West Virginia University President Gordon Gee says the school won’t abandon Montgomery after it moves the WVU Institute of Technology’s programs to Beckley in 2017.
Gee told The Register-Herald that the university is looking at other options for Tech’s facilities in Montgomery that are owned by WVU and the state.
Gee says WVU also will continue to develop programs for Montgomery through its Extension Service and community development services.
He says the university’s mission includes improving opportunities for West Virginia’s 1.8 million residents and creating communities that are valued.
A West Virginia University political science professor has served as an international observer for the election in Ukraine.
WVU says Erik Herron has been volunteering as an international observer since 1999, monitoring polling places to ensure a fair and honest election.
For Sunday’s election, Herron was based in the city of Odesa. It marked his 13th observation mission with the Committee for Open Democracy.
WVU says information collected by Herron and other observers will be used by the committee to compile a report and issue advice about how to improve the election process.
Researchers at West Virginia University are looking for clues about West Virginia’s climate history — by combing through old journals of naturalists who spent time in the state’s forests and hills.
Lori Petrauski is a WVU grad student from Minnesota who is starting this phenology project for West Virginians.
“I became interested in how to connect citizens and just normal people to nature,” Petrauski said.
Phenology, she says, is one easy way to do that.
Phenology: the study of cyclic and seasonal natural phenomena, especially in relation to climate and plant & animal life (e.g., noticing when the first migrating songbirds arrive in springtime)
Climate Clues
Today Petrauski is pouring through old journals of West Virginians as she compiles a baseline database of historical phenology in the state. It’s the start of a ten-year effort to create a resource for students and citizens. The goal is ultimately to allow West Virginians to better know the rhythms of the “wild and wonderful” part of West Virginia.
In cooperation with WVU’s Natural History Museum, the university’s Wildlife and Fisheries Department is putting out calls to citizens with any kind of historical records of timings of biological events.
“Especially helpful are journals from nature-minded citizens,” Petrauski said. “So people who would be out in the woods a lot and write down what they saw.”
George Breiding
Credit courtesy of Mike Breiding
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George Breiding later in life, always with binoculars, pencil, and paper at the ready. His daily notes about the world around him have become a source of data for climate researchers at West Virginia University.
One such journaler who has provided a plethora of data for Lori and her team is George Breiding, of Wheeling. Born in 1917, Mr. Breiding was an avid birder and for years was the Director of Nature Education and the staff naturalist at Oglebay Park. He passed away several years ago but during his adult life he made lists of the birds he saw every day of his life right up until the day he died.
“It was like breathing to him. He never went out of the house without a notebook and pencil. And he rarely went out of the house without binoculars,” said Mr. Breiding’s son, Mike. “I’m sure he would have felt naked without them.”
“Prolific birders like that were really helpful for us because we could see the first day that he saw this bird must have been the first day that it migrated up to Oglebay Park because we know that he was out every day looking for birds,” Lori explained.
Data is gathered from:
Journals
Naturalist groups’ records (e.g., The Brooks Bird Club)
Herbariums (i.e., collections of pressed plants)
Historical Climate Network t – 14 different observation stations through the state
The project as a whole will collect as much data as possible in the coming decade so that West Virginians have a solid base of knowledge to pull from, add to, and Lori hopes, an extra excuse to get outside and notice the world around them.
You may have heard about the scandal involving Volkswagen cheating on emissions standards. But did you know that WVU researchers helped catch VW in the act?
The International Council on Clean Transportation, a nonprofit research group asked WVU to test NOx and other emissions on three cars: a BMW X5 SUV, a VW Jetta, and a VW Passat.
WVU tested the cars in real-world scenarios, not the special computers usually used for emissions tests.
That’s when they discovered something strange: the BMW passed the test, but the VW cars didn’t. Emissions on them were much higher in the real world.
WVU published its report in May 2014, called “In-Use Emissions Testing of Light-Duty Diesel Vehicles in the United States.” Authors included principal investigator Gregory Thompson, Daniel Carder, Marc Besch, Arvind Thiruvengadam, and Hemanth Kappanna at the WVU Center for Alternative Fuels, Engines & Emissions, Dept. of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering.
VW initially blamed the problem on technical issues. But this week, the EPA accused the company of installing software to cheat emissions tests. It switches pollution controls on during emissions testing, and off when it hit the road.
For seven years, some VW vehicles were spewing up to 40 times the allowed emissions.
VW stocks plunged 17 percent today, as CEO Martin Winterkorn apologized and promised a full investigation.
The company is expected to recall up to a 500,000 Jetta, Golf, Beetle and Audi A3 vehicles starting in model year 2009.
