WVUToday on the Radio

April Kaull: At West Virginia University, mountaineers go first. It is commencement season at West Virginia University. Lisa Martin from University Events has all of the details for us. Lisa, tell us about May commencement 2023. When does it start? How many ceremonies? Where are they going to be held?

Lisa Martin: Commencement 2023 will be on the weekend of May 12th through the 14th. We have 14 ceremonies overall between the Coliseum and the Canady Creative Arts Center.

April Kaull: As parents and families and loved ones and friends participate in commencement, what are some of the logistics information they need to know?

Lisa Martin: So at both of our venues, the Coliseum and the Canady Creative Arts Center, parking is open. We do have parking staff and our University Police Department on site to help with that parking and direct folks where to park. If anybody has any mobility issues, we will also have cart vans picking people up and dropping them to the closest entrance to either of those venues. We have adopted the clear bags policy. We highly recommend clear bags for everybody, or just bring as little as possible.

April Kaull: And you can find a lot of the details about commencement at that website, graduation.wvu.edu.

Lisa Martin: Have a wonderful weekend with all the graduates.

April Kaull: So let's go. Follow our story on wvutoday.wvu.edu.

April Kaull: At West Virginia University, Mountaineers go first. With the passing of the rifle ceremony, Mikel Hager is now officially the Mountaineer mascot for the upcoming year for West Virginia University. Mikel's here with us to talk a little bit about what this means. Mikel, I'm curious, what are you most looking forward to as the Mountaineer?

Mikel Hager: The thing I'm most excited for... The past four years, I've got to see the athletics side of everything, so now I'm excited to make an impact in another way that I feel like only the Mountaineer can. I was lucky enough to get to go with Mary to a grade school and to see firsthand the impact she has on those kids, and how excited they all get, and how they all want to ask her questions. It's really, really overwhelming at first to think, oh man, that's going to be me, but I'm really excited for it and I know that everyone's super supportive.

April Kaull: As people are getting to know you this year, tell us a little bit about yourself. What do you want people to know about you?

Mikel Hager: So, I'm a huge sports fan, huge WVU fan. I played football my entire life, baseball my entire life. So, cheerleading was a little bit different for me when I first got there. When I didn't hit my growth spurt and be able to go play linebacker for Coach Brown, I wanted to find the next best thing. So, cheerleading was what got me closest. It's a dream come true. Boone County's never had a Mountaineer before. People grow up their whole life and I grew up my whole life hoping to be in a position like this and then you apply for it and just hope for the best. Then when it actually happens, it's wild how fast everything happens.

April Kaull: So, let's go. Follow our story on WVUtoday.wvu.edu.

April Kaull: At West Virginia University, Mountaineers go first. Kristie Wood Turner is the director at the Center for Community Engagement at West Virginia University. Christie, tell us a little bit about what the center is. How does it work? What does it Do?

Kristie Wood Turner: It gives us an opportunity to really explore community engagement here in our land grant institution. Our role really at WVU is to highlight the knowledge and resources that support effective partnerships in our communities and enhance the discovery through community engaged teaching, scholarship, and action. We focus on supporting community agencies, faculty, staff, and students so that they can together tackle some of the critical needs that we are facing in our communities, providing reciprocal and mutually beneficial outcomes.

We are really happy to be only one of 33 institutions who are research one land grant and community engagement classified. It's a framework for categorizing the level of engagement demonstrated in our teaching, research, and service, and we are at the highest level, and it serves as a self-assessment and improvement tool. We're always looking to find ways that we can benchmark ourselves against other peer institutions to really be giving the most that we can to our state. It just is an amazing opportunity for students to really learn from our community and with our community, and our community gets that same energy back.

April Kaull: So let's go. Follow our story on wvutoday.wvu.edu.

April Kaull: At West Virginia University, Mountaineers go first. In his March 27th State of the University address, President Gordon Gee outlined budget challenges, but said WVU is strong.

Gordon Gee: I believe we have an incredible opportunity to place our university in a position of great strength. Indeed, we are one of the few land-grant R1 one universities with a comprehensive health science portfolio that extends to a statewide healthcare delivery system. We are unique and we need to embrace that.

April Kaull: Gee announced a new scholarship program called the WVU Pledge. This last-dollar-in scholarship program will assist qualifying Promise Scholars who have an expected family contribution of zero with their cost of tuition, fees, university housing, and a meal plan.

Gordon Gee: It is imperative that we remove as many barriers as possible to allow our brightest West Virginia students access to higher education. Ensuring that their basic needs are met allows them to focus on their education and their future.

April Kaull: The WVU Pledge program will begin with the fall 2023 semester. No application is necessary. Students will be automatically reviewed for eligibility. So let's go. Follow our story on WVUtoday.wvu.edu.

April Kaull: At West Virginia University, Mountaineers go first. Applications are being accepted right now for West Virginia University's Honors EXCEL program. Crissy Estep from the program is here with us to talk a little bit more about it. So tell us a little bit about this program.

Crissy Estep: Sure. So Honors EXCEL is the upper division Honors college program for juniors and seniors at WVU. So it's an experiential learning program, which means that students can design their own project. Maybe it's research, maybe it's internship based, a community based program that has an impact in the local area or in their home community. So they learn a lot of transferable skill sets, program implementation, program management, how to talk to various different stakeholder audiences. All of these are useful career benefits as well as perhaps applying for nationally competitive scholarships and internships.

April Kaull: So give us the idea on timeline here.

Crissy Estep: So April 1st is our deadline. We'll begin reviewing applications and letting students know if they've been accepted into the program. You can find that application on the Honors EXCEL website.

