WVU Story Archives - Page 33 of 39 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

WVU Celebrates Opening of Art Museum

After waiting for over six years, Morgantown art lovers flooded the halls of the WVU Art Museum Tuesday to see the university’s diverse collection of modernist and contemporary art.

Robert Bridges, the museum’s chief curator says the WVU Arts Museum is the only art museum between Charleston and Pittsburgh as well as Cleveland and Washington D.C.

“Our job, I feel, is to bring art from the outside areas in here to give not only our students but the people of West Virginia a chance to see what’s happening in the greater art world,” says Bridges.

The exhibit is called Visual Conversations – Looking and Listening and it showcases artworks WVU has been collecting since the 1930’s. Over the years some of the works have been temporarily displayed at Stewart Hall, but for many of them, they are being seen by the public for the first time. The collection houses Appalachian, American and even international works.

“With this exhibition, we have paired up some of these artists so you see an artist that was working in the region along with artists that were more nationally known,” says Bridges

The museum’s pride and joy is the exhibition of the West Virginia artist, Blanche Lazzell. Born and raised in Monongalia County and a WVU alumna, many of Lazzell’s modernist works showcase West Virginia’s physical and social landscape. One of her most visually striking pieces is her untitled mural of Monongalia County that was painted in 1934 for the courthouse.

“The colors are just so vibrant and with the placement on the back of the gallery wall, people come in to the large gallery, they can see it and walk towards the space,” says Bridges.

After spending much of its life in storage, Lazzell’s mural is finally back on display.

Joyce Ice is the director of the WVU Art Museum and she says its opening isn’t just significant for the university but also for the state, “adding to the cultural vitality that makes Morgantown one of the best small cities in America while contributing to its wellbeing and that of our region and our state.

In an effort to make art more accessible, the museum is free and open to the public five days a week.

WVU Gets Training Grant from NIOSH

A federal grant will enable West Virginia University to continue to offer advanced training to physicians and engineering students.

WVU says in a news release that it has received a five-year, $2.2 million grant from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

WVU says the School of Public Health will provide the only occupational medicine residency training for physicians in Appalachia.

The two-year program lets physicians complete both a residency and a master’s degree in public health.

In addition, the grant will support engineering graduate programs in industrial hygiene and ergonomics.

WV FOODLINK: Researchers Work to Link People to Food

Researchers at West Virginia University are working to holistically understand “food insecurity” throughout West Virginia with a program they call WV FOODLINK.

The program is trying to connect people to food resources that already exist throughout the state, while exploring unmet needs and what might be done to fill them. It’s a moving target, but researchers say West Virginians are an innovative bunch.

According to data from the US Census Bureau, about 15 percent of all West Virginians, or about one in seven is “food insecure,” which means they have a hard time at some point throughout the year putting food on the table for lack of money, access, or resources in general. But what does that really mean? How many people in West Virginia are hungry right now? WVU researcher Bradley Wilson says the short answer is: we don’t really know.

WV FOODLINK

“The story of West Virginia is all of these statistics about obesity, health problems, poverty, depression,” said Bradley Wilson, a professor of Geography at West Virginia University. Wilson has been studying food and hunger issues and, importantly, thinking about why and how we are in our present situations.

"There's a massive network of emergency food assistance agencies serving between 200,000 – 300,000 people a month," Wilson said.

“Economic changes, the decline of manufacturing, the decline of coal – these are the cards people have been dealt and they’ve been making that work. There’s a certain creativity that is not the story of West Virginia that is often told.”

Wilson is the director of an ongoing project at the university called WV FOODLINK. When the project launched Wilson quickly came to discover more than 650 agencies working to combat hunger across the state.

“There’s a massive network of emergency food assistance agencies serving between 200,000 – 300,000 people a month,” Wilson said.

Food pantries, soup kitchens, charities, nonprofits, free school meal programs – Wilson and his team call it the Emergency Food Network – and in the WV FOODLINK labs, they’ve been gathering a lot of data to try and grasp the extent of the network. Researchers created a website to help spread information about the needs and work that’s being done around the state.

Mapping Vulnerability

But we live in a very fluid and changing world. We almost need real-time maps to keep up with the morphing food landscapes.

“This emergency food network is itself extremely vulnerable,” said Joshua Lohnas, a PHD student in the Department of Geography at WVU and the Associate Director of FOODLINK, “and we’re finding a lot of food pantries closing shop even since we started this project.”

Lohnas is observing one major trend: the rise and popularity of “alternative food networks” like farmers markets and CSAs.

But farmers markets today still only feed about 1% of the state’s population.

