WVU facing possible academic program cuts, 7% faculty reduction

West Virginia University has unveiled preliminary recommendations to discontinue 32 of its 338 majors and reduce faculty ranks in Morgantown by 7% to confront enrollment losses and adapt to shifting student demand.

Twelve of the majors are undergraduate level and 20 are at the graduate level, officials with the state’s flagship public campus said in a news release Friday.

Based on fall 2023 enrollment, “this will affect 147 undergraduate students and 287 graduate students, representing approximately less than 2% of total student enrollment,” it read.

Officials at WVU, a school facing a deficit, said there would be 169 potential faculty reductions, or 7% of total faculty in Morgantown. Faculty were to be notified by Friday.

The university Department of World Languages, Literatures and Linguistics would be dissolved on the Morgantown campus.

WVU is also reviewing a plan to eliminate its language requirement for all majors.

Other areas potentially impacted range from the “hard sciences,” including engineering, to the arts and music.

Reached late Friday, WVU spokeswoman April Kaull said that as preliminary recommendations, faculty can appeal as outlined in a website created for what officials have dubbed WVU’s “Academic Transformation.” Notices must be filed by Aug. 18, and WVU’s board of governors is expected to vote on final recommendations on Sept. 15.

“If the decision is ultimately made to discontinue a major, there is a process the university must follow,” she said.

Faculty reductions may involve retirements, voluntary leave, layoffs, or contract non-renewals.

WVU’s announcement follows recent moves by other prominent universities to respond to a student market upended by fears of ever-rising tuition, student debt, as well as a job market whose rising wages is making it more attractive to some prospective students than attending college.

Penn State University, for instance, has been making cuts to narrow a deficit that at one point was $140 million in its 2022-23 budget.

In Friday’s statement, WVU President E. Gordon Gee reiterated his belief that higher education is at an inflection point. WVU’s board of trustees had instructed administrators months ago to take steps to “best serve the needs of our students and our state,” he said.

“While we view these preliminary recommendations for reductions and discontinuations as necessary, we are keenly aware of the people they will affect,” he said. “We do not take that lightly. These faculty are our colleagues, our neighbors and our friends. These decisions are difficult to make.

“Students have choices, and if we aim to improve our enrollment numbers and recruit students to our University, we must have the programs and majors that are most relevant to their needs and the future needs of industry.”

Maryanne Reed, provost and vice president for academic affairs, said the moves will allow more investment in areas most relevant to today’s students.

“We approached the process holistically considering a variety of factors, including the potential for enrollment growth,” she said. “We had to be forward-thinking and put personal biases aside.”

But a group called West Virginia Campus Workers blasted the process and planned cuts.

“This plan will be a disaster for the reputation of the university, for the residents of West Virginia, and for students from all over the world who receive their education here,” according to a statement on its web site. “Our research shows that the current crisis has been caused just as much by poor planning and financial malfeasance by university leadership as it has been by low enrollment.”

As part of the recommendations, WVU would dissolve the Department of World Languages, Literatures and Linguistics and discontinue the seven programs it offers and related instructional activity, officials said.

It cited “very low and declining” student interest and said national trend data supports the move.

Officials said other campuses have eliminated the language requirement for all majors, such as Amherst College, the University of Alabama, Duquesne University, Johns Hopkins University and George Washington University.

But WVU’s moves were seen by some faculty as the university turning its back on the importance of language instruction by suggesting use of language apps and reliance on instruction from peer universities could suffice.

“I don’t see any other way to interpret this,” said Lisa Di Bartolomeo, a teaching professor and supervisor of the Russian Studies Program, which faces elimination. She is also a former Faculty Senate chair.

Di Bartolomeo said it would put some students in the difficult position of either studying in their home state and benefiting from available financial aid, or choosing institutions outside the state to pursue what they truly want to study.

But despite enrollment losses, two other areas may see a different fate, according to officials.

Mining Engineering also enrolls fewer students “yet is critical to the state and the region, and there is unmet occupational demand,” officials said in the release.

The Petroleum and Natural Gas program is another.

“The preliminary recommendation is to combine the two units into a single unit that prepares students for the current and evolving energy economy,” officials said.

The Academic Transformation process dates to 2020 but its timeline was accelerated amid the pandemic.

Gee announced in his State of the University address in March a “structural deficit” estimated at $45 million — about 3.5% of the University’s $1.3 billion budget.

But Kaull said that deficit was not directly behind Friday’s recommendations.

“We’ve talked many times publicly about national trends in declining enrollment,”she said.

According to its website, WVU enrolled about 27,000 students last fall, with 25,000 on its Morgantown campus. It and other universities have experienced enrollment losses, and are warning of an “enrollment cliff,” when birth rate declines after the Great Recession of 2008 reach college campuses by 2026.