Inside Higher Ed - At his semiannual State of the University address in March, West Virginia University president E. Gordon Gee gave a blunt assessment to a crowd of faculty, administrators, students and staff: WVU is too big—and its student body shrinking too fast—to operate sustainably. Read the full article. With enrollment rates eroding and…
Education
Mountain State Spotlight, My Buckhannon - Yesterday was Crossover Day, a key legislative deadline. This is the day when the full universe of bills introduced during the session — 2,316, to be exact — is whittled down. For the most part, bills that didn’t clear their chamber of origin (the House or the Senate) by…
Mountain State Spotlight, Fayette Tribune - As Katonya Hart stood outside of the House of Delegates chamber at the West Virginia Capitol, a sparkly tiara fastened to her multicolored twists, the energy around her was undeniable. Read the full article. A floor below, the women of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. moved about in coordinated…
Beckley Register-Herald - Karen Hall, a teacher’s assistant in Fayetteville’s elementary school, helps her first-graders learn how to read, focusing on helping them learn words like “the,” “to,” and “my.” Read the full article. Her favorite part of the day is when she gets to work with students one on one, then she sends the…
Inside Higher Ed - State budget season is here, and with a few notable exceptions—California and New York among them—many states are entering it with a significant surplus. Read the full article. Thanks to a number of factors—including increased tax revenue, lingering pandemic stimulus funds and, at least in oil- and gas-rich states, boom times for the energy…
Public News Service - West Virginia's teachers' union warns that new proposed tax cuts will further shrink school budgets and drive more educators out of the profession. A crippling number of vacancies are straining school operations, and the number of non-certified teachers that have left their jobs has doubled since 2018, according to the state's…
Daily Athenaeum - WVU President Gordon Gee will be heading out west later this month to give a guest lecture on higher education at Kansas State University. Read the full article. Gee, who Kansas State describes as a “renowned leader in higher education,” will be discussing the current and future state of land-grant universities, according…
Mountain State Spotlight - Jim Butcher greeted the Boone-Madison librarians as he checked out his fifth book in two days. The four he picked up the previous day were for pleasure, but the one today was research: a theological book he hoped would inform his sermons at Madison Baptist, where he’s a pastor. Read the…
Beckley Register-Herald - Over the last few months, I’ve been all over the state talking to parents, teachers, firefighters, local elected officials from both parties, and small business owners about the harm that would be done to our state if two constitutional amendments on the November 8 ballot are approved. Read the full op-ed. Amendments…
Martinsburg Journal - Over the last few months, I’ve been all over the state talking to parents, teachers, firefighters, local elected officials from both parties, and small business owners about the harm that would be done to our state if two constitutional amendments on the November 8 ballot are approved. Read the full op-ed. Amendments…