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Emotions High As WVU Board Of Governors Approves Cuts To Programs, Positions

After weeks of contentious meetings, walkouts and protests, the West Virginia University Board of Governors has voted to eliminate 28 majors and more than 140 faculty positions at West Virginia University.

Updated on Friday, Sept. 15, 2023 at 3:30 p.m.

After weeks of heated meetings, walkouts and protests, the West Virginia University (WVU) Board of Governors has voted to eliminate 28 majors and more than 140 faculty positions at West Virginia University.

Following a presentation that outlined the financial challenges and enrollment decline that led to proposed cuts at WVU, students began chanting loudly and emotionally as board members started to vote. After several minutes, students exited the room, continuing to chant, as board chair Taunja Willis Miller called for order.

“No student was asked to leave,” she said. “And I will not let that misinformation be spread.”

This is just a snapshot into the weeks of contention at West Virginia University.

Some of the schools, departments and programs that will be affected by the cuts include Education, Management, Creative Arts, Law, various sciences and mathematics, Communication Studies, Philosophy, among others.

Notable is the full elimination of the World Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics Department. The only exception for this department are continued elective courses in Spanish and Chinese, and seven faculty positions in this department will be saved.

Ten of the 28 majors eliminated are undergraduate majors, while the remaining 18 are graduate or professional majors.

According to school officials, the reduction in undergraduate majors, including double majors, will affect 91 students. At the graduate and professional levels, the reduction will impact 238 students.

It was noted in the meeting that students who will be affected by the eliminations would either be able to complete their majors or be offered alternative majors that “meets their academic goals.”

Additionally, the Master of Fine Arts in Acting, which was previously a proposed cut, will be retained.

WVU’s Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Maryanne Reed was the last person to speak ahead of the vote. She acknowledged the difficult decision to eliminate so many academic programs but argued it will make the university stronger.

“Even with the accelerated timeline, this was a thoughtful, professional and data informed process. I am proud of the work done by the members of our team who has spent the last six months entirely focused on this effort,” Reed said. “They did so, as did I, believing that this was the right thing to do to preserve our beloved WVU for the future. I recognize that many of my colleagues and friends do not feel the same way, some of you are in the room, and I respect your right to argue against these changes … While this has been a challenging time, I truly believe brighter days are ahead of us if we can rebuild trust and work together toward building an even better and a more sustainable WVU.”

The university will still offer more than 300 academic programs.

New Student Organization Opposes WVU Program Cuts

Opposition at West Virginia University to proposed program cuts – including a student walkout and demonstrations at university meetings – has been led by the recently formed West Virginia United Student Union.

The West Virginia University Board of Governors will vote Friday on proposed cuts to programs at the university’s Morgantown campus. Campus opposition to the cuts – including a student walkout and demonstrations at university meetings – has been led by the recently formed West Virginia United Student Union.

Reporter Chris Schulz sat down with two of the union’s founding members, Matthew Kolb and Christian Adams, to talk about their efforts.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Schulz: Mathew, I’ll start with you. What exactly is the West Virginia University Student Union?

Kolb: The West Virginia United Students Union, it’s a union of students and student organizations on WVU’s Morgantown campus. We’ve been working to advocate for student voices in a way that let’s say, for example, the student government hasn’t been able to do. We’ve been organizing for only a few months now, we’ve got over 350 members, we’re looking at possibly having over 500 within the next week or two. We’re growing pretty rapidly. We’ve gotten a lot of support from the community. Right now our goal is making sure that we build a strong foundation for organizing students on the campus this year, and next year, and every year following.

Schulz: So Christian, can you add to that a little bit? Can you tell me a little bit more about what it is the organization is capable of doing that more traditional entities like the SGA can’t?

Adams: Yeah, so ultimately, the Student Union provides a much more participatory platform for students to engage with local politics, whether that be on the level of SGA, or the Board of Governors or even within the state politics, because ultimately it serves as a platform and a voice for a large quantity of students to be capable of engaging in.

Schulz: Christian, I’ll continue with you. Can you tell me a little bit about the history?

