MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — More than 200 people came to the Mountainlair Free Speech Zone on Monday to protest proposed cuts to programs and faculty.
The academic review has identified 32 programs and 169 faculty cuts.
University officials said they have received 19 notices of intent to appeal the proposals before the Friday, August 18 deadline.
Marisa Proco is a second-year Masters student in math on a Masters to PHD pathway, with programs identified to be eliminated. If the cuts are approved, Proco would finish her Masters in the teach-out program and have to search for another PHD program.
“That course would not apply to my PHD, so I would have to start the application process for grad schools for my PHD all over again,” Proco said. “I would have to spend hundreds of dollars on application fees.”
Zachary Gilpin has an undergraduate degree in Spanish through the Department of World Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics (WLLL), which is identified for elimination, and is a graduate student. Gilpin said that through WLLL and his undergraduate research in Central America, he is able to stay in Morgantown to continue the graduate program.
“Well, I want to be a professor, and frankly, up until now, I had a positive view of West Virginia University,” Gilpin said. “But if anyone I knew were to ask me, I would be honest with them and tell them about the loss of opportunity here.”
A four-year WVU student majoring in math, Matthew Kolb from Follansbee, is a member of the West Virginia United Students’ Union (WVUSU) and said membership of the group will likely grow because of the event. The WVUSU is now delving into up to three years of data and financial information that is being shared with members of the student body.
“What we want to do with that research is put it back into the student body to educate them in a way they are not being educated right now,” Kolb said.
Ziah Madsen is a freshman from Colorado who traveled to Morgantown to pursue a degree in puppetry and arrived on August 11 when some of the cut announcements were being released. WVU and the University of Connecticut are the only two schools in the nation that offer a bachelor’s degree-level puppetry program.
“For the vast majority of people who pursue puppetry, school is where they build those connections and really hone their craft,” Madsen said. “To take away one of those avenues really doesn’t seem right.”
Tom Shamberger, an alumni, wore the signature red bandana around his neck and said he wants to see stability return to the university. Shamberger said the talk of program cuts needs to stop, and the institution should consider new leadership and a new direction.
“I think there needs to be a change in leadership at the university,” Shamberger said. “focusing on an open and transparent administration.”
A simultaneous rally was held on the Evansdale campus.