THE DAILY ATHENAEUM
“Little good is accomplished without controversy, and no civic evil is ever defeated without publicity.”
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Thursday June 2, 2011
Volume 124, Issue 149
www.THEDAONLINE.com
HISTORY UPROOTED
B&E, Public Health colleges to receive $3 million gift By Amy Rogers Correspondent
West Virginia University’s historic silver maple lies on its side after being up-rooted during a windy storm on May 26.
Brooke Cassidy/THE DAILY ATHENAEUM
Stewart Hall’s 122-year-old Silver Maple toppled during storm By Charles Young City Editor
High winds from a microburst storm toppled a historic silver maple tree in front of West Virginia University’s Stewart Hall. The 70-foot-tall tree snapped at its base at around 4:30 p.m. on May 26, due to 70 to 80 mph winds and fell between Stewart Hall and the Mountainlair. The National Weather Service said on Friday that the microburst produced winds between 70 and 80 mph. At 122 years old, the silver maple was WVU’s fifth-oldest tree, according to tree surgeon Daniel Brown, author of WVU’s “Eight Oldest Trees.” WVU Facilities Management workers spent about 60 hours removing the tree and debris from the Downtown Campus, said Baron Smith, director of roads and grounds of Facilities Management. Smith estimated the cost of
the clean up at approximately $1,700. Becky Lofstead, assistant vice president of University Communications in the Office of University Relations, said University officials have yet to make an official decision about what to do with the remains of the tree. Until a decision is made regarding how to best preserve it, the tree is being stored at the University farms. The tree, planted in June of 1889 by Dr. Charles Millspaugh and members of his grounds crew, became one of the most recognizable natural landmarks on the downtown campus. During its lifetime, the silver maple survived one tornado in 1978 and suffered some limb damage by tornado, with removal of hanging branches and cabling of some major limbs by Larry Boyles, first WVU tree surgeon, according
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By Amy Rogers Correspondent
Brooke Cassidy/THE DAILY ATHENAEUM
West Virginia University’s historic silver maple lays on it’s side after being uprooted in a windy storm on May 26. The maple was planted in 1889.
A new study has been released by researchers at West Virginia University, to explore the health effects of living near mountaintop removal sites. Michael Hendryx, an associate professor in the department of community medicine, and Keith J. Zullig, an associate professor and director of the Ph.D. program in the department of community medicine published the study in the American Journal of Public Health. Hendryx said the objective of the study was to examine
the health-related quality of life of residents in mountaintop mining counties of Appalachia using the 2006 national Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. According to the findings, residents of mountaintop mining counties reported significantly more days of poor physical, mental and activity limitation and poorer selfrated health compared with the other county groupings. Results were generally consistent in separate analyses by gender and age. Hendryx said the study focused on the varying effects on men and women.
“When analyzed by gender and age group, although the effects were slightly stronger for men, effects were present for women as well, and trends were similar for the mountaintop mining communities. So it’s not just occupational,” he said. Many believe the effects of mountaintop mining are occupationally related and isolated to the coal miners, he said. “Mountaintop mining county residents experience, on average, 18 more unhealthy days per year than do the other populations. That’s approximately 1,404 days, or almost four years, of an average
American lifetime,” Zullig said. Now with the many of the health risks discovered, will it affect the growth of mountaintop removal sites? Lisa Langley, a resident of Hurricane, W.Va., said the jobs the sites provide are important, but environmental factors should be considered as well. “Removing the mountains is against who we are, the Mountain State,” she said. Langley said people who are affected by runoff of the changed landscape need to be thought of as well.
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — West Virginia University officials blame a computer error for an email mistakenly sent to more than 14,000 students saying they’re ineligible for financial aid. Financial aid director Kaye Widney says about 15,000 students received the email. But it was supposed to go to only 688. The email stated “A review of your academic transcript in-
dicates that you have reached the limit on attempted credit hours and are no longer eligible for financial aid. Any financial aid previously offered to you for 2011-12 academic year has been cancelled.” Associate financial aid director Theresa Weimer says the computer randomly pulled emails out of the system. She says WVU officials don’t know what caused the glitch. A message on the financial
aid office’s voicemail system notified students about the error and said “This morning we sent out notifications to 688 ‘timed out’ students, making them ineligible for financial aid. Due to a system malfunction, other students inadvertently received this notification. If this status does not apply to you, please disregard. If you are uncertain, stay on the line.”
