8 ms·

The Cuts at WVU

105 points by lightlyused 3y ago

computerliker 3y ago
https://archive.ph/dsTN2 https://archive.ph/dsTN2 Just in case.
- twolf910616 3y ago
  here's the archive linked to the paywalled article he mentioned in the post https://archive.ph/gGqvX https://archive.ph/gGqvX
parl_match 3y ago
If their budget numbers are true, it demonstrates serious mismanagement.
- deaddodo 3y ago
  Yeah, this was my first thought reading through this. It literally makes no sense to close a department that, after operational and administrative costs, is net positive while you are facing a budget crisis. Later on, the writer mentions an ideological split/decision on the chairperson's part. I wish they would delve into that more. Do the administrative heads feel that using outsourced labor will be more profitable?
  - tssva 3y ago
    > It literally makes no sense to close a department that, after operational and administrative costs, is net positive while you are facing a budget crisis. If they think investment in another department will bring a higher ROI it makes sense.
    - deaddodo 3y ago
      It's profitable and requires little overhead. Just do both. That's like saying "I don't want a free PS5, because I think I'd play my Nintendo Switch more often".
      - tssva 3y ago
        They are in a budget crunch. They likely don't have money to do both.
        deaddodo 3y ago
        They are in a budget crunch. So they should close one of the departments that pays for itself and others? I'm having a hard time processing your logic here.
        tssva 3y ago
        If they feel they can bring in even more revenue from investing that money elsewhere then yes.
        deaddodo 3y ago
        I can only imagine that you are trolling, at this point. You understand the concept of profit, right? Let's just do numbers here: * Option A: you have 1mUSD to invest into Department X. * Option B: you have 1.2mUSD to invest into Department X and you get Department Y for free. Option A makes zero sense, logically.
        tssva 3y ago
        Not trolling. I'm not sure you understand opportunity costs. I have 5m to invest in a department. Investing that 5m in Department A and earn 800k in net revenue. If I invest that same 5m in Department B I can earn 1.4m in net revenue. If I invest in Department A I'm giving up 600k in net revenue.
- dylan604 3y ago
  Isn't pretty much any situation of layoffs/cutbacks demonstrations of mismanagement? Rarely is it a single issue that was unable to be predicted that causes things like this.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > Isn't pretty much any situation of layoffs/cutbacks demonstrations of mismanagement? Only if you view the function of management as being to maximize employment at the firm, which the people hiring the managers generally do not.
    - dylan604 3y ago
      you must think that layoffs only occur because of over hiring. i've seen departments that are profitable like the TFA, but because of issues in a different department that is closer to management's interest, other departments are decimated to cover the shortcomings. however, to me, management not recognizing that head count is unrealistic is still a management problem.
      - dragonwriter 3y ago
        > you must think that layoffs only occur because of over hiring No, in fact, I think “overhiring” is mostly based on another misapprehension of management’s function. Hiring rapidly when conditions are favorable and firing rapidly when conditions change isn’t “overhiring” and then corrections, its two different sides of the near-optimal-as-possible management of headcount int the context of capitalism. Is it bad for workers? Sure, but there’s a reason it’s called “capitalism” and not “laborism”. Obviously, management makes mistakes. But rapid reductions in staff are not particularly a sign of that.
- codemac 3y ago
  EDIT: Others have commented that this is just that the # of students taking courses vs. the # of students in the major. The phrase "program enrollment" meant something different to me. This would make the 800k profit make sense. When I look at their actual numbers, his comments don't make sense: https://provost.wvu.edu/files/d/bf3ef02f-e90a-4e43-a316-d295fa489067/academic-transformation-public-data-table_july-17-2023-100.pdf https://provost.wvu.edu/files/d/bf3ef02f-e90a-4e43-a316-d295... They somehow have 18000+ credit hours to their department in a year, but only 61 enrolled students in fall 2022 which, means an average student enrolled was taking 310 credits? Or ~150ish if the 2022 credit hours is for both fall & spring? What I think is happening, is that most universities allow you to meet your "foreign languages requirement" by showing your High School transcripts, and then you get those credits applied to your transcript. That means you actually make $0 from those credits. The later part of the spreadsheet clearly shows how impossible this is - they did not make $6.7M with 61 students' tuition. Clearly the tuition is just a dumb excel formula multiplying by the credits. So either they're somehow the most expensive foreign language school in the world, with 1 instructor per 2 students... Or they're a wildly expensive department that almost no one major's with, and their research grants don't cover their millions in losses to the university.
  - legitster 3y ago
    Yeah, the student to teacher ratio was telling. With 30 something faculty it was only 2?
  - SL61 3y ago
    The enrollment numbers are probably for majors, i.e. enrollment count of 5 for the French program means there are 5 students majoring in French. The vast majority of students taking French classes would be taking them for general education requirements (or whatever WVU calls that), or due to other degree programs requiring a language class, or as electives. At my alma mater, the Philosophy department had something like 10 majors, but the whole department was kept afloat by the Nursing College's requirement for their students to take an ethics class. The philosophy professors would teach a few high-level philosophy courses to tiny classes, and then several massive ethics seminars with hundreds of nursing students.
- legitster 3y ago
  The requirements for the provost department are that the department had to make above $1 million in external grants annually to be exempt from review. https://provost.wvu.edu/academic-transformation/academic-program-portfolio-review https://provost.wvu.edu/academic-transformation/academic-pro... Tiny programs with not a lot of student interest did not make the cut.
- zerocrates 3y ago
  The department, if I've found it correctly on the sheet, has very few students enrolled in it but logs tens of thousands of credit hours a year: this is presumably mostly students taking a foreign language course as part of general education requirements. I imagine that's where the bulk of the tuition income allocated to the department is coming from. Presumably the idea is something like, if we axe the department, we dump 16 tenure-track and 32 total FTEs and something like 60 students lose their program: good trade. You just write off the linguistics and TESOL programs completely along with the handful of foreign language majors, and you figure that you can give out uhhhh... Duolingo credits to the students in other programs that cared about their foreign language/lit classes and keep them around. Of course you're abandoning the pretense of really being a university and offering well-rounded education and broad opportunities and all that... but at least you can keep all the administrators.
