Glenville State College Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Glenville State Wins Division II Women's Championship

Glenville State (W.Va.) beat Western Washington 85-72to capture the Division II women’s championship.

Re’Shawna Stone scored 25 points, Zakiyah Winfield added 23 and Glenville State (W.Va.) beat Western Washington 85-72 on Friday night to capture the Division II women’s championship.

It was the first championship — in any sport — for Glenville State.

Glenville State, which entered leading the nation in scoring at 96.3 points per game, broke a tournament record from 2004 by scoring 524 combined points in six games.

Glenville State only led 67-62 entering the fourth after Winfield beat the third-quarter buzzer on a jumper from the free-throw line. The Lady Pioneers made four straight shots in the fourth quarter to take a 78-68 lead with 6:04 remaining and led by double figures the rest of the way.

Stone was named the tournament MVP after going 11 of 16 from the floor against the taller Western Washington team.

“We always say ‘heart over height’ because we’re really small, and I think we definitely showed that tonight,” the 5-foot-6 Stone said.

Dazha Congleton added 11 points and nine rebounds for Glenville State (35-1), which was in its sixth consecutive NCAA Tournament. The Lady Pioneers forced 25 turnovers, and held Western Washington to 2-of-14 shooting from behind the arc.

Brooke Walling scored a career-high 27 points, on 12-of-16 shooting, and grabbed 12 rebounds for Western Washington (25-6). Emma Duff added 17 points and Katrina Gimmaka 12.

Western Washington turned it over 10 times in the first half, but shot 63.3% from the field and used an 11-0 run to build a 46-44 lead at the break. Walling scored 17 points, only missing one shot, and Duff added 11 points. Winfield had 15 points in the first half and Stone had 13.

Glenville State College Is On Its Way To University Status

A public college in central West Virginia could soon become a university.

Both chambers of the West Virginia Legislature unanimously voted Tuesday to approve Glenville State’s university designation, effective immediately. House Bill 4264 is now awaiting a signature from Gov. Jim Justice.

Glenville State College was founded in 1872 in Glenville to provide instruction and practice for school teachers. It grew into a full four-year college by 1931.

After the vote, Glenville State President Dr. Mark A. Manchin said the transition to university status marks another “significant milestone in the trajectory” of the institution of 1,500 students.

“In the fall our students will be able to enroll in Master’s-level courses in education and, by this time next year, we hope to have six graduate courses,” he said in a press release. “That is of course in addition to our existing undergraduate programs.”

The first graduate-level program offered at Glenville State will be the Master of Arts in Curriculum and Instruction. The program will offer advanced education opportunities for teachers and educators who have already earned a bachelor’s degree in education and have a teaching license or certificate of instruction. The coursework will be fully online.

Cybersecurity Training Coming To Some Coal-Impacted Communities

Residents in several West Virginia counties hurt by the declining coal industry will soon have the option to receive training in cybersecurity work.

Glenville State College this week received more than $1.4 million from the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) to develop a Cybersecurity and Safety Workforce Development Initiative.

Communities in fifteen West Virginia counties, where coal jobs have dwindled in recent years, will benefit from the program. Those counties include Barbour, Braxton, Calhoun, Clay, Doddridge, Harrison, Gilmer, Lewis, Nicholas, Ritchie, Roane, Tyler, Upshur, Webster and Wirt.

According to a news release, the initiative is designed to cultivate economic diversity, enhance reemployment opportunities for former miners and their families, and fill jobs in cybersecurity, which is a high paying and high-demand field.

The program will train about 300 West Virginians. The state has 1,000 open cybersecurity jobs, according to the release.

The Cybersecurity and Safety Workforce Development Initiative is part of ARC’s larger Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce and Economic Revitalization (POWER) initiative.

“The downturn of the coal industry has impacted economies across Appalachia. That’s why ARC’s POWER initiative helps to leverage regional partnerships and collaborations to support efforts to create a more vibrant economic future for coal-impacted communities,” said ARC Federal Co-Chair Gayle Manchin. “Many of the projects … will invest in educating and training the Appalachian workforce, nurturing entrepreneurship, and supporting infrastructure—including broadband access.”

