THE DROP
College Green is home to Cutler Hall, which houses the office of Ohio University’s president in Athens, Ohio, on March 3, 2021.
MONEY, MONEY, MONEY Students express concerns about the OU's budget. BY PJ MAROLT | PHOTOS BY DYLAN BENEDICT | DESIGN BY RACHEL RECTOR
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umors about Ohio University circulate as several changes of life are made for students: Classes from several departments have become unavailable, there is reduced staffing and general revenue has been declining for a few years now. OU announced on May 15, 2020, that they were letting go of more than 50 faculty members and more than 140 administrators which is what might have caused many to be frustrated with how OU has handled being in financial need. Students have been left questioning how this is possible. Kristin Leibensperger, an OU freshman studying physics and French, says that the modern language department can only offer two upper level French courses right now and that it is difficult to schedule them. “What makes it all frustrating is seeing money being wasted in various locations; a big example being the stickers that they put up across campus,” Leibensperger says. “Yes, I fully understand that to get enrollment up, you have to make the campus attractive; but the stickers do not look good and they are widely expensive. That money could have gone to something useful.” Other language departments have also felt the effects
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of the university’s budget cuts. Andy Chrvala is a senior studying both German and history. “Ohio University’s budget cuts have drastically affected me both personally and educationally as a language major. With a large staff in the German program when I came here, I felt like I was welcomed into a family,” Chrvala says. “A family that had lots of things to teach me and help me along my path in my chosen language. Due to budget cuts I lost many members of that family and not only are those people instructors for me but they’re also people I can lean on and talk to about issues that I’m having in my life.” Chrvala also says that he would have done things differently if he’d known what he does now about the current state of the department. “… I probably wouldn’t have pursued this path. Not to mention that amount of workload that falls on the shoulders of small numbers of professors that they don’t necessarily have to do but they do for the language majors,” Chrvala says. Compared to today’s OU, there was a more abundant selection of classes to choose from in years past, staffing was higher and the coronavirus wasn’t a household
