Former WVU Student Leader Sounds Alarm Over Proposed Program Cuts: ‘Inexplicable Financial Decisions’

A West Virginia University (WVU) graduate sounded the alarm over the university’s proposed plan to eliminate some of its programs in its attempt to deal with a structural budget deficit of $45 million.

WVU announced last week that it relayed a preliminary recommendation “to adjust its academic offerings to better serve the needs of its students.” Those recommendations include dissolving the Department of World Languages, Literatures and Linguistics and discontinuing the seven programs it offers as well as related instructional activity. 

The proposed program cuts sparked criticism among the WVU community, including Myya Helm, who graduated in 2022 with a BA degree in Political Science and International Studies. She was also an undergraduate teaching assistant and the New Student Orientation Leader at the university. 

In an op-ed published by Slate on Friday, Helm said she is “afraid for WVU’s future” and attributed the proposed program cuts to the university’s financial “mismanagement” and “lack of institutional transparency.”

“This is not the first time WVU has made inexplicable financial decisions, revealing a concerning level of indifference and institutional inadequacy,” she wrote. “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."

She continued: “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.”

Gordon Gee, WVU's president who plans to step down in 2025, told The Washington Post that the proposed reductions will help free up resources for more sought-after programs such as forensics, engineering, and neuroscience.

“We are going through an existential crisis in higher education and we happen to be on the point of the spear," he said. “The people of the state are telling us what they want. And for once, we’re listening to them.”

Other proposed reductions include cutting a master's degree program in creative writing and a doctoral program in mathematics, according to The Washington Post. 

Those recommendations are not final and they are currently being appealed, but a final version will be presented to the WVU Board of Governors for a vote on September 15, a WVU spokesperson told The Messenger.

The WVU spokesperson also said that the university has been navigating the $45 million structural budget shortfall and that it is "not a crisis" as it only makes up less than 3.5% of the university's $1.3 billion budget for fiscal year 2023.

In her op-ed, Helm cited quotes from two students who said that the university’s proposals, if approved, will affect their already-limited options. 

“Students like me can’t afford to go anywhere else. I can’t get this kind of education anywhere else in the state. The administration is telling me I’m only allowed to learn what they decide not to discontinue,” a currently enrolled student said, according to Helm’s op-ed. 

Meanwhile, a former member of the WVU Student Government Association said, “I’m a student leader, and I don’t know what I can and can’t say. [The WVU administration] affects my future in West Virginia, and that’s all I’ve ever had.”