In June 2018, I first saw West Virginia University’s campus. I vividly remember seeing flags from all around the world hanging in the Mountainlair. Like many other people, I fell in love with it immediately, and I still loved it when I toured in 2019 and started in 2020. Coming from Weirton, West Virginia, Morgantown was a breath of fresh air. All around me were people to meet, places to experience and opportunities to jump at. I fear that when I graduate, this will no longer be the WVU that I once fell in love with.
I am a first-generation student and an eighth-generation West Virginian. I’m not sure if my great grandparents ever would’ve believed that such a close relative would attend college, let alone plan to go to law school. Over the years at WVU, I’ve met many other people that share the same sentiments, as well as people who have the exact opposite lived experience.
I’m grateful that I am able to be here and major in history, Spanish and philosophy. It has been a privilege to learn another language and to even study abroad in Santander, Spain for an entire month.
Olivia Dowler (second from right) and friends studying abroad in Spain in 2023.
But I can’t begin my senior year celebrating that I just returned from another continent, having met so many new people and learned so many new things that can be taught in no other way than experience. Instead, I have to spend it fighting for my program and many others to remain at WVU.
In the eyes of WVU, I am not even seen as a Spanish major—all because I added it on rather than coming in with it. In their count of students in the program, administration only looked at those with a world language as their “first” major. When students asked to move it to the first position, the University responded by telling us it couldn’t be processed until after the appeals process had ended. To not include students with an added world language major or minor, even after being made aware of the fact, makes me feel both disappointed and embarrassed by my institution.
According to data from the Migration Policy Institute in 2021, 98.1% of people that were born in the United States and live in West Virginia speak only English. The access to world language education in the state is already slim. What message does it send to the rest of the state when the flagship University deems learning languages and experiencing other cultures unimportant and dispensable? It certainly continues the stereotypes around the nation that are already pushed onto West Virginians: that we are uneducated, illiterate hillbillies stuck in our ways and can never change. It casts out people of other nationalities and with different lived experiences.
I am confident in saying that it will send the message to young people to get out and never come back. That is the same message that was sent to me when I expressed that I wanted to stay in West Virginia after high school. The lack of The World Languages Department will expedite the already increasing brain drain that the state is experiencing. How could we ask and expect young people to stay, return or move to West Virginia when the fact is apparent that knowledge of other cultures is seen to be of little value?
It mustn’t be forgotten that being able to go out of state for college is a luxury that can’t be afforded by all students. West Virginia has the sickest and one of the oldest populations in the nation, according to data from Forbes and the Population Reference Bureau. Many students can’t move away from their parents, grandparents, siblings, children or neighbors. Others cannot financially afford to go elsewhere. Because of this, they may be forced to compromise on their dreams, as the paths to pursue them may not be open anymore. As the land-grant, flagship University of the state, WVU was supposed to pave these paths for students who never knew they had the opportunity to walk them.
The World Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics Department is unfortunately not the only part of the University facing elimination. Among the 32 total majors that have been recommended to discontinue are the BSR in Recreation, Parks and Tourism, BA in Art History, BS in Environmental and Community Planning, MA and PhD in Mathematics, MPA in Public Administration, MFA in Acting and MLS in Legal Studies.
How can the state bring in people and boost the economy with tourism if there aren’t any professionals in the field? How will we celebrate Katherine Johnson being one of the first Black women to explore graduate studies in mathematics at WVU when the program no longer exists?
Even if you’d like to obtain a PhD in Mathematics in West Virginia, you will no longer be able to if this program is stripped. The only public university that you can get a BA in Puppetry at will be the University of Connecticut (taking away one of the most unique programs in the country from WVU). WVU is the only higher education institute in the state with an R1 research status, and I fear that, with the loss of these programs, we may lose that, too.
Many people have told me not to worry so much, as I am one of the students who will be “taught out” from my program before it ends. While grateful, I cannot settle for that. I cannot settle knowing that there are freshmen and sophomores having the rug pulled out from under their feet, having to either change their major or transfer universities to study what they love. I cannot settle knowing the effect that this will have on faculty and staff, knowing that some will have to uproot their families to find jobs at other universities and some will have to give up the profession altogether.
My heart breaks for the professors who stand in these classrooms, knowing that they only have a year or two left to go. How do you expect someone to push on happily and work with their best foot forward when they know in the back of their minds that there is an expiration date to it all?
Seeing the uproar from the nation has been beautiful, and I am grateful it has captured the public eye. On the other hand, the response of the state has saddened me deeply. Other large cities and universities in the state should not be pushing for the downfall of a university that will bring all of West Virginia right down with it. The West Virginia University Student Government Association should not be promising to help with the aftermath; they should be fighting on the forefront. Perhaps most of all, the West Virginia Legislature should stop taunting the University (as it did in giving $45 million — the exact amount we are in deficit — to Marshall University to build up their cybersecurity center) and provide a helping hand. I can guarantee that each person in those chambers has either gone to WVU, has a family member or friend that attended or has somehow benefitted from the services it provides. At the same time, WVU needs to stop attempting to pull itself up by its metaphorical bootstraps and ask the government for assistance. Refusing to ask for and receive help in this situation is ignorant, egocentric and cowardice.
I understand that we are going through an unprecedented time for West Virginia University. I don’t know how so much of a deficit was able to pile up until it reached $45 million. What I do know is that it is time for the excuses to stop. Maybe this is something that is facing a string of universities, maybe it is an after-effect of COVID-19 or maybe it was largely just mismanagement. At this point, I do not want to hear excuses. I want to see solutions — solutions that will better the state of West Virginia and its people, not drive us further into the ground.