New Uniforms for WVU Football?

Here are some images of the possible new WVU football uniforms. Rumors persist that the "alternate" jersey will be worn for the 100th Backyard Brawl. There was some talk on fan sites about using a "throwback" uniform for the event, which is problematic, since the old WVU logos sucked so much.

possible New Uniforms:

Home

http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/3028/wvunewunihomegn8.gif
-------
Away
http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/218/wvunewuniawayak6.gif
------
Alternate
http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/1753/wvunewunialternateqc8.gif

Old Logos:

Pat White Makes Fun of the Pitt Panther "Growl"

WVU's Slaton Featured in "The Onion"

From the Onion:

Heisman Candidate Promises Voters Free Health Care, Lower Taxes
November 9, 2006 | Onion Sports


MORGANTOWN, WV—With his stock falling and his projected share of the vote expected to be smaller with every passing week, Steve Slaton (RB-West Virginia) has begun making extravagant promises late in his Heisman campaign. "A vote for me is not only a vote for a gutsy all-purpose back who can run, catch, and block, but for free health care for all Americans, greater access to continuing education to those who qualify, and lower taxes for the American middle class," Slaton said Tuesday in an announcement approved by West Virginia's sports-information director. "Troy Smith may be a fast quarterback with a rocket arm, but he does not share your interests and does not believe in distributing the wealth as well as he distributes the ball." Heisman voters remain unmoved, saying that Slaton's two recent fumbles against Louisville prove that he is weak on national ball security.

Link

Little Known Facts About West Virginia Media Holdings

From Wikipedia:

"West Virginia Media Holdings is a media chain in West Virginia. It owns television stations in each of the four main media markets in the state, as well as a weekly newspaper.

The group owns WOWK in Huntington, West Virginia, WVNS-TV in Beckley, West Virginia, and WTRF in Wheeling, West Virginia, which are all affiliated with the CBS network, and WBOY in Clarksburg, West Virginia which is affiliated with NBC. It also owns the State Journal weekly newspaper."

"The largest private investor in the company is Bray Cary. Cary was formerly an executive with NASCAR, and was responsible for its television contract, and was also involved in syndication of college basketball games. The company was, however, forced to reveal that the bulk of its funding came from the endowment of West Virginia University and that many state political figures that the stations covered were also investors in the company."

So, could it be that the WVU Foundation has funded its own media outlet that is really just a mouthpiece for the politicians who approve WVU's funding?

West Virginia University for Sale

Fresh off the rumor mill, Take Me Home has learned from a source inside West Virginia University that the “fix” may already be in for the next President of WVU. The only problem is that he may not be qualified what so ever.

The insider claims that Milan Puskar, chemical tycoon and source of the largest single gift in WVU’s history ($20 million), is pushing to name the successor to David Hardesty who announced his intent to retire back in August.

According to the source, the unnamed candidate has no experience in academia or in the management of large institutions higher education.

While I have no problem with donors getting buildings, stadiums, scholarships or much anything else named after them, the idea that the Presidency of West Virginia’s flagship institution is up for sale is an indicator of a new level of corruption in West Virginia; and that is saying something.

West Virginia Education: Failing to Help the Most Needy

It was recently reported by a study from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute's entitled "How Well Are States Educating Our Neediest Children?" and based on the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress scores and Advanced Placement testing data that West Virginia scored a “D-“ when it came to educating our poorest and most needy children.

This is of course absolutely no shock.

You can also bank on the idea that while hands will wring and protest lodged against the study itself, nothing will be done about it.

After all, West Virginia is a state that despite being the home of many poor rural student would be the first person in their family to go to college, designed a “scholarship” program to reward those who already had a great deal going for them.

I write of course of the PROMISE Scholarship program, a program to provide in state students, who reach a certain level on the various sections of the ACT or SAT test and leave high school with a 3.0 GPA in core academic subjects. The PROMISE was presented as a way to reward “good” students.

It is nothing but bunk that is little more than a back door tax cut for the upper middle class.

