Walking the Walk at WVU

West Virginia University senior Charlie Long has a theory. The Student Government Association president thinks that if a university’s student body is safe and believes it has a voice valuable to its administration, the university will be more successful in its operation and in student retention.

For Long, whose course load includes a double major in political science and philosophy with a minor in English, safety has several layers and it’s not just pedestrian safety or sexual health (which the SGA is addressing), it’s also how the University tackles the issue of student loneliness, which affects college students across the country, or the inability students might have to find a group where they feel like they belong.

“That’s something that’s really concerning to me, and I want to make sure that everyone can find their fit and we’re creating opportunities for students to get involved and connect with people,” Long said. “And there are two big things that I’ve been working on to improve this.”

The first is getting more students involved in the arts. He notes that while students in the College of Creative Arts and Media are immersed in everything from music to dance to design and painting, opportunities exist for every WVU student to participate in the arts in some form.

“I want students to know that they don’t have to leave their artistic interests even if they aren’t part of a major or minor,” he said. “I think if we can tap into the left brain and the right brain, then overall happiness and belonging will increase; it’s a way for people to connect.”

Long is also leading SGA to explore how to reach students who may not attend big on-campus events like WVUp All Night or FallFest, but instead, feel drawn to student organizations that often feature smaller groups.  

His focus on individual student needs is part of a much larger picture where Long’s arrow of intent will eventually find its target: student retention. Essentially, Long said, it’s a matter of “to keep them here, to keep them going.”

He sees WVU making gains in those areas, as well. He points to groups like the Mountaineer Maniacs, whose members bring their passion for WVU Athletics to every event. In fact, his vision for a group of student artists is patterned after the Maniacs’ success — a consistent community of students dedicated to a specific topic and supported by the University.

Long sees encouragement in the 2024 WVU freshmen, who he says are one of the most engaged classes WVU has seen in a while.

“It just seems like a new era of hope. People are really enthusiastic and it’s a two-way street between students and the administration."

“The more we can tap into that enthusiasm and positivity, that optimism, especially with a new era for WVU being ushered in, I think we’ll have a really positive and exciting start for students.” 

‘Historic retention’

In September, then-Provost Maryanne Reed announced to the WVU Board of Governors that freshman retention was poised to set a historic record — 83.2%. Reed said that number achieves the University’s five-year goal and puts WVU in line with some of its Big 12 peers. 

The work behind that number is as impressive as the number itself.  

Joy Carr is a person who likes to keep things simple and clear. Carr’s challenge in that goal is that she oversees one of the most complicated areas on campus — student advising. It’s neither the advisers nor the students who make things perplexing (they’d all probably like things to be simpler and clearer, too). Changes in higher education, financial aid structures and societal pressures have kept WVU’s advisers on their toes, particularly since 2019.

She’s found a way to make it easier for her crew and for students by helping them find ways to establish a connection, maintain communication and set up a “standard of care.” Based on what doctors provide regardless of patient illness, Carr says the theory translates for student support services: no matter what the individual student needs, each adviser has a set of standards to provide assistance.

“Students are individuals and they have their own unique situations,” Carr added. “That’s complex at an institution of our size; that’s hard.” 

Each college and school has its own team of advisers and its own advising mandates. Some of the schools are centralized, others have a broader approach. All of them, though, have a student success focus, which means meeting with students during New Student Orientation, checking midterm grades, emailing students who might be in a duplicate credit course and staying in touch generally.

Carr said technology has been helpful in connecting with students so that they are reminded to make appointments with their advisers; around midterms that’s very good timing. “That’s a good opportunity to talk about how things are going and give them some warnings if they’re not passing a class and how that’s going to affect things down the line,” she said.

Students who are below a 2.0 grade point average can sign up for an “academic contract” that will help them return to good standing. Advisers also help students enroll in the “degree pursuant” — or required — courses for their degrees so they qualify for federal aid, although they can take courses outside their majors that do not meet those financial aid standards.

“What you will see is a corresponding jump in the four-year graduation rate since we implemented those standards,” Carr said. “It took approximately two-to-three years to start seeing those jumps. Keeping students in degree-pursuant schedules is not the only reason students are graduating at higher rates, but it’s a big reason. It helps students understand that if they are receiving federal money — public money — there are requirements. More students are paying attention to the sequence of their courses.”

Carr’s “standard of care” addresses Long’s quest and answers one of the most frequently checked boxes on incoming student surveys.  

“How do I make friends?” 

Students have been more vocal about loneliness since the COVID-19 pandemic and recent data from Weill WVU bears out that students are lonlier than ever before. Because students cite not finding their fit as the number one reason they are leaving the institution, WVU takes their cultural success as much into consideration as their academic achievement. In addition to a variety of professional development events, advisers also study how other schools make these leaps; the current advising book club read is “Won’t Lose This Dream,” which is about how Georgia State revolutionized its student metrics. “It’s easy to be siloed,” Carr said. “There’s so much work to do that taking a moment to connect with other people, to build those relationships, and it just makes everything better for the student.” 

