WVU faculty begins organizing efforts as program review decisions inch closer – WV MetroNews

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. West Virginia Campus Workers (WVCW) held a Budget Crisis Townhall meeting Thursday to discuss strategies to limit proposed budget cuts due to falling enrollment. Debra Janson, Associate Professor of German, described WVCW as a wall-to-wall bargaining unit administered through the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).

“Wall-to-wall means, by the way, that we are trying to unite all employees into a single bargaining unit so that we can compel desired situations even though we do not have official collective bargaining rights,” Janson said.

Senior Associate of Research and Strategic Initiatives for AFT, Sumner McRae, provided a financial summary of expenses for instruction and administration, state funding trends, and the cost of student aid. McRae said areas of leverage for WVCW could be citing the land grant mission in lobbying for more state funds, helping the administration develop creative recruiting strategies, and lobbying the administration to prioritize funding student-facing units at the University over administrative costs.

R. Scott Crichlow, Associate Professor of Political Science, told the group that the program review is done without regard to the land grant mission of the University. He added that the enrollment decline has been in progress for the last eight years, yet many of the programs remain profitable, and that is a strong argument for the faculty. The main argument Crichlow made related to class sizes.

“The future is larger classes, the future is smaller sections, and the future is a worse teacher-student ratio,” Crichlow said. “That’s the future that Gordon Gee has laid out.”

International graduate student Sindupa De Silva, President of WVU Graduate and Professional Student Senate, said the University has increased the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) fee from $350 to $500, creating a hardship. He said the increase is especially difficult because the University will still only allow them to work 20 hours a week on campus. He said the fee increase and program cuts will likely reduce the international student population.

“Do we want to continue to let this University paint this picture where access to education has a pay wall that now will restrict students from foreign nations, preventing them from being able to come here and pursue higher education and elevate themselves from whatever socio-economic status

they are fleeing from?”

Student in Chinese language studies Christian Adams said he has formed a coalition to help defend the World Language and Linguistics (WLL) department. This summer, Adams is rolling out the “WILL” coalition, a department advocating to the administration for the programs. Next, that effort, he said, will expand to a larger student organization.

“The answer to that next step is WV United,” Adams said. “An organization that seeks to create a coalition and political alliance between progressive pro-worker voices and academic student unions designed to improve the educational outlook for their respective programs.”

Evan Hansen, D-Monongalia, 79, said he has been involved in meetings with the university and believes some of the record state surplus should be used to stabilize the balance sheet. But Hansen cautioned the group about the small amount of time to organize before decisions started to be made.

“I think it’s important to recognize that those final decisions are going to be judgment calls made by administrators,” Hansen said. “The final results are not going to pop out of spreadsheets; those are going to be judgment calls.”

The date for the July Board of Governors meeting has not yet been released.