'What am I supposed to do?': Suggested program cuts leave WVU students lost

“I’m from West Virginia, and I’ve wanted to go here forever,� she said. “I just always kind of thought I was gonna go here, but now I might have to transfer.�

The Provost’s Office released its preliminary recommendations following its academic program portfolio review last Friday, detailing proposed program reductions and discontinuations in light of the university’s $45 million budget shortfall.

The budget deficit was first announced during President Gordon Gee’s State of the University address last spring. Since then, his administration has launched program reviews and a reduction in force. The Provost’s Office made recommendations in the form of 25 letters, revealing that 32 majors were advised for discontinuation among dozens of others recommended for cooperative programming or faculty reductions.

The recommendations are not final. Programs have been offered an opportunity to appeal the proposed cuts.

Overall, 169 members — or 7% — of the faculty are expected to be severed, with reduction letters to be sent out the week of Oct. 16. Despite this, over 130 employees have already been nonrenewed or terminated this summer.

The Department of World Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, and the Public Administration Program, were recommended to be discontinued completely, as well as both graduate mathematics programs.

The Daily Athenaeum asked students and faculty about their concerns regarding the preliminary recommendations at a student organization fair Aug. 13.

Jillian Blair, a senior environment and energy resources management major, recently learned that her program is recommended to be consolidated with the energy land management major.

“I think that it is dangerous to get rid of a lot of these environmental majors when our 5- to 10-year-plan talks so often about how West Virginia has to be leaders in the energy transition and how we have to build sustainable communities,� Blair said. “But then those majors are getting cut, so what message does that send?�

“My heart drops,� Felicia Carrara, a sophomore, said. “I know a lot of faculty who are in the [WLLL] department, and a ton of faculty are here because they are teachers and, if they lose their jobs, they can’t be in the United States anymore.�

Carrara, who is studying international and Russian studies, is spreading the word through the WVU Russian and East European Club to keep the World Language Department from discontinuation. She said she does not have a plan if the department gets eliminated.

Erika Waters is a freshman majoring in public health and had plans to minor in French. Now, like many other incoming students, she is scrambling to come up with another plan.

“I studied French for seven years, I did really good on the AP exam, passed my bilingual literacy test and I was really hoping I could go further at WVU,� she said. “Not anymore.�

Faculty members also are working tirelessly on the appeals process taking place from Aug. 21 to Sept. 5, as outlined in the notification letters and Transformation Timeline. Ela Celikbas, assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and Data Sciences, was distributing flyers at the student organization fair, urging students to save the graduate mathematics programs, which were recommended for discontinuation.

“Preserve WVU Mathematics Graduate Programs,� headed the page in bold letters with a QR code underneath leading to a petition. WVU is home to West Virginia’s only math Ph.D. program.

“They cannot replace language professors with Duolingo, and they cannot replace math professors with ChatGPT,� Celikbas said. “I want [the university] to understand that face-to-face teaching is very important. Engineering, data science and everywhere — math is used more and more, and people are paying attention to advanced math, but we are cutting it.�

Lisa Di Bartolomeo is a teaching professor in the Department of World Languages, Literatures and Linguistics and coordinator of the Russian studies program. She said she fears the message the university is sending students, faculty and other institutions with the discontinuation of the World Languages program.

“If we take away language training, we’re not only saying to people from other countries, ‘We’re not really interested in you or your culture or communicating with you,’� she said. “We’re also saying to our own domestic students, that you don’t need to learn any other language than English, you don’t need to be curious and you don’t need to be interested in the world around you.�

Many students have taken to social media to share a petition titled “Preserve Students’ Rights to Study World Languages at WVU,� which has garnered more than 10,000 signatures.

West Virginia United, a union of WVU students and organizations unaffiliated from the university, is actively posting about the pending program cuts and faculty reductions on its social media.

“WVU Students, do not stand down,� West Virginia United said in a Twitter post. “You have not lost. You are nowhere near the finish line. Stand together closer than ever because our fight has only just begun.