If you are hungry, head on out to West Virginia University at Parkersburg.

Beginning this fall semester, the university will have new food service options available for students, faculty, and staff on the Parkersburg campus, and the community is invited to stop by and sample the cuisine.

Ricky’s Café, operated by the university, is expected to open by the end of August, serving full breakfast and lunch options. New vending machines provided by CRJ Vending are stocked around campus, and Chick-fil-A will be serving lunch Monday through Friday 11 a.m. until 2 p.m., or while supplies last, beginning August 19.

“We did a survey of our campus community about food preferences last semester and received about 300 responses. That’s an excellent cross section of our community. Respondents indicated that food quality and price are especially important concerns. We try always to be responsive to feedback, so we are building the menu at Ricky’s Café with these priorities in mind,” said WVU Parkersburg President Chris Gilmer.

“We also polled the community about food vendors they might like to see on campus, and Chick-fil-A polled especially high. It’s highly unusual for a small, rural college like ours to be able to attract a major restaurant chain to campus, and we are so pleased that our friends, the Angelos Family who own the local Chick-fil-A restaurants, answered our call. They have been upstanding citizens and business leaders in this community for decades, so we consider ourselves fortunate to affiliate with them,” Gilmer said.

He added that the university is also entertaining the possibility of a coffee kiosk or similar vendor to round out the options, but that they won’t move forward with any additional food vending options until Ricky’s Café is fully up and running. “First the cake, then the icing,” Gilmer said. “Our top priority is to provide lunch options for our students, faculty, and staff as quickly as we possibly can.”

While the university had been considering food service options for some time, the situation changed during the summer when the contract with its previous vendor ended unexpectedly. “I really want to commend our team for pulling together on short notice to provide economical and tasty dining options for our community,” Gilmer said. “We want people to be able to spend their money on choices that appeal to them for whatever reason, so it is important to have options. As always, our team put the needs of our community first and rose to the challenge.”

The West Virginia University at Parkersburg Board of Governors will meet Wednesday, August 14. The meeting will take place at 3:15 p.m. in the Francis and Nina Phares Board Room (room 1300A) on main campus. View the complete agenda here.

Nine West Virginia University at Parkersburg faculty members have been selected for promotions ahead of the 2019-2020 academic year. The promotions are effective Aug. 12.

Two faculty members earned the rank of full professor, five more received promotions to associate professor, and two were promoted to assistant professor.

Aaron Crites – promoted to professor of history

David Thompson – promoted to professor of psychology

Chad Crumbaker, J.D. – promoted to associate professor of legal studies

Joel Farkas – promoted to associate professor of biology

Holly Martin – promoted to associate professor of biology

Gerald Rowley – promoted to associate professor of electricity & instrumentation

Gary Thompson – promoted to associate professor of computer science

William Channell – promoted to assistant professor of chemical & polymer operator technology

Craig Giffin – promoted to assistant professor of industrial maintenance

To receive a promotion in rank, a faculty member must have demonstrated significant contributions in the areas of teaching and service to students, professional growth and development, and service to the institution and community.

“The faculty are vital to the success of students in every classroom,” said Chad Crumbaker, provost and executive vice president for academic and student affairs, WVU Parkersburg. “Those promoted this year represent programs from all across WVU Parkersburg. We are proud of their hard work and look forward to their continuing contributions in serving our community and our students.”

June 18, 2019 – WVU Parkersburg students in the Computer and Information Technology (CIT) Learn and Earn program will soon have the opportunity to gain real-world work experience while earning their degree, all in one location on campus.

The Ntiva Service Desk Academy will open in the Caperton Center for Applied Technology ahead of the fall 2019 semester, enabling students in the college’s CIT Learn and Earn program to work remotely for the D.C.-based tech company while completing their associate degree.

Through this new partnership, students in their second year of the CIT associate degree program will be provided the opportunity to work in a live, fully functional, professional IT service desk environment, working with customers on IT requests, technical issues and projects. Participants earn $16 an hour and may work up to 1,200 hours during the internship period.

