One of West Virginia’s first collegiate esports teams won a national championship in December.
One of West Virginia’s first collegiate esports teams won a national championship in December.
In 2019, Concord University was the first public university in the state of West Virginia to develop an esports competition program.
The Concord University Esports Maroon Team, one of 12 teams at the university, won a national championship in the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Elite Division.
Austin Clay is the Esports director at Concord University and said the Rocket League match was won with intelligence and planning.
“Because of our research and because we better prepared for the match, and we understood how they played we were able to come out on top and take that victory though, which is why it’s so impressive,” he said.
The team went 7-1 in the ECAC regular season, only losing to Brewton Parker College, of Georgia. In the Grand Finals, the Maroon team played Brewton-Parker College once again, and consisted of Chase Koger, Ethan Tucker and Will Jackson.
Tucker, whose gamer tag, or nickname is “E.T.” is a sophomore who transferred from Brewton Parker College. He is a computer science major at Concord.
Jackson, whose gamer tag is “Pancakes” is a senior who has been playing for concord since the founding year of Rocket League in the fall of 2022 and is finishing his bachelor’s degree in computer science. Jackson is the captain of the team.
Koger, whose gamer tag is “Helix” is a freshman and the only in-state player for the varsity Rocket League team from the town of Iager in McDowell County. Koger is also pursuing a computer science degree.
Clay said he is not only proud of the team for their win, but their academic achievements as well.
“From an academic standpoint, our three players that play on that roster had an average GPA of 3.31,” Clay said. “So they are really intelligent, while also competing.”
Universities across the state are harnessing a growing interest in forensic science often referred to as the “CSI effect,” by offering expanded programs in these fields.
The academic programs are uniquely positioned to offer strong job candidates to often-understaffed law enforcement agencies as science helps in solving crimes.
The growing popularity of these programs brought West Virginia State Troopers and a forensic instructor from the state police academy to Concord University in Athens on Tuesday.
Jessica Lilly
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The West Virginia State Police mobile crime scene unit was available for tours in Athens on Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2021.
Troopers offered tours of the State Police Mobile Crime Scene Unit and talked with students taking a criminology class. The state police officers explained that a good path for crime scene investigation is joining their ranks in law enforcement after graduation.
Inside, officers stood in front of a flat screen TV that displayed a crime scene as they spoke with students.
Many of the students were from Concord’s criminology program.
“He’s at this house, on the sidewalk dead, shot six times,” said Dave Castle, a forensic instructor and crime scene coordinator for the state police.
Castle is also an instructor at Marshall University’s Forensic Science program, and he said it’s important to get the next generation interested. Marshall’s program recently achieved the highest collective score in the nation on the Forensic Science Assessment Test.
“People love it mainly because of TV but when they get involved in it and they see that there’s actual science behind it, and that they can substantiate conclusions with science, a lot of people lose interest but a lot more people are like, ‘that’s for me,’” Castle said.
Castle has been investigating crime scenes, mostly murders, for more than 30 years. He takes on the work as his life’s mission.
“I don’t know what else I would do,” Castle said. “This is just my identity. It’s who I am. I can’t imagine doing anything else.
“I don’t lose sleep over the things that I have to see and do,” he added. “To me, it’s a problem that needs solved. And I might be able to help solve it, maybe not, but I’ll do my best. I really just want to help the family members that are surviving.”
Jessica Lilly
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Forensic instructor and crime scene coordinator for the state police Dave Castle (left) and a West Virginia State Trooper spoke with Concord students about crime scene investigations.
Castle is working with the State Police to seek Crime Scene Investigation accreditation with the American National Standards Institute ANAB.
He said the standards will create a new level of consistency, and credibility across the state, where forensic programs continue to be in high demand.
Concord University currently offers a minor in Criminology and a Sociology degree with a Criminology emphasis. Other growing forensic programs include West Virginia University where bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees are offered in the field, and Fairmont State University.
While at Concord, Castle also demonstrated a system called Faro, a crime scene tool that takes millions of pieces of data to create a 3-D image. It can reveal initially unseen evidence.
“There may be bits of evidence that you didn’t notice,” Castle said, “while you were there actually at the scene that you see later in the Faro images. It’s very detailed.”
Colleges and universities are struggling to keep up with new needs of students in the COVID-19 era. Some have created programs that help students access money quickly. And now, a statewide initiative has been created to help with financial support
Twenty-year-old Destiny Robertson isn’t used to asking for help. Now a senior in college, she’s been supporting herself since she was 17 while finishing her senior year of high school.
“You think your parents are your biggest cheerleaders, especially when you’re first-generation (college student),” Robertson said. “It’s hard to deal with, but I think they’ll be fine knowing that it’s the truth and I’m still flourishing as I am without that support.”
It’s not just money for school that Robertson needed. She had no idea how to apply for scholarships or academic grants. She said getting into college is one thing, but getting through it is something else entirely.
“You almost feel alone,” Robertson said. “First generation college students don’t have that entry knowledge that people take for granted and sometimes college officials take for granted that we know these things. That was a hard pill to swallow but after you swallow it and digest it, it blooms into what I like to call a graduate.”
Courtesy Destiny Robertson
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Destiny Robertson as a baby with her mother, Desirae Williams.
Before a government-ordered-lockdown, in spring 2020, Robertson was working two jobs during her junior year in college. She was employed about 35 hours per week as a job coach for people with disabilities at the Mercer County Opportunity Industries. And she also worked in a job studies program in the Concord University Student Support Services Office on campus where she spent another 10 hours a week doing social media.
When Gov. Jim Justice ordered a statewide lockdown as the number of COVID-19 cases began to increase, Robertson’s work as a job coach was cut back to five hours. Later, Opportunity Industry closed and she lost that job completely.