In his many comments on the subject, former Governor Bob Wise implied three major goals for the Promise Scholarship: Reward good students who “work hard and play by the rules,” reduce student loan burden, and keep West Virginia students in state after graduation.

Does the Promise reward good students? Both the ACT and College Board have issued statements against the use of the test as a benchmark for scholarship. While the tests are particularly good at the extremes of the scale, and therefore very useful tools in determining English and math class placement, the fact is that the scoring system can vary greatly with out any real measurable difference in academic ability. In fact, the SAT can vary as much as 125 points and the ACT by 1.43 to 2.20 points. While this variance represents no real difference in ability, it can result in a difference of thousands of dollars in scholarships. I believe that we do a disservice to both the ACT and the College Board and a greater disservice to the people of West Virginia when we misuse these tests for purposes for which they where not intended and are ill-suited. The Promise has operated as a poorly constructed fishing net, allowing many quality students to go unrewarded.

Does the Promise reduce loan debt? Certainly for those students who receive the scholarship, but that begs the question; what type of student receives the scholarship?
While there is some doubt about their ability to predict overall academic ability, the ACT and SAT can highlight certain educational disparities and level of preparedness. Both tests acknowledge that there is a direct correlation between family income and test score. Therefore it may seem that granting scholarships on the basis of these financial disparities, especially in a state so very poor, is a little misguided. For example, let us look at Webster County, which has the lowest per capita income in West Virginia, according the West Virginia Bureau of Employment Programs. Individuals there earn an average of $13,183 per year. (Per Capita Income or PCI) Only 9.67% of 2001 Webster County high school graduates were granted a Promise Scholarship. In the state’s wealthiest county, Kanawha ($27,508, PCI) 22.4% of the students received a Promise Scholarship. Do we really believe the kids in Charleston are twice as smart than those in Upper Glade? Or is it that those who live in the State Capitol have twice the advantages of those who live in a poor rural county? Instead of rewarding students for great achievement in a fair determination of relative ability and commitment, we are in effect punishing children for not being as fortunate as others.

We do know what type of student needs to take a loan; typically those from poor, working and lower middle-class families who are not poor enough to qualify for state and federal grants. According to Figure 1 these are the types of families least likely to receive a Promise Scholarship. We may have to wait a few more years for definitive proof, to determine the effect on loan burden, but there are doubts so long as those most likely to earn a scholarship are the ones least like to need a loan.

The new individual test score requirements for the Promise, which requires not only a 21 ACT composite, but also a 20 on all subject tests will exacerbate the problems of income disparity. With a statewide average of only a little over 16 on the Math section of the ACT it is unlikely that the promise will be in the grasp of the typical and otherwise deserving West Virginia high school senior. It cannot be ignored that even in the counties with the best Promise award rate, only about 1/3 are gaining any benefit from the program.

Finally a consideration for the third goal of the promise; to keep our students in West Virginia after graduation. For seven years I had the privilege of teaching about 50 of the state’s best and brightest high school students at a weeklong seminar. I always asked how many wished to stay in state after college and a strong majority always raises their hand. When I ask how think they must leave to find a career, another vast majority appears.

Our students do not want to leave this most beautiful and peaceful of states, but they often find themselves forced to do so. While other states have found success in retaining graduates by simply enticing them to remain in state for college, those states possessed a greater, more diverse economic base than West Virginia. I am afraid that due to the continued lack of professional and technology based jobs in West Virginia, the Promise will become a free job training program for our sister states.

While this is not the venue for discussing West Virginia’s economic development, it is a place to acknowledge that while the goals of the Promise are laudable, the only responsible question is if the current program matrix is actually doing the job we need it to do. I would argue that this is not the case and that the program, like most young efforts at social policy, needs considerable upgrading. In order to affect the former Governor’s goal in a more efficient and more socially just way, I would suggest the following: Make the Promise and West Virginia Higher Education Grant Program one unified program: the WV Promise Grant Program if you will.

Grant tuition and regular fees to any WV high school graduate with at least a 3.0 high school GPA in core courses, who then enrolls in a West Virginia college, university or community college. Private colleges would participate much as they do now. This will hopefully correct the problem of income disparity attached to the SAT and ACT.

