The day after protest, West Virginia University announces 1 administrator’s retirement, human resources restructuring

West Virginia University says it intends to restructure a large administrative unit on the Morgantown campus as part of its continuing review and transformation efforts.

It was not known if or how many jobs would be impacted, beyond a vice president who is retiring and will not be replaced.

Changes involving the university’s Talent and Culture unit were announced Tuesday, one day after hundreds of students walked out of classes in a noisy, hourlong protest over plans to discontinue nearly three dozen academic majors and eliminate 7% of faculty positions on the main campus.

WVU faces a $45 million budget deficit.

In a news release that followed a special meeting by WVU’s board of governors Tuesday afternoon, officials said Cris DeBord, vice president of Talent and Culture, has announced his plan to retire later this year and that his position will be eliminated.

“Further, the entire unit will be reorganized to align and better serve the University community for the future,” the released said.

It did not indicate the anticipated savings. Talent and Culture is WVU’s human resources department and has 135 employees.

“Additional details of the restructure are forthcoming, but no other reductions were announced today,” WVU spokeswoman April Kaull said in an email response late Tuesday.

During the special meeting, WVU President E. Gordon Gee commented on recent criticisms that the University has not addressed cost-saving opportunities.

“I want to reinforce that transformation is not a new concept for this University. In my very first speech to the University in 2014, I talked about the need to be more efficient and streamlined,” Gee said in the release. “In 2016, I clearly stated we would need to overhaul everything — including academics. And in 2018, I said land-grant universities could win back the people’s favor by acting as the ‘people’s universities’ again.”

For years, Gee has also stated his belief that the university could grow its enrollment to 40,000 by 2020 – a prediction made pre-pandemic, and one that critics have seized upon to say the university was not prepared for the crisis it now faces.

“Combined with WVU Tech, including our new campus in Beckley, and continued growth in Keyser, I am even more confident that we will reach our goal of 40,000 students system-wide by 2020,” he wrote in a 2016 op-ed piece published in the Dominion-Post and posted to WVU’s web site.

As of last fall, WVU enrolled about 27,000 students, with 25,000 on its Morgantown campus.

It and other universities have experienced enrollment losses, and are warning of an “enrollment cliff,” when birthrate declines after the Great Recession of 2008 reach college campuses by 2026.

On Aug. 11, Gee and WVU announced preliminary recommendations that 32 of the university’s 338 majors be eliminated and 169 faculty positions be cut by next spring. The cuts, though felt across the campus, would eliminate foreign language instruction on the flagship public university campus.

On Tuesday, university officials said WVU over the last decade has reduced by about 500 the number of non-academic positions to streamline operations and maximize efficiencies.

“We realize this is not easy and none of this was entered into lightly. The Board did direct the administration to address Academic Transformation so that we could become an even stronger university,” Chair Taunja Willis-Miller said. “The Board believes we must do this work to remain competitive and relevant.”

The administration says 98% of students and 93% of faculty are unaffected by the proposed recommendations.

Those on campus opposed to the cuts say the numbers underestimate the loss since students who have secondary majors in those areas are not counted.

Meanwhile, 19 of the 25 units identified for formal review under the Academic Transformation initiative have submitted an intent to appeal the preliminary recommendations announced Aug. 11 , officials said. The board of governors is expected to vote on them Sept. 15.

Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Maryanne Reed explained steps her staff will take to support those faculty who may be let go.

“We are doing everything we can to support those individuals by providing as much notice as possible, severance packages, mental health resources and helping with job placement,” Reed said.