The University of West Virginia’s onAir chapter will initially focus on training interested undergrad and graduate students on how to curate West Virginia onAir content especially submitting Top News articles, events, videos, and information and moderating forums in each post they curate.

Student curators will also work with state senate and house committee chairs to produce aircasts on issues being discussed and bills being proposed in their committees.

During election season, students with other other organizations like the League of Women Voters, will coordinate and produce aircasted debates with candidates.

The University of West Virginia onAir chapter will also help to establish other onAir chapters at public and private universities and colleges throughout the state.

Source: About WVU

WVU is a family of distinctive campuses united by a single mission. From the groundbreaking research of our flagship in Morgantown to the career-oriented programs of WVU Potomac State in Keyser to the technology-intensive programs at WVU Tech in Beckley — we are leveraging our talents and resources to create a better future for West Virginia and the World.

• Mission
• Vision
• WVU Facts
• Leadership
• WVU System
• Rankings
• Achievements

Source: Center for Community Engagement

Our Mission

The WVU Center for Community Engagement (CCE) aims to leverage university knowledge and resources to support effective partnerships with communities that enhance community-engaged teaching, discovery, and action. The Center focuses on supporting faculty, staff and students in working with external partners on meeting reciprocal and mutually beneficial needs and advancing WVU’s land grant mission. The CCE pursues innovation and inclusiveness in its work to build partnerships with its community through:

1.            Maximizing experiential learning opportunities across campus that teach diverse undergraduate, graduate and professional students to become engaged citizens, leaders, and scholars

2.            Practicing and applying community engaged research, scholarship and creative activity, and

3.            Providing engaged service and outreach that improves the quality of life for local and global communities.

Vision
Students, staff, and faculty will be involved in multifaceted activities and experiences that enhance learning through service. A stronger infrastructure for engagement will support teaching principles of democracy, compassion, and cultural diversity. WVU will have a campus culture of service, supporting sustainable partnerships with local, regional, and statewide communities that help students realize their strengths, become engaged across campus and pursue lifelong learning..

Civic Engagement is a diverse experience committed to providing WVU students the opportunity and guidance in becoming civically engaged citizens, scholars, and leaders through interdisciplinary events. Including but not limited to service learning, research, volunteerism and partnerships.

Value Statement
Civic Engagement is a diverse experience which provides WVU students the opportunity and guidance to become civically engaged citizens, scholars, and leaders through interdisciplinary events. Including but not limited to academic service-learning, research, volunteerism and partnerships.

Source: Student Government Association

About
Established in 1920, the Student Government Association of West Virginia University is responsible for representing the needs and concerns of all Mountaineers. Student Government has been responsible for many major projects and initiatives at West Virginia University, including the construction of the Student Recreation Center on the Evansdale campus.

Student Government is housed in the Division of Student Life via Student Engagement and Leadership. Membership in SGA is open to any student who has a 2.5 GPA and meets all eligibility requirements as outlined in SGA governing documents.

Currently, Amaya Jernigan and Hunter Moore are serving as Student Body President and Vice President, respectively. Olivia Dowler is the President Pro Tempore of the Student Assembly.

• Mission and Vision
• Governing Documents
• Advisors
• History of Student Body Presidents

Source: Department of Political Science

Internships are important in helping students transition out of college and into the working world, as they help students gain critical experience and build skills.  Political Science students in the past have interned with law firms, government agencies (at the local, state, and national level), private corporations, congressional offices, non-governmental agencies and interest groups.  These experiences help students to further their interests in particular areas of politics, and explore possible careers.

Internships with the Political Science Department can range in durations from one week during the semester, to several weeks during the summer, or even a full semester. Students can earn course credits by enrolling in the Department’s internships course. The exact number of credits can range from one to 12 hours, depending on the duration of the internship.

Students with questions about anything from finding internships to getting WVU credit for them should talk to the department’s Internship Coordinator, Dr. David Hauser.

Identifying Internships

Most often students identify their own internship opportunities and work with the department’s Internship Coordinator to integrate the internship into their major.  Internships can be discovered informally, via talking to local businesses and government agencies, or more formally through various Federal internship programs which require a formal and competitive application process.  On their own initiative, Political Science undergraduates have interned at the US State Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Congressional offices, the Commerce Department, and a host of other agencies, business, and organizations.

Internships in West Virginia State and Local Government

The Department offers two internships that enable its majors to intern with the WV state government in Charleston. The Frasure-Singleton Internship enables students to work for one week during the annual sixty-day legislative session, being assigned to a legislator, participating in committee sessions, and engaging in research. A second legislative internship, the Judith A. Herndon Internship, offers students a more extended internship experience in Charleston. This internship program allows the student to participate in the full sixty day legislative session, performing research and other assistance for an assigned state legislator. Further information can be found at this link of the Herndon Internship website.  Interested students should discuss these internships with Dr. Jason MacDonald.