A matter of melding

In 2021, WVU merged the College of Education and Human Services and the College of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences to create the College of Applied Human Sciences; WVU President Gordon Gee searched for an inaugural dean, someone who would both manage the blend and shake things up all at once.

A force of nature and something of a guided missile when she has a goal, Autumn Tooms Cyprés filled that bill. In other words, Cyprés built CAHS from the ground up, melding two academic teams and two administrative staffs with an irresistible gusto.

“This is the College of Teaching+Learning+Health+Wellness+Sport,” she says proudly. “What makes our college different is the plus signs, the intersections. We’re walking what we believe in and that was a very serious matter for us as a leadership team.” 

Cyprés rarely talks about herself as a leader, but nearly always mentions how her team is building itself every day. That has not only had a positive effect on the blended faculty, but also on CAHS students. The College has doubled down on investment in student success, and on community. And, she said, CAHS has tripled its investment in innovation.

“We’re going to figure out how to be civil and recognize the humanity in others. We’re going to take our work seriously, but not ourselves. We take a breath and that’s how we solve problems,” Cyprés said. “I’ve never worked with a finer group of people who are willing to be brave in that way.” 

It’s fair to say that Cyprés is not shy and so she’s shared her experience and her expertise with WVU’s other college deans who have led mergers and unifications this year. 

Keith Jackson is at the helm of the College of Creative Arts and Media, the merger of the College of Creative Arts and the Reed College of Media. As the dean there, he sees some natural fits: design, once under the (formerly named) Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design, has a natural confluence with game design, podcasting and graphic arts, for instance; students who want to do documentary work can have the expertise of musicians and designers.

“[The faculty] are happy about finding shared research interests with new colleagues, and that’s the place I think the world will see the biggest change most rapidly,” he said.

And here’s a major collaborative.  

“The new college brings together schools that have a history of stressing community engagement,” Jackson said. “I think that gives us an opportunity to really address issues of media literacy. Despite improvements in digital access, we are still in a situation where areas of the state are in a media desert. Being part of the team that can make a difference in that regard has great meaning to me. 

He sees those serendipitous moments when faculty from the former College of Creative Arts are talking with faculty from the former Reed College of Media, teaming up on projects or discussing how they might work together.

While it’s too soon to see any student data from the merger, Jackson is confident those kinds of conversations, born of more than a dozen work groups as faculty from each school met to work through the process, will ultimately mean student success in the College of Creative Arts and Media.

It’s unification for Dean Jorge Atiles at the new Division for Land-Grant Engagement, which supports the Davis College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, WVU Extension and the Center for Community and Engagement because even though he is the leader of all three units, they don’t have the same mission, the same funding structure or the same location.

All of that takes some explanation. 

“We realized we were not bringing apples and apples together,” Atiles noted. The Davis College of Agriculture and Natural Resources is funded by student tuition and research appropriations; its mission is to educate those students on the Morgantown campus.

WVU Extension, which has an office in all 55 of West Virginia’s counties, also has an education mission, but for adults and is entirely funded by federal, state and local money.

The Center for Community Engagement serves all of WVU’s campuses and works with every academic unit. Atiles describes that work as a “reciprocal, mutually beneficial relationship that is governed by the latest principles of community engaged scholarly work.”

“We have three units that are really grounded in the land-grant mission of this University and we’re putting students first,” Atiles said. 

Atiles has already seen faculty and staff alike become excited at the prospects of how they can improve lives and livelihoods for the people they are in contact with, whether that’s in a campus classroom or the larger statewide classroom.

Public health, public interest

Strength, preparedness, goals

The WVU president, now with the final semester of his longtime university career on the horizon, agreed with Charlie Long to back up his assessment of the University’s first year students. “We have the most academically prepared class that we’ve ever had just enter the institution; we have the best prepared Honors cohort and we’ve nearly doubled our research dollars over the last few years.” 

Gee said the data removes any doubt that WVU is well-positioned for the future and is one of the most academically robust universities in the country, along with offering world class healthcare.

Loquacious, especially when he’s talking about WVU, Gee can go on.

WVU’s strengths are in the sciences, he says as he counts off the specifics in a flow of words without taking a breath. Astrophysics: Mara McLaughlin and Duncan Lorimer have garnered accolades at home and abroad with her induction into the National Academy of Sciences, his selection as a 2024 Fellow of the Royal Society of London and the Shaw Prize — that’s the Nobel Prize of the East — they share.

Forensic science: world-class equipment, excellent facilities and hands-on learning experiences.

Robotics: from Mars Rover sample collection to pollination (and lots in between).

Cybersecurity: so important in this digital age for industry and national security, and students are workforce ready for a high-demand field.

Still, Gee knows that as national birth rates decline, every college and university is competing for the same students. He has a plan for that. Knowing that the country faces a demographic cliff, he said WVU needs to expand its recruitment portfolio, grow enrollment, reclaim the trust the U.S. once had in higher education and ensure that WVU is available and affordable so that students can graduate without significant amounts of debt.