WVU cutting 32 majors, all foreign languages

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don't pay shit ton of money and major in a language at a college.

What if you want to teach it yourself as a career? Do you want to do away with foreign languages in high school by getting rid of teachers to teach those classes? Do you think foreign service careers should all be axed? Do you think our intelligence agencies have no interest in people who are fluent in foreign languages?

But also, WVU is not a shit-ton of money compared to other schools and if you can't afford it then you'll likely be eligible for Pell Grants and other aid.

In-state cost by household income From US Dept of Education (IPEDS)
Household income Average cost after aid
Less than $30,000 $9,179
$30,001–48,000 $10,282
$48,001–75,000 $13,706
$75,001–110,000 $16,566
More than $110,001 $17,511

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don't pay shit ton of money and major in a language at a college.

Nobody pays a shit ton to attend WVU. Hopefully they'll still offer the classes outside of a major because a flagship not even offering languages would make them a joke.
[b]

They said they would look into an app to provide language instruction. It’s not lile they had separate departments for Chinese and German— they had a world language department which hosted all the foreign language professors and now they are letting them all go.

It is a joke — a sick joke. It will accelerate the death spiral of the school not reverse it but the consultants will get their money and the modern know nothings will be happy no one is getting educated

No one becomes fluent learning a language from an app. I do use programs like Rosetta Stone and DuoLingo, but it's NOT the same thing as being in a class and being forced into conversation and having a real person answer your questions and explain things to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
A dozen majors recommended to be axed are undergraduate-level, while 20 are graduate-level majors. The university said the proposed cuts would represent a total of 434 students, or 2% of its total enrollment.

There are 169 potential reductions in faculty, or 7% of the total in Morgantown, WVU said in a news release.

This part says it all. 169 faculty members to support the majors of just 434 students. These were not popular majors, but you have overhead to run a department, thus leading to a crazy It's a wise place to cut. 1:2.5 faculty-student ratio, compared to 1:18 WVU-wide.

1. a lot of people are taking languages, but not majoring in them. I took French because I needed a language for a philosophy major. You also have students coming in who need to take a year to hit graduation requirements.

2. They are cutting faculty in other departments too. The Math department is slated to take a take a big cut, so for everyone saying 'but STEM' in response to language cuts, who teaches all of the math requirements for STEM degrees? They are totally eliminating the graduate school component of the math department which means no more graduate student TAs

[Anonymous]

They don’t need $90k/yr PhDs teaching language courses. They could get the job done with adjuncts with master’s degrees.

Agree that they could have trimmed waste by canning lots of the associate deans of student engagement and such. Also cut a few dozen surly middle-aged receptionists with pictures of their grandchildren on their desks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you look at the states that WV borders, UVA, UMD, Penn State, Pitt, Ohio State, even Kentucky are all growing and healthy. Meanwhile WVU is shrinking

Population, in millions;

WV: 1.8
VA: 8.6
MD: 6
PA: 13
OH: 12
KY: 4.5

Ignoring the broken US system for Senate and Electoral College, WV should probably merge with MD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you look at the states that WV borders, UVA, UMD, Penn State, Pitt, Ohio State, even Kentucky are all growing and healthy. Meanwhile WVU is shrinking

Population, in millions;

WV: 1.8
VA: 8.6
MD: 6
PA: 13
OH: 12
KY: 4.5

Ignoring the broken US system for Senate and Electoral College, WV should probably merge with MD.

Vermont has 650k and UVM is healthy. Same with Rhode Island and Delaware and 1M.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They are cutting all math graduate programs. I wonder how they'll teach calc without TAs

How do LACs (without grad schools) teach calculus?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you look at the states that WV borders, UVA, UMD, Penn State, Pitt, Ohio State, even Kentucky are all growing and healthy. Meanwhile WVU is shrinking

Population, in millions;

WV: 1.8
VA: 8.6
MD: 6
PA: 13
OH: 12
KY: 4.5

Ignoring the broken US system for Senate and Electoral College, WV should probably merge with MD.

