UPDATE – Nov. 23, 2025. 2:12p.m. – Multiple corrections have been made to this article. They will be demarcated with double asterisks (**) to prevent confusion with pseudonyms.

(1.) Gina Zandy Ohnstead disputes the claim – made by Professor White* – that professors lost out on bonuses. “Employees do not receive bonuses.”

(2.) “Professors need 1 FTE, or five courses…” has been corrected to “Professors need 0.75 FTE, or four courses…”

(3.) Jeff Hamrick’s quote, “We’ve got faculty that are not experts in tax and compliance matters…” has been moved to better reflect its context surrounding rental adjustment rates at the beginning of fiscal year 2025.

(4.) Conversations about potential future budget reductions are being held firstly by the Joint Compensation Committee before being moved along to the “Second Working Group / President’s Cabinet.”

*Avery Doe, Professors Martin, Garland, Newman, White and Clark are pseudonyms to protect source anonymity.

On Oct. 21 faculty and staff were notified over email that Whitman College is introducing a new health care coverage plan that will raise prices for monthly premiums. Rising premiums follow national trends, but these changes come in the midst of faculty losing out on raises this year, course load reductions for non-tenure track professors, rising housing costs and the recent faculty vote to forgo bonuses in order to prevent further layoffs. 

This comes after a statement released on June 4, 2025, which announced sweeping budget cuts aiming to close the college’s budget deficit. The anticipated decline in the college’s revenue, which is typically gained from an assortment of sources, including incoming tuition dollars and donations, yielded a $3 million shortfall.

In this announcement, faculty and staff were alerted that non-cabinet employees earning over $70,000 in salary would not receive their expected 2% raises. Most salaries will be increased by 1%, but because inflation has been rising at the rate of 3% per year, this will translate to a 1% reduction in salary.

“Example: a staff member was paid $100,000 this year. For next year, they got a 2% raise, and so their salary would be $102,000. With the 1% reduction, their salary will instead be $101,000 next year,” President Bolton wrote in the announcement. With the current rate of inflation, the aforementioned staff member would need to have their salary raised to $103,000 in order to retain their purchasing power.

The new health care plan introduces a Health Savings Account (HSA) as an alternative to the current health coverage plan, which is a  Preferred Provider Organization (PPO). Enrollment for one of the two plans opened Nov. 17 and will run through Dec. 1. Employees have expressed dissatisfaction with this plan due to their worry that it will make healthcare costs significantly more expensive for those with families and health conditions. 

Health care coverage is one benefit provided for faculty and staff outside of their yearly salary.

**When asked about the risk of cutting other non-salaried compensations like retirement plans and tuition remission, Hamrick said that conversations are held primary amongst the Joint Compensation Committee before recommendations and feedback are moved along to a “Second Working Group / President’s Cabinet”, according to Gina Zandy Ohnstead.

“No decisions have been made yet, and those conversations really haven’t even kicked off yet,” Hamrick said. 

Vice President of Communications Gina Zandy-Ohnstad expressed the college’s hopes to retain competitive salaries for faculty and staff.

“We at Whitman 100% want to be a place where we are competitive when we talk about salaries,” Zandy-Ohnstad said. “We are facing some market challenges right now, but it’s really important that our staff and faculty are well-compensated and making comparable [salaries] to our peers.”

As administrative committees consider potential changes to compensation, some employees feel uncertain about the future of their benefits. Though changes to other benefits have not yet been considered by the college, faculty members like Professor Martin* expressed concerns that health care is only the first domino to fall.

“Health care is the first thing that’s going on the chopping block … next is going to be retirement plans and the next is going to be tuition remission,” Martin said. 

Martin said that fears about cuts to retirement and tuition benefits have been circulating amongst faculty, adding that it will affect families the most.

“I’m really, really concerned about my colleagues who have families, because that jump [in health care costs] is really high,” Martin said.

Professor Martin added that salaries effectively shrink each year, especially compared to the rising cost of living. In addition to the new costs, faculty sacrificed their bonuses for the 2025-26 fiscal year to prevent additional layoffs.

“Our salaries have not kept up. Many of us [will not be] given our bonuses this year; we had to take that big cut in order to make sure that other staff members got that pay and were not laid off,” Martin said. 