footy 3y ago
> In fact, on the same day WVU wrote to tell us our department is cancelled and we are fired, they ran a front-page article on the university website celebrating the NSF grant that Sergio Robles-Puente and I recently received, and lauding our innovative research and intensive student mentoring. I have a few close friends in academia and while IMO they're clearly underappreciated by their institutions (even the lucky ones who have tenure), this level of cynical disrespect is shocking.
- clintonb 3y ago
  This isn’t shocking. It’s the nature of layoffs. The folks making the cuts aren’t telling the the folks in the communications office, “hey, we are firing that person you’re doing a front page story on.” Also, the department won’t be dissolved until the end of the academic year.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    i love the stories of companies announcing layoffs and then immediately announce bonuses for management. there's tone deaf, and then there's whatever this is
    - clintonb 3y ago
      If you're talking about a public company, you're probably referring to an official filing, not an actual press release. I'm not aware of any company issuing press releases saying, "we just paid this dude 8 figures to fire those little people."
- foota 3y ago
  Are we related?
  - footy 3y ago
    I guess we are now
- frob 3y ago
silisili 3y ago
This is a sick path to be on. Keep the money, plug kids into some other university's classes remotely. To what end? A school full of nothing but overpaid administrators, and kids all taking remote classes at disparate cheapest possible offerings?
- rjbwork 3y ago
  I mean, that is kind of the end game of all of this, isn't it? Crank up the prices, rent seek, get your bag, destroy the underlying product in pursuit of personal enrichment. Higher education seems to be lagging the vulture capitalism of the 80's/90's by a couple of decades, but boy it does seem like it's here.
  - silisili 3y ago
    Fair point. I guess it has the bonus effect of pulling the ladder up. Don't have to worry about some pesky young, well educated person taking your job or competing for future offerings...
- bsder 3y ago
  > A school full of nothing but overpaid administrators Um, exactly? The budget crisis is, in fact, easy to solve. Start by laying off administrators in order of highest salary (starting with the University President as he has clearly failed at his job) and continue down the path until you have 25% budget surplus.
  - slaymaker1907 3y ago
    Yep, as highlighted in the article, cutting successful academic programs (which the linguistics program seems to have been since it generated 800k in profits) is selling the golden goose.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- 3y ago
ethbr1 3y ago
For reference, here are all the proposed WVU cuts by dept (~7.25% total faculty reduction): https://provost.wvu.edu/files/d/da8e760e-d129-47c1-b06d-5fe927b2ec34/summary-of-preliminary-recommendations-for-faculty-reduction_8-13-23.xlsx https://provost.wvu.edu/files/d/da8e760e-d129-47c1-b06d-5fe9... More context: https://wvutoday.wvu.edu/stories/2023/08/11/wvu-announces-preliminary-recommendations-academic-transformation-next-steps https://wvutoday.wvu.edu/stories/2023/08/11/wvu-announces-pr... and https://provost.wvu.edu/academic-transformation/academic-program-portfolio-review https://provost.wvu.edu/academic-transformation/academic-pro...
- sgustard 3y ago
  "For example, Mining Engineering has experienced a decline in enrollment, yet this area is critical to the state and the region, and there is unmet occupational demand. Also experiencing similar challenges is the Petroleum and Natural Gas program" Very interesting. The politicians of West Virginia want to prop up the oil and mining industries. Young people do not want careers that destroy the planet. So the solution is: eliminate World Languages?
  - failrate 3y ago
    Yes, learning other languages will increase empathy. Reduced empathy makes it easier to work in the fossil fuel industry.
    - ecshafer 3y ago
      How does learning other language increase empathy? Can you give a specific mechanism or metric for that? This sounds like a feel good idea, but I’ve taken foreign languages in a formal setting with 3 different languages; I never felt more empathetic afterwards.
      - failrate 3y ago
        Being unable to communicate with another human being can be very alienating. In my experience, learning another language opens up even more the fact that different groups are fundamentally similar. It could be that I started from a relatively low empathic capacity, but I also do not learn languages in a formal setting. I prefer to learn them immersively, e.g. working in a kitchen, traveling abroad.
SkipperCat 3y ago
Universities drank the kool-ade and thought that if they spent and unbelievable amount of money on administration, student perks and sports teams, that would generate an exponential growth in enrollment. It did not. The WSJ did a decent article about this a few weeks ago. https://www.wsj.com/articles/state-university-tuition-increase-spending-41a58100 https://www.wsj.com/articles/state-university-tuition-increa... It was hard not to see this coming. Everyone has been talking about how the benefit of a Bachelor's degree is not worth the tuition cost. Covid drove that home when students were paying tens of thousand dollars just to watch videos at home. I could go on and on about this but it just breaks my heart to see how bad universities screwed this up.
- BLanen 3y ago
  The article clearly states that the programs are financially doing fine and the cuts are ideological. So why is your comment relevant?
  - SkipperCat 3y ago
    The author does state what you say at the end of the 2nd paragraph, but in the same paragraph, he said "The reason given for this egregious violation of ethical and professional norms is that the university faces a dire budget crisis, and the administration has no choice but to cut academic programs in order to close their structural budget deficit." And in the third paragraph... "The story of how the university got into such a catastrophic financial position to begin with is a long and complex one" I do not doubt the author's claim that the linguistics dept at WVU was profitable. I also agree with him that these decisions (sensible or not) are born from the massive financial pit they've dug themselves into.
- nunez 3y ago
  The anonymous insider report linked within this article demonstrates that the financial issues ailing WVU are very specific to WVU and that other universities in its class are doing fine by comparison.
- polski-g 3y ago
obviouslynotme 3y ago
This is only a premonition of the things to come. Our universities have been hell bent on destroying themselves for the past few decades. They stole as much as they could as the traditional gatekeepers to the upper-middle class, but even the most clueless are realizing the missing value proposition. College enrollment has been dropping from its peak in 2010.[1] As the amount of freshmen and state funding drops, the parasites will fire everyone except their fellow parasites until the hosts are consumed. 1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/183995/us-college-enrollment-and-projections-in-public-and-private-institutions/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/183995/us-college-enroll...
codemac 3y ago