POWER targets federal resources to communities affected by job losses in coal mining, coal power plant operations and coal-related supply chain industries.

Additional support for the initiative is provided by the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation.

Glenville State College President Pellett Leaving June 30

The president of Glenville State College is leaving the post this year.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports President Tracy Pellett is resigning effective June 30.

The school’s Board of Governors voted Nov. 7 to extend Pellett’s contract for a year, but Vice Chairman Tim Butcher said Pellett never signed the extension.

Pellett wrote in an email Monday that he appreciated the offer but decided not to take it. He said he is seeking a position “with a more comprehensive institution that has greater academic, organizational, and financial support to meaningfully impact student success.”

After the board offered the extension, the school’s Faculty Senate held a no-confidence vote in Pellett. About 59% of full-time faculty expressed no-confidence, 33% expressed confidence and 8% abstained.

February 5, 1890: Cam Henderson Born in Marion County

Coach Cam Henderson was born in Marion County on February 5, 1890. He grew up in Harrison County before attending Glenville State College, where he played football, basketball, and baseball. In 1923, he started a successful 12-year run as head football and basketball coach at Davis and Elkins College. Then, in 1935, he moved on to Marshall College.

In 1947, Henderson guided Marshall’s basketball team to a national NAIB title. He played the tournament with only eight players due to budget restrictions on travel. Later that year, his football team went 9 and 2 and played in the New Year’s Day Tangerine Bowl. Henderson actually missed the bowl game because he was coaching the Thundering Herd basketball team in a tournament in Los Angeles.

He resigned as football coach after the 1949 season and stepped down as basketball coach in 1955. He died the next year at age 66. Henderson is still Marshall’s all-time winningest basketball coach. And the university’s basketball arena is named in his honor. Today, he’s often credited with pioneering the fast break and 2-3 zone defense in basketball and the double-wing offense in football.

Report Urges Merging Governing Boards of 4 Colleges

A report looking at higher education in West Virginia has recommended merging the governing boards of Bluefield State College, Concord University, Glenville State College and West Virginia State University.

The report labels those four schools “medium risk to high risk” in sustainability. It says the four are “sustainable in the short-term, but their futures are uncertain.” The report recommended the move, in the short term, for Bluefield and Concord, and in the long term for Glenville and WVSU.

The document cited declining enrollment and increasing reliance on enrollment rather than state funding, plus competition for students from West Virginia and Marshall universities, according to news outlets.

The report, which includes other recommendations, was issued by the nonprofit National Center for Higher Education Management Systems.

It also lists negative effects of the state government’s decisions to separate community colleges from public four-year schools, weaken the power of the state Higher Education Policy Commission and cut higher education funding.

The recommendations include “leaving open” that Concord and Bluefield “could become a single accredited institution” and “the potential of including New River Community and Technical College within the new structure while retaining its unique mission as a community college,” the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported.

And at a time when the presidents of WVU, Marshall and Concord are to co-chair Gov. Jim Justice’s newly formed group to study the funding and sustainability of higher education, the report notes that a “major obstacle to collaboration with West Virginia University or Marshall University is a fear that the larger institutions will collaborate only out of their self-interest to stifle competition or ultimately take over the smaller institutions.”

WVU Communications Office Senior Executive Director John Bolt said Tuesday he could not respond to the report in detail.

“Nevertheless, I can say without equivocation that West Virginia University is not predatory,” he said.

Bluefield President Marsha Krotseng said it would not be appropriate to comment until reviewing the report thoroughly.

In a statement, Concord President Kendra Boggess suggested that the data in the report are accurate, but said a Bluefield/Concord consolidation is “only one potential option that should be considered.”

The report says that, “in the longer-term … all the regional institutions are at risk of failure. However, that risk varies significantly.”

Regional institutions are defined as all public four-year schools but WVU, Marshall, their branch campuses and the School of Osteopathic Medicine, in Lewisburg, according to the report.

The report said that for the institutions at highest risk, Bluefield and Concord, “the challenges are so serious that only a major restructuring will preserve postsecondary education opportunity for students in Southern West Virginia. “Implementing this restructuring will require external pressure, leadership, and on-going facilitation to mandate and implement a consolidation of academic, student and administrative capacity of the two institutions.”