Adams: We announced it, I believe it was July 20 of this year. We had definitely started thinking about it all the way back at the end of April, and kind of how to create it. Originally, it was just an idea for a simple newsletter. But as time progressed, and as we found out more and more about the cuts, we understood that to organize effectively, we had to move beyond that, and create something that allowed students to engage much more thoroughly than just a newsletter.

Schulz: Matthew, would you say that it’s accurate that the cuts kind of motivated the creation of this organization?

Kolb: Completely accurate. In general, having a student union like ours that can represent students the way it does is important, no matter the time, or place, but the fact that the cuts were so, the proposals were so widespread, affecting so many students, it really motivated them to get in, get involved in a way that they might not have at any other time. We’re hoping that we are going to be able to build solidarity right now that will continue past this issue. A lot of organizing happens based around issues, and it’s hard to get students and really anyone involved in a unionization effort if there’s not an apparent issue directly in front of them.

Schulz: So tell me Christian a little bit more about what organizing actually looks like on the ground right now.

Adams: Around this issue in general, most of what we do is research, essentially combating the current narrative that the administration has been putting forth. A lot of what we’ve been doing has been working towards allowing the faculty and the students to have a voice. But in terms of concretely how we do that a lot of it is fliers, showing up to meetings, it is reading articles, it is poring over the data and trying to establish a concrete and coherent narrative around what is going on.

Schulz: Matthew, anything to add to that?

Kolb: One of the important things about the student union is the way that it brings students from across the university together to advocate for themselves and for their peers. We’re able to bring in a bunch of decentralized information, centralize it and then distribute it to everybody in that organization. That’s one of the more important things that we have been doing was making sure that we’re informing our members and other students of these events going on, that they need to show up to, they need to ask questions, give comments, give their thoughts, tell administration, student government, the Board of Governors, how these recommendations are going to affect them.

Schulz: What do you feel has been the impact of organizing so far Matthew?

Kolb: I’m an undergraduate senior, this is my fourth year I’m going into right now. The three, four years I have been here, I have not seen a campus culture at WVU like I see it today. I fully believe that this student union has altered the way that students relate to each other, the way they relate to faculty and staff and how they understand the power dynamics at this university. We’re hoping that that cultural change is a permanent change at this campus.

Adams: Well, I would definitely agree with Matthew that the culture on the WVU campus has shifted dramatically, but we’ve also seen the faculty be emboldened significantly, and we’ve seen the relationship between the administration and the students and the faculty changed dramatically as the power imbalance has…it’s been pushing towards being more level. The administration is starting to get scared. We are concretely creating long term institutional power that will be able to affect change on campus and across our community.

Schulz: More broadly, what other issues is the union concerned with, beyond the immediacy of the cuts, Matthew?

Kolb: There have been discussions about accessibility on campus to speaking about tuition, making sure that tuition is affordable. The cost of housing on campus, making sure you know that everybody in West Virginia has the opportunity to go to WVU. Making sure that college athletes are adequately compensated for their work. Discussions about holding administration accountable, holding the Board of Governors accountable, things of that nature. Especially right now, when the administration holds such power, building a sort of democratic power at the university that does not exist right now. But people have been trying to make it exist. We don’t want to try to make it exist, we want it to exist, and we’re going to make it exist.

Schulz: Do you feel like what your organization, what your union has done so far will have a meaningful impact come Friday?
Kolb: Friday will come and Friday will go. We may succeed, we may not. But what is maybe even more important is how our union succeeds at cementing itself as a legitimate and credible fighting force on this campus, for students and by students. So whenever the time comes that they might think about doing what they have done and are trying to do now, maybe they will think otherwise. Because they know that there will be a reaction from the students. They know that they can’t hide it like they used to, they know that they can’t peddle a narrative to the press like they used to, because the faculty, staff and students have been working to try to meet them where they’re at power wise with manufacturing a narrative, to make sure that our stories get out there, that our research gets out there so that everything people read is not just what the administration wants them to read.

Student Union Talks Proposed WVU Cuts And Amy Ray Band Has Our Song Of The Week, This West Virginia Morning

On this West Virginia Morning, the West Virginia University Board of Governors is expected to vote Friday morning on proposed cuts to programs at the university’s Morgantown campus. Chris Schulz sat down with two members of the recently formed West Virginia United Student Union to talk about their efforts to protest the cuts.

