Or it was. Doesn’t appear to be so heavenly at the moment. Facing a reported $45M budgeting shortfall, it’s turning into a slaughterhouse for faculty academic careers.

"The fix is simple: the legislature should step up and say they truly support WVU, and cover its deficit without eliminating any programs. Then they should find a university president who is willing to ask for the funds that a major university needs."https://t.co/n1m2pnhDmX

— Derek Krissoff (@DerekKrissoff) August 21, 2023

The president of the university is a guy named Gordon Gee, and a couple weeks ago he announced what were called “draconian” cuts to try to bridge the gap. He also said he wouldn’t be asking the legislature for the money to make up the difference.

He hadn’t asked the legislature for anything at all.

As students and faculty prepared for the start of the new academic year this month, the president of West Virginia University, Gordon Gee, made a startling announcement: he’s eliminating 169 faculty jobs, about 16% of the full-time professors, and dropping 32 undergraduate and graduate degree programs, including all of its foreign language programs.

No foreign language classes? No French, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, anything other than English? Apparently not–and in response to questions, the university suggested that students might be offered an online app instead. It’s not just humanities, either: WVU is also getting rid of its graduate program in mathematics.

These cuts came as a shock to the students and faculty of WVU, who are understandably dismayed. The university administration says it’s just about money, as they face a $45 million deficit that they must do something about.

People are quick to point out that Mr.Gee’s $800K a year salary was just renewed and he had no objection or suggestions to trim THAT fat. Then again, these executive types always believe they’re worth every penny.

The cuts that have been announced also do NOT include support staff, techs, etc. – so, as far as I can tell, the administrative side of the university house is safe. Just faculty, programs, graduate programs, and whole departments are being jettisoned, and some in disciplines that make the university a handsome profit.

…It is hard for us who love WVU to understand the rationale behind WVU President E. Gordon Gee’s proposed budget cuts, including cuts to programs that have proven their profitability. That includes the department of World Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics, where I got my Arabic Studies minor, and which makes an average annual profit of $800,000.*

Why would one deep-six almost a million dollar a year program?

Here’s a small sample of the body count:

I wasn’t kidding about a “small sample,” either – that thread on cuts goes on for a mile.

But there is one standout as far as the lone “no cuts” and you will never guess what that might be.

Okay, schmaybe you will.

How do you like them apples?

Won’t be able to finish up your Master’s in how many engineering or math disciplines, but BY GOD, they saved the #WymminsAndGenderStudies.

HOLY CRAP

Gee is known for big spending at his previous university gigs…

…Meanwhile, Gee’s past appointments at American universities concluded amid controversies he incited by implementing reductions to academic programs. His expense report at OSU revealed the university spent $7.7 million on Gee’s expenses, almost equaling his $8.6 million salary. When he was president at Brown, the university spent $3 million renovating his home. Under his supervision as chancellor at Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt spent $6 million renovating the mansion where Gee lived; Gee also incurred a $700,000 tab for hosting social events.

….and has held true to form in the mountains.

After adjusting for inflation, WVU spending rose 38% from 2002-2022, compared with a 7% increase in enrollment. 😳 On a per-student basis, spending increased by 29% over the past two decades. https://t.co/ep7PaatHit

— Sam Brown Petsonk (@Sam4WV) August 28, 2023

WVU is the state’s only R-1 class research university. Are Gee and the legislature trying to kill that off for one of the poorest states in the union?

…WVU is the largest and only R1 university in West Virginia, meaning its high-ranking research programs span the academic spectrum. As a land-grant university established by the Morrill Act in 1862, WVU was entrusted with educating neglected rural students, who generally do not have access to exclusive private universities because they prioritize tuition revenue and privilege legacy applicants.

Many people are holding President Gee and his rosy enrollment projections responsible for the current fiscal disaster. They built grandiose buildings for students who would never come, even as WV’s population shrank around them.

…This is not the first time WVU has made inexplicable financial decisions, revealing a concerning level of indifference and institutional inadequacy. In 2014, Gee predicted that university enrollment would increase to 40,000 students, despite the fact that enrollment only reached approximately 31,000 at its historic peak. His administration proceeded to make financial decisions based on fiscal data that was almost nonexistent. The irony of Gee’s decision to cut WVU’s graduate program in mathematics, in light of his own statistical ineptitude, is palpable.

Gee’s enrollment projections have long been deemed suspect among students and faculty. West Virginia’s recent population decline has been one of the largest in the history of the United States. From 1950–2000, an estimated total of 797,000 people were lost to out-migration. One faculty member, who will be dismissed from WVU if the cuts are approved and who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “West Virginia’s population decline is the largest in the U.S. From 2010 to 2020, nearly 60,000 people left. Did President Gee really think he could make everyone believe WVU was different? How can WVU break enrollment records when nobody wants to be here?” West Virginia recently lost a congressional seat following the 2020 census due to the state’s declining population.

…Between 2010 and 2023, the WVU administration carried out extensive new construction initiatives and refurbishments aimed at enlarging its campus presence, as Dan Bauman details in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Much of this, including various buildings for the College of Business and Economics, the College of Physical Activities and Sport Sciences, agricultural sciences, and advanced engineering research, was funded by debt and private-public partnerships.

I watched as new buildings sprang up year after year, creating an ominous undertone on campus as more and more students disappeared. My friends and I were especially disturbed by the grandeur of Reynolds Hall, which opened in fall 2022. Reynolds Hall cost $100 million to construct. It was named for alumnus Robert “Bob” Reynolds, who donated $10 million to the project and now sits on the WVU Board of Governors. This is the board that votes on whether to approve these sweeping program cuts. I echo student concerns when I say that public universities’ boards of governors should be democratic bodies, not elite bureaucratic institutions.

The faculty are at the point of revolt.

Want to see what may be the most dispiriting sentence ever uttered by a higher education leader? "I want to be clear that West Virginia University is not dismantling higher education—but we are disrupting it." https://t.co/dMkCwel9ua

— Derek Krissoff (@DerekKrissoff) August 29, 2023

And again, President Gee is not reducing the administrative staff.

Just the “university” part of the university.

Except the #WymminsAndGenderStudies, of course.

*winkwinknudgenudge*

Of course.

How delightfully “disrupting,” as he puts it.