April Kaull: Is there anything else that you want people to know about this program, about students who've been through it, or feedback that they've provided about what the program has meant to them?

Crissy Estep: We have a lot of different programs. We currently have students from all of our different colleges and a variety of different majors. Maybe they're theater performances or perhaps they're music performances. If you have a program idea or project idea that you're really interested in, come and talk to us and we can help you take that idea to implementation.

April Kaull: So let's go. Follow our story on wvutoday.wvu.edu.

April Kaull: At West Virginia University, mountaineers go first. The annual Day of Giving is March 22nd. BJ Davison with the WVU Foundation is with us to talk about this special event and how it supports students, faculty, staff, and programs all across the WVU system. BJ, thanks for being with us. Tell us a little bit about this year's Day of Giving.

BJ Davison: So this is number six, our sixth Day of Giving on March 22nd. Our focus, of course, is always on benefiting people, first and foremost, both our students with scholarship support and sort of emergency need support, but also our physicians, our researchers, our athletes. Our Day of Giving includes all of WVU, our beautiful campuses in Beckley and in Keyser. WVU has a program to fit almost every potential donor interest you can name. So we are welcoming of all those gifts and all those discussions.

April Kaull: You talked about emergency needs. Over the last couple of years that really has been a focus, particularly among students. How does Day of Giving help people help students?

BJ Davison: A couple hundred dollars is what can make a determining factor as to whether or not a student stays enrolled and stays on track to complete their degree, or whether or not they have to step out. We have a Ken Gray Emergency Fund. We have a new fund within the President's office, the Wagner Student Assistance Fund. We have needs within the Carruth Center. The more unrestricted the dollar, the more nimble the institution can be in responding to the needs identified by our folks here on campus. Certainly a lot of people just make donations online during the Day of Giving, at dayofgiving.wvu.edu. Our theme this year is go above and go beyond, and we think that people who stretch to support us have the opportunity to help us as an institution go beyond and enhance our land-grant mission and our service to our citizens.

April Kaull: So let's go. Follow our story on WVUtoday.wvu.edu.

April Kaull: At West Virginia University, Mountaineers go first. Chris Gilmer came to Potomac State College in April of 2022 as the interim president. He's just been announced as the new permanent president of WVU's Keyser campus, and he joins us to talk a little bit more about being the president of Potomac State College. Tell me a little bit about what you've learned about the Keyser campus.

Chris Gilmer: To be able to have that small town college experience but be still a part of a tier one research university is our real strength. It's really the best of both worlds. There's excellence in teaching. There's excellence in community service. We are the first choice for community service, we're the first choice for educating students, and then we mean to be a good and committed community partner.

April Kaull: What are some of the programs and the academic opportunities that really are unique to Keyser?

Chris Gilmer: The single program that I am the most excited about is the Sustainable Agriculture Program where we teach the next generation of small family farmers how to make small business entrepreneurial enterprises out of saving the family farm.

April Kaull: What's the best kept secret of Potomac State College?

Chris Gilmer: The very best kept secret, and I want it to not be a secret anymore, really the people.

April Kaull: So let's go. Follow our story on WVUtoday.wvu.edu.

April Kaull: At West Virginia University, Mountaineers go first. Fred King is the Vice President for Research at West Virginia University. Fred, thanks for being with us. WVU is an R1 or the highest level of research institution. What does that mean?

Fred King: By the analysis of the Carnegie Higher Education Group, we are among the top 146 research universities in the United States. When you're an R1 university, it means that your faculty are the ones who are leading the research and scholarship within their disciplines, and what that means from students is they get to work with individuals who are at the forefront of their disciplines. And so that really helps prepare them to be current with their skills when they go out onto the market for jobs.

April Kaull: You mentioned undergraduate research opportunities for students, and the university is unique in that regard, right?

Fred King: Although you may engage in undergraduate research at some other institutions, it's not the same as engaging in it at an R1 university, which really is the place where the new ideas are coming from, the new innovation is emerging from, and new startup companies are coming out of.

April Kaull: And at every level, they're really working in areas that make an impact in communities, local, state, regional, and beyond.

Fred King: Everything that we're doing with respect to research and scholarship circles back to help the State of West Virginia improve the quality of life for its citizens.

April Kaull: Let's go. Follow our story on wvutoday.wvu.edu.

April Kaull: At West Virginia University, Mountaineers go first. Mary Roush is the WVU Mountaineer, and she's here with us to talk a little bit about being the Mountaineer. So, Mary, I have to ask, what is your favorite part?

Mary Roush: Every single part of being the Mountaineer is awesome. I'm very privileged and honored. There's no better feeling than running out on Mountaineer Field, with 60,000 fans, that's pretty awesome. But then, it's also the little moments too, like going to a small elementary school in rural West Virginia and seeing these kids light up to see me.

April Kaull: Do you have a favorite cheer?

Mary Roush: The Let's Go... Mountaineers! Where we split the stadium or the colosseum. It's definitely a surreal moment every single time I lead that cheer.

April Kaull: All right. Now, this question might trip you up a little bit. It's tough. Do you have a favorite WVU sport?

Mary Roush: I personally love basketball. I'm a big basketball girl. Football is also pretty awesome, just because I feel like that's the best atmosphere. I really enjoy volleyball. And I'm really excited for gymnastics. I love baseball. I really genuinely love every sport. The significance that the Mountaineer holds to the people of West Virginia, and even the people around the country, I never knew how famous the Mountaineer was. It's so awesome that the Mountaineer is so significant. Let's go.

April Kaull: So let's go, follow our story on wvutoday.wvu.edu.