The turmoil at West Virginia University (WVU) continues, with the submission of a petition to its Faculty Senate on Monday that calls for a meeting in September to consider a no-confidence vote in WVU President E. Gordon Gee.
The petition is just the latest example of the uproar that has engulfed the WVU campus following the administration’s recommendations that the university close 32 academic programs and cut 169 faculty positions as it tries to solve a budget deficit currently projected to be about $45 million, but that could reach $75 million in future years.
Included in that “academic transformation” plan was a call to dismantle the entire Department of World Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, ending all its academic programs, and eventually eliminating all the faculty lines in the department. In addition, WVU said it was reviewing plans to drop the foreign language requirement for all its undergraduate majors.
Monday’s no-confidence resolution accuses Gee of having “mismanaged the university’s finances, while also refusing to accept responsibility for the current financial situation of the university…” It blames Gee for “irresponsibly claiming … that he would grow WVU’s enrollment to at least 40,000 by 2020 to justify expansion and spending hundreds of millions of dollars on projects that would increase WVU’s debt load by 55%…”
Other charges include that Gee is responsible for an “upward redistribution of resources,” and that he has “failed to provide honest and transparent communication with the university community.”
The resolution concludes that the “University Assembly of West Virginia University has no confidence in President E. Gordon Gee’s ability to responsibly, honestly, and effectively lead, facilitate, and participate in decision-making related to any institutional transformation or restructuring at this university;” and that it “has has no confidence in President E. Gordon Gee to continue to serve as leader of West Virginia University.”
In a related action, the WVU University Assembly also received a call for an immediate freeze in the administration’s academic transformation plan, claiming that it “has been built on a foundation of dishonesty, duplicity, and misleading communication.”
The resolution also states that the administration required all WVU employees “to sign new appointment letters stipulating that we ‘avoid conduct that reflects adversely on the image of the University’ in order to retain our employment at WVU, thus ‘threatening our academic freedom and First Amendment right to speak on matters of public concern,’ coercing our silence as they rushed through significant processes that will impact numerous people’s lives in addition to the reputation of WVU…”
For his part, Gee maintains he is taking the right and necessary steps. He issued a statement after speaking to members of the WVU Faculty Senate on Monday. “I realize this is a stressful time for everyone on our campus and I understand that change is very difficult. But as I have stated before, though difficult, change is necessary within higher education,” the statement read.
It continued, “I want to be clear that West Virginia University is not dismantling higher education —but we are disrupting it. I have seen numerous stories and posts about how we are ‘gutting’ or ‘eviscerating’ our University. That is simply not factual.”
“What is factual is that we have majors that have low student enrollment and are not cost effective to operate. That is why we have made the recommendations for reduction or discontinuance. Over the course of Academic Transformation, which began at the start of 2021, many of these programs were notified that they were not operating at an optimum level, including declining enrollments. They were provided then with specific recommendations for improvement.”
Gee concluded, “I understand we are making very hard decisions that will affect people’s lives and careers. I also understand there is frustration and anger regarding the process, and I am a logical choice for those feelings. I accept that criticism as it comes with the job. And while I know this is difficult, I also believe very deeply in what we are doing. And we must move forward.”
The controversy at WVU has garnered national attention in higher education circles not only because of the magnitude and nature of the deep cuts being proposed at a public flagship university but also because of anxiety that it may be signaling a trend of academic and faculty retrenchment that could threaten other major institutions.
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