On this West Virginia Morning, the West Virginia University Board of Governors is expected to vote Friday morning on proposed cuts to programs at the university’s Morgantown campus. Chris Schulz sat down with two members of the recently formed West Virginia United Student Union to talk about their efforts to protest the cuts.

Also, in this show, our Mountain Stage Song of the Week comes to us from Amy Ray Band, who has been performing on Mountain Stage since 1990. We listen to the song “A Mighty Thing.”

West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.

Support for our news bureaus comes from Concord University and Shepherd University.

Our Appalachia Health News project is made possible with support from CAMC and Marshall Health.

West Virginia Morning is produced with help from Bill Lynch, Briana Heaney, Caroline MacGregor, Chris Schultz, Curtis Tate, Emily Rice, Eric Douglas, Liz McCormick, and Randy Yohe.

Eric Douglas is our news director. Caroline MacGregor is our assistant news director and producer.

Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning

WVU Community Speaks Against Program Cuts Ahead Of Board Vote Friday

Dozens of West Virginia University community members spoke out against proposed cuts to university programming ahead of a vote Friday.

Dozens of West Virginia University (WVU) community members spoke out against proposed cuts to university programming ahead of a vote Friday.

For more than three hours Thursday, faculty, students, alumni and community members pleaded with the WVU Board of Governors to reject or freeze proposed cuts to university programs. Speakers were each limited to two minutes.

First to speak was Student Body President Madison Santmyer, who read a student assembly opinion and an assembly resolution, both in opposition to the cuts.

“The new budget model used to make these decisions was not adequately explained by administrators,” she read. “Communication by the university on academic transformation, especially regarding final decisions on the future of academic programs, has failed to meet students where they are, and has been muddled in administrative jargon.”

Brian Woerner, a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, urged the board to carefully consider the implications of the cuts before their vote.

“Graduates from these majors have driven the growth of the software industry in Morgantown, Fairmont and Clarksburg over the last few decades,” he said. “I fear that significant cuts will limit economic development opportunities for the state and surrounding region for years to come.”

Masters student Zachary Gilpin warned of the unintended consequences of cuts beyond their intended programs. He said multiple programs will be impacted that are not listed for termination, or for loss and faculty.

“These programs depend on education and programs for World Languages in order to advance research that you are offering as an example of success in one area,” Gilpin said. “You have to consider that there are downstream impacts. Isolating any given program as one individual particle or one atom to analyze doesn’t make any sense in the complex ecosystem of a university.”

Gilpin also questioned the qualifications of administrators to suggest such cuts.

“I implore you to consider that while your administrators may have expertise when it comes to gutting worker’s comp in West Virginia, perhaps they’re not the best whenever it comes to recommending how to reform education at the level of WVU,” he said.

Gilpin was not alone in criticizing the administrators who have proposed the cuts.

“We’re also very well aware that the administration’s salaries have increased by $50 million since 2013,” said undergraduate Miles Case. “You’ve already done significant damage to our university. And so now it’s your duty and your obligation to fix it.”

He then turned his attention on President Gordon Gee, who received a lopsided vote of no confidence from the faculty last week.

“You were correct when you said that higher education is under attack, but I think you forgot to mention that you were the one who was attacking it,” Case said.

Many took the time to discuss the impact the university had on their lives, and how the proposed cuts would have limited their opportunities.

First generation college student Olivia Dowler said a college education wasn’t expected of her.

“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 the school. And so to all these people, that’s why we’re here today.”

Not one person spoke in favor of the proposed cuts.

The board will meet again Friday at 9 a.m. to vote.

Board Of Education Hears Updates On School Discipline

Educational leaders have expressed concern about a legislative change to school discipline that makes it easier to suspend a student.

At the Wednesday meeting of the West Virginia Board of Education, Board President Paul Hardesty called a new requirement introduced by House Bill 2890 a “train wreck waiting to happen.”

The bill was written to give school teachers and administrators more leeway in school discipline, but the statute mandates that students be suspended if removed from a classroom three times in one month.

Hardesty said he’s concerned the law doesn’t define why a student would be removed, and that inexperienced teachers might remove students without cause.

