Tanner Rogers grew up in West Virginia. He wants to live in his home state. He hopes to someday raise his children there.
But a sweeping plan of academic cuts at West Virginia University could alter Mr. Rogers’s plans. His graduate degree program in linguistics is one of numerous programs on the chopping block as the flagship school battles a $45 million deficit.
Now, Mr. Rogers, who earned his undergraduate degree from WVU, is considering transferring to another school to complete his master’s degree. If he stays at WVU, he isn’t certain that the school would even offer a pathway to complete his degree.
And he also wonders how cuts, if they come to fruition, could impact future generations in his home state. The entire situation is still “baffling” to him.
“If my children cannot get a quality higher education in our own state, what does that leave us?” said Mr. Rogers, from Martinsburg, W. Va. “There are a lot of people in the state who use West Virginia University as a way to become socially mobile and economically mobile… If people don’t have that opportunity, [it] leaves the state of West Virginia poorer — not only intellectually, but economically.”
In mid-August, leaders at the deficit-laden university recommended eliminating 32 academic programs, merging 15 others, and laying off nearly 170 faculty members. If slashes actualize, the university would eliminate all of its world languages majors and the state’s only mathematics doctorate program.
Mr. Rogers is just one of hundreds of students who would be impacted by the proposed cuts, on which WVU’s board of governors will vote on Friday.
Isaac Smith, a senior studying math and French, said if the board approves elimination of the French major, he will no longer be able to earn his French degree. This semester, his classes are filled with angst from students whose academic paths are muddied and professors whose jobs are up in the air.
“[In] my French class, we’ve all been very upset,” said Mr. Smith, from Marshall County, W. Va. “We’ve all grown into this tight-knit family, and it’s going to be dismantled. It’s insane.”
Tense vibes aren’t limited to Mr. Smith’s French classes. Signs decorating campus walls and lamp posts denounce the cuts. In August, hundreds of students protested the plan, and last week, nearly 800 faculty members voted to express no confidence in WVU President Gordon Gee. A walkout and rally is planned during Friday’s board meeting.
About 400 students have also formed a students’ union that aims to represent students during the academic transformation process. Dante Pulice, a member of the students’ union, said the group wants to see transparency from university administration.
“We have been pushing for transparency and trying to hold the administration directly accountable,” said Mr. Pulice, a senior studying philosophy from Burgettstown, Pa.
Though WVU officials say cuts would impact just 147 undergraduate students and 287 graduate students, dissenters like Mr. Rogers have warned that axing some programs could have a domino effect at the R-1 institution.
At least one domino has already fallen. Maggie Sauers, a junior studying math with an emphasis in actuarial science, said the school’s only actuarial science professor is leaving WVU because of job stability concerns related to the cuts — and she’s taking the actuarial science program with her.
The state’s only actuarial science program is now in its last semester. Ms. Sauers, from Parkersburg, W. Va., had to adjust her schedule this fall to ensure she could complete all of the classes she needed to earn her emphasis in the program.
The university’s financial decisions have also impacted Ms. Sauers’s job as a math tutor. She said WVU sliced the math tutoring services’ budget in half, leaving staffers overworked.
Describing the entire situation as “disheartening,” Ms. Sauers worries that more cuts could be on the horizon — and wonders how that would impact student and faculty retention.
“I could foresee more people leaving,” she said. “No one wants to stay at a university where this could just happen again.”
First Published: September 14, 2023, 9:30 a.m.
Updated: September 14, 2023, 7:28 p.m.
