John Chambers College of Business and Economics

From the mountains of West Virginia to cities and towns across the country and around the world, West Virginia University graduates and their families gathered around computers and other smart devices to attend Mountaineer Graduation Day on Saturday (May 16). The online experience, created due to social distancing restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, provided an opportunity for graduates to mark an important milestone and share familiar commencement traditions.

Every spring semester, Laurel Cook and her Marketing class take on Morgantown-area small businesses as clients for a Google Ads campaign, a project aimed at boosting their online presence and brand awareness. It also gives the students experiential learning – in other words, real-world experience.

While West Virginia University’s 4,500-member Class of 2020 will graduate in various states and countries instead of Morgantown and in one ceremony instead of more than a dozen, graduates will be connected to each other and to Mountaineers around the world in WVU’s first virtual commencement ceremony.

In a hopeful, cautious step forward, West Virginia is starting the process of reopening its doors for business after stay-at-home orders were issued in response to the COVID-19 pandemic nearly two months ago.

Students who have exceeded classroom boundaries and demonstrated an unwavering commitment to solving complex global challenges and serving others—among them a distance learner with autism, a gymnast and an alternate Mountaineer Mascot—will receive West Virginia University’s highest student honor, the Order of Augusta.

Envisioning a return of students to its three campuses in the fall, the West Virginia University Board of Governors announced Friday (May 1) that base tuition and fees will remain unchanged for the academic year beginning in August.

Access to industry-leading software – donated for more than a decade by Schlumberger, a worldwide provider of technology for reservoir characterization, drilling, production and processing within the oil and gas industry – gives students at West Virginia University’s Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources and Eberly College of Arts and Sciences an edge in coursework, research and the job market.

When COVID-19 started depleting stockpiles of medical gear in hotspots like New York and New Jersey, the West Virginia National Guard took notice – and reached out to experts at the John Chambers College of Business and Economics at West Virginia University to help prevent that from happening in the Mountain State.

West Virginia University’s John Chambers College of Business and Economics is offering services to small businesses feeling the strain of prolonged closures or limited offerings stemming from the COVID-19 global pandemic.

West Virginia University seniors Samuel Chico and Kyle Seese have an idea for low-cost, eco-friendly energy storage systems that repurpose retired EV battery modules from auto manufacturers. With a $10,000 boost from the John Chambers College of Business and Economics, Chico and Seese, the winners of the first virtual West Virginia Business Plan Competition, may establish themselves and their business, Parthian Battery Solutions, as the premier cost leader for residential and commercial energy storage systems.