**Gina Zandy Ohnstead has disputed the claim that employees receive bonuses and stated that “‘sacrificing bonuses to prevent layoffs’ was not part of any budget conversations.”

Faculty member Professor White* said more layoffs have been announced and those positions will not be rehired.

“The Provost announced all of the non-hiring/layoffs [happening] here towards the end of November … That means almost everyone on that list will be unemployed next year as well because job applications in academia usually happen in the early fall. In every way possible, this current Whitman administration has been anti-worker, anti-human,” White said. 

This comes after 10 staff members were laid off on June 4. Avery Doe,* a current staff member, recalled when staff received notice that there would be 10-15 layoffs over three weeks before decisions were made. Doe said that waiting for the layoffs created a “bleak” atmosphere, as staff waited to see if they would still be employed in June.

“I don’t think it’s an understatement to say that [the experience] was really traumatizing,” Doe said. “Having something like 300 people waiting three and a half weeks to see who would get laid off was not humane.”

Another cause of concern and frustration has been the increased costs of Whitman-provided faculty housing, faculty say. Some faculty members are leaving Whitman housing in search of more affordable alternatives.

“The housing cost has deeply impacted me,” Martin said. 

Whitman owns a total of 28 rental units reserved for faculty and staff and charges monthly rent. When Martin arrived at Whitman, they said they were surprised with a higher rent price than what was originally agreed upon. Martin added that this had happened to multiple other new employees around the same time. 

“We got information [about rent increases] really late after we signed our contracts with Whitman … Faculty housing was around $1,000 last year, but when we got our offers, we were basically told we had to pay $1,900-$2,100. It was a jump,” Martin said. “[We] were not given this information when we were signing our contracts.” 

Because of the rent increase, Martin was forced to move.

“I decided I had to move out. I was sent a notice offering a renewal, but I said no,” Martin said. 

Martin added that the administration cited tax laws as a reason for the increase. Nonetheless, they believe the administration is pushing costs onto faculty that the college would typically shoulder.

“[The administration is] basically putting that tax burden onto the faculty,” Martin said.

When asked to comment on the faculty’s shifting housing conditions, Jeff Hamrick said that these changes were made to comply with tax codes.

“I think there’s been a fair amount of confusion about this topic and that some faculty are deliberately contributing to that confusion rather than relieving that confusion” he said.

**“We’ve got faculty that are not experts in tax and compliance matters, who have struggled to understand this, and who believe that it is … a choice about priorities or making life tougher for faculty members,” Hamrick said. “In fact, that had nothing to do with the adjustments whatsoever.”

Hamrick later clarified, “I think a very small handful of faculty may be doing that.”

Hamrick went on to note that the college has decreased some rents.

“I want to be super clear that as we step from fiscal ’25 … to fiscal ’26, most faculty and staff did not see a monthly increase in their rent. In fact, we cut a couple of them by $100.”

Hamrick explained that cases where rent was raised was a matter of requiring tenants to pay the full amount so that their discounted rates did not become taxable compensation. According to Hamrick, faculty and staff paid a lower rent for institution housing. If the college failed to report reduced costs for housing, it would jeopardize their legal standing.

“Another thing I believe that some faculty members have been misleading students about [is that] we did not raise anyone’s rent.” Hamrick said. 

He added that this was a matter of the college’s administration covering their bases, and protecting Whitman from increased federal scrutiny in light of the current presidential administration. 

“In an environment where we shifted presidential administrations, and it became much more likely that the federal government would use audits as forms of attack against colleges or universities, we have really been very careful about crossing our T’s and dotting our I’s,” Hamrick said.

While administrators reconsider housing prices and the college’s tax status, employees must balance their income with both changing costs instituted by the college and the local economy. Professor Clark,* a senior faculty member, echoed Professor Martin’s frustrations with a stagnating salary and the costs of living in Walla Walla. 

“I’ve seen my real salary shrink steadily since 2014. I get paid about the same today (or a little less) than I was 11 years ago,” Clark said. “It’s getting increasingly hard to make ends meet and my story is not unique.” 

Professor Clark said they feel forced to decide between searching for additional income and enriching students’ academic experience at Whitman. 

