More cuts planned at deficit-plagued West Virginia University

West Virginia University Libraries, already hit this year with a 30% cut in its operating budget, now faces up to $800,000 in personnel cuts under measures announced Wednesday to shore up the university’s deficit-plagued finances.

The action is outlined in one of the letters delivered by the provost’s office to 19 academic support units across WVU. The units include the Honors College, WVU Online, WVU Career Services, the Teaching and Learning Commons and WVU Press.

The letters arrived less than a week after WVU’s Board of Governors voted to jettison 28 academic majors and 143 faculty positions — a decision that sparked student protests, a faculty vote of no confidence in President E. Gordon Gee and drew national attention to what WVU calls its “Academic Transformation.”

Two of the 19 academic support units that were notified, Libraries and WVU’s Teaching and Learning Commons, will see activities scaled back. Eleven units will remain at current levels after taking actions, and six others will continue without required changes. (See the full list here.)

The WVU Libraries, which could be taking the biggest hit from a financial standpoint, already had seen spending on collections cut by 8% and the temporary suspension of new acquisitions, according to its website.

No additional cuts in materials will be required since the latest move will involve staffing, Mark Gavin, an associate provost, told a campuswide Zoom meeting Wednesday.

“This sounds like a heavy lift for a unit that has already seen reductions, and it is,” he said. “But through restructuring efforts, the dean of the libraries, Karen Diaz, is confident that she can realize these savings without negatively impacting service levels for students, faculty and staff.”

Even before Wednesday’s announcement, students and faculty had expressed apprehension but also resolve to seek a place at the decision-making table going forward, using vehicles like a newly created West Virginia United Student Union.

Miles Case, 20, a junior environmental geosciences major from Morgantown, said it’s not just his education and the well-being of West Virginia’s economy that are at stake. He said he’s concerned about the education prospects for his younger siblings.

“Both of my parents went here. I’ve always looked up to this university,” he said.

As for the cuts, Case said, “First they take away our programs, and then they take away our resources.”

The library personnel cuts are based on a newly restructured library organizational system, and a plan to implement them must be developed by Dec. 1, according to the letter from the office of Provost Maryanne Reed.

The system must “evaluate the physical footprint of the libraries on the Morgantown main and Health Sciences campuses and regional campuses (and) determine opportunities to condense spaces across locations and/or reduce space needs within locations,” the letter said.

In the notices from Reed’s office, the changes were called recommendations. But unlike academic program cuts, they cannot be appealed.

However, Gavin said the university “can and will adjust outcomes where warranted.”

WVU faces a $45 million deficit — a gap that leaders had warned could reach $75 million.

Even before the latest cuts were announced, WVU had enacted $7 million in staff cuts.

Gee and his administration insist WVU can maintain its mission, even as a smaller institution. They say that WVU, like other higher education institutions, must adapt to shifting student demands and growing public skepticism about the cost versus value of a college degree.

“You know, fewer than 36% of the American public now believe in higher education. That is devastating. If we were running a car company, and only 36% of the people thought the cars were important, we would be in the ditch,” Gee, 79, told the Tribune-Review in a recent interview.

“Like other universities, (WVU has) limited resources and we have infinite appetite,” he said.

His critics on campus and beyond see it differently. They say the president overspent and held to unrealistic enrollment growth projections reaching 40,000 students by 2020. In fact, enrollment has dropped and stands at about 27,000.

“Gee has mismanaged the university’s finances while also refusing to accept responsibility for the current financial situation of the university,” the faculty board said in its no-confidence resolution, which passed overwhelmingly.