“Solutioning”

“We are not anti-farmers markets,” insists Wilson. “We WANT farmers markets. But how do you build both? I think that’s where a lot of the innovative stuff is happening.”

Wilson says there’s a lot of “solutioning” going on: food pantries with hydroponics operations, gardeners’ consignment shops, mobile markets, food pantries hosting farmers markets or growing their own food – these are some of the innovations we’re beginning to see in West Virginia. Wilson says it’s not likely any one solution will solve all the problems we face, more innovative work that combines the popular alternative food movement and the emergency food network is what West Virginia needs.

“The way to scale up the alternative food networks is ultimately going to have to address how to invite low income families to participate.”

To that end, Wilson and Lohnas are collaborating with MANY organizations to help connect efforts. Facing Hunger Food Bank, Mountaineer Food Bank, Volunteer Organizations Active in Disasters (VOAD), Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, Sisters of St. Joseph Charitable Fund, Appalachian Foodshed Project, WV Food and Farm Coalition, WV Farmer’s Market Association, West Virginia GIS Tech Center as well as county-level anti-hunger coalitions throughout West Virginia.

Mountain Stage After Midnight: Guster, Suzy Bogguss, Anais Mitchell

Before they were nominated for a Canadian Grammy and before a Harry Potter lead helped fund her music, The Barr Brothers (previously The Slip) and Sylvie Lewis made a splash on the Mountain Stage. This weekend, we’ll open up the archives to hear how they sounded back in ’06 and ’07.

Broadcast from 1am-5am Saturday and Sunday mornings here on West Virginia Public Broadcasting, Mountain Stage After Midnight takes the best episodes from the show’s 32 year history and shares their memories and songs with our late-night listeners.

Tune in this Saturday July 11 and Sunday July 12 for some great tunes on Mountain Stage After Midnight.

We’ll hear an October 2006 show, recorded at the Creative Arts Center on the campus of West Virginia University. It includes Guster, Larry Coryell, The Slip (now known as The Barr Brothers), Miho Hatori and Hazmat Modine.

Anais Mitchell on the Mountain Stage in 2007.

We’ll also hear a September 2007 show featuring Suzy Bogguss, Anais Mitchell, Lucky Tomblin Band, Eleni Mandell and Sylvie Lewis.

Still craving more #MountainStage? Tell us what you want to hear on the next #MSAM on social media (you can find us on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram). Take us on your summer travels with our 24/7 Mountain Stage stream and iTunes podcast. Sign-up for our monthly email newsletter for the latest show announcements and come see what live performance radio looks like at one of our live shows. And if Mountain Stage isn’t available wherever you are, contact your public radio station and let’em know what they’re missing out on!

Drilling Begins in Long-Term WVU Study on Natural Gas

Drilling is set to begin in West Virginia in what is being billed as the first long-term field study of shale drilling for natural gas.Northeast Natural…

Drilling is set to begin in West Virginia in what is being billed as the first long-term field study of shale drilling for natural gas.

Northeast Natural Energy of Charleston is scheduled to drill Friday in Morgantown.

The drilling is part of the Marcellus Shale Energy and Environmental Laboratory, which was launched in 2014 by West Virginia University. Its partners in the five-year, $11 million project include Ohio State University and the U.S. Department of Energy.

WVU says scientists will study the process from beginning to end. Concerned residents and environmental groups worry because the Northeast well pad is at the Morgantown Industrial Park– located just up the hill from the Monongahela River, and just 1500 feet upstream from the city’s drinking water intake.

But researchers and industry professionals alike say risks are low at this drilling pad because of the expected oversight.

“This is actually probably going to be the safest well in the world,” said Director of WVU Energy Institute and Morgantown resident, Brian J. Anderson at the onset of the project.

Since the project began, scientists have been monitoring baseline air, noise, light and water at the site. Those assessments will continue through the life cycle of the project.

The much-criticized drilling process called fracking has opened vast reserves of natural gas. WVU scientists say since originally drilled in 2011, the site in Morgantown provides the majority of the natural gas consumed by local residents.

Wildfire Training Academy Beings This Weekend at WVU

More than 190 firefighters from several states will attend a wildfire training academy at West Virginia University.

The event is set for Saturday through June 12. It offers 10 classes essential to wildland firefighting, including fire behavior, equipment use and leadership development.

The academy is a project of the Mid-Atlantic Forest Fire Compact, the WVU Division of Forestry and Natural Resources and the U.S. Forest Service.

Seven states make up the Mid-Atlantic Forest Fire Compact: Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia. Organizers say more than half of those attending the academy are from those states.