It was a Sunday night at West Virginia Wesleyan College, the wind rustled the trees and sent a magnetic charge through the air—signifying calm before the storm. Monday morning, November 6th, 2017: the rain poured, and I walked across my campus clutching my umbrella as a shield to protect against the heavy drops. The energy was abnormally high for a mundane Monday. After class, I walked to the library. My work-study supervisor had the saddest look in his eyes, people were upset, and bits of information and rumors bounced off my eardrums.
Somebody was laid off. Multiple people were laid off. People were escorted off campus, given only a day to pack. The rumors came in waves and continued throughout the day. I didn’t know what was true.
Eventually more information was clarified; twenty-seven people had been laid off. Students, staff, and faculty were upset.
By Tuesday, some were upset for a very different reason. President Joel Thierstein made statements, but many students were still unsatisfied, their questions left unanswered, and they had a distaste for the entire situation. Why weren’t we informed weeks before? Why at this time, and why did the administration think they could act so suddenly? Would they do it again? Who’s next?
Many students worried about the future and the administration’s next move.
One class of students had an idea. Thanks to Katy Ross, Will Wasson, and multiple others that were a part of this group, a plan was enacted. With the click of some buttons, Katy had sent out invites to like “Our Voice Among the Hills”, a Facebook page for the students of WVWC by those who didn’t wait— but were determined to make their voices heard. They started an event for November 8th, Wednesday, a sit-in with a singular goal:
“An informal sit-in in response to the school’s recent “reduction in force” through the termination of beloved faculty and staff members who made our campus home. We are demonstrating our disapproval of the manner in which these terminations were handled and the blatant lack of transparency on behalf of the administration.
All students, faculty, staff, and alumni are welcome to attend this event. We are requesting that participants wear some sort of WVWC clothing if you have it. Please keep in mind that this will be a peaceful demonstration.”
This was peaceful protest starting at 8, running until 4:30 where students sat in the lobby of the Administration building and expressed their discontent with signs and their general presence. Over a hundred people were able to stop by and show their support.
I did a few interviews with some of the students attending.
I talked to Savannah Reese, a freshman majoring in musical theatre, who expressed to me how concerned she was because of the situation, not just because of the stir on campus, but because it directly impacted her future in her major.
“As a freshman, I made a lot of connections with the people who were teaching my classes and I felt like that was really important, and to have that taken away personally was really rough…and to see how it affected the people that I care about when they lost their jobs, that was really upsetting…so I came [to the sit-in] to express that.”
“I lost my voice teacher which is really important [to have] as a musical theatre major. It shook up our department.”
She had been at the sit-in for two and a half hours.
Samantha Marteeney, a freshman double majoring in criminal justice and political science, was also concerned because her two departments were reduced to one professor each, and this impacted her immensely. In addition, she did not approve of the way that it was handled, which is in line with so many of the other students’ grievances.
“If this was necessary, if this had to happen, it could have happened in a different way,” she stated.
Em Pechon, a sophomore majoring in Education, made this statement: “They are not transparent with us, and they refuse to be transparent with us….we are flipping that on its head and choosing to be transparent, to be seen, to be heard. I think that sitting in the admin building is very noticeable because this is where the offices are, and having a group of students here demands a voice.”
Leanna Barkley, a junior double majoring in Gender Studies and Psychology, spoke with me and addressed that although her departments weren’t effected directly, there is no promise that the “next wave” of layoffs (although denied) will not impact her departments, especially with the future (unrelated) retirement of two professors from the Psychology department.
Shin Fujikawa, a junior majoring in international Studies, is from Japan. He had been coming in and out of the sit-in and expressed his discomfort with the “authority” and his belief that the situation wasn’t handled correctly. He also explained that he had lost the West Virginia Wesleyan Chaplain, a man who gave him and so many others multiple opportunities. Alea Hess, a senior majoring in Exercise Science, lost one of our staff who was like a mentor and a professor who had overseen her research. Both Shin and Alea were impacted personally by these lay-offs.
Alea stated, “The campus dynamic changed in one day; the distrust between administration and students has been outstandingly disturbing.”
Other students spoke along similar lines. Katy Ross, another face and leader of the sit in, had this statement: “We’ve accepted that the people laid off cannot be rehired; we are demanding transparency … [we want] to ensure that they [the administration] will not make the same mistakes. We think that the people let go were treated unfairly, and we want them to know, even though the actions of the admin suggest otherwise, they are not disposable.”
The sit-in lasted until the Admin building closed, and many students left feeling that they had accomplished something. A Town Hall style Q and A for students towards President Thierstein was to be held that day. The students matter, and although college may be a business to some, here at Wesleyan, it is also a close-knit community where people depend on each other and are willing to work together to correct, change, and grow.
The staff and faculty matter. They work with the students and impact our lives whether they show us how to fill out an application, take us on trips, listen to us excessively stress about everything, and even show us funny cat memes. They aren’t just people who teach or register numbers or hand out grades without a single thought. They love us, and we love them.
Wesleyan is advertised as Our Home Among the Hills, and it’s only natural that we, the students, should have our voice among these hills and for all the people who make it home.