Funny you should say that! I was thinking the same thing, except the Maryland part. Virginia should take back its old territory. That way, one quarter of the state wouldn’t feel as disenfranchised as rest. The civil war ended two centuries ago, time to bring WVA back home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are cutting all math graduate programs. I wonder how they'll teach calc without TAs

How do LACs (without grad schools) teach calculus?

LACs have far smaller classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are cutting all math graduate programs. I wonder how they'll teach calc without TAs

How do LACs (without grad schools) teach calculus?

By charging much higher tuition. I had a tenured professor teaching a class of 35 for calc. I doubt WVU has the money for that

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you look at the states that WV borders, UVA, UMD, Penn State, Pitt, Ohio State, even Kentucky are all growing and healthy. Meanwhile WVU is shrinking

Population, in millions;

WV: 1.8
VA: 8.6
MD: 6
PA: 13
OH: 12
KY: 4.5

Ignoring the broken US system for Senate and Electoral College, WV should probably merge with MD.

Funny you should say that! I was thinking the same thing, except the Maryland part. Virginia should take back its old territory. That way, one quarter of the state wouldn’t feel as disenfranchised as rest. The civil war ended two centuries ago, time to bring WVA back home.

+1 It's like east and west Germany. WVA cannot seem to go it alone. They have the worst record for almost every metric: poverty, education, jobs...

Just merge with VA already. Plus Manchin is a douche do-nothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are cutting all math graduate programs. I wonder how they'll teach calc without TAs

How do LACs (without grad schools) teach calculus?

Much better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you look at the states that WV borders, UVA, UMD, Penn State, Pitt, Ohio State, even Kentucky are all growing and healthy. Meanwhile WVU is shrinking

Population, in millions;

WV: 1.8
VA: 8.6
MD: 6
PA: 13
OH: 12
KY: 4.5

Ignoring the broken US system for Senate and Electoral College, WV should probably merge with MD.

Funny you should say that! I was thinking the same thing, except the Maryland part. Virginia should take back its old territory. That way, one quarter of the state wouldn’t feel as disenfranchised as rest. The civil war ended two centuries ago, time to bring WVA back home.

Sorry, secessions have consequences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
A dozen majors recommended to be axed are undergraduate-level, while 20 are graduate-level majors. The university said the proposed cuts would represent a total of 434 students, or 2% of its total enrollment.

There are 169 potential reductions in faculty, or 7% of the total in Morgantown, WVU said in a news release.

This part says it all. 169 faculty members to support the majors of just 434 students. These were not popular majors, but you have overhead to run a department, thus leading to a crazy It's a wise place to cut. 1:2.5 faculty-student ratio, compared to 1:18 WVU-wide.

1. a lot of people are taking languages, but not majoring in them. I took French because I needed a language for a philosophy major. You also have students coming in who need to take a year to hit graduation requirements.

2. They are cutting faculty in other departments too. The Math department is slated to take a take a big cut, so for everyone saying 'but STEM' in response to language cuts, who teaches all of the math requirements for STEM degrees? They are totally eliminating the graduate school component of the math department which means no more graduate student TAs

They will either need to hire more math profs or, more likely, they will just offer fewer classes and have students take longer to graduate.

I don't get the feeling most people are going to WVU for STEM education either, if they have a choice.

More state universities are going to be cutting back to only the most popular, money making programs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you look at the states that WV borders, UVA, UMD, Penn State, Pitt, Ohio State, even Kentucky are all growing and healthy. Meanwhile WVU is shrinking

Population, in millions;

WV: 1.8
VA: 8.6
MD: 6
PA: 13
OH: 12
KY: 4.5

Ignoring the broken US system for Senate and Electoral College, WV should probably merge with MD.

Funny you should say that! I was thinking the same thing, except the Maryland part. Virginia should take back its old territory. That way, one quarter of the state wouldn’t feel as disenfranchised as rest. The civil war ended two centuries ago, time to bring WVA back home.

Sorry, secessions have consequences.

Honestly, we don't want them back at this point.