“We are pleased to partner with Ntiva to offer this one-of-a-kind internship opportunity to our CIT students,” said WVU Parkersburg STEM Instructor Doug Rhodes. “It is very exciting to have the service desk located in the same building where our students are learning. It not only helps the students hired by Ntiva, but all our CIT students, to better understand what a modern service desk looks like, how it operates and the skills we are teaching in the classroom.”

Ntiva employees will work alongside the students to train and mentor those selected for the program.

“Our core mission is to grow people and we believe that technology is a key accelerator,” said Steven Freidkin, CEO of Ntiva. “By investing in the Ntiva Service Desk Academy in partnership with the CIT Learn and Earn program, we’re providing the opportunity for WVU Parkersburg students to gain valuable technical skills in a real-world environment. This in-depth training will open up more employment doors for graduating students in the CIT degree program, who were able to take advantage of this internship.”

WVU Parkersburg’s CIT Learn and Earn program started in 2016 with three local employers – Chemours, Woodcraft and iTech. Since that time, 12 students have participated in the program, and it has expanded with new employer partnerships, including Westbrook Health Services and Ntiva.

Among other recent notable accomplishments, the college’s CIT program ranked first in the state and No. 102 in the nation in the SANS Institute’s Cyber FastTrack competition, a national initiative to help identify cybersecurity talent in the U.S. and enable college students to discover their aptitude in the field. More than 13,000 students across the country started the program, and four of those were WVU Parkersburg students who qualified for the quarterfinals, earning the opportunity to compete for $2.5 million in scholarships and direct introductions to employers.

To learn more about WVU Parkersburg’s CIT program, contact the Center for Student Services at admissions@wvup.edu or 304-424-8310.

June 18, 2019 – The West Virginia Center for Civic Life (WVCCL) wants to help citizens start conversations about issues facing the state by encouraging fresh, innovative thinking during its annual Civic Life Institute. The event will be held at West Virginia University at Parkersburg on July 18 and 19, from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. and 9 a.m. – 4 p.m., respectively, in the College Activities Center.

The WVCCL is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that convenes public workshops and provides resources to help people develop productive ways to address common concerns. Over the past 20 years, the center has partnered with hundreds of organizations and thousands of individuals in community-based initiatives to address issues related to the health, education and economic well-being of West Virginia residents, such as What’s Next WV, a statewide initiative designed to help communities plan actions based on their own ideas for building stronger local economies.

“We need to find productive ways to talk to each other, especially when we disagree,” said Jean Ambrose, WVCCL representative. “It is our goal to help diverse sectors in the community develop habits of listening to each other, taking ownership of problems together and working toward solutions that work for all.”

Peabody award-winner Trey Kay, producer of the nationally-recognized “Us & Them” podcast, will lead a session at the institute that explores the cultural issues that often divide us. Following his remarks, participants will experience ways of facilitating community discussion that explore different points of view while working together on difficult issues. “Us & Them” is a joint project of West Virginia Public Broadcast, PRX and Trey Kay Productions.

Also, the Parkersburg Area Community Foundation (PACF) is funding scholarships to participants in the institute. Eligible to apply are staff or board members of nonprofits or high school and college students from PACF’s service region: Calhoun, Doddridge, Gilmer, Jackson, Mason, Pleasants, Ritchie, Wirt and Wood counties in W.Va. and Washington county in Ohio.

Visit www.wvciviclife.org or contact Jean Ambrose at 304-679-3970 or info@wvciviclife.org to learn more about the institute and registration.

Peabody award-winner Trey Kay, producer of the nationally-recognized “Us & Them” podcast, will lead a session at the institute that explores the cultural issues that often divide us.

 

June 14, 2019 – It’s about a classroom that goes beyond the traditional textbook to a new learning experience. It’s about students who are ready to learn in an active environment.

