“To make room for the future”: President Jack Warner on the P&E cuts

Roman Kavanagh

Opinions Editor

Editor’s note: the interview included in the following article was conducted in May after the conclusion of the 2025 spring semester. 

“Housekeeping” is what President Jack Warner called the P&E Report which came out officially April 16, 2025. The report in question, which detailed the suspension of enrollment in 20 majors, sparked controversy across campus. Last week, I released a series of articles containing interviews with faculty from across programs affected by the cuts. Monday, May 5, I met with President Jack Warner to gain his perspective on the decision, and find out what---or who---this is truly benefiting.

All of the faculty and students I’ve spoken to thus far have been shocked by the suddenness of the news, especially so close to finals week. But President Jack Warner revealed that the review process has been underway for some time. President Warner was recently inducted president of RIC November 15, 2024. “When I did get here,” Warner said, “The college was in very serious financial trouble. And so, as I was looking for the various reasons for that, one of them seemed to be that we [had] a very large number of programs for the number of students that we had enrolled here.” 

Many of the professors I met with throughout the spring semester have expressed a differing opinion, which argued that the way to address this disparity is through investing in rather than eliminating our programs. “Well, you can invest in some old ones,” President Warner said. “But if the potential for enrollment is not there, then it's not there. It's not just that we haven’t invested in these programs.” Well, the history of these programs seem to tell a different story. For example, the Global Studies program has only been up and running again since 2021, and yet, they are being suspended on the basis of not having enough graduates. It appears that the degradation of these programs is not as unavoidable as administration portrays.

Many have even speculated that these cuts might backfire and eventually decrease enrollment here at RIC. “There can be too many choices for students, too,” said Warner, “for the number of students that we have.” I can’t say I agree with this logic. In 2023, West Virginia University made a similar move to RIC by cutting 28 of their majors, about 8% of their total offerings. In the following semester of Fall 2024, WVU’s enrollment  decreased by 7% from the previous year, a more dramatic decline than anyone anticipated. When I brought this up to President Warner, he seemed unconcerned. “Well, that makes an assumption that there's a causal relationship between dropping the programs and the cuts in enrollment,” Warner said. “There are other reasons for why application demand falls off.” Perhaps, but we do know that multiple families cited the major cuts as influential in their decision not to attend WVU. Ultimately, it’s impossible just yet to say how these cuts might affect our enrollment, but we can say for sure how they might affect our image, as the shift has already begun.

Photo Credits: Anchor Staff

Students and faculty alike have already voiced a common concern that by suspending programs like Gender and Women’s Studies and Global Studies, it reflects negatively on RIC’s commitment to diversity and inclusion. President Warner disagrees. “It doesn't reflect at all on it,” he said.
”It's the same question you could ask about modern languages. Does it reflect a lack of commitment to modern languages? Well, it would, if we eliminated all modern languages. It would, if we eliminated all Gender and Women's Studies courses. We're not going to do that. We're just eliminating the major.” But having ‘some courses’ and potentially a minor is not the same thing as having a major. 

As a first-year student myself, it was the Gender and Women Studies program and their expansive course offerings that influenced me to come to RIC. Granted, I myself am an English major, but I could see reflected in the depth and variety of classes just how much RIC valued its queer and gender-diverse students. I’m not so sure what I would’ve done if I heard RIC was suspending the program. But I do know that several incoming students have already decided against RIC after hearing the Gender and Women’s Studies major had been revoked.

One of the worst parts, I think, of this process, has been seeing just what these majors are being replaced with. Virtually all of the majors being suspended are from the humanities, such as the Art History BA or the English MA in Creative Writing. At the same time the arts are being swept out, AI is moving in. President Jack Warner pointed out that AI is a major attractive force for new students; and even I can’t argue this truth. According to Warner, AI as a major “already has about 20 students in it, and it's in its first year.” But while we are adapting to incorporate contemporary technology into our course offerings, I worry that we are carelessly pushing out majors and programs that are still relevant as ever, even if they don’t seem that way to everyone. In my three other articles in which I interviewed RIC professors, I went into more depth on this.

For President Jack Warner, the decision to cut majors from RIC comes down to what he believes is a ‘safe choice.’ In the coming years, Dr. Warner speculates, “Higher education and RIC in particular are going to be facing some strong headwinds. Those include the impact of severe federal cuts on the state budget, and once those hit, you can imagine that the state would transfer some of the cuts to us.” Warner views this as a time for us to ‘accrue savings,’ a way of “preparing for times that are going to get a whole lot leaner.” 

I agree with President Warner’s concerns, but like a large portion of the RIC community, I cannot get on board with the methods. I think I am not alone when I argue that this report was rushed, that it misrepresented a large portion of the data it received, and that overall, it was executed in a way that excluded students and faculty and failed to represent the desires of the RIC community. It is hard to not feel like we’ve been pushed out of the way by our administration.

“This is prudent business practices,” said President Warner. “What's continuing to be in demand is the question we ask, and what isn't, and what are we going to do about that? So this action was doing something about that, to make room for the future.”