EDIT: Others have commented that this is just that the # of students taking courses vs. the # of students in the major. The phrase "program enrollment" meant something different to me. This would make the 800k profit make sense. Can someone help me clarify how they're getting to $800k in profit? When I look at their actual numbers, his comments don't make sense. https://provost.wvu.edu/files/d/bf3ef02f-e90a-4e43-a316-d295fa489067/academic-transformation-public-data-table_july-17-2023-100.pdf https://provost.wvu.edu/files/d/bf3ef02f-e90a-4e43-a316-d295... They somehow have 18000+ credit hours to their department in a year, but only 61 enrolled students in fall 2022 which, means an average student enrolled was taking 310 credits? Or ~150ish if the 2022 credit hours is for both fall & spring? My guess is that these are $0 credits. Most universities allow you to meet your "foreign languages requirement" by showing your High School transcripts, and then you get those credits applied to your degree. $0 profit. The later part of the spreadsheet clearly shows how impossible this is - they did not make $6.7M with 61 students' tuition. Clearly the spreadsheet is just a dumb formula multiplying by the credits.. So either they're somehow the most expensive foreign language school in the world, with 1 instructor per 2 students that folks are paying $50k+/semester.. Or their research grants aren't being accounted for correctly? (I don't know how grants work, I am but a lowly swe) Or they're a wildly expensive department that almost no one major's with, and their research grants don't cover their millions in losses to the university.
- codemac 3y ago
  The argument they should be making is more straight forward: We should not allow a University to become so mismanaged that every degree must be profitable, but instead a positive ROI for all students. Second, languages are not an optional part of a University for the people of West Virginia - we must be connected to the world.
- icegreentea2 3y ago
  Enrollment is for programs, but course credits are tabulated by subject code (not program). It's possible that students at the university taking foreign languages as actual courses (and not just transferring high school credits) count towards the credit (and revenue) total. You can see similar things in other programs (look at geography/geology) where'd you might expect a lot of non-major's to take a course in. EDIT: Or most blatantly, look at math. Pulling in ~20 million dollars of revenue on ~120 program enrollments with an FTE:Enrolled ratio of 3. The credits are clearly from non-major'd students taking courses offered.
bee_rider 3y ago
> All of the foreign language and literature programs at the university are to be discontinued; the president of the university publicly stated that foreign-language classes will be replaced with online apps or remote classes at other universities. If a university is just offering online courses at other schools, it ought to be treated as if it doesn’t offer the subject at all. I dunno, is it crucial to teach languages? I find (human) languages very difficult to learn, to the point of unpleasantness. But still, it seems frankly bizarre that a public university might not provide instruction in them. Not providing this kind of instruction puts a school in the vo-tech/community college category IMO. (Which are important places of learning but I believe the U there stands for University).
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  Of course it is crucial for any university to teach languages. For fields like history or archaeology of various regions of the world, a lot (if not most) of the reading that one has to do will be in languages other than English. Any North American university library will have at least some scholarship in its stacks in a language other than English. Also, in spite of the belief that language degrees are useless, they are an important first step, if not a prerequisite, towards 1) graduate studies in a field that draws on that language, and 2) various on-the-ground careers in the respective country. Lots of journalists based in and specializing in some region, started off with a degree in the language of that country, for example.
rehitman 3y ago
probably lot of money went to stupid gym, sport teams, and fancy buildings for cover of a brochure, while all is needed for these folks and their students to perform is a classroom with a blackboard, some desk, laptop, internet connection, and a place to hangout. That is all needed for 90% of education.
driggs 3y ago
Meanwhile our coal baron Governor is trumpeting that the State of West Virginia has a historic record $1.8-billion tax surplus this year: https://governor.wv.gov/News/press-releases/2023/Pages/Gov.-Justice-says-West-Virginia-shatters-all-time-financial-records-with-close-of-fiscal-year.aspx https://governor.wv.gov/News/press-releases/2023/Pages/Gov.-... And we're forcing the primary state university to gut its programs and/or risk complete shutdown over $45-million budget deficit, partially due to inadequate state funding. Why? Because - tragically - West Virginians pride themselves on ignorance, consistently vote against their own longterm best interests, and loathe the idea of liberal higher education in all its forms. (To be fair, the current WVU administration is to blame for letting this get out of hand rather than proactive budget cuts, but eduction should also be one of our literally-poor state's biggest investments.) This cynical perspective has been brought to you by a lifetime WV resident and WVU Computer Science grad, consistently disappointed by my state's active rejection of progress.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  > Why? Because - tragically - West Virginians pride themselves on ignorance, consistently vote against their own longterm best interests, and loathe the idea of liberal higher education in all its forms. I'm tired of people saying that people vote against their own interests. Is it so insane to believe that maybe they have different interests that don't make sense to you or me?
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    As long as they don’t complain when there is nothing left of value, that’s totally fine. https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/solutions/2021/07/14/west-virginia-case-study-impact-population-decline/7965589002/ https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/solutions/2021/07/14/wes... https://mooney.house.gov/west-virginia-losing-us-house-seat-leads-country-in-population-decline/ https://mooney.house.gov/west-virginia-losing-us-house-seat-... https://www.wvnews.com/statejournal/news/we-have-this-vicious-cycle-u-s-census-report-identifies-persistent-poverty-in-west-virginia/article_6e29234c-ef79-11ed-9675-cbfa1b9faf47.html https://www.wvnews.com/statejournal/news/we-have-this-viciou... https://www.register-herald.com/news/life/w-va-leads-all-others-in-cost-of-injury-deaths-of-despair/article_1d0eba0a-a8b9-11ed-ad23-c7367b140e1c.html https://www.register-herald.com/news/life/w-va-leads-all-oth...
nemo44x 3y ago
As it turns out, middle and working class people finally figured out it isn’t worth paying $100k for book club. One of the mistaken beliefs of many Americans is that class isn’t a big thing here. And with this mistaken belief, millions have bought the lie that they too could do book club or art club and the associated lifestyle of young adult daycare and actually end up in a better place. Naive parents stood in front of the “Mission Accomplished” banner teary eyed as their youngster went away to some school far from home that guaranteed a better life for them. If only they’d go into crippling debt. Happy to see this correction but sad it took so many ruined lives to get there. If you’re middle class or less and not exceptionally academically able then the only acceptable outcome is you exit an affordable college with a useful degree. The other crap is for rich kids that can study botany and end up at their dads hedge fund one day. No one is funding your “finding yourself”or w/e. Don’t be a sucker.