If students stay in West Virginia up to two years after graduation (with an exemption for graduate or professional school) then the grant will remain just that. However if the student should leave the state in that time, the grant will become a loan to be repaid with a reasonable rate of interest. The combined, but not reduced budgets of the Promise and West Virginia Higher Education Grant Program would be used to make interest payments on the loans (as opposed to paying for the entire program “up front”) only having to pay full tuition and fees if the student completes all program requirements. Those that move out of state will continue to help their home state by repaying the program. The requirement to stay in state for two years will create a base population, educated and expectant, that will demand economic development and offer a ready made and talented workforce.

It should be stressed that these suggestions are just that. It would be the height of arrogance to assume that the answers to such a complicated issue lay with the confines of one mind, or even one isolated group. The best solutions are inspired by dynamic interactions of diverse stakeholders. I am firm in my conviction that should such a discussion take place that we can build a socially responsible program that will make college an option for all of our students and be a model for the rest of our country.

Sources:
SAT Factsheet, National Center for Fair and Open Testing, http://www.fairtest.org/facts/satfact.htm

ACT Factsheet, National Center for Fair and Open Testing, http://www.fairtest.org/facts/act.html

West Virginia County Profiles, WV Bureau of Employment Programs, http://www.state.wv.us/bep/lmi/cntyprof/

County Boards of Education Public School Headcount Enrollment by Grade 2000-01, West Virginia Department of Education, http://wvde.state.wv.us/

Total Awarded Applicants by County of High School and High School, 7/8/2002, WV Higher Education Policy Commission, http://www.hepc.wvnet.edu/

Morgantown police crack down on sign thieves

Near the end of my first year at WVU the Arnold residence hall, at the time home to the Honors Program and most of my on – campus friends, our little society slowly degraded into a controlled debauchery; really nothing different from any other large public university dorm.

In the quest of a souvenir from their freshman days, a couple of friends, now of course pillars of the general community and faithful alumni, inform the rest of us that they had stole the street sign from in the front of the dormitory one drunken night before. They claimed that their problem now was how to get it out of the building.

We thought the sounded weird. After all a simple street sign really isn’t that big.

So we went to their room to take a look.

In their closet was said street sign.

Still attached to the steel pole it had been mounted on.

Which had a basketball size piece of concrete around the bottom.

I thought the bigger mystery was how they managed to sneak that into the dorm, up eight flights of stairs, completely drunk.

In that spirit I present this story from the Herald-Mail.com:

Morgantown police crack down on sign thieves

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) -- Police have one word for the people who have been pilfering signs from city streets, and it's the one on that big red octagon: STOP.

Thieves have been stealing street and traffic signs, and sometimes destroying the metal posts they're hung on, Police Chief Phil Scott said Monday.

Sign-stealing is a perennial problem in Morgantown, but Scott said it started getting worse last year, particularly in neighborhoods dominated by West Virginia University students.

"High Street is always a popular one," Scott said. "And anytime that a street name coincides with someone's last name, it's a trophy."

The problem has become so common in Sunnyside that city officials are now identifying streets with green reflective tape on utility poles.

Scott said he's had enough.

Stealing signs in residential areas could pose problems for firefighters and ambulance drivers, and create serious traffic hazards. Missing stop and one-way signs "could actually be devastating" for out-of-town drivers and lead to deadly accidents, he said.

In some states, people who removed street signs and caused accidents have been charged with manslaughter. In a 1996 Florida case, three people were found guilty in a crash that killed three people, but their convictions were overturned on appeal.

Police officers often discover stolen road signs when they enter homes and apartments in Morgantown to investigate unrelated incidents, Scott said. In the past, they've seized the signs but generally not filed charges.

That's about to change.

Anyone caught stealing or possessing a traffic or street sign will be charged with a misdemeanor, he said. It's punishable by a fine of up to $500 and jail time.

Go Fighting Miners! or Towards a better higher education system.

