On the same day that dejected students pleaded with the board of West Virginia’s flagship university not to eliminate its entire foreign languages department and dozens of other programs, Gov. Jim Justice said he was feeling hopeful about the future of education in the state.
“We’ve had tough times — there will be more tough times — but absolutely we are rising from the ashes,” Justice said Aug. 22, while signing a bill allocating $45 million for another state school, Marshall University, to open a new cybersecurity center 200 miles from West Virginia University.
Lawmakers approved the Marshall project, heralded as the nation’s “new East Coast hub” for cybersecurity, in a hastily called special session last month but rejected calls to send WVU funds to address its budget deficit, currently about $45 million.
It smells like it, but the WV legislature has a tendency to pick WVU as its favorite. I’m not sure that this is exactly balancing the score, but it came as a surprise for me at least.