- kstrauser 3y ago
  > If you’re middle class or less and not exceptionally academically able then the only acceptable outcome is you exit an affordable college with a useful degree. The other crap is for rich kids that can study botany You roll your eyes at kids in “book clubs”, then use a freaking STEM program as your example. Botanists, the people studying plants so they can make healthier crops among other things, are your example of bad educational investments? I don’t think you understand the whole university system as well as you think you do.
  - nemo44x 3y ago
    I think you missed the entire point. Botany is great and important for some exceptionally talented person. The kind of kid that gets scholarship to a top university because they’re super smart and conscientious. These people will make a difference. It’s pointless for a middle class kid of average or even slightly above average ability with nothing to fall back on. These people need to make a living. Once you’re earning a living then there’s nothing stopping you from exploring botany. The internet is full of resources. Your local college will probably let you sit in for free. Do that.
LeanderK 3y ago
Can you fire tenured faculty? I thought that was not possible (and what tenure was about)?
- pge 3y ago
  Tenure prevents you from being fired individually but does not protect you if your whole department is axed. That may be why the cuts are structured the way they are (entire departments) rather than culling specific faculty in departments that are over staffed relative to enrollment.
  - LeanderK 3y ago
    ah okay, this makes sense!
agar 3y ago
Speaking as a parent, the state of higher education is shocking. Costs of $300,000 for a 4-year degree ($75K/year for tuition, fees, and housing) is not just possible, it's essentially the norm for many schools that aren't even top-tier. Even state schools will run about $200,000, all-in. God forbid you have more than one child. Universities tout their need-based financial aid, but the cut off is often far below the median salary in high cost of living areas. At that point the aid is "Congratulations, you qualify for student loans!" It's great that more lower-income families can get a full scholarship, but the middle class has been priced out of everything but state schools and community college.
- ecshafer 3y ago
  In 2008 the “expensive universities” were $40-45k a year all in. Now they are $80k a year all in. Outside of computer science, high finance, and management consulting… who is paying enough to warrant a $320k degree? And even then it’s pushing it…
  - agar 3y ago
    This is exactly right. It also forces 18 year-olds to commit to a high $ major on day 1, then stick with it no matter what. What if you're undecided, but still want to be in a good university while you figure it out? What if you realize you hate computer science but don't want to transfer universities? These would be horrible causes of anxiety, stress, and burn-out.
- jimbob45 3y ago
  Are you citing in-state or out-of-state figures?
  - agar 3y ago
    The most costly, of course, are private schools (which is where my daughter wants to go). However, the "financial back-up plan" of in-state 4-year universities is not exactly affordable either. In-state cost of UCLA, for example, is $37,385. UC Davis is $38,956 for California residents.
f23dsafdsa 3y ago
What do you think is easier? Cutting administrators and forcing a restructure of your university? Or cutting entire departments wholesale? It's classic vertical versus horizontal scaling, just with people's life work.
orochimaaru 3y ago
I completely sympathize with the author and his colleagues. However, I would respectfully say given the state of the university, please do not contemplate staying back. It seems most of the authors’ colleagues have external funding sources which they can take with them. Make a clean break. The relationship right now is broken. I wouldn’t try to mend it. It’ll just cause more stress as time goes on.
AlbertCory 3y ago
> operating profits of more than $800,000 in each of the last three years while I'm sympathetic to their plight, the notion of "profit" for an individual department of a university is probably laughable to a real accountant (which I'm not). College finances are indeed a disaster, though, and it's mostly their own fault: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37090403 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37090403
legitster 3y ago
I'm not going to lie - while it sucks for the departments affected, I actually think universities cutting tiny departments is probably a good thing and more universities are probably going to follow suit. This kind of hints at a deep growing conflict inside of higher-ed - is the primary beneficiary the students and undergraduate programs, or is it the academic community and graduate program? Having niche programs is only debatably good for students! While it may feel fancy to have some as feathers in your cap, the reality is that most students would be better off going to a college that specializes in their field rather than getting a sub-par experience from a novelty program added to round out "offerings".
- suzumer 3y ago
  If there is a specialty program that better caters to a students desired major and is affordable, generally speaking, said student will go to that school. A student studying linguistics at WVU is likely studying at the best linguistics program that they can afford and received an acceptance.
sombragris 3y ago
Professor Katz states that one of the reasons for the cut is ideological, though he does not elaborate. Does anyone have any idea of what he's talking about?
tomohawk 3y ago
And the womens studies program has no cuts. They are keeping the programs they think are important - the ones that prop up their luxury beliefs.
nunez 3y ago
From the anonymous report [0] linked here: > Beyond the irregular manner in which she was hired, the most unusual thing about Maryanne Reed as a Provost is that she does not hold a doctorate in her field (or any other). The Provost is responsible for overseeing graduate education, assessment of Faculty research, and the administration of tenure, which is normally based on research and limited to faculty with doctorates (Reed herself was a rare exception to this pattern as a professor of journalism). A Provost with no experience in any of these areas is highly unusual. As far as I'm aware, a Provost, or any academic executive, at a four-year research university without a PhD is super duper shady. Imagine a Distinguished Fellow at Microsoft or somewhere like that whose previous job was a rank consultant at Deloitte. It's like that, afaik. While Maryanne Reed, who holds an MS in Journalism, spent a lot of time at WVU (30 years as an assistant professor, which is usually the highest teaching position you can get without a PhD), her progression is still very unusual in academia. Outside that, it appears as if WVU is being robbed from the inside. I feel bad for the students. [0] https://archive.ph/uhQi1 https://archive.ph/uhQi1

