WVU students plan dual walkouts Monday in protest of proposed cuts

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia University students plan simultaneous walkouts Monday at noon in protest of proposed program and faculty cuts.

One is planned in the free speech zone at the Mountainlair, and the other will be held at the Evansdale athletic fields next to the Student Recreation Center.

If approved, the cuts would eliminate 32 programs and 169 faculty positions. The cuts are an effort to close a $45 million budget gap that could increase to $75 million over the next five years.

Matthew Kolb, a fourth-year WVU student majoring in math and a member of the West Virginia United Students’ Union (WVUSU) from Follansbee, is part of the group planning the walkouts. Kolb said the group is demanding a freeze on the current transformation until an outside professional can evaluate revenues and expenses over the last few years.

“A full independent audit of university finances is needed to make sure inconsistencies in the data that exist are taken care of and to make sure there are really no other ways to fix the deficit,” Kolb said.

According to Kolb, departments like World Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics being considered for discontinuation have had enrollment increases and have made money for the university. The group believes the post-pandemic recovery will continue, and the program cuts proposed are too drastic at this time.

“In some departments, we have actually seen enrollment numbers return to pre-COVID levels, which is a good sign, right?” Kolb said. “It means the university is possibly, probably making a rebound.”

Kolb said he was disappointed there isn’t more interest in digging into the budget to find efficiencies and eliminate wasteful spending. That’s also a major reason the group is calling for an independent review of the WVU budget.

“If it does exist, which we do believe it does, we would like that to be cut,” Kolb said. “Right now, if there’s wasteful spending, we should be attacking that before we attack our programs, faculty, and staff.”

Citing recent comments that WVU students haven’t been concerned about the cuts, Kolb said they care a great deal about the support staff, faculty, and fellow students that are likely to be affected by the cuts.

Students wishing to participate in the walkout are encouraged to wear red. Kolb said they’ll be talking about their demands, which include no program reductions or discontinuations, no reductions in force, the independent audit, cutting wasteful administrative spending, reducing the salary of university administrators, investigating the university administrators and the Board of Governors, and increasing state investment in higher education.

“And it’s also our opportunity to show the administration that students do care and we’re not neutral on the issue, which some have raised,” Kolb said.

The group has received several offers of support from community leaders in Morgantown, especially local alumni. Those offers and inquiries have extended statewide and even across the country, according to Kolb.

“We’ve had people across the state reach out to us and ask what’s going on, and we tell them what’s going on,” Kolb said. “People outside the university really want to know; we’ve had people reaching out from across the country–that’s how big this is.”