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WVU BOG right to extend Gee’s contract to 2025

The West Virginia University Board of Governors made the right decision Monday when it voted to extend Gordon Gee’s contract through June 2025. There’s a lot of turmoil in the university community — and, really, the community at large — at the moment. A change in leadership would likely have only caused more chaos. It also would have likely prolonged the academic transformation, as a new president would need time to learn all the background on the situation and then make judgments about how to proceed. With all the change and upheaval going on at present and into the near ...

Contracting with traffic service a good idea for future parades

The kick-off parade for the Mon County Fair Monday was a success. Unfortunately, that was not the case for June’s Pride parade, which had to be canceled due to too few police volunteers to staff the event. Which is why the City of Morgantown announced last week it would look into contracting with a third-party traffic control service for future parades. We’re going to set aside the dueling claims over why the Pride parade had to be canceled and over how much a traffic control service would actually cost. Looking at the plain reality of life in Morgantown, we think hiring a third ...

W.Va. National Guard a pawn in a political game

We care deeply about the devastating impact fentanyl has had on our communities. And the best way to address the very real fentanyl crisis is to address the source: Organized transnational criminal activity that works to smuggle the deadly drug through legal ports of entry, often done by American citizens. Which is why that flow of fentanyl into our state will not be stemmed by deploying 54 West Virginia National Guard volunteers to Texas to join Border Patrol agents. (Which will cost taxpayers $900,000.) Back in May, Gov. Jim Justice’s line was the deployment is “to help ...

More bad news on the climate

A study published in the journal Nature Communications this past week suggests part of the Atlantic