The Cuts at WVU

105 points by lightlyused 3y ago

computerliker 3y ago

https://archive.ph/dsTN2 https://archive.ph/dsTN2 Just in case.

twolf910616 3y ago
here's the archive linked to the paywalled article he mentioned in the post https://archive.ph/gGqvX https://archive.ph/gGqvX

parl_match 3y ago

If their budget numbers are true, it demonstrates serious mismanagement.

deaddodo 3y ago
Yeah, this was my first thought reading through this. It literally makes no sense to close a department that, after operational and administrative costs, is net positive while you are facing a budget crisis. Later on, the writer mentions an ideological split/decision on the chairperson's part. I wish they would delve into that more. Do the administrative heads feel that using outsourced labor will be more profitable?
- tssva 3y ago
  > It literally makes no sense to close a department that, after operational and administrative costs, is net positive while you are facing a budget crisis. If they think investment in another department will bring a higher ROI it makes sense.
  - deaddodo 3y ago
    It's profitable and requires little overhead. Just do both. That's like saying "I don't want a free PS5, because I think I'd play my Nintendo Switch more often".
    - tssva 3y ago
      They are in a budget crunch. They likely don't have money to do both.
      - deaddodo 3y ago
        They are in a budget crunch. So they should close one of the departments that pays for itself and others? I'm having a hard time processing your logic here.
        tssva 3y ago
        If they feel they can bring in even more revenue from investing that money elsewhere then yes.
        deaddodo 3y ago
        I can only imagine that you are trolling, at this point. You understand the concept of profit, right? Let's just do numbers here: * Option A: you have 1mUSD to invest into Department X. * Option B: you have 1.2mUSD to invest into Department X and you get Department Y for free. Option A makes zero sense, logically.
        tssva 3y ago
        Not trolling. I'm not sure you understand opportunity costs. I have 5m to invest in a department. Investing that 5m in Department A and earn 800k in net revenue. If I invest that same 5m in Department B I can earn 1.4m in net revenue. If I invest in Department A I'm giving up 600k in net revenue.
dylan604 3y ago
Isn't pretty much any situation of layoffs/cutbacks demonstrations of mismanagement? Rarely is it a single issue that was unable to be predicted that causes things like this.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > Isn't pretty much any situation of layoffs/cutbacks demonstrations of mismanagement? Only if you view the function of management as being to maximize employment at the firm, which the people hiring the managers generally do not.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    you must think that layoffs only occur because of over hiring. i've seen departments that are profitable like the TFA, but because of issues in a different department that is closer to management's interest, other departments are decimated to cover the shortcomings. however, to me, management not recognizing that head count is unrealistic is still a management problem.
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      > you must think that layoffs only occur because of over hiring No, in fact, I think “overhiring” is mostly based on another misapprehension of management’s function. Hiring rapidly when conditions are favorable and firing rapidly when conditions change isn’t “overhiring” and then corrections, its two different sides of the near-optimal-as-possible management of headcount int the context of capitalism. Is it bad for workers? Sure, but there’s a reason it’s called “capitalism” and not “laborism”. Obviously, management makes mistakes. But rapid reductions in staff are not particularly a sign of that.
codemac 3y ago
EDIT: Others have commented that this is just that the # of students taking courses vs. the # of students in the major. The phrase "program enrollment" meant something different to me. This would make the 800k profit make sense. When I look at their actual numbers, his comments don't make sense: https://provost.wvu.edu/files/d/bf3ef02f-e90a-4e43-a316-d295fa489067/academic-transformation-public-data-table_july-17-2023-100.pdf https://provost.wvu.edu/files/d/bf3ef02f-e90a-4e43-a316-d295... They somehow have 18000+ credit hours to their department in a year, but only 61 enrolled students in fall 2022 which, means an average student enrolled was taking 310 credits? Or ~150ish if the 2022 credit hours is for both fall & spring? What I think is happening, is that most universities allow you to meet your "foreign languages requirement" by showing your High School transcripts, and then you get those credits applied to your transcript. That means you actually make $0 from those credits. The later part of the spreadsheet clearly shows how impossible this is - they did not make $6.7M with 61 students' tuition. Clearly the tuition is just a dumb excel formula multiplying by the credits. So either they're somehow the most expensive foreign language school in the world, with 1 instructor per 2 students... Or they're a wildly expensive department that almost no one major's with, and their research grants don't cover their millions in losses to the university.
- legitster 3y ago
  Yeah, the student to teacher ratio was telling. With 30 something faculty it was only 2?
- SL61 3y ago
  The enrollment numbers are probably for majors, i.e. enrollment count of 5 for the French program means there are 5 students majoring in French. The vast majority of students taking French classes would be taking them for general education requirements (or whatever WVU calls that), or due to other degree programs requiring a language class, or as electives. At my alma mater, the Philosophy department had something like 10 majors, but the whole department was kept afloat by the Nursing College's requirement for their students to take an ethics class. The philosophy professors would teach a few high-level philosophy courses to tiny classes, and then several massive ethics seminars with hundreds of nursing students.
legitster 3y ago
The requirements for the provost department are that the department had to make above $1 million in external grants annually to be exempt from review. https://provost.wvu.edu/academic-transformation/academic-program-portfolio-review https://provost.wvu.edu/academic-transformation/academic-pro... Tiny programs with not a lot of student interest did not make the cut.
zerocrates 3y ago
The department, if I've found it correctly on the sheet, has very few students enrolled in it but logs tens of thousands of credit hours a year: this is presumably mostly students taking a foreign language course as part of general education requirements. I imagine that's where the bulk of the tuition income allocated to the department is coming from. Presumably the idea is something like, if we axe the department, we dump 16 tenure-track and 32 total FTEs and something like 60 students lose their program: good trade. You just write off the linguistics and TESOL programs completely along with the handful of foreign language majors, and you figure that you can give out uhhhh... Duolingo credits to the students in other programs that cared about their foreign language/lit classes and keep them around. Of course you're abandoning the pretense of really being a university and offering well-rounded education and broad opportunities and all that... but at least you can keep all the administrators.

