Senate committee advances bill to remove voting power from 4 WVU BOG members

Yahoo

08-04-2025

Apr. 7—MORGANTOWN — The House bill that would strip the voting rights from the two faculty representatives, the classified staff representative and the student body representative on the WVU Board of Governors advanced out of the Senate Government Organization Committee Monday morning and heads to the Senate floor.
HB 3279 contains several elements. It mandates that one BOG member for WVU and West Virginia State University — the two land-grant institutions — represent agriculture, forestry or the related sciences.
It raises the number of gubernatorial appointees for WVU's BOG from 12 to 15 and requires one of them to be the agriculture /forestry representative, one to represent WVU Tech and one to represent Potomac State.
It raises total WVU BOG membership from 17 to 19.
For West Virginia State, it requires one of nine gubernatorial appointees to be the agriculture /forestry representative.
A three-year West Virginia residency requirement for a BOG member to be eligible to be elected chair was removed from the bill.
And for WVU and Marshall and all other institutions, the bill makes the faculty representative, the student representative and the classified staff representative nonvoting advisory members. For WVU specifically, it makes the Extension service faculty representative also a non-voting member.
Because the agenda was packed, committee chair Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson, limited time for public testimony. WVU BOG faculty representative Lesley Cottrell spoke briefly about the right to vote, saying, "We've taken that responsibility seriously."
No one knows why those voting rights are removed in this bill, she said, and she asked to have them restored.
Discussion was minimal. Sen. Anne Charnock, R-Kanawha, said, "I just think the optics are horrible." The Senate has been working to ensure people have the right to vote and this takes away that right from BOG members.
By way of background, debate was more thorough — if futile — in the House.
Travis Mollohan, WVU's associate vice president for government relations, told the Higher Education Subcommittee that first considered the bill that the four members have had voting power since 1989.
They represent 25, 000 students, 2, 000 staff and 3, 500 faculty. Board members don't always agree, but they bring valuable insights to board discussions.
And Cottrell appeared before the full Education committee. "We're all trying to think about how this would affect us, " she said.
WVU didn't ask for this, she said, and no one knows why it's in this bill. "It's like being at the adult table and now being asked to sit at the kiddie table, even though the family asked you to sit at the adult table."
While BOG votes are typically unanimous and represent a consensus, she said, what they vote on has been shaped and modified by the voices of those proposed to have their votes taken away in this bill.
"Why and why now, " she asked.
While bill supporters said those members would still have a voice even without a vote, others disagreed.
Delegate Lori Dittman, R-Braxton, said, "Faculty, students and staff are the heartbeat and soul of our institutions."
And Delegate Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, said, "I don't know why we are doing this. I don't know what the purpose of this is — to silence the voice of faculty and students."
The committee vote was 15-9 to advance it to the House floor. Monongalia County Republicans Geno Chiarelli and Joe Statler both voted in favor of the bill. But they reversed their votes on the House floor, where it passed 62-35.
On the floor, all Mon, Marion and Preston delegates voted against it except George Street, R-Preston.