Source: Department of Political Science

The Department of Political Science offers a comprehensive curriculum with courses that cover each of the sub-fields of the discipline: American Government and Politics, Public Policy and Public Administration, Comparative Politics, International Relations, and Empirical Political Methods. In addition, the department offers several tracks that enable students to focus on a particular area of politics with advanced courses relevant to their particular intellectual and career interests. Our offerings are especially rich in three areas: American Politics and Policy, Pre-Law and Legal Studies, and International Relations, Comparative Politics, and National Security. Integrated into these concentrations are learning opportunities outside the classroom and beyond the WVU campus. These include political simulations, Model United Nations, internships in state and national government, a nationally ranked Debate Team, and several study abroad programs tailored to political science interests.

The Department of Political Science is one of the most robust and popular academic programs in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences. The Department has nearly 600 undergraduate majors and pre-major, while there are also about 250 students majoring in the affiliated International Studies Program. At the graduate level, between forty and fifty students are typically in residence in its M.A. and Ph.D. programs. The Department has a full time faculty of eighteen professors. These professors hold Ph.D. degrees from nationally prominent Political Science departments at the following Universities: George Washington, Stony Brook (SUNY), Ohio State, Indiana, Iowa, Johns Hopkins, Maryland, Wisconsin, Louisiana State, Florida State, Virginia, Kentucky, Pittsburgh, Washington, and the Universities of California at San Diego and at Los Angeles.

The Undergraduate Major

The requirements for the Political Science major can be found in the WVU Catalog.

Students begin their course work by completing introductory courses within five subfields of the discipline (American government, public policy, international relations, comparative government, and political theory), in order to be broadly trained in the full scope of Political Science. In addition, they are required to complete a course in Empirical Research Methods, which will enrich their own skill set and marketability, while also preparing them to understand the research they will examine as they proceed with their work in the major.

Beyond their introductory work, students may then choose to proceed with course work in the General Political Science track, if they are broadly interested in the discipline, or, alternatively, they may specialize in the subfield that best matches their interests. We offer three specializations:

• Pre-Law and Legal Studies
• American Politics, Policy, and Business
• International Relations, Comparative Politics, and National Security

Completing work in a specialized subfield may be to a student’s benefit when they enter the job market or apply to law or graduate school.

Students will conclude their work in Political Science at WVU with a Capstone experience. This should be an experience that both pulls together what a student has learned in class, and calls for the student to put that knowledge to use in a new context and personally build upon it. Capstone experiences may include such activities as internships, research projects, service learning, Model United Nations, and study abroad.

Graduate Studies

The Department of Political Science offers a comprehensive curriculum leading to a Master’s Degree (MA) or to a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD). Many of our doctoral students have gone on to earn tenure track positions at college and universities, including the University of Pittsburgh, West Virginia Wesleyan College, Longwood University, Monmouth University, and Wright State University. Our PhD and MA graduates have also been employed by government agencies and non-profit institutions such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and the U.S. Department of State. Profiles of some of our recent graduates can be seen by clicking here or on the appropriate link on the menu to the right.

In addition to receiving training in research methods, students choose from courses taught by world-class faculty in American politics, comparative politics, international relations, political theory, and public policy. PhD students specialize in American politics, comparative politics, international politics, or public policy.

Source: Interdisciplinary Research Collaborative

About the Collaborative

The Eberly College of Arts and Sciences’ Interdisciplinary Research Collaborative for a Safe and Healthy Society has a mission to advance the land grant mission of West Virginia University and the Eberly College by addressing challenging conditions faced by society in the state and region. Its aims are:

• Fully utilize the resources and expertise of the faculty, students and staff across WVU who have worked in communities in the state and region to address three substantive areas:
  • Substance use prevention and treatment, drug policy and national trends of drug use and distribution.
  • Social determinants of health, health/health care policy and medical sociology.
  • Crime and its effects on communities and families, crime prevention and policy.
• Bring together an initial group of faculty associates who are committed to collaboration.
• Build an infrastructure which can support and sustain ongoing research efforts to:
  • Establish a team of Eberly College faculty who have relevant substantive and methodological expertise to address the need for an evidence base for interventions and strategies to address societal needs relative to safety and health.
  • Engage graduate and undergraduate students in all Eberly College departments, schools and programs in this research with aims of developing interdisciplinary research competencies.
  • Build a broad base of research evidence to be disseminated locally and nationally.
  • Provide data and research findings that are accessible and relevant to the needs of local communities and state and federal agencies.