footy 3y ago

> In fact, on the same day WVU wrote to tell us our department is cancelled and we are fired, they ran a front-page article on the university website celebrating the NSF grant that Sergio Robles-Puente and I recently received, and lauding our innovative research and intensive student mentoring. I have a few close friends in academia and while IMO they're clearly underappreciated by their institutions (even the lucky ones who have tenure), this level of cynical disrespect is shocking.

clintonb 3y ago
This isn’t shocking. It’s the nature of layoffs. The folks making the cuts aren’t telling the the folks in the communications office, “hey, we are firing that person you’re doing a front page story on.” Also, the department won’t be dissolved until the end of the academic year.
- dylan604 3y ago
  i love the stories of companies announcing layoffs and then immediately announce bonuses for management. there's tone deaf, and then there's whatever this is
  - clintonb 3y ago
    If you're talking about a public company, you're probably referring to an official filing, not an actual press release. I'm not aware of any company issuing press releases saying, "we just paid this dude 8 figures to fire those little people."
foota 3y ago
Are we related?
- footy 3y ago
  I guess we are now
frob 3y ago

silisili 3y ago

This is a sick path to be on. Keep the money, plug kids into some other university's classes remotely. To what end? A school full of nothing but overpaid administrators, and kids all taking remote classes at disparate cheapest possible offerings?

rjbwork 3y ago
I mean, that is kind of the end game of all of this, isn't it? Crank up the prices, rent seek, get your bag, destroy the underlying product in pursuit of personal enrichment. Higher education seems to be lagging the vulture capitalism of the 80's/90's by a couple of decades, but boy it does seem like it's here.
- silisili 3y ago
  Fair point. I guess it has the bonus effect of pulling the ladder up. Don't have to worry about some pesky young, well educated person taking your job or competing for future offerings...
bsder 3y ago
> A school full of nothing but overpaid administrators Um, exactly? The budget crisis is, in fact, easy to solve. Start by laying off administrators in order of highest salary (starting with the University President as he has clearly failed at his job) and continue down the path until you have 25% budget surplus.
- slaymaker1907 3y ago
  Yep, as highlighted in the article, cutting successful academic programs (which the linguistics program seems to have been since it generated 800k in profits) is selling the golden goose.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
3y ago

ethbr1 3y ago

For reference, here are all the proposed WVU cuts by dept (~7.25% total faculty reduction): https://provost.wvu.edu/files/d/da8e760e-d129-47c1-b06d-5fe927b2ec34/summary-of-preliminary-recommendations-for-faculty-reduction_8-13-23.xlsx https://provost.wvu.edu/files/d/da8e760e-d129-47c1-b06d-5fe9... More context: https://wvutoday.wvu.edu/stories/2023/08/11/wvu-announces-preliminary-recommendations-academic-transformation-next-steps https://wvutoday.wvu.edu/stories/2023/08/11/wvu-announces-pr... and https://provost.wvu.edu/academic-transformation/academic-program-portfolio-review https://provost.wvu.edu/academic-transformation/academic-pro...

sgustard 3y ago
"For example, Mining Engineering has experienced a decline in enrollment, yet this area is critical to the state and the region, and there is unmet occupational demand. Also experiencing similar challenges is the Petroleum and Natural Gas program" Very interesting. The politicians of West Virginia want to prop up the oil and mining industries. Young people do not want careers that destroy the planet. So the solution is: eliminate World Languages?
- failrate 3y ago
  Yes, learning other languages will increase empathy. Reduced empathy makes it easier to work in the fossil fuel industry.
  - ecshafer 3y ago
    How does learning other language increase empathy? Can you give a specific mechanism or metric for that? This sounds like a feel good idea, but I’ve taken foreign languages in a formal setting with 3 different languages; I never felt more empathetic afterwards.
    - failrate 3y ago
      Being unable to communicate with another human being can be very alienating. In my experience, learning another language opens up even more the fact that different groups are fundamentally similar. It could be that I started from a relatively low empathic capacity, but I also do not learn languages in a formal setting. I prefer to learn them immersively, e.g. working in a kitchen, traveling abroad.

SkipperCat 3y ago

Universities drank the kool-ade and thought that if they spent and unbelievable amount of money on administration, student perks and sports teams, that would generate an exponential growth in enrollment. It did not. The WSJ did a decent article about this a few weeks ago. https://www.wsj.com/articles/state-university-tuition-increase-spending-41a58100 https://www.wsj.com/articles/state-university-tuition-increa... It was hard not to see this coming. Everyone has been talking about how the benefit of a Bachelor's degree is not worth the tuition cost. Covid drove that home when students were paying tens of thousand dollars just to watch videos at home. I could go on and on about this but it just breaks my heart to see how bad universities screwed this up.

BLanen 3y ago
The article clearly states that the programs are financially doing fine and the cuts are ideological. So why is your comment relevant?
- SkipperCat 3y ago
  The author does state what you say at the end of the 2nd paragraph, but in the same paragraph, he said "The reason given for this egregious violation of ethical and professional norms is that the university faces a dire budget crisis, and the administration has no choice but to cut academic programs in order to close their structural budget deficit." And in the third paragraph... "The story of how the university got into such a catastrophic financial position to begin with is a long and complex one" I do not doubt the author's claim that the linguistics dept at WVU was profitable. I also agree with him that these decisions (sensible or not) are born from the massive financial pit they've dug themselves into.
nunez 3y ago
The anonymous insider report linked within this article demonstrates that the financial issues ailing WVU are very specific to WVU and that other universities in its class are doing fine by comparison.
polski-g 3y ago

obviouslynotme 3y ago

This is only a premonition of the things to come. Our universities have been hell bent on destroying themselves for the past few decades. They stole as much as they could as the traditional gatekeepers to the upper-middle class, but even the most clueless are realizing the missing value proposition. College enrollment has been dropping from its peak in 2010.[1] As the amount of freshmen and state funding drops, the parasites will fire everyone except their fellow parasites until the hosts are consumed. 1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/183995/us-college-enrollment-and-projections-in-public-and-private-institutions/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/183995/us-college-enroll...