An email was sent out Wednesday morning to those student financial aid applicants explaining the mistake. The email said “on Tuesday afternoon, May 31st an e-mail that was intended for a small group of students was inadvertently sent to a far larger population--our records indicate that you were probably included in the distribu-
Correspondent
danewsroom@mail.wvu.edu
WVU mistakenly tells students they can’t get aid
77° / 49°
KICK THE LOT
INSIDE
WVU Virginia Alumni chapter to raise funds for Diviney. A&E PAGE 9
Sunny
News: 1, 2 Opinion: 4 A&E: 9, 10 Sports: 3, 5, 8, Campus Calendar: 6 Puzzles: 6 Classifieds: 10, 11
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WVU, WVDOH join for highway research development
New study shows Mountaintop health effects By Gina DaBaldo
In the hopes of helping West Virginia University take a “giant leap forward,” Stuart and Joyce Robbins have donated $3 million to be divided between two colleges at WVU. The gift has been donated through the WVU Foundation, a private, non-profit corporation that receives and distributes gifts to improve the University. The Stuart M. and Joyce N. Robbins Center for Global Business and Strategy 20/21 will be developed with $2 million of the gift as part of College of Business & Economics. With the gift, the center will focus on the G20 countries in the 21st century. “When we started talking about creating this center, ‘Stu’ Robbins kept saying that it would be great to have a global focus within the School of Business and Economics. If we could focus on these critical countries, we could create something great,” said Jose Sartarelli, Dean of the College of Business and Economics. This new global center will provide opportunities for students to conduct studies and research. “This new center is a demonstration of the commitment to create the best place for students to learn,” Sar-
tarelli said. Other possible ideas for the new center include study abroad programs, exchange programs, exchange programs for professors and the development of a Global Business major. The Global Business major would require the development of new courses, modification of some existing courses and developing new permanent faculty positions, including a director within the new major. “Mr. and Mrs. Robbins wanted to make sure that whatever the gift was, the gift would be important and impactful enough to help the students in an impactful, global way,” he said. “The nice thing about the gift is that he’s not a graduate from the College of Business and Economics but is still very involved with a lot of activities supporting the university.” Also with the donation, the Stuart M. and Joyce N. Robbins Distinguished Professorship in Epidemiology will be created within the new School of Public Health. The new school is not yet official, as the process of creating it has not yet been completed. This is the first large gift that will help transform the
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ON THE INSIDE The WVU defense still has some work left to do before the 2011 season starts in September. SPORTS PAGE 3
West Virginia University’s Environmental Research Center has been awarded a grant from the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. WVU’s team of researchers joined together with the West Virginia Division of Highways and other partners to conduct research on the impacts of developing four-lane highways in the southern coalfields region of West Virginia. “The southern part of the state needs more help or more transportation. It is difficult to get from one point to the other fast, based on the small roads,” said Jim Anderson, Lead Investigator of the project and a professor of Wildlife and Fisheries Resources in the Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design at WVU. Anderson said a key priority for the researchers would be to balance the needs of animals, the environment and people. “We want to identify ways to mitigate the impacts for wildlife and biodiversity,” said Todd Katzner, a member of the research group and research assistant Professor of Wildlife and Fisheries Resources. Concerns of the research group include the contamination of streams and wetlands, watershed management, endangered species, destroying habitats, fragmenting or “chunking” parts of habitats and disrupting animal movement in the environment. “If you think about how any highway goes in, it dra-
matically changes the way water moves, runoff movements and continuous forests will be broken up,” Katzner said. Damaging the water quality in the environment can impact the well-being of animals as well as humans when ecosystems are not functioning normally. “As soon as we pump pollutants and chemicals into waterways, we impact our health and well-being,” Katzner said. When habitats are lost or fragmented, the chance of losing endangered species increases, he said. Creation of roads can be disturbing to animal movement. One way to help the endurance of animal movement is to build wildlife tunnels crossings into tunnels that run under the highway. Placing a camera within the tunnel allows every animal that walks through the tunnel to be seen to get a sense of what types of animals are actually adapting to and using the tunnel. “From salamanders to bears, there is a variety of animals that might be using the wildlife crossings in the underground tunnels,” Katzner said. Anderson said despite the vast scope of the program, his team is excited to begin work. “We have already made good progress and will be working over the next six to nine months to develop good research to make educated decisions and work to bring in stakeholders and collaborate with others,” he said. Throughout the next
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Baseball falls in tournament The West Virginia baseball team’s season ended last week after two losses in the Big East Tournament. SPORTS PAGE 5