“This is demoralizing. It’s also distracting,” Clark said. “I’m spending a lot more time worrying about money at the new corporate Whitman, and that saps energy and goodwill that I used to throw into creating innovative new curriculum and opportunities for students.”

In addition to concerns about lacking the support necessary to provide quality education, faculty on the non-tenure track are experiencing course-load reductions. It is unclear whether this will result in remaining professors having to teach more courses or in a reduction to the college’s course catalogue. 

Professor Garland* is a non-tenure track faculty member at the college who says that healthcare benefit concerns are compounding with recent cuts to course loads.

“We’ve gotten news in the last 24-hours about significant cuts to the course loads for non-tenure track faculty,” Garland said on Wednesday, Nov. 19.

These cuts to faculty courseloads have led some on the non-tenure track to fall below the Full Time Equivalent (FTE) necessary to qualify for benefits. Non-tenure track faculty who have lost their benefits may have to enroll as dependents on their partner’s health care plan in order to stay insured.

“The price of health care for a dependent is going up. For those of us whose families are bound up at Whitman, it’s multiple hits at once,” Garland said. 

Professor Susanne Beechey, Chair of the Faculty, added that no loss of educators is an easy one, saying that the priority will always be the needs of students, which the Committee of Division Chairs (CDC) always aims to reflect.

“We have really excellent visiting and adjunct professors at Whitman so we do feel that loss when those colleagues do not return for another year or see reductions in their course load. But staffing requests must focus on the needs of students to progress through the curriculum,” Beechey said. “That is the focus of the CDC in our recommendations.” 

Some faculty members who are losing their FTE are married to faculty members at the college whose courseloads remain the same. In a case like these, not only could a household lose income because one partner has had a significant salary reduction, but the household would also then have to accommodate an increased health insurance bill at the same time.

Professor White is in a similar position as a tenured professor married to a professor on the non-tenure track. White told The Wire that for the first time since the couple has been at Whitman, White’s partner has been given only one class, even though their department requested four. Teaching one class fulfills .2 FTE. **Professors need 0.75 FTE, or four courses during the academic year, to qualify for benefits like healthcare coverage.

“This means that [my partner] will be cut out of insurance benefits. Along with the fact that our insurance benefits have gone up, we are now contemplating how to live in a situation with nearly half of our family income missing,” White said

Professor Garland said that employees at some colleges usually experience a cut in one area at a time. For example, they might lose health care benefits but still have a wage that increases with the cost of living. However, employees at Whitman are navigating an untenable cost of living in Walla Walla, combined with a lack of raises, lack of bonuses, cuts to courseloads for some, resulting in a loss of benefits entirely and an increasing cost of healthcare.

“It feels like people’s livelihoods are being attacked from all directions,” Garland said.

Combined with national pricing and inflation trends, budget cuts on campus impact affordability for Whitman’s employees.

“It’s all bundled together, all of these things that the administration is doing, the decisions they’re making are all contributing to [rising costs for employees]. It feels like a perfect storm,” Newman said. 

“At the same time they make our cost of living unbearably high, they buy [Big House] Brew Pub down the street,” White said, adding that the recent business decision has exposed the administration’s fiscal priorities beyond any doubt.

Doe voiced feelings among staff that the college’s administrators are distanced from the college’s daily lifeblood.

“The cabinet and Board don’t seem to have a granular understanding of the intricate and important jobs we all do here. Sarah Bolton is not cleaning the toilets. Jeff Hamrick is not patching the walls or teaching the classes,” Doe said.

Professor Clark also feels that there is a growing disparity between Whitman’s budgetary goals and the college’s mission as an educational institution. 

“Folks at the top have lost track of what actually makes this college such a great place to be. There seems to be an idea that we can cut and cut and cut our way to sustainability. That’s a losing gamble,” Clark said. “We need to build up a better college to attract and retain students. That has to start with investing in people.”

As the administration continues to make changes across campus, they say their primary aim is to keep the college safe and maintain a balanced budget and that none of the recent cuts are designed to target employees. Faculty and staff say morale is on the decline as they await future changes to compensation and benefits. Some believe that fiscal changes jeopardize the quality of service and scholarship that they can provide, or their ability to remain in academia at all. The introduction of a new health care plan seems to be the tipping point leading employees to voice their discontent with the college’s budgeting decisions.