West Virginia University at Parkersburg is offering a new experiential learning program for students. The program officially kicks off this summer with the Communication and Media Studies department and the employment of six interns. Brooke Buchanan, Toni Grogg, Loren Hays, Ryan McCoy, Madison Sayre and Sarah Weeks are the first marketing interns, who will be overseen by Dr. Torie Jackson, dean of public affairs and experiential learning.

The experiential learning classroom becomes a more in-depth studying laboratory. Students in Communication and Media Studies courses participate in a variety of career-related, project-based learning activities. The college began to pilot this program in the spring semester. As an example assignment, faculty tasked students to consider the counties in the WVU Parkersburg region and to examine the target audiences by researching jobs, industries, income, education, school system enrollment, population, values, sentiment, social media usage and free time usage in those counties.

“Having this internship with WVU Parkersburg allows myself and the other interns the opportunity to not only learn inside the classroom, but to take my knowledge beyond the course and apply it to real-world situations,” said Brooke Buchanan, a marketing intern in her junior year in the Communication and Media Studies program.

To begin the summer experiential learning program, the interns took a county tour to visit Calhoun, Jackson, Pleasants, Ritchie, Roane, Tyler, Wirt and Wood counties.

“I loved being able to travel to the surrounding counties and walk a mile in their shoes,” said Madison Sayre, a marketing intern in her sophomore year who will use that knowledge to be able to market effectively to the counties. “It was cool to see things through a different lens.”

WVU Parkersburg President Dr. Chris Gilmer is committed to building a culture of experiential learning at WVU Parkersburg in which our students learn academic content by putting it into practice in real-life settings.

“I have advised writing students for many years not just to tell me, but to show me with their words. This is because I believe fundamentally in learning by doing, not just by listening, or reading, or committing facts to memory. Those things are important, but implementation and practice are more important,” Dr. Gilmer said.

The college president plans to expand experiential learning to more degree programs on campus.

“This way our students graduate not only with content knowledge, but with application skills and a portfolio of quality work to show a potential employer. It is a win for everyone, and I hope the university community will fully invest in this model,” Dr. Gilmer said.

Research reveals that employers seek such skills. Education author Terrell Strayhorn recently visited the WVU Parkersburg campus to talk about assessment of learning. He shared with college faculty that employers want specific proficiencies in college graduates. These skills align with the goals of the experiential learning program, specifically:

• Work well on diverse teams

• Plan, organize, prioritize work

• Imagine, create and see connections

• Make decisions and solve problems

• Proficiency with computers and technology

• Storytelling and maximizing of stories

• Communicate well verbally with people

• Maintain integrity in work activities

“Experiential learning is a wonderful opportunity for our students to take their learning to the highest level, beyond application and analyzing to evaluating and creating,” Dr. Jackson said. “As this program begins to encompass more of the degree programs at WVU Parkersburg, we will revolutionize the student learning process and we will have college graduates ready to take on the workforce with skillful ability.”

 

 

The West Virginia University at Parkersburg Board of Governors will meet Thursday, June 13. The meeting will take place at 12 p.m. in Francis & Nina Phares Board Room (room 1300A) on the main campus. View the complete agenda here.

May 28, 2019 – West Virginia University at Parkersburg will host a site review for a periodic evaluation of its Elementary Education program by the Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) Oct. 27-29, 2019. The team will review the institution’s ongoing ability to meet the CAEP Standards for Accreditation.

The public is invited to submit comments regarding WVU Parkersburg’s Elementary Education program. The comments must address substantive matters related to the quality of professional education programs offered, and should specify the party’s relationship to the provider (i.e., graduate, present or former faculty/staff member, employer of graduates).

Written comments should be submitted directly to:

CAEP
1140 19^th Street NW, Suite 400
Washington, DC 20036

Or by email to: callforcomments@caepnet.org

All comments must be received by Sept. 8, 2019.