Having spent seven years in the West Virginia Higher Education system as an administrator, like any complex system I observed a lot of inefficiencies hampering the good intentions of many talented people. However, too often I noticed how the defense of petty bureaucratic kingdoms and sacred cows took precedence over serving the students and people of West Virginia.

Yet, instead of complaining about the waste and political motivations of the creation of a commission to manage the community college system independent of the 4-year university system, or the waste and social injustice of the PROMISE scholarship program, or the malignant effects of the yearly rotation of the bulls eye that the legislature turns on our four year institutions (Concord, Bluefield State, Glenville, WVU Tech, etc.) thus weakening them and creating self-fulfilling prophecies, let us talk of solutions.

First, there is the contention that WV, a state with challenging economic problems, has too many public colleges and universities. Let’s compare apples to apples. West Virginia has 13 significant public college or university campuses compared to 16 for Nebraska; a state with a similar though slightly smaller population, with one major difference; it does not have the mountains that make commuting to class such a problem in WV. Even North Dakota, with a third of WV’s population, has 11 public campuses. Clearly the number of public campuses in WV is not out of line with our peer states. The problem is not the number of campuses, but the number of redundant administrations and services that could be done with fewer people using modern technology.

Second there is an issue of location. Starting in the 1960’s WV underwent a massive shift in the economic importance and demographic profile of particular cities. If WV were establishing colleges today, cities like Beckley, Princeton, Parkersburg and Lewisburg would undoubtedly have universities of their own, while sleepy little towns such as Glenville and Athens (Concord University) and shrunken industrial shells such as Bluefield and Montgomery (WVU Tech) would have, at best, community colleges. The location of an institution impacts upon enrollment (and therefore institutional success) through both local populations that serve as a stable student base that require minimal recruiting and out-of-town students who are partially attracted to a campus by their ability to reach the campus and the level of social activity in the location. These are pressures that affect institutional viability, pressures that continue to threaten Glenville State, WVU Tech, Bluefield State and others.

So here are my radical proposals that will offend many due to personal investments, but as I now observe for outside the system, I think are necessary for WV to compete in the higher education market.

1. The State of West Virginia should buy Mountain State University and move WVU Tech to Beckley. It is ridiculous that Southern WV’s fastest growing and largest city does not have its own university. Yes, Concord and Bluefield other have made half-hearted gestures at having programs in Beckley, but a city of 50,000+ needs its own campus. That one of the other regional college or universities has not already done so is a grave strategic blunder. By moving to Beckley WVU Tech would triple its enrollment in a year. The WVU Tech Community College would continue to be based at the current campus in Montgomery.
2. Glenville State and West Liberty should become regional campuses of WVU. Given their proximity to Morgantown with the added kick that WVU affiliation would bring I see no reason why this should not be done. Data base and processing jobs could be trimmed along with white collar management positions.
3. Concord University, Bluefield State College, New River Community College, the Wyoming Campus of WV Southern Community College and the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine should be merged into a University of Southern West Virginia. (USWV – the Fighting Miners!) Talk about killing a few sacred cows. However, if these southern institutions wish to continue to prosper and maintain a political balance within the state with the two other university systems, unity is the only long-term solution. As well, money can be saved by eliminating duplicate positions and visibility can be raised by affording Division I / IA sports programs (Go Fighting Miners!).
4. All public universities should be required to offer at least one complete degree online in order to maintain their university status, with new degrees to be added every two years for 10 years. Faculty and misguided administrations are currently blocking the delivery of such innovative techniques while expensive for-profit and desperate private institutions are eagerly filling the gap. (One university leader in WV remarked to me that they didn’t believe that online education was necessarily viable and wanted to see proof. Here you are.)
5. The data processing and record keeping for all universities and colleges not part of the 3 major universities (I’m including USWV) should be unified into one statewide processing center, eliminating jobs that unnecessarily duplicate work.
6. It is extremely important to note that while this is partially a cost saving measure in the long-run, those displaced by the lost of positions must not be abandoned. Those without college degrees should be offered a full PROMISE scholarship for 4 years and those with bachelor degrees should be given 36 free credit hours in a graduate program at any state institution.
7. Shepherd University should be given the freedom to exploit their geographic position by offering in-state tuition to Maryland and Northern VA students.

