West Virginia University will make wide-ranging cuts to academic programs and faculty
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — West Virginia University will make wide-ranging cuts to academic programs and faculty positions as it addresses a $45 million budget shortfall, with the board’s vote Friday culminating an impassioned back-and-forth between the campus community, students and officials.
The state’s largest university will drop 28 of its majors, or about 8%, and cut at least 143 of the faculty positions, or around 5%. Among the cuts are one-third of education department faculty and the entire world language department, although seven language teaching positions are being retained and students can take some language courses as electives.
The university Board of Governors’ vote came as the university in Morgantown has been weighed down financially by a 10% drop in enrollment since 2015, revenue lost during the COVID-19 pandemic and an increasing debt load for new building projects.
The cuts are on top of those made in June, when the board approved $7 million in staff reductions, or around 132 positions, slashed 12 graduate and doctorate programs and approved a 3% tuition increase.
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Students holding signs, including one that read " “This isn’t the WVU that I fell in love with,” briefly interrupted Friday’s meeting with shouts just prior to the board’s vote. Dozens of speakers, including students and faculty, vehemently opposed the cuts during a public hearing Thursday before the board.
Earlier this month a faculty group approved separate, symbolic motions expressing no confidence in school President E. Gordon Gee and calling for a freeze in the ongoing cuts, which the American Federation of Teachers called “draconian and catastrophic.”
WVU has labeled the cuts as an “academic transformation” amid an “existential crisis” in higher education.
It wasn’t immediately clear when the cuts would be effective. Reduction letters to staff and faculty were scheduled to be sent in mid-October.
Speaking to faculty earlier this year, Gee said higher education has “lost the support and trust of the American public.”
“I want to be very blunt: We have been isolated, we have been arrogant, we have told the American public what they should think,” he said, adding that institutions like WVU have to “turn that around almost immediately, otherwise we have a very bleak future.”
Critics saw a different a set of circumstances, accusing the administration of financial mismanagement, poor strategic planning and lack of transparency in a state with the lowest rate of college graduates and highest rate of population exodus. West Virginia is the only state that now has fewer residents than it did in 1950.
The university’s budget shortfall is projected to grow as high as $75 million in five years.
WVU has spent millions of dollars on construction projects in recent years, including a $100 million new home for the university’s business school, a $35 million renovation of a 70-year-old classroom building and $41 million for two phases of upgrades to the football team’s building.
Gov. Jim Justice rejected suggestions earlier this week that state funding should be used to help WVU, in light of the state’s $1.8 billion surplus in the 2023 fiscal year that ended in June.
Last month the Republican governor signed a bill giving $45 million for Marshall University to open a new cybersecurity center.
Justice said he believes there’s little interest among state legislative leaders “to basically bail out WVU.”
“What we really need to do is let WVU have the time to get their house in order,” Justice said.
The governor reiterated his confidence in Gee, whose contract was extended in July by the board by one year to June 2025. In regard to the cuts, Justice said “there is absolutely no question of what has happened is some level of bloating in programs and things that maybe, just maybe, we ought not to be teaching at WVU.”
Physics and astronomy Professor Sean McWilliams told board members Thursday that all other “R1” research institutions offer a graduate degree in math, and that he fears the cuts will damage the school’s reputation. He said the near-elimination of world languages “reinforces the unfortunate stereotype that many potential international applicants fear: that West Virginia is insular unwelcoming and not interested in engaging with an increasingly global community.”
“We have to combat that depression every year and this makes our job harder,” he said.
Olivia Dowler, a first generation college student who majors in history, Spanish and philosophy, said as an eighth-generation West Virginian, she has pride in the university where she’s worked as a tour guide and a new student orientation leader.
“Please don’t make me have to say that I’m embarrassed to go here,” she said. “Please don’t make me feel guilty whenever I tell students that they should come here. I love this state and this school.”
Assistant English department chair Christine Hoffmann said the moves will drive many faculty to seek new employment, even if their positions aren’t eliminated.
“As long as I’m here, my priority is the students I serve,” she said. “I’m also going to need to prioritize my escape from a place where the people in charge will spit in your face and tell you it’s raining,”
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