Shepherd Snyder, Author at West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Shepherd University Expands Wellness Center With Laser Pain Treatment

Shepherd University officials held a ribbon cutting ceremony Monday for the expansion of a pain clinic at the school.

The clinic uses a process called photobiomodulation, or PBM. It uses laser light therapy to reduce pain from degenerative diseases.

A PBM bed is included in the university’s Wellness Center expansion and will be used to help those in and around the school’s community. The school received $500,000 through the state’s federal COVID relief funds for the clinic’s expansion.

“The application could be for young and old, healthy and sick,” said James Carroll, CEO of THOR Photomedicine. His company manufactures PBM beds.

“We know with athletes that it’s very good; if you pretreat before training, you have less fatigue, you have less muscle soreness due to less inflammation,” Carroll said. “But then if you’re older, and you have degenerative diseases like osteoarthritis – that’s an inflammatory joint disease – it would reduce the inflammation and therefore they’ll have less pain.”

Praveen Arany is the interim director for Shepherd’s PBM Center for Excellence. He says the process is similar to exercising or taking supplements, helping build resistance against long-term health issues.

“It’s a non-drug, non-interventional, non-invasive procedure; it’s just like treatment,” said Arany. “The advantage of that is there are no known side effects. And more importantly, it works on the wellness or the resilience of the people (being treated).”

Shepherd University officials cutting a ribbon to celebrate the expansion of the school’s PBM facility

The university plans to use the technology to research PBM’s effect on long COVID fatigue and opioid addiction.

Wellness Center director Jennifer Flora says she sees this as a starting point for even more expansion.

“When this building was developed, we labeled it a Wellness Center with hopes to offer additional wellness services – and we do on a very small scale,” Flora said. “It’s really rewarding to actually have an additional wellness service to really live up to our name.”

The Shepherd University Wellness Center is offering three free sessions to the general public starting Wednesday.

Civil War Talk Draws Parallels With Modern Veterans

Psychiatrist and historian Stephen Goldman will be giving a talk about the Civil War Reconstruction era Tuesday at Shepherd University.

The talk, titled “Warriors in Peace: White and Black Union Veterans and the Fight for Equality in Post-Civil War America,” discusses how veterans used their social status to fight for issues like racial equality. Goldman is working on a book series about the topic. In his daily practice, he treats modern day veterans and active-duty personnel.

“The more research I did, it was just remarkable to find out how active they were politically, how African American veterans got tremendous support from their white comrades in arms, which is a story not often told,” Goldman said.

Goldman says his work as a psychiatrist informs his outlook as a historian. He says this use of social status by Civil War veterans is directly linked to the model of civic duty based on military service that American citizens and soldiers continue to model.

“When you fight a war, the reasons why you fight the war may be even more important in peace,” Goldman said. “Because when you come home, you have the gift of survival, as I call it. You have an obligation to those who didn’t come back. Now, a lot of people always talk about that as survivor’s guilt. Yes, there is survivor’s guilt. But over time, it morphs into something quite magnificent, which is survivor obligation. And we see that over and over with veterans.”

The talk was organized by Jim Broomall, director of Shepherd University’s George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War. He thinks Goldman has a unique viewpoint on history because of his background and work with veterans.

“I’m using 21st century methodologies and insights when looking back at the past, but as long as you’re doing so in a careful, calculated way, I think you can look at the evidence and view it through a different lens,” Broomall said. “I’m more interested in the social and cultural context, someone like Steve, with this training, might see a very different mode of communication that’s grounded in a lot of different forces that I don’t even understand.”

The talk will be at Shepherd University’s Robert C. Byrd Center Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. and is open to the public.

Transportation Experts Skeptical Of Gas Tax Holiday As Prices Increase

The recent increase in gas prices nationwide could result in some West Virginians crossing state borders to fill up their tanks. But some transportation experts think this tactic is not worth the drive.

The recent increase in gas prices nationwide could result in some West Virginians crossing state borders to fill up their tanks.

In regions like the Eastern Panhandle, many consumers cross the border for states with lower taxes on gas. Maryland’s legislature is set to enact a 30 day gas tax holiday to curb increasing gas prices. This could lead even more West Virginians to look for cheaper gas prices elsewhere. But some transportation experts think this tactic is not worth the drive.

