The president of West Virginia University, E. Gordon Gee, is doing something few others have attempted with success or survival. He is forcing his university, one he has led and loved for more than a decade in this, his second time at the helm, to face, react to, and adjust to the realities they are facing on the campus and in the state.
WVU’s story is not a new one – fewer students, rising costs, declining state support, all against the backdrop of a decline in public trust and confidence in higher education – but their response is garnering attention. Specifically, President Gee’s unapologetic frankness (a style for which he is well known) and unwavering commitment to responsibly addressing the challenges facing WVU, even against the usual headwinds from some groups of faculty and students, is attracting not just local and regional attention but national attention as well. Beyond the usual outlets in higher education, what’s happening at WVU has reached the pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post, among others. Why is this happening? Is it the collective actions to cut select programs and faculty, or is it the high-profile president who is behind them?
Actually, it’s probably a bit of both.
The need for change is not new. But change comes slowly in higher education. The pandemic served as both a spotlight and an accelerant, highlighting and amplifying many of the long-standing challenges that Higher Ed already had been facing, or the realities they had been resisting. In many cases, the pandemic made more urgent the need for change, adaptation, evolution, or entirely new ways of thinking and operating. And colleges and universities have been responding, some with greater success than others, but still limited by their own structures and systems in terms of the pace and depth of change. From the outside looking in, the change has been too slow and too marginal. Cutting around the edges rather than making real and significant changes. Earlier pressures from within to resist change have given way to pressures to return as quickly as possible to pre-pandemic operating conditions. Despite pressure from university leaders, boards, and the broader public to use the crisis of the pandemic to make needed change and create not only more relevant but more sustainable institutions, pressures from within universities often have been greater. Rather than leverage the urgency created by the pandemic (and the massive federal funds that were made available to colleges and universities) and leapfrog into a more modern, relevant, and compelling way of doing business, many institutions slid backward into pre-pandemic operations, priorities, and comfort. A lost opportunity. And a shortsighted strategy. The challenges are still there, the realities have not changed, and the world continues to move onward and – according to some and at great risk of peril to US higher education – away from these great institutions.
Enter Gordon Gee. The dean of university presidents. A university president unlike any other today and almost certainly unlike any we will see again. Gee has been a university president for nearly five decades having led Ohio State University (twice), Vanderbilt University, Brown University, West Virginia University (twice), and the University of Colorado. His tenure and his endurance are singular for a university president. We will never see anyone do this again, not because Gee’s energy or stubbornness or passion or fundraising skills will never be repeated, but because the role of university president has changed so dramatically. Ever expanding expectations and required skill sets, layered dimensions of what makes an acceptable president to search committees and to boards, an increasingly external role, increasing landmines and eyes watching for them to be stepped on, myriad expectations and pressures seemingly from every direction and becoming more conflicting, and the very real possibility of being dismissed or forced to resign, have led many not to pursue this once coveted role. But Gee has endured, even thrived, as a president seemingly from a different time making his mark on universities of a modern time. He moves as deftly through his university’s campuses, at athletic events, and in his communities today as he did decades ago. He brings high energy, humor, and his well-known, bow-tied, avuncular style to everything he does. He is ever-present, ever-positive, and ever the champion for his university. Just as any president should be. But he also has an edge, an honesty, and a stubbornness that has both served him and dogged him in his leadership. Gee is folksy and fierce. He is both unifying and polarizing. But boards clearly have come to realize his tremendous value, in some cases more than once. He has been the president the institutions and their boards have needed. The right leader at the right time. A proven product, a change agent, and a driving force, one to rally around and to be reckoned with.
In response to declining enrollments with few prospects to reverse the trend, only stabilize student enrollments at a new baseline, Gee is eliminating low-enrollment programs to close their budget gap. This means a reduction in instructional faculty. The president’s position seems straightforward enough. The university must live within its means while maintaining the ability to direct resources where demand is growing fastest. While defending its core mission and delivering on its promise to educate students and prepare graduates, the university must be responsive to external forces and responsible with finite resources. It must right-size its faculty and staff, manage resources responsibly, and take steps to ensure both financial stability and future sustainability.
According to news releases and the university’s own abundant communications, the recommended consolidation and commensurate reduction in faculty is necessary to close WVU’s budget deficit of $45M (equivalent to about 3.5% of the university’s $1.3B budget). This comes following a decade in which enrollments have declined by 8% at WVU and state support for the university has dropped by 24%.
The net impact, while consequential, is meeting with what many are likely to perceive as a disproportionate response. Fewer than 10% of the majors would be eliminated, fewer than 7% of the faculty would be laid off, and less than 2% of the student enrollment would be impacted. But reductions, whether in people or programs, cut deeply in higher education. And students and faculty are quick to push back, lash out, and organize to resist change. This has long been part of the Higher Ed culture in the United States. Attendance at rallies is often by just a small percentage of faculty and students but they generate significant local media coverage. Big universities and big-personality presidents, however, attract regional and even national media attention.
On the bucolic Morgantown campus, while decisions are not universally embraced, or even popular, they are being made. They are being informed with input, they are being socialized, and they are being implemented. Gee has committed to making needed changes responsibly and respectfully, in keeping with fundamental tenets of shared governance and commitment to transparency, and (here’s the kicker) in a timely way. He is leveraging the urgency to impel a more rapid response. His comments suggest he will not tolerate delays, deferrals, or efforts to block or derail – a position few other university leaders have been able to take without consequence to their leadership or their jobs.
Colleges and universities must demonstrate to their stakeholders, those inside and outside their walls, that they are committed to being relevant, valuable, and important to society. A university must be both responsive to the world that is receiving/hiring its graduates and to the students who are choosing to attend. It is up to the university’s faculty and leaders to be responsive to both those realities and those needs. Gee appears to be pursuing all of these (intersecting and at times conflicting) objectives, as any president must. And he is getting the predictable backlash. But unlike many others facing similar challenges, Gee is not backing down. He is not taking the easy path. He is standing his ground and doubling down on his commitment to his university, accepting his board’s reappointment but setting the date for when he will conclude his presidency. He wants to get the hard work done and move the university through this most challenging period to one where the crisis is on the other side, the tensions can begin calming, and the university can return to a less angry and less anxious state.
Gee is acting with an urgency heightened by the pandemic as well as the rapidly approaching conclusion to his presidency. The pace, the insistence, and no doubt the actions being recommended to WVU’s governing board for final approval rub some the wrong way. Some feel threatened, others are scared, and still other express outrage at what they assert is failure to follow process or engage constituents or respect shared governance. It’s not a new set of responses in Higher Ed. But it is a new type of unflappable leadership in the face of such responses.
In this, his final chapter and his final years at helm of a great university (he has announced his plan to step down as WVU president in 2025), Gee has planted his flag in forcing the needed reforms and adaptations at his institution. He knows there is no other president with the political capital to do so. And he is not afraid of losing his job or sacrificing his ability to find another one. Once again, Gee is the right leader at the right time.
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