re: A Tiger Fan's Guide to Morgantown, WV

Now let’s talk a little about West Virginia University.

Enrollment for the fall 2009 semester was 28,898. The University offers 185 majors in 15 colleges. WVU has produced 25 Rhodes Scholars, including former WVU president David C. Hardesty Jr., ranking No. 6 among American public institutions. The University also has produced 30 Goldwater Scholars, 19 Truman Scholars, five members of USA Today 's All-USA College Academic First Team, and two Morris K. Udall Undergraduate Scholarship winners. Although WVU is not considered a first-tier university in the controversial U.S. News & World Report ratings, it is ranked by The Princeton Review as one of the best 368 colleges in the nation (out of a total of about 2,500 four-year institutions).

Under the terms of the 1862 Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act, the West Virginia Legislature created the Agricultural College of West Virginia on February 7, 1867. On December 4, 1868, lawmakers re-named it West Virginia University. In the 1990s, WVU developed several recreational activities for the students, such as Fall Fest, a concert that welcomes students back to classes. In 1998, WVUp All Night launched to offer free weekend entertainment to students. The popular Student Recreation Center was completed in July 2001.WVU is designated as a Research University (High Research Activity) by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Funding from external sources for total sponsored programs is $138 million. WVU is affiliated with the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute, dedicated to the study of Alzheimer's and other diseases that affect the brain. WVU is also a leader in biometric technology research and recently became the Federal Bureau of Investigation's lead academic partner in biometrics research. On April 13, 2007, the Board of Governors voted 16-1 to elect Morgantown attorney Michael Garrison to succeed David Hardesty as the University's president. The Faculty Senate voted to work with Garrison but approved a vote of no confidence in the search. Garrison began work in July; his appointment officially began September 1, 2007. Garrison's early initiatives, including move forward to build a campus child care center after three decades of discussion on the subject and working with the Board of Governors to approve the largest salary increase since 1993 won him praise from many faculty and staff members. The Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed profiled him as an example of a trend toward non-traditional university presidents. In June 2008 Garrison announced plans to resign in September 2008. According to the Washington Post, Garrison sought to "end a scandal stemming from the university's awarding of an unearned degree to the governor's daughter." C. Peter McGrath was named interim president in August 2008. James P. Clements became WVU's 23rd president on June 30, 2009. He previously served as provost at Towson University. WVU has been listed as one of the top party schools in the United States.

The Morgantown campus comprises three sub-campuses. The original main campus, typically called the Downtown Campus, is in the Monongahela River valley on the fringes of Morgantown. This part of campus includes eight academic buildings on the National Register of Historic Places. The Downtown Campus comprises several architectural styles predominantly featuring red brick including Victorian Second Empire, Federal, Neoclassical, and Collegiate Gothic among others. The Evansdale Campus, a mile and a half north-northwest, on a rise above the flood plain of the Monongahela River, was developed in the 1950s and 1960s to accommodate a growing student population, since space for expansion was limited at the Downtown Campus. The Health Sciences Campus, in the same outlying area (but on the other side of a ridge), includes the WVU Health Sciences Center, Ruby Memorial Hospital, Chestnut Ridge Hospital, Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center, UHA Physicians Office Center, Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute, WVU Eye Institute, WVU Center on Aging, and WVU Children's Hospital.

Woodburn hall is pictured center here. It gets lit up for Christmas each year.

This is actually the mast from the USS West Virginia which sunk at Pearl Harbor.