Provost

While ensuring that students received equal access to courses and lectures during the COVID-19 pandemic, West Virginia University’s Office of Accessibility Services developed a new Transcriber Mentorship Program to meet the nearly-doubled increase in demand for those services. Combined with the Work-Study Captioning Program, which saw a 900% increase in requests during the pandemic, the Office of Accessibility Services reduced outside expenses by nearly a quarter of a million dollars over the last two years.

A coalition of West Virginia University researchers is working together to address the state’s most pressing water issues through Bridge, a campus-wide science and technology policy, leadership and communications initiative. The impetus for the initiative is to translate the work of WVU researchers to policymakers as part of the University’s land-grant mission.

The West Virginia University Board of Governors on Friday approved an estimated $1.1 billion budget for the coming fiscal year, including a nearly 2% increase in tuition across the WVU system.

Two experienced West Virginia University administrators will take the lead in the key areas of business education and innovation for the University, following today’s (June 16) announcement that Milan Puskar Dean of the John Chambers College of Business and Economics and Vice President for Start-up West Virginia Javier Reyes will become provost and vice chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of Illinois-Chicago.

With recent decreases in COVID-19 cases across the country and the knowledge that COVID-19 vaccines are extremely safe and effective, West Virginia University now plans to fully reopen its campuses this fall.

Even amid talk of COVID-19’s “lost year of learning,” the urgency to help West Virginia’s youngest learners strengthen their reading and writing skills was never lost on the state’s education leaders.

As part of West Virginia University’s ongoing commitment to adapt and innovate amid a changing higher education landscape, the Office of the Provost announced Wednesday, May 19, the University’s plan to merge the College of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences and the College of Education and Human Services to create a new college focused on human and youth development.

Following a year of missed milestones, celebrations and traditions, West Virginia University’s first in-person commencement ceremony since December 2019 ushered in a renewed sense of optimism for the nearly 4,500 graduates who walked across the stage to receive their diplomas in four ceremonies this weekend (May 15-16).

An international student who has immersed himself in the “cultural heartbeat” of his new community, a first-generation student graduating with a cumulative 4.0 grade-point average who had no access to high school college-prep courses and a Black woman who aspires to bridge the gap between research and clinical care to improve health disparities are among the graduating seniors to receive West Virginia University’s highest student honor, the Order of Augusta. These eight students are among 50 named WVU Foundation Outstanding Seniors.

WVU’s latest NSF CAREER Award winner, Assistant Professor of Geography Aaron Maxwell, will use big data to map what the surface of West Virginia looked like over the last 60 years.