When campus shut down, she also lost her work-study job.
“I had to choose either hopefully get approved for this CU Gap Fund or drop all my classes and go to work full-time as a waitress,” Robertson said.
The CU Gap Fund was set up in Fall 2017 when an anonymous donor gave a matching amount to start the program. Since then, Concord has disbursed more than $29,000 in 128 checks.
At Concord, about half of the students are eligible for Pell Grants, which means they are first-generation or come from a low-income background.
Professor Sarah Beasley helped get the program started and now oversees it as the vice president of Student Affairs, the office where students should go for help.
“A young woman, her house burned down last year, and we had a student who lost her father to a drug overdose and her mother was battling cancer,” Beasley said, “These are small grants up to only $250 but a little bit can help keep a student enrolled in school.”
Beasley says the stories are inspiring and eye-opening.
“I just have been fortunate in my own life and realize the sort of privilege I’ve had in my life,” Beasley said. “My parents always really put an emphasis on education, and really taught me that education can transform lives and I think to have that opportunity here at Concord for students, we have to be able to meet some of their basic needs, not just educational needs, but things like food, housing, transportation.”
Since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, Beasely says there’s even more need.
“More of our classes are hybrid and online,” Beasley said. “So there’s been greater demand for students who aren’t able to afford laptops, Internet access. It’s amazing how many students are writing papers and on things like that on phones.”
She might get the opportunity to do more with support from a state program.
In June 2020, West Virginia’s Higher Education Policy Commission and Community and Technical College System joined with Philanthropy West Virginia to announce a project that’s expected to create an emergency funds program.
It’s funded by the Ascendium Education Group – one of the most active postsecondary education philanthropies in the country.
The emergency grant is one of five components of the statewide initiative. The HEPC is still in the process of developing this program.
Dr. Chris Treadway is the senior director of research and policy with the West Virginia HEPC.
“We’re not sure exactly what the logistics of that will look like yet, but I would expect that it would start with someone in the Student Affairs office,” Treadway said.
According to a release from the Community and Technical College System of West Virginia, a different $4.2 million project is already underway. It’s a pilot emergency grant program at two community and technical colleges. That program is funded by a grant from Arnold Ventures.
As for Destiny Roberts, she’s now working in the Student Support Services office as an administrative associate and is expected to graduate in May with a bachelors in Sociology.
College tuition is going up across the country – and across West Virginia. Recently, the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission (WVHEPC) approved increases for several colleges and universities. Unfortunately, these increases come as many schools have seen a decline in enrollment.
Is the rise in tuition to blame for this downward trend? A report finds that West Virginia is one of only eight states that continues to reduce the amount of money going towards higher education in its budget as the economy recovers from the Great Recession. For this year, there was a 3.75 percent reduction.
Kent Gamble is the Director of Enrollment at Concord University. He says the school had little choice when deciding to increase tuition.
“The cost of business keeps going up and up, whether it’s a gas bill or whether it’s [an] insurance bill, and so I think that the university has to make an adjustment,” Gamble says.
Concord is considered a regional university. In other words, it serves the counties that surround it. Regional universities are often some of the biggest employers in the areas they serve. Ideally, graduates from these universities can then go on to work in the state.
Gamble says that universities likeConcord are vital to West Virginia’s recovery for this reason.
“We have a responsibility to drive the economy just like the mom and pop business does, or the larger employer in that county,” Gamble says. “So I think we have a responsibility to drive students to get a degree, to get a four-year education or a masters.
One way to avoid tuition increases is obvious – increase enrollment. But Gamble realizes that the old technique of attracting student right out of high school is not broad enough.
“I think that for any institution in West Virginia that’s small, diversifying its enrollment is going to be key to ten-year success, or five-year success, or one-year success,” Gamble says. “You can no longer rely on the first time freshman to drive enrollment. Even though it’s a big part of your enrollment, you can’t rely on it.”
WVHEPC Chancellor Paul Hill has high hopes for the future of higher education in West Virginia despite the declining state support. He says that there are positive signs of an economic upturn on the horizon.
“We think there is some optimism within the state budget in the long term while the state budget office indicates we’re still going through this downturn, there are some signs that the budget will recover in the next year or so and we would hope that there would not be any further cuts to higher education in West Virginia,” Hill says.
Access: Increase access to postsecondary education for West Virginians.
Success: Increase the amount of students graduating from universities in the state.
Impact: Increase the amount of graduates from West Virginia universities who contribute to the state’s workforce after obtaining a degree.
Hill says the actual process of learning will change, having an impact on the future of higher education. “I think [in] the future we’re going to see a lot more use of technology in our education, we’re already seeing a lot now,” Hill says. “But I think we’ll see a lot more in what we call ‘blended learning opportunities,’ more online opportunities.
And what about the actual college students? Why are they here? Jasmine Jimenez is from Connecticut and attends Concord University. She decided to attend college in West Virginia because of the lower costs.
Credit Jared Kline
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Jimenez works on campus to help pay for her education expenses.
“The tuition increases are coming at every state, but it also has a lot to do with the cost of living and the poverty levels and what not in those states, and Connecticut versus West Virginia is always going to be cheaper,” Jimenez says.
But Jimenez also remembers some of the things that were discouraging her from attending college back in high school. For her, there seems to be a lack of coordination between the colleges and high schools.
“High school students are told that this is the price, this is how much it’s going to go up every year and that’s all they see,” Jimenez says. “They don’t do get any sort of encouragement that they could afford these schools and go to schools and they won’t have to be in debt.”
Despite the nearly annual tuition increases at its colleges, West Virginia continues to be a higher education bargain as in Jimenez’s case. And attracting more out-of-state students could be a key to increasing college enrollment because the state does not produce enough high school graduates each year to keep its college classrooms filled.
