CHARLESTON – There are a couple of consistencies in life: One is that change is constant, and the second is that people – in this situation, some members of the West Virginia University Faculty – are generally afraid of change.
If you add rampant misinformation spread around the internet into the mix, it creates a bit of a perfect storm, much like what we see happening in Morgantown right now with WVU.
Since the university announced it was making necessary changes to modernize its educational delivery – which, yes, includes cutting departments and majors that may no longer be serving a larger purpose – I’ve seen more than my share of unfair and incorrect characterizations of the situation. There are some points I believe need to be made.
Gee
| Courtesy photo
In 2022, the State of West Virginia changed its higher education funding formula to make it more focused on outcomes of student success and post-secondary education needs throughout the state. We wanted our state’s community and technical colleges and universities to gear their programs toward workforce development priorities and strengthening our economy here and abroad. To that end, WVU has been a true success story.
Under President Gee’s leadership, WVU has embraced a future that treats higher education as an economic development driver. Together with Marshall University President Brad Smith, they’ve created a team approach that puts the student first and keeps an eye toward moving West Virginia into the next century.
WVU is approaching this issue with a scalpel, not an ax, and right now the university is setting itself up for long term success. The programs that are up for review are ones that suffer from administrative bloat or declining enrollment. In many, if not all cases, the program just doesn’t serve an overall purpose of providing a graduate with a degree that can lead to a good-paying job upon graduation – like a degree in Puppetry.
Through the review process established by the Board of Governors I believe they’re laying a foundation to revamp many of these programs to be leaner and stronger, exactly as we’ve done with state government. The Board of Governors takes this role seriously, and despite rampant rumors to the contrary – they don’t do it for a $300,000 per year salary. By statute, they receive no compensation, only reimbursement of expenses.
Through participation in initiatives like Choose West Virginia, President Gee has taken West Virginia’s story across the country to board rooms in Silicon Valley, New York City, and Washington, D.C. He’s helped generate enthusiasm and excitement that is leading some of our nation’s biggest corporations to look at our state as a place to locate, and look at our people as the kind of talent they’d like to recruit. His efforts are leading to hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of investments in the state of West Virginia and will help to create thousands of jobs within our borders. Our number one export is our youth, and these efforts serve to change that trend.
But it’s more than that. Just this past year, he was instrumental in helping secure $50 million toward the expansion of services and research at the Cancer Center at WVU, which will become the 73rd cancer center designated by the National Cancer Institute in the United States. This will allow our residents to receive world-class treatment right here at home, instead of having to go to Pittsburgh, Columbus, or Baltimore, and it will attract patients from around the region to come to West Virginia for their health care needs. That’s called economic development.
Quite honestly, President Gee respects the value of a dollar, and it shows. For those who say that it’s a “reluctance” of the Legislature to “bail out” WVU from their financial hardship, I want to make something very clear: we do not have unlimited sums of taxpayer moneys to permanently backfill a loss in enrollment. It is why WVU knew that it would be unreasonable to expect to be handed a $45 million blank check with ongoing expectations. Instead, they did what needed to be done, looked around at their programs, their investments, and their personnel structure, and made the decisions that nobody wants to make. In the short term, it may feel like the sky is falling, but on its current trajectory, that financial picture only became more bleak, regardless of how much state support WVU received.
Growing pains are tough, and there are certainly ways that both the university and we, as lawmakers, can improve going forward. I believe we need to take another look at how tenure is awarded, and ensure that those good professors who are doing groundbreaking research and teaching the next generation of leaders are fairly compensated and retained. We need to provide them with stability and security, not with one-year contracts, but instead 3 to 5-year contracts to allow them time to establish their bearings and truly thrive in a competitive environment.
What is taking place at WVU right now is not unprecedented. It’s happening across the country as colleges and universities deal with the reality that our workforce is changing, and a four-year degree isn’t what it used to be. Many of today’s high-demand jobs require only a two-year degree and a certification, and that’s not something you find at WVU. There is simply no need to take on tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt for degrees that do not translate into a good-paying job – like, remember, a degree in Puppetry.
The events unfolding in Morgantown are not much different from the realities faced by the Legislature in 2017 when it had a budget shortfall of more than $450 million. Six years ago, we transformed the way we manage government. WVU is now transforming its education model from a 20th Century one to a 21st Century model.
When this time of uncertainty comes to a close, I believe that the rest of the nation will look at WVU and President Gee’s actions as a model for sound management in a financial crisis. I have full confidence in his ability to lead us into a bright, productive future.
West Virginia Senate President Blair (R-Berkeley) represents the 15th Senatorial District. He is the former Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance and the former Chairman of the Senate Committee on Government Organization.