infostations

Dean Dana Brooks will retire from the College of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences June 30, 2019, after more than four decades as a passionate Mountaineer committed to promoting diversity and student success at West Virginia University. Upon Brooks’ retirement, professor of Sport, Exercise and Performance Psychology and interim associate dean Jack Watson will serve as interim dean of the College.

West Virginia University junior Samantha Mehnert has been selected as a recipient of the 2019 George H. Robinson Memorial Scholarship.

Collegiate entrepreneurs have lived and learned through an academic year full of new and valuable experiences in the 13th annual West Virginia Statewide Collegiate Business Plan Competition. The competition’s concluding event will be held April 12, a day full of opportunities ranging from making final presentations that could result in one of three grand prizes worth $10,000 to words of encouragement about their potential in the global business landscape.

West Virginia University faculty and staff can invest in the University through the WVU Foundation’s Gold Blue & You Campus Campaign which kicks off today (April 8). WVU employees can give to programs or funds across the University they feel passionately about, including scholarship funds, specific departments/units, academic programs and special faculty/student support initiatives.

The West Virginia Brownfields Assistance Center at West Virginia University is seeking communities to apply for up to $5,000 in redevelopment assistance from the Foundations for Overcoming Challenges and Utilizing Strengths West Program. Applications for the FOCUS WV grant are due May 13.

This year’s Bucklew Scholars are eager to embark on a new journey at West Virginia University where they can fully immerse themselves in rigorous academics, multidisciplinary research, travel abroad and University tradition.

Two West Virginia University faculty members who embody WVU’s land-grant mission of teaching, research and service are the recipients of WVU’s 2019 Heebink Awards for Distinguished Service to the state of West Virginia.

Leslie Tower, professor of social work at West Virginia University, found in a nationally representative survey that female social work faculty make less than their male counterparts by nearly $6,000 a year in spite of the fact that women are the majority in the profession.

Orange-lensed glasses may be a simple, affordable way to help cardiac patients recover better, suggests research by Randy Nelson, chair of the WVU Department of Neuroscience, and Courtney DeVries, the John T. and June R. Chambers Chair of Oncology Research at WVU. Using animal models, they found that exposure to white light at night triggered inflammation, killed brain cells and made death more likely in cardiac patients. Warm-toned light, however, had no effect. Now they are studying whether orange-lensed glasses improve outcomes in actual patients.

The former chief economist at West Virginia University knows all too well how important economic research and data are to the John Chambers College of Business and Economics, the university and the state. For nearly three decades, Tom S. Witt headed the WVU Bureau of Business and Economic Research and helped provide economic research that was used by lawmakers, business leaders and media throughout the state and nation.