Robert Fuentes is president of Washington D.C-based Eno Center for Transportation. He’s unsure that these gas tax holidays would be worth it for consumers.

“The public policy can only affect a small piece of it, which is the tax part,” Fuentes said. “And so I’m just skeptical that it’s actually going to result in enough meaningful savings to the average driver, in order to make a really big dent in their everyday expenses.”

Fuentes says carrying out a gas tax holiday would only affect a small share of the price – only around one-fifth of the price of a gallon of gas. Most of the price is made up of other fees like the price of crude oil, marketing materials, and other expenses.

West Virginia Public Broadcasting reached out to the West Virginia Oil Marketers & Grocers Association but did not receive a response. An infographic on their website shows the current West Virginia state tax is nearly 36 cents per gallon of gas. To compare, Maryland’s state gas tax is 37 cents. States like Pennsylvania and Virginia are also considering enacting a gas tax holiday. They have respective state taxes of 59 cents and 29 cents.

“If there is some kind of impact, then that will have some kind of effect on the retail businesses on the West Virginia side, who may not have as many folks coming to their stations to buy gasoline, but then also all the other ancillary things that go along with gasoline purchases in convenience stores and automotive equipment and things like that,” Fuentes said.

Asha Weinstein Agrawal, director of San Jose State University’s Mineta Transportation Institute, agrees that the longer trip for gas might not be worth it. She says there is no guarantee savings would actually be passed directly to drivers, noting that oil refineries are usually the ones that actually pay the gas tax directly.

“It has to go through two layers,” Agrawal said. “First, do they pass the savings on to your local gas station, and then does the gas station – if it got some or all of that savings – pass it on to the consumer?”

Agrawal also notes that crossing state borders for cheaper gas could set West Virginians up for longer term disadvantages, like reduced revenue for roads and public transportation.

Both experts say consumers can save money in the long-term by making the switch to fuel efficient vehicles.

“Let’s not even think of electric vehicles, we just stick with gas and diesel; if it just went 10 miles to the gallon, you could be saving a lot of people 50 percent of their gas costs,” Agrawal said. “And that’s forever, it’s not just some holiday that lasts a few months.”

As of Friday, the American Automobile Association reports the average price of a gallon of gas in West Virginia is $4.10. This price is 17 cents lower than the national average of $4.27.

On Thursday, West Virginia Democrats held a rally urging Governor Justice to enact a gas tax holiday here in the state, with the governor responding that he did not have the power to suspend the tax and that the issue is the legislature’s responsibility. House Speaker Roger Hanshaw and Senate President Craig Blair also released a statement opposing a suspension of the tax.

Gettysburg Historian To Present Talk About Battle’s Legacy At Shepherd University

Historian and author Jill Titus will be speaking on the legacy of the 100th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address this week at Shepherd University.

The talk, titled “The Battlefield Belongs to the Nation: Commemorating the 100th anniversary of Gettysburg,” examines how America observed the Battle of Gettysburg during the Civil Rights era. Titus’ interest in the topic is detailed in her book, “Gettysburg 1963.”

“It really started with me walking the battlefield in the evening and looking at some of the large Confederate monuments lining West Confederate Avenue,” Titus said. “And as I looked at those dedication dates, and I looked at the language on these monuments, it immediately jumped out to me that those monuments themselves were dated from the 1960s.”

Titus will be speaking about how the commemoration of the Civil War was used as a framing device for debating the racial issues of the 1960s, connecting how Americans memorialized the war during the Civil Rights movement. Activists used the centennial to shine a light on racial inequality, arguing the commemoration was used to glorify the Confederacy and set back the civil rights movement. She says the goal of the talk is to help those in attendance understand Gettysburg’s legacy from multiple political and social angles, noting the contentiousness of the battle’s centennial celebration.

“I think that anyone living in 21st century America, anyone living in this moment, we’re having a debate over our cultural symbols and debate over how we remember and memorialize our history, can learn things by understanding how previous generations have wrestled with the legacies of the past,” Titus said.

The talk will be at Shepherd University’s Robert C. Byrd Center on Thursday. It will be open to the public and Titus will sign her book afterward.