Former U.S. Nick Rahall is donating 2,000 boxes of documents from his congressional career to West Virginia University.
The papers include testimony, speeches, news releases and other documents. Rahall represented southern West Virginia for 19 terms in the U.S. House, from 1977 to 2015.
WVU Beckley and WVU Tech campus president Carolyn Long says in a news release that Rahall’s papers will offer students a unique look inside the life of a congressman who served for nearly four decades.
To further utilize Rahall’s papers, WVU said it will promote partnerships with Marshall and Concord universities, the Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies and the West Virginia State Archives.
A ribbon cutting and celebration is scheduled for Oct. 3 in Beckley to commemorate Rahall’s donation of his papers.
The fire was fully contained eight hours later, but those shop owners had lost everything. Although shocked and heartbroken by the loss, the community of Harpers Ferry, surrounding areas, and officials from around the state came together to support the town’s recovery.
It’s been a little more than one month since this day in Harpers Ferry.
Credit Liz McCormick / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
The day of the Harpers Ferry fire.
“It was just up in flames. Everybody lost their businesses down here, down on this side. It was just awful. It was just chaos,” said Jeff Gaskins, a Harpers Ferry resident who watched as the fire engulfed the four buildings – most of which were built before the Civil War.
Cindi Dunn lost her small boutique called the Vintage Lady, which featured jewelry and many made-in-West Virginia items.
“It’s a personal, of course loss, huge loss, but the loss for our town is devastating. This is such a beautiful town, and people come here literally from all over the world,” Dunn said.
Six weeks after the fire and just a handful of steps up the hill from the location of Dunn’s original shop is the “new” Vintage Lady.
Credit Liz McCormick / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
The “new” Vintage Lady.
Her new space was once a small wine shop. The ceiling is high and has seven windows that look out at the grassy mountains in Harpers Ferry. There’s jewelry, mugs, socks, books, jam, and scarves ready to be sold.
“We selected the best of the things that we had in the other shop. It’s obviously a smaller space, and so we just went through and picked out our very top best sellers, and I think we did it,” Dunn explained.
Of those nine business owners who lost everything in the fire, Dunn is the only one so far who’s been able to reopen in Harpers Ferry.
Dunn says the long-term plan is to be able to move back into her old space if possible, which she spent twelve years in, but says that’s not something she’s worrying about right now.
“My bigger concern right now is for the town that I want the town to rebound from this. It’s such a huge impact financially, you know, so right now, I just want the town to rebuild, I want things to bounce back, so I just want people to come and see the beauty that’s Harpers Ferry.”
And things are beginning to bounce back.
Help Comes from Community, West Virginia University
Community members and many others have donated money to the cause. State and Federal legislators have been doing what they can to aid in the recovery process.
Last week, Harpers Ferry Mayor Gregory Vaughn held a community meeting to discuss where the town is in its recovery and where to go from here.
A big part of that is West Virginia University’s recent involvement. WVU’s Extension Service Program is working to match local needs with the university’s resources.
Credit Liz McCormick / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Harpers Ferry residents gather at Mather Training Center for the Mayor’s community meeting to discuss the town’s future and aid from West Virginia University.
“We’re getting structural engineers came here, architects, landscape architects have been here, your marketing specialists have been here, your community development specialists who conduct these types of things that we had this evening, we don’t have those kinds of resources to do that, and for a community like Harpers Ferry to be able to sit down with the big shots in Morgantown, and for them to come and assist us is just remarkable,” Mayor Vaughn explained.
WVU is mostly offering assistance in the way of research. Vaughn says he’s not interested in money from the university, but is working on securing grants on the federal level, from the private sector, and is seeking some emergency funds to help pay for things like the half a million gallons of water used to put out the fire.
Chad Proudfoot is the WVU Extension Service program coordinator. Over the next few months, he’ll be spending three days a week in Harpers Ferry as the liaison between the town and Morgantown.
“The university sort of looked at Harpers Ferry as being in a very unique situation, because of its national importance and what it’s doing, and then also its drive, and really their resilient attitude to want to make things better, to want to move forward from this, and so it’s a very town driven project,” Proudfoot said, “WVU is able to provide some in-kind assistance, but everything is really being headed up by the town and its people. What a wonderful thing to be a part of.”
Back at Cindi Dunn’s shop, she’s also looking toward the future.
“I think that this is a turning point for Harpers Ferry, and I am sorry as to how it happened, but life just happens that way sometimes, so it’s really new beginnings,” Dunn said.
For the next year, West Virginia University will be working closely with Harpers Ferry to figure out what can be done to bring the town out of the ashes and make it better than before.