I don’t pretend to know everything, but these ideas would but WV high education on a much firmer footing and make it far more competitive.

Go Fightin’ Miners!

B'Bye Mr. President

So, David Hardesty has decided to retire from WVU, effective Sept. 20, 2007, as the longest serving president in the institution's history (though falling short of Concord University's Jerry Beasley, who has served as that institution's president since 1985). I was graduating just as Neil Bucklew was leaving and Hardesty was taking office.

There was some controversy at the time of his hiring. After all, Hardesty had no real academic administrative experience coming from the world of corporate and tax law. Hardesty was no doubt intelligent, (WVU, Oxford, Rhodes Scholar, Harvard Law) but many felt he would not be able to handle the political eddies of higher education or the unique details of university governance.

That was a miscalculation. First of all, WVU, being the flagship institution, for good or ill sets the agenda for higher education in West Virginia more than any other body including, the largely clueless Legislature.

Secondly, the fears were based on a misunderstanding of the role of a modern major university president; namely, the fear that someone occupying that seat must be able to handle the intricacies of academic development, faculty management, etc. Nonsense. When you operate at the level of WVU president, you can hire people to handle the nuts and bolts of everyday and academic operations. While small college and university presidents must be more skilled in the ways of academia, a major university president has but two duties that s/he must shoulder for themselves; raising money and maintaining and enlarging institutional prestige.

By that standard, Hardesty has been a success. Research funding has doubled and enrollment, powered by out-of-state bargain hunters and PROMISE scholarship fueled WV students has increased by 5,000, or about 20%. Plus, he hired the right football coach and got lucky in having a GREAT basketball coach fall into his lap. Partnerships with NASA, the FBI and the biometrics industry have also given WVU a luster of the high tech world.

In fact, his only great PR plunder was his insistence on “Free Speech Zones” that would have limited campus protests to specific, isolated areas. Perhaps President Hardesty forgot that it is in the nature of a university to be a free speech zone in its entirety.

So what does this say for the next WVU president? I would not be surprised if a former or soon- to-be former politician makes a bid for the seat. After all who has more experience in the schmoozing and fundraising skills so necessary for the job? There might be as big a scramble for this vacated position as when Bob Byrd finally calls it quits (sit down, John Raese).

Loyal Fans, Disloyal State

As a frighteningly loyal WVU fan and graduate, I really have not cared about playing Marshall University in any sport. Yes, we share a state, but that's all really. And Marshall offers no real advantage over WVU academically, because it is too big to offer small classes, and too small to offer a more diverse cultural setting.

Don’t get me wrong, MU has potential, but I am afraid that with the notable exception of the School of Medicine, that they have very little vision.

However, I have been looking forward to the smackdown of all smackdowns that WVU will deliver to the Herd in a legally mandated game on September 2nd. Especially after the past basketball season when Marshall made way too much noise about defeating the WVU basketball team during last year's excellent run. (To show just how serious of an academic institution they are, they briefly featured the victory on their top web page. Classy. You’d have thought they’d won the national championship. As my friend Skip used to say, “Act like you’ve done it before!”) I really think that even when their destruction is assured, that Coach RRod will be the LAST person to call off the dogs.

Marring my enjoyment of the sacrifice / game is the announcement that it will be called the “Friends of Coal Bowl.” Yuck. You might as well have called it the Buffalo Creek Bowl. (I would have settled for the Mountain State Bowl, The Uncivil War, etc.)

Now, I could spill tons of bile at this self-loathing decision by our so-called leaders, the coal industry and their promotional shills (I'm looking at you Don Nehlen), but why re-invent the wheel?

For enough properly aimed bile for 125 people, read this.

I wish everyone at the game would show up wearing gold shirts that simply say "Remember Sago". Now that's a good idea. In fact here you go, priced at cost. Who's with me?

Cheezy, But Oddly Satisfying

This remix and simple video of Country Roads is weirdly funny but somehow endearing.