For months, West Virginia University Extension Service employees and state FFA advisers around the state have been working with youths in their communities to prepare them to show their project animals in the junior livestock competitions at the State Fair on Aug. 8 to Aug. 15, teaching valuable life skills in the process.
John Deskins, director of West Virginia University’s Bureau of Business & Economic Research, is testifying on Capitol Hill before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources on the importance of energy innovation to economic growth and competitiveness. His testimony will begin at 10 a.m. on Thursday (July 25).
West Virginia University is taking the lead in helping the state’s educators prepare students for life’s financial realities. Naomi Boyd from the John Chambers College of Business and Economics joins experts from the region to offer resources, including classroom tools and materials and online educational programming in this “teach the teachers” event. Finance University will be held July 7-11 at the Hampton Inn and Suites at University Town Centre in Morgantown.
A five-week program that immerses incoming African American freshmen to West Virginia University begins this week with a cohort of 14 Academic STARS. Students Achieving and Reaching Success offers academic activities designed to help foster cultural adjustment on campus, while building a solid academic foundation. The program boasts degree completion for more than 200 students since it began in 2008.
Although many people believe that summers are slow on college campuses, 37 percent of students enrolled at West Virginia University take a summer course. Of these students, 68 percent use the term to complete general education courses, and 52 percent intend to use the summer course to graduate early or get ahead in their classes. The first term ends today, and the second term will begin on Monday (June 24).
Philosophy is a little discussed area of our lives, but we live out our ethics in daily decisions. West Virginia University will host a three-day international conference focusing on the relationship of human beings to each other and also to the world. Beginning Thursday (June 20) the Department of Philosophy and the Emmanuel Levinas Center at the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences will focus on existentialism in Oglebay Hall, from 9:15 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily.
West Virginia University Reed College of Media students interviewed formerly incarcerated women, most of whom had suffered from substance use disorder, over the last year. According to Mary Kay McFarland, West Virginia Uncovered Project Coordinator, the project challenged her students’ perception of people who are different from them, which in turn helped them become empathetic storytellers who can connect their audience with their subjects.
The Health Sciences & Technology Academy, West Virginia University’s unique tuition-free college program, should be replicated in other colleges and universities across the country, according to the program’s director, Ann Chester. The program’s success rate, proven in its high graduation percentages, has changed students’ lives, and Chester believes will change the state and could change the country.
A team-based model to diabetes care could be essential to helping patients in rural communities lower their blood sugar levels, according to a new study from a team of researchers at West Virginia University. Combining diabetes educators, case managers, pharmacists, nurses, family medicine residents, psychologists and board-certified family medicine attending physicians in the approach to care resulted in better outcomes for patients. Patients who participated in the program saw significant reductions in their HbA1c — or blood sugar— levels.
At West Virginia University, 4-H programming has adapted to include robotics and similar activities that help students be successful in STEM fields. A 4-H Lego robotics program guided Ethan Meighen’s decision on a major and a career path. Meighen’s leadership skills he learned through 4-H earned him the EQT Foundation’s West Virginia Students of Excellence scholarship.