Wheeling University

WHEELING — The West Virginia Higher Learning Commission has lifted its sanctions against Wheeling University, but will continue to monitor the school for financial, enrollment and staffing concerns.

The HLC Board of Trustees made its decision Feb. 23, and HLC President Barbara Gellman-Danley informed WU President Ginny Favede of the move with an emailed letter Monday.

WU is now “autonomous to make decisions in the best interest of the institution,” the letter states.

“The board determined that the Institution is no longer out of compliance with (its) Criteria for Accreditation and has removed the institution from probation and assigned interim monitoring. This action also resulted in a reaffirmation of the institution’s accreditation,” Gellman-Danley writes in the letter.

WU had been under probation from the HLC since a site visit in 2020. Two other site visits have taken place since that time, according to Favede. The most recent one was in October.

“This means three solid years of hard work by everyone at university has paid off in spades,” Favede said. “That was the best news we could receive.

“We can move forward, recruit new students and start new programs. We can operate normally – not that we weren’t before. But we had a lot of issues to answer for, and there was data that needed to be collected.”

To start, faculty worked hard to improve grading assessments, Favede explained.

And there has also been needed growth in enrollment at WU, she added.

“We created new infrastructure in how the university operates,” Favede said. “Even the Board of Trustees, when a new member comes on, has to sign a fiduciary contract ensuring that they are being held accountable for practices. We are now assuring that everything the university does is in accordance with HLC criterion.”

The former Wheeling Jesuit University was first placed on interim financial monitoring in 2014, she continued.

“And that’s a long period of time,” Favede said. “Issues were not being done accordingly. In 2020, the HLC came up with a formula to hold us accountable to rectify some of those issues.”

This included a push toward recruiting more students, reducing staff and cutting many academic programs.

The school’s bylaws also had to be rewritten to reflect the change from being Jesuit-sponsored to being Diocesan-sposored, Favede added. The change took place in July 2019. She said the school’s last bylaws had been written by former Bishop Michael Bransfield and those at the former Wheeling Jesuit University.

WU never lost its full accreditation along the way, even after receiving a “financial distress” designation by the HLC in 2019. The status was changed to “accredited – on probation” in February 2021.

At that time, the HLC stated WU “does not have sufficient fiscal resources to support its operation,” and “relies too heavily on subsidies it receives from the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston.”

Enrollment figures at WU were a major concern to the HLC. It states in the letter that while WU has made strides in improving the growth and validity of its enrollment numbers, it still has concerns.

“While the Institution has demonstrated progress in growing enrollment, current enrollment continues to be insufficient to meet the institution’s fiscal needs,” the HLC states.

“The Institution has demonstrated a pattern of using unrealistic projections of enrollment growth in its enrollment and fiscal planning. However, the Institution has recently sought to address this by retaining a consulting firm to assist the institution on enrollment management.”

Additionally, WU “is using external consultants to assist in the training of advancement personnel to improve performance in this area,” according to the HLC.

The letter continues that WU also is outsourcing many duties of a chief financial officer as it searches for a new CFO.

“This consultancy has enabled the institution to execute new processes, including a real-time budget adjustment of 15% as was needed to address the fall enrollment shortfall,” the HLC writes.

“The Institution needs to build its capacity to make similar and ongoing improvements under the leadership of its own staff.”

Favede said she hopes to hire a new CFO perhaps as soon as this week.

“If you would have told me in March 2020 at the start of COVID that one of the biggest problems we would have three years later is hiring, I wouldn’t have believed you,” she said. “A lot of people in higher education left for other careers during COVID, and it has been hard to fill those positions.”

The Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston gave Wheeling University $2 million in 2020 to help shore up its finances, but Favede denies the school ever has relied for funding from the Diocese.

“We do not operate on any money from the Diocese,” she said. “The money gifted in 2020 was solely used to pay down debt.”

Instead, WU operates on money generated by enrollment, conference services and donations, according to Favede. Finances at WU are stable at this time, but only after changes were made to reduce staffing and streamline operations, she said.

More students are coming to WU, staying and moving on the path to eventual graduation, according to the HLC.

The HLC says WU “has done considerable work to establish ambitious but achievable plans, goals, and benchmarks for its retention and persistence efforts.”

“Early feedback and institutional data show signs of success with the Institution reporting modest but positive increases in critical metrics, including fall-to-fall retention, semester-to-semester persistence, and the six-year graduation rate,” the letter states.

Favede isn’t certain whether some programs eliminated will again be offered at WU.

“I don’t know the answer to that,” she said. “We don’t arbitrarily return programs. We are instead looking at statistical data and asking what are students looking for, and what creates opportunities for students to be employable.”

One program that has returned is the theology program, Favede added.

“It’s hard to be a Catholic university without a theology major,” she said.