Shepherd University is one of the latest schools to be designated as a member of the National Writing Project.
Shepherd University is one of the latest schools to be designated as a member of the National Writing Project.
It helps teachers support their students’ writing education through events including professional development institutes and writing retreats that help educators at all grade levels.
The project is a federally funded program with 170 sites nationwide.
Shepherd University is the third school in West Virginia to be involved with the program, joining both WVU and Marshall. A release says part of the reason the university is adopting the project is to help teachers with literacy education in a more interconnected, post-COVID world.
The university plans to kick off their membership by hosting a professional development institute for teachers in the area June 6-15. There is a $100 registration fee and those attending can earn up to six continuing education credit hours. Local teachers can sign up at the school’s National Writing Project webpage.
Shepherd University’s contemporary theater department is celebrating Black music by premiering an original musical on campus featuring arrangements of classic Motown hits. The show was directed and written by kb saine, director of the school’s contemporary theater studies program.
Shepherd University’s contemporary theater department is celebrating Black music by premiering an original musical on campus featuring arrangements of classic Motown hits. The show was directed and written by kb saine, director of the school’s contemporary theater studies program.
The musical, titled “Motown: Music from the Motor City,” takes Black music from the 60s and sets it against the backdrop of the civil rights movement. saine says she wants to give social and cultural context to the Motown music scene.
“By lifting up the Black voices in the story of the people who made the music, it does allow us to serve everyone, and it does allow for a sense of equity that we’ve been able to extend to our students and to our community members as well,” said saine.
Also involved as the production’s music director is the dean of the university’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, Rob Tudor. As music director, Tudor wants to explore what makes the sound of Motown so universally loved.
“Why has it lasted as long as it has? Why is it still popular?” Tudor said. “I went to a wedding in January… and a few people were dancing, but the moment they put on Motown music, the whole room jumped up on the floor and started dancing because it was music for everybody.”
Both Tudor and saine are excited to contribute to the Eastern Panhandle’s artistic tradition.
“I often refer to [Shepherdstown] as sort of the cultural hub of the area,” said Tudor. “There’s a lot going on, not just in Shepherdstown, but around us, as well.”
“There’s a great music scene, there’s a great theater scene, and it’s professionally and community driven,” saine added. “And there’s an audience for the arts that really appreciates it.”
The show premieres Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Shepherd University’s Marinoff Theater. It will also run Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 4:00 p.m.
An art exhibit featuring artworks of Black women from different walks of life came to Shepherd University earlier this week.
An art exhibit featuring artworks of Black women from different walks of life came to Shepherd University earlier this week.The exhibit, titled “Physical and Spiritual Bodies,” features nine paintings of Black figures who were influential in different fields. Each painting represents an element of nature that the subject personifies. Painter Chiquita Howard-Bostic says she connects these elements to the personal and cultural ties of Black women.
“This creates a deconstruction of the depressed depictions of Black women, because then people who deem themselves as being powerful, can walk through these same shoes, and they can align themselves positively with Black women,” Howard-Bostic said.
The subjects depicted include important Black figures like environmental activist Wangari Maathai and NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, a West Virginia native. The elements involved in the exhibit include water, air, fire, earth, and the void. For example, Maathai is depicted in association with the earth because of her conservation efforts.
For Howard-Bostic, the art exhibit is also a way to highlight Black women in predominantly white spaces. As the university’s Associate Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity, she is the first African American woman to serve on the school’s executive leadership team. She says it is important for people of all walks of life to have a sense of belonging and identifiable role models.
“I would like these women to be accepted as powerful women that are able to excel in arts, culture, history, all the different disciplines,” Howard-Bostic said. “I need to show Shepherd students and Shepherd faculty members that there are amazing and powerful and successful and talented Black women in all of the fields of study.”
The exhibit will be shown at Shepherd University’s Scarborough Library through April 16.
Shepherd University officials held a ribbon cutting ceremony Monday for the expansion of a pain clinic at the school.
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).”
Cecelia Mason
/
Shepherd University
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.
The founder of one of the country’s top theater festivals for new plays is retiring.
Ed Herendeen has been the producing director for the Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF) in Shepherdstown, West Virginia for the past 30 years.
He will step down in December.
According to a news release, Herendeen founded the festival in 1991 and was key to guiding the organization to its well-respected status as a professional theater organization.
“At the time, there were so few places that fully produced new work,” Herendeen said. “There was a critical need for the nurturing of, and the development and production of new plays.”
A major part of CATF’s founding was thanks to then-Shepherd College president Michael Riccards. Today, Shepherd University remains the festival’s home.
With Herendeen retiring, Associate Producing Director Peggy McKowen has been appointed as the festival’s Acting Producing Director.
There will be a nationwide search for CATF’s next leader.
Since 1991, the festival has produced more than 130 new plays, including 56 world premieres.
“It’s always been about the work on stage, about the voice of the playwrights. The plays deal with timely issues. They ask questions. They inspire conversation and even controversy. That’s why the festival has grown,” Herendeen said.
Many of CATF’s plays have gone on to Broadway and Off-Broadway.
“Shepherd University has enjoyed a very special partnership with Ed and the Contemporary American Theater Festival for over 30 years,” said Shepherd University President Mary Hendrix. “Ed’s creative vision and unparalleled commitment to authenticity and excellence will long be remembered. His passion for performance and evoking emotional responses to real life issues underscore his remarkable legacy. Ed is an icon of our times.”
Shepherd University has named a native West Virginian to its first “storyteller-in-residence” position, with an eye on sharing Appalachian folklore with the world.
Adam Booth, a native West Virginian, has been awarded the position and will use his skills to help reflect the region’s culture and heritage through stories, according to a press release from Shepherd University.
Booth is an award-winning storyteller, who has taught at Shepherd for the past 14 years. This new position will allow him to share his skillset beyond the university.
“Our stories define who we are and determine who we might become,” said Sylvia Bailey, director of Shepherd’s Center for Appalachian Studies and Communities. “Our stories reflect our culture and heritage, and the most fundamental parts of ourselves, and they are essential for survival.”
Booth has won the West Virginia Liars’ Contest four times and he created the Speak Series — an international storytelling series partnered with the Center for Appalachian Studies and Communities.
Booth’s stories are a combination of mountain folklore and contemporary Appalachia. For example, on his Youtube channel Booth tells his interpretation of the traditional story “Rawhead and Bloodbones,” a story that originated in the British Isles and traveled with immigrants to southern Appalachia.
“…That woman she had a daughter that was about as mean as she was. They’d do mean things to people all day long, and then go home a laugh about it…and there was also a man that was just the opposite. He had a heart that seemed to be made out of pure gold…and he also had a daughter, who was just like him…”
Through the storyteller-in-residence position at Shepherd University, Booth will continue to develop the Speak Series, sharing Appalachian folklore with a modern twist to the world.
