Story Pitches

The West Virginia University LGBTQ+ Center is hosting its inaugural Transgender Advocacy Month in November to recognize the transgender community at WVU, raise awareness of transgender rights and celebrate a culture of inclusiveness across campus. To commemorate the Transgender Day of Remembrance, the LGBTQ+ Center will host a candlelight vigil and name-reading ceremony before Thanksgiving break Thursday (Nov. 15) at 6 p.m. in Woodburn Circle. The vigil will honor the trans people who have been killed this year from transphobic violence.

The West Virginia University Center for Excellence in Disabilities is expanding its programming to offer a new program, Behavior and Learning Intervention Services. This program will help children ages 18 months to 21-years-old build communication and daily living and play skills, while decreasing challenging behaviors like tantrums, aggression and self-injury. Clients can be involved in social skills group and parents can learn how to increase desired behaviors.

“Missing Voices: Diversifying the News,” a collaborative social hackathon focusing on improving the lack of diversity in newsrooms and news coverage, will begin on Friday (Oct. 26) at West Virginia University. The event joins students from WVU’s Reed College of Media, Brigham Young University and Morgan State University—three schools separated by race, religion and geography but united in a commitment to bridge those divides.

Female involvement in West Virginia’s agriculture industry continues to expand, and each year, West Virginia University Extension Service serves this growing population through the West Virginia Women in Agriculture Conference.

The West Virginia University Collegiate Horsemen’s Association will host Halloween with the Horses from 5-7 p.m. Oct. 27, at the J.W. Ruby Research Farm in Reedsville. Families and children of all ages are invited to visit the farm, meet the horses that make up WVU’s teaching herd, and trick-or-treat their way through the barn. The horses will be dressed in costume - and kids are encouraged to do the same.

Youths throughout West Virginia and the nation will have an opportunity to learn about computer science and coding through hands-on experience as part of the 2018 4-H and Google National Youth Science Day challenge. This year’s theme, “Code Your World,” was developed by West Virginia University Extension Service and Google, and includes a four-part challenge for kids ages 8-14 to apply computer science to the world around them.

Hear “Women Speak” on diverse Appalachian identities-- from gender and sexuality, to race and ethnicity, class and ability and religion and region at the Downtown Campus Library’s Milano Reading Room on October 6 from 1-3 p.m. The annual event, created by the Women of Appalachia Project and hosted by West Virginia University Libraries, invites residents of all 420 Appalachian counties to submit writing to be featured.

A West Virginia University student and his international team are working to develop a new source of natural gas that would allow local production. By-products of the source materials—wheat straw, mushrooms and beans—could be used as fertilizer, making the product both environmentally friendly and sustainable. Hasan Ul Banna, an electrical engineering student, and his team won first place at the third annual Student Congress hosted by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and Power and Energy Society for their innovative idea.

The West Virginia University Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design and WVU Extension Service are working together to launch West Virginia P20, a pilot program that establishes an early college and STEM (Science, Technology, Education and Mathematics) academy in Boone County’s Van School District.

The WVU Center for Excellence in Disabilities will hosting its first all-inclusive fundraising event - Run, Walk or Roll. Events at the WVU Coliseum include a 5K run, a relay track event, a one-mile fun walk and a kids 100-meter dash. People are encouraged to make their own teams and come out to help the CED expand services to individuals with disabilities and their families in West Virginia.