“We have special needs teachers that have specializations, that have training to know what to look for in this child with this type of deficiencies and behavioral patterns,” he said. “We take a long term sub and put them in a classroom that has no training. Now we give them the capacity to become arbitrary and capricious in their actions for a child to get a finite result of being kicked out of school. It may be well intended but you’re not hitting what you’re shooting at.”

School discipline data presented by the West Virginia Department of Education to the board earlier this year showed that the state’s students already lose a collective 178,000 instructional days to suspensions.

Drew McClanahan, director of leadership development for the state Department of Education, presented the board with an update to the Student Behavior Response Plan that resulted from the May study. He identified three areas that comprise the focus of the plan: training and support, accountability and policy.

“With the training support piece, I am excited to announce that we’ve been looking at data practices for school administrators,” McClanahan said. “Root cause analyses have been a part of supports and trainings that we provided throughout the summer. We’ve had some best practices related to classroom management, engagement and structural quality.”

McClanahan also reported his office is working with the Behavior Technical Assistance Center at Marshall University to expand training and support for educators. He also announced that the public, statewide dashboard announced at the May board meeting and meant to promote transparency and accountability around school discipline is ready.

“We believe that it will give the public an opportunity to see what types of discipline are being used at a school,” McClanahan said. “We hope that that gives the community an active opportunity to have meaningful conversations with school administrators on what’s being used at their school.”

The discipline dashboard can be found in the state’s ZoomWV information portal.

Gee Responds To Questions At Faculty Senate Meeting

West Virginia University faculty and students had a lot of questions for the university president about looming cuts to programs during Monday’s Faculty Senate meeting.

West Virginia University faculty and students had a lot of questions about looming cuts to programs during Monday’s Faculty Senate meeting.

WVU President Gordon Gee delivered a statement addressing what he called misrepresentations of the academic transformation process at the start of the meeting.

“I will not accept the narrative being promulgated that we have mismanaged this university, where we are making it a lesser university,” he said. “That is absolutely far from the truth.”

He dismissed claims that the university’s budgets were designed around the aspiration of growing enrollment, or that the university’s debt load increased by 55 percent. Gee also emphasized that the university has been addressing areas of concern since 2016.

“Almost every program that was put on watch was told three years ago that they were going to be recommended for discontinuance because they were not operating at an optimum level including declining enrollments,” he said. “They had multiple opportunities to bring forth viable options for change.”

After his statement, Gee spent more than a half hour answering questions from faculty members and students, many of whom questioned his assertions.

Asked by one student if he would take a pay cut to help mitigate the budget shortfall, Gee responded that he had not had a pay raise in the 10 years since his return to the university.

“I don’t advertise that I also am a major donor to the university, I have given a substantial amount of money,” Gee said. “During the pandemic, there was a decision made that we would not cut any salaries for the teaching faculty. But we did ask our senior administration and our athletic department – for all of them to cut their salaries. And they did.”

Douglas Terry, an English professor in Beckley, asked how eliminating World Languages would lead to WVU providing a robust liberal arts education.

“We’re in a modern country, we have many modern ways now to teach foreign languages and to teach and to engage in culture,” Gee said. “There is not just one way to salvation, there’s a number of ways of salvation and that’s exactly what we are doing and what we’re going to explore.”

Gee also used the opportunity to discuss the World Language Department’s performance issues.

“They had a student faculty ratio better than the department of surgery and on top of it, they said, ‘Well, we’re making $800,000.’” he said. “That is false, from the very start, because what they’re doing is they’re counting student hours. That is someone else’s money.”

Mathematics professor Ela Celikbas asked about the impact of the proposal to cut the university’s math PhD, particularly on math education.

“Mathematics is critical to our sciences, but it doesn’t mean that we need to do it the way that everyone else does it,” Gee said. “The fundamental issue is, math is critical. But not every aspect of mathematics in this state at this university is critical.”

The remainder of the meeting was focused on the details of the reduction in force and non renewal process if the Board of Governors votes Friday to approve cuts to programs.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Board of Governors released an open letter jointly with Gee reiterating many of the points he made during the Faculty Senate meeting.