NASA Education Resource Center Provides Training, Resources For Classrooms Across W.Va.

NASA’s Independent Verification and Validation program has been a vital part of some of its most high-profile missions into outer space since 1993. Located in Fairmont, the program has also been helping teachers and students across West Virginia through their Education Resource Center (ERC). More recently, the center has also begun organizing competitive robotics events for student clubs. Todd Ensign is the ERC’s program manager.

“Ten years ago, when we took on Lego League, there were probably 500 kids total involved in competitive robotics in West Virginia,” said Ensign. “Today, it’s like 5,000. So it’s a big change. And my team went from a single event that we managed, to now we manage over 40 events a year.”

Ensign estimates that in a regular year, the ERC helps around 1,000 teachers and from 12,000 to 16,000 kids. Barbara Pill is one of the many West Virginia teachers the center has worked with. Pill manages the STEM club at East Fairmont Middle School. She says the competitions are the main reason new students join her club each year.

“With the competitions, they have outreach,” said Pill. “And it starts with telling fellow students about it. So each year, I have students who hadn’t thought of being in STEM wanting to be in STEM because it sounds so cool, so much fun.”

East Fairmont Middle School science teacher Barbara Pill standing in front of her STEM club’s First LEGO League mats used for robotics competitions

By reaching out to the ERC, Pill was able to attend robotics workshops herself and bring back what she learned to her students. She was also able to use equipment the ERC loaned to her. Ensign calls this the “train-the-trainer” method.

“In this manner… we’re able to have, I think, the broadest possible impact and bring resources to parts of the state that wouldn’t otherwise…have access to them. Not every school can afford a $40,000 planetarium that they can bring in, or $20,000 classroom robots and iPads to program them with,” said Ensign.

One high school robotics team the ERC has helped is Morgantown’s Mountaineer Area Robotics, known as MARS for short. While not affiliated directly with the ERC, the center calls MARS its “house team.” It’s one of the robotics teams the ERC works closely with, and has helped mentor coaches like Paul Kritschgau.

“What they’ve done with me as a coach—I’ve never learned how to do a business plan for a coached team and things like that,” said Kritschgau. “So they’re helping support from the ground up. If you need help on a business plan for a particular aspect that you don’t have an expertise in, they can help you there.”

MARS is broken up into smaller groups that its members can join based on their interests. These include programming, electrical, mechanical, and manufacturing. Some students are even members of a group that handles the business and public outreach side of the team.

Ensign says he thinks the reason robotics has engaged so many students across West Virginia is because it aligns with the mentality of the state’s people.

“You know, if something is broken, we fix it. If a mining apparatus is damaged, we don’t have time to wait for a new part to come in from far away. We get in and work on it. And I think that that same ethic has played true in our competitive robotics teams from kindergarten all the way through college teams,” said Ensign.

Currently, the Education Resource Center is preparing to hold a student drone competition on February 25. The center says it is set to be one of the largest competitions of its kind in the country.

Hardy County Teacher Receives National Honor, $25,000 Award

East Hardy High School English Teacher Michelle Wolfe was named the latest recipient of the Milken Educator Award award during a surprise presentation Wednesday morning, placing her among some of the country’s top grade school educators. The award is a national honor that recognizes some of the best teachers across the country.

The ceremony was the first stop of a tour where 60 notable teachers across the country will each receive $25,000.

Wolfe is the first Milken Award winner from Hardy County since 1994 and was chosen during a secret selection process. Her fellow teachers credited her for her leadership skills and focus on her students’ individuality.

“I am nationally board certified. That was a big accomplishment that I’d worked really hard for. And I thought maybe that was a big step for me. So this is something that I never dreamed up or envisioned,” Wolfe said.

Among those attending the event were former award winner and Milken Educator Awards Vice President Stephanie Bishop and State Superintendent of Schools W. Clayton Burch. Both noted the importance of the award for the state’s teachers, with Bishop saying the award has been a motivator for past recipients.

Wolfe says she wants to use the award to give back to her students and gain recognition for other public school teachers.

“I do really appreciate the opportunity to get to meet with other educators and to talk about how we can elevate the profession,” Wolfe said. “I really do believe in public schools, and so any opportunity to make things better for our students or our staff, I’m down for that.”