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WSU President Addresses Retrenchment Concerns, Reiterates Mitigation as Top Priority

WSU Campus | Photo by Soham Parikh | The Wright State Guardian


The Wright State University (WSU) Faculty Senate met virtually on Monday, Feb. 22, with discussion centered around faculty and alumni retrenchment concerns, potential curriculum changes and voting on various areas of new and old business.  

Addressing concerns 

In light of WSU President Sue Edwards’s retrenchment recommendations presented to the Board of Trustees on Feb.19, Edwards entertained a series of questions from Senators regarding retrenchment and the potential unforeseen effects of cutting up to 113 faculty positions. 

Faculty Senator and professor of English at WSU, Dr. Hope Jennings, echoed the concerns of a liberal arts alumnus, who submitted a letter of concern to the university after first hearing of the recommended faculty cuts.  

“I implore you to reconsider the dire mistake of making faculty cuts in the College of Liberal Arts and throughout the rest of the university. The positive lifelong impact of Wright State is due entirely to those professors, and losing them would be losing your most valuable assets,” Jennings said while quoting the letter of concern.  

Edwards reiterated to Jennings and to the senate body that the mitigation of faculty cuts is and has always been a top priority.  

“The aim is to mitigate first and foremost,” Edwards said. “I made that very clear and I don’t really understand how that’s got lost in translation.”  

Edwards added that the concern of students and alumni does not come as a surprise.  

“It’s not surprising because we have exceptional professors,” Edwards said. “At the moment, we just don’t have enough students and you have to ask yourself why? I have heard anecdotally that we lost the respect of the region years ago, and we have to earn it back. This is what we must do. I can’t do it myself however, I need all of your assistance as we work on this together.”  

Old business 

Unanimously passed by the Senate as old business, undergraduate and graduate program deactivations are as follows:  

  • Career, Technical and Adult Education, BSEd (Undergrad) 
  • Career, Technical, and Adult Education Licensure (Undergrad) 
  • Nursing, DNP (Graduate) 
  • School Nurse Concentrations (Graduate) 

In addition to curriculum changes, the Senate unanimously supported the temporary suspension of commencement ceremony participation limitations outlined in policy 3685 to accommodate for those students missing out on traditional commencement procedures due to the coronavirus pandemic.  

“Commencement day on a university campus is traditionally a day to be cherished and remembered,” Faculty President Laura Leuhrmann said. “The suspension of this language affords those graduating during the pandemic the opportunity for a traditional commencement ceremony once gathering restrictions have been lifted.”  

New business 

Five items of new business were discussed during the Feb. 22 Senate meeting.  

Spring and summer failing grade accommodations, undergraduate and graduate curriculum changes, an election day resolution and a proposed interim Faculty Senate procedure were unanimously supported by the Senate and moved to old business for the next meeting on Monday, March 29.   

Failing grade accommodations were adopted by WSU for those students who received an F grade during fall 2020, and are being similarly supported for spring and summer of 2021.  

The election day resolution discussed by the Senate was recently supported unanimously by WSU’s Student Government Association (SGA) in resolution 21-02 as an effort to increase student participation and civic engagement throughout the election process.  

“In the spirit of trying to promote civic engagement among the campus community and making students available for things like serving as poll workers and volunteering for ‘get out and vote’ drives, we decided this would be a good initiative to pursue,” WSU SGA President Adrian Williams said to Guardian staff.  

The next Faculty Senate meeting is set to begin at 2:30 p.m. on Monday, March 29.  

The meeting will be held virtually, and may be viewed by clicking here.  


Nicolas BenVenuto

News Editor

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