codemac 3y ago

EDIT: Others have commented that this is just that the # of students taking courses vs. the # of students in the major. The phrase "program enrollment" meant something different to me. This would make the 800k profit make sense. Can someone help me clarify how they're getting to $800k in profit? When I look at their actual numbers, his comments don't make sense. https://provost.wvu.edu/files/d/bf3ef02f-e90a-4e43-a316-d295fa489067/academic-transformation-public-data-table_july-17-2023-100.pdf https://provost.wvu.edu/files/d/bf3ef02f-e90a-4e43-a316-d295... They somehow have 18000+ credit hours to their department in a year, but only 61 enrolled students in fall 2022 which, means an average student enrolled was taking 310 credits? Or ~150ish if the 2022 credit hours is for both fall & spring? My guess is that these are $0 credits. Most universities allow you to meet your "foreign languages requirement" by showing your High School transcripts, and then you get those credits applied to your degree. $0 profit. The later part of the spreadsheet clearly shows how impossible this is - they did not make $6.7M with 61 students' tuition. Clearly the spreadsheet is just a dumb formula multiplying by the credits.. So either they're somehow the most expensive foreign language school in the world, with 1 instructor per 2 students that folks are paying $50k+/semester.. Or their research grants aren't being accounted for correctly? (I don't know how grants work, I am but a lowly swe) Or they're a wildly expensive department that almost no one major's with, and their research grants don't cover their millions in losses to the university.

codemac 3y ago
The argument they should be making is more straight forward: We should not allow a University to become so mismanaged that every degree must be profitable, but instead a positive ROI for all students. Second, languages are not an optional part of a University for the people of West Virginia - we must be connected to the world.
icegreentea2 3y ago
Enrollment is for programs, but course credits are tabulated by subject code (not program). It's possible that students at the university taking foreign languages as actual courses (and not just transferring high school credits) count towards the credit (and revenue) total. You can see similar things in other programs (look at geography/geology) where'd you might expect a lot of non-major's to take a course in. EDIT: Or most blatantly, look at math. Pulling in ~20 million dollars of revenue on ~120 program enrollments with an FTE:Enrolled ratio of 3. The credits are clearly from non-major'd students taking courses offered.

bee_rider 3y ago

> All of the foreign language and literature programs at the university are to be discontinued; the president of the university publicly stated that foreign-language classes will be replaced with online apps or remote classes at other universities. If a university is just offering online courses at other schools, it ought to be treated as if it doesn’t offer the subject at all. I dunno, is it crucial to teach languages? I find (human) languages very difficult to learn, to the point of unpleasantness. But still, it seems frankly bizarre that a public university might not provide instruction in them. Not providing this kind of instruction puts a school in the vo-tech/community college category IMO. (Which are important places of learning but I believe the U there stands for University).

OfSanguineFire 3y ago
Of course it is crucial for any university to teach languages. For fields like history or archaeology of various regions of the world, a lot (if not most) of the reading that one has to do will be in languages other than English. Any North American university library will have at least some scholarship in its stacks in a language other than English. Also, in spite of the belief that language degrees are useless, they are an important first step, if not a prerequisite, towards 1) graduate studies in a field that draws on that language, and 2) various on-the-ground careers in the respective country. Lots of journalists based in and specializing in some region, started off with a degree in the language of that country, for example.

rehitman 3y ago

probably lot of money went to stupid gym, sport teams, and fancy buildings for cover of a brochure, while all is needed for these folks and their students to perform is a classroom with a blackboard, some desk, laptop, internet connection, and a place to hangout. That is all needed for 90% of education.

driggs 3y ago

Meanwhile our coal baron Governor is trumpeting that the State of West Virginia has a historic record $1.8-billion tax surplus this year: https://governor.wv.gov/News/press-releases/2023/Pages/Gov.-Justice-says-West-Virginia-shatters-all-time-financial-records-with-close-of-fiscal-year.aspx https://governor.wv.gov/News/press-releases/2023/Pages/Gov.-... And we're forcing the primary state university to gut its programs and/or risk complete shutdown over $45-million budget deficit, partially due to inadequate state funding. Why? Because - tragically - West Virginians pride themselves on ignorance, consistently vote against their own longterm best interests, and loathe the idea of liberal higher education in all its forms. (To be fair, the current WVU administration is to blame for letting this get out of hand rather than proactive budget cuts, but eduction should also be one of our literally-poor state's biggest investments.) This cynical perspective has been brought to you by a lifetime WV resident and WVU Computer Science grad, consistently disappointed by my state's active rejection of progress.

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
> Why? Because - tragically - West Virginians pride themselves on ignorance, consistently vote against their own longterm best interests, and loathe the idea of liberal higher education in all its forms. I'm tired of people saying that people vote against their own interests. Is it so insane to believe that maybe they have different interests that don't make sense to you or me?
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  As long as they don’t complain when there is nothing left of value, that’s totally fine. https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/solutions/2021/07/14/west-virginia-case-study-impact-population-decline/7965589002/ https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/solutions/2021/07/14/wes... https://mooney.house.gov/west-virginia-losing-us-house-seat-leads-country-in-population-decline/ https://mooney.house.gov/west-virginia-losing-us-house-seat-... https://www.wvnews.com/statejournal/news/we-have-this-vicious-cycle-u-s-census-report-identifies-persistent-poverty-in-west-virginia/article_6e29234c-ef79-11ed-9675-cbfa1b9faf47.html https://www.wvnews.com/statejournal/news/we-have-this-viciou... https://www.register-herald.com/news/life/w-va-leads-all-others-in-cost-of-injury-deaths-of-despair/article_1d0eba0a-a8b9-11ed-ad23-c7367b140e1c.html https://www.register-herald.com/news/life/w-va-leads-all-oth...

