate across differences in respectful and civil ways, with authentic deep listening? Can we work towards expanding our capacity to set aside, for a moment, our own thoughts and ideas and let someone else’s ideas take up space in our minds? To truly engage otherness in a way that honors the richness of diversity, which is truly the heart of innovation and creativity? To discern our own biases, put them aside, and truly consider another perspective? We should not be so intellectually insecure that we fear considering some new or different idea simply because it comes from someone who has a different set of life experiences. When we are ready, after much thoughtful deliberation and learning and reflection, and when the resources present themselves, I propose that we establish a Center for Engaged Leadership and Learning that would be the proponent of the Central Experience and that would allow us the opportunity to not only craft an intentional and developmental journey for our students and ourselves but also to assess, evaluate, and conduct research on this experience and then share that research with others so we can continue to learn and grow. The Center would become a hub for modeling the future of higher education for public comprehensive universities, creating an intentional and developmental model for engaged learning and high impact practices with a unique focus on bridging different perspectives, backgrounds, languages, literacies, and histories. We have much to learn from other institutions of higher education and much to share. Page 8

Conclusion

As you may have guessed, I never made it to Alaska. I did move to Colorado after high school, refusing to attend college. I worked as a plumber for much of that year, and I felt true accomplishment in that craft. But I didn’t feel like I was giving back, that I was utilizing my gifts and talents to further society. And I didn’t feel a deep sense of purpose and meaning. So I returned to college and found that I loved learning so much that I went on for a master’s degree and then a doctorate. My first position after finishing my PhD was at Florida Gulf Coast University, a public comprehensive much like Central Washington. And I became dedicated to this work of fulfilling the promise and potential of higher education for the people of this great country—people from all different backgrounds and abilities and even from across the world. I have been asked many times why I would want to be a president of an institution of higher education in this challenging time. We are experiencing decreased public support, increasing questions about the value of what we do, with adaptive challenges facing us: climate change, racial injustice, the polarization of our civic society. What I know is that no one person, not even a president, can solve or truly even engage these issues alone. There is no hero that can ride in and save us. We must do this work together. We must build a stronger governance system that blurs the boundaries between faculty, staff, students and administrators. We must come together as a community, to lead together, to transform what we do—together.

This is the moment that we have been given.

I am deeply honored to have been offered the opportunity to join you as the 15th president of Central Washington University, a special place that transforms lives, not because I have all the answers, but because I know, in my heart, that together we can figure out what questions to ask, how to ask them, and how to begin to find answers.

Thank you for joining me today. Thank you for the warm welcome. I look forward to the work before us.

Be well.

Page 9

References American Association of State Colleges and Universities. American Democracy Project. https://www.aascu.org/programs/ADP/ Association of American Colleges and Universities. Employer Survey Reports, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2015, 2018, 2021. Campus Compact. https://compact.org/ and Washington Campus Compact https://www.wacampuscompact.org/ . Daniels, Ronald J. What Universities Owe Democracy . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2020. Gallup, Inc. “Great Jobs. Great Lives.” The 2014, 2015, and 2016 Reports. Higher Education for Democracy: A Report of the President’s Commission on Higher Education . Vol. I-VI. https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.89917/2015.89917.Higher-Education-For-Ameri - can-Democracy-A-Report-Of-The-Presidents-Commission-On-Higher-Education-Vol-I---Vi_djvu.txt Mohler, Samuel R. The First 75 Years: A history of Central Washington State College . Ellensburg: Central Washington State College, 1967. The National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement. A Crucible Moment: College Learning and Democracy’s Future . Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2012. Palmer, Parker J. and Arthur Zajonc. The Heart of Higher Education: A Call to Renewal . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010. Pasquerella, Lynn. “The Quest for Solutions That Unite.” Liberal Education (Fall 2021): 2-3. Washington, George. “1790 State of the Union.” https://www.mountvernon.org/education/primary-sources/state-of-the-union-address/

CWU IS AN EEO/AA/TITLE IX INSTITUTION. FOR ACCOMMODATION EMAIL: [email protected].

Page 10