Wanda Fernandopulle

Dr. Wanda Fernandopulle received her doctorate from Nova Southeastern University in Higher Education Leadership doing her dissertation in attrition and retention rates for African American male college students. She received a M.Ed. in Adult Education from The University of South Carolina (Columbia) and a M.Ed. in Instructional Accommodations from Francis Marion University. Her BA is from Francis Marion University in English. In her profession, Dr. Fernandopulle served as an administrator in the City University of New York (CUNY). She led the restructuring of many campus-wide departments/units. Dr. Fernandopulle was invited to speak in Hawaii about the Black Male Initiative/Male Initiative of New York City. In 2008, Dr. Fernandopulle was nominated and received the AIR Fellow by the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition and the Association of Institutional Research Award. Dr. Fernandopulle has over 28 years of experience in higher education. She has been a published contributing writer for Harvard University/Oxford University Press/W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, where she helps to preserve African American history. She has taught several graduate level courses in the history and politics of higher education, governance and structure, strategic planning, fiscal management in higher education, developing the research proposal, research, and dissertation courses to name a few. Dr. Fernandopulle recently joined Walden University in 2023 as a contributing faculty member. Outside of working with several doctoral students, Dr. Fernandopulle enjoys spending quality time with her daughter who is an African American artist.