nemo44x 3y ago

As it turns out, middle and working class people finally figured out it isn’t worth paying $100k for book club. One of the mistaken beliefs of many Americans is that class isn’t a big thing here. And with this mistaken belief, millions have bought the lie that they too could do book club or art club and the associated lifestyle of young adult daycare and actually end up in a better place. Naive parents stood in front of the “Mission Accomplished” banner teary eyed as their youngster went away to some school far from home that guaranteed a better life for them. If only they’d go into crippling debt. Happy to see this correction but sad it took so many ruined lives to get there. If you’re middle class or less and not exceptionally academically able then the only acceptable outcome is you exit an affordable college with a useful degree. The other crap is for rich kids that can study botany and end up at their dads hedge fund one day. No one is funding your “finding yourself”or w/e. Don’t be a sucker.

kstrauser 3y ago
> If you’re middle class or less and not exceptionally academically able then the only acceptable outcome is you exit an affordable college with a useful degree. The other crap is for rich kids that can study botany You roll your eyes at kids in “book clubs”, then use a freaking STEM program as your example. Botanists, the people studying plants so they can make healthier crops among other things, are your example of bad educational investments? I don’t think you understand the whole university system as well as you think you do.
- nemo44x 3y ago
  I think you missed the entire point. Botany is great and important for some exceptionally talented person. The kind of kid that gets scholarship to a top university because they’re super smart and conscientious. These people will make a difference. It’s pointless for a middle class kid of average or even slightly above average ability with nothing to fall back on. These people need to make a living. Once you’re earning a living then there’s nothing stopping you from exploring botany. The internet is full of resources. Your local college will probably let you sit in for free. Do that.

LeanderK 3y ago

Can you fire tenured faculty? I thought that was not possible (and what tenure was about)?

pge 3y ago
Tenure prevents you from being fired individually but does not protect you if your whole department is axed. That may be why the cuts are structured the way they are (entire departments) rather than culling specific faculty in departments that are over staffed relative to enrollment.
- LeanderK 3y ago
  ah okay, this makes sense!

agar 3y ago

Speaking as a parent, the state of higher education is shocking. Costs of $300,000 for a 4-year degree ($75K/year for tuition, fees, and housing) is not just possible, it's essentially the norm for many schools that aren't even top-tier. Even state schools will run about $200,000, all-in. God forbid you have more than one child. Universities tout their need-based financial aid, but the cut off is often far below the median salary in high cost of living areas. At that point the aid is "Congratulations, you qualify for student loans!" It's great that more lower-income families can get a full scholarship, but the middle class has been priced out of everything but state schools and community college.

ecshafer 3y ago
In 2008 the “expensive universities” were $40-45k a year all in. Now they are $80k a year all in. Outside of computer science, high finance, and management consulting… who is paying enough to warrant a $320k degree? And even then it’s pushing it…
- agar 3y ago
  This is exactly right. It also forces 18 year-olds to commit to a high $ major on day 1, then stick with it no matter what. What if you're undecided, but still want to be in a good university while you figure it out? What if you realize you hate computer science but don't want to transfer universities? These would be horrible causes of anxiety, stress, and burn-out.
jimbob45 3y ago
Are you citing in-state or out-of-state figures?
- agar 3y ago
  The most costly, of course, are private schools (which is where my daughter wants to go). However, the "financial back-up plan" of in-state 4-year universities is not exactly affordable either. In-state cost of UCLA, for example, is $37,385. UC Davis is $38,956 for California residents.

f23dsafdsa 3y ago

What do you think is easier? Cutting administrators and forcing a restructure of your university? Or cutting entire departments wholesale? It's classic vertical versus horizontal scaling, just with people's life work.

orochimaaru 3y ago

I completely sympathize with the author and his colleagues. However, I would respectfully say given the state of the university, please do not contemplate staying back. It seems most of the authors’ colleagues have external funding sources which they can take with them. Make a clean break. The relationship right now is broken. I wouldn’t try to mend it. It’ll just cause more stress as time goes on.

AlbertCory 3y ago

> operating profits of more than $800,000 in each of the last three years while I'm sympathetic to their plight, the notion of "profit" for an individual department of a university is probably laughable to a real accountant (which I'm not). College finances are indeed a disaster, though, and it's mostly their own fault: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37090403 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37090403

legitster 3y ago

I'm not going to lie - while it sucks for the departments affected, I actually think universities cutting tiny departments is probably a good thing and more universities are probably going to follow suit. This kind of hints at a deep growing conflict inside of higher-ed - is the primary beneficiary the students and undergraduate programs, or is it the academic community and graduate program? Having niche programs is only debatably good for students! While it may feel fancy to have some as feathers in your cap, the reality is that most students would be better off going to a college that specializes in their field rather than getting a sub-par experience from a novelty program added to round out "offerings".

suzumer 3y ago
If there is a specialty program that better caters to a students desired major and is affordable, generally speaking, said student will go to that school. A student studying linguistics at WVU is likely studying at the best linguistics program that they can afford and received an acceptance.

sombragris 3y ago

Professor Katz states that one of the reasons for the cut is ideological, though he does not elaborate. Does anyone have any idea of what he's talking about?

tomohawk 3y ago

And the womens studies program has no cuts. They are keeping the programs they think are important - the ones that prop up their luxury beliefs.

nunez 3y ago

From the anonymous report [0] linked here: > Beyond the irregular manner in which she was hired, the most unusual thing about Maryanne Reed as a Provost is that she does not hold a doctorate in her field (or any other). The Provost is responsible for overseeing graduate education, assessment of Faculty research, and the administration of tenure, which is normally based on research and limited to faculty with doctorates (Reed herself was a rare exception to this pattern as a professor of journalism). A Provost with no experience in any of these areas is highly unusual. As far as I'm aware, a Provost, or any academic executive, at a four-year research university without a PhD is super duper shady. Imagine a Distinguished Fellow at Microsoft or somewhere like that whose previous job was a rank consultant at Deloitte. It's like that, afaik. While Maryanne Reed, who holds an MS in Journalism, spent a lot of time at WVU (30 years as an assistant professor, which is usually the highest teaching position you can get without a PhD), her progression is still very unusual in academia. Outside that, it appears as if WVU is being robbed from the inside. I feel bad for the students. [0] https://archive.ph/uhQi1 https://archive.ph/uhQi1