West Virginia University has been strangely quiet about something that, from a public relations standpoint, it should be shouting from the rooftops.
A few weeks ago, it was announced that top administrators had been asked to voluntarily “give back” up to 10% of their annual salary. According to a WVU statement, there was 100% participation, resulting in $772,772 (yes, that is a weirdly specific number) being given back to the university.
On a macro scale, this nearly three-quarters of a million dollars doesn’t even put a dent in the $41 million deficit WVU faces. But on a micro scale, that amount easily covers a well-paid professor’s salary for over a decade, or it covers several educators’ salaries for several years. And when we’re talking about real people with real lives and real expenses, that’s a huge deal.
So why isn’t WVU blaring the good news from every metaphorical megaphone it can?
Dozens, if not hundreds, of students, current and former faculty, alumni and community members advocated for administrators to take pay cuts to offset some of the deficit, with the hope that trimming from the top would save jobs at the bottom. And WVU did just that. Not as much as many would like, but the university still did it.
And yet, when asked about the voluntary give back, WVU hems and haws and won’t give a straight answer.
President Gordon Gee made the request on Oct. 23 and it was announced at a Faculty Senate meeting Nov. 6. Our reporter David Beard immediately followed up and was told that the university wouldn’t be able to provide details until the following week. When it finally did respond, the university provided virtually no information beyond the total amount given back. WVU wouldn’t identify who participated in the voluntary cuts nor how many participated nor how much each person chose to give (remember, it was “up to 10%”).
Even if people didn’t want to disclose the exact amount, one would think the participating administrators would want to be acknowledged for taking one for the team, so to speak. But the university has done everything it can to keep this on the down-low as much as possible.
Perhaps this is reflective of the “do good when no one is watching” philosophy, but WVU’s refusal to provide more details doesn’t feel like humbleness or humility. Considering the verbal beating WVU has taken over its academic transformation, one would think it would take whatever good press it could possibly get.
When Gee sat down with the Editorial Board in September, he was adamant that WVU has been nothing but transparent. We didn’t quite agree with him then, but we certainly don’t agree with that sentiment now. The university cannot proclaim its transparency while it’s being strangely tight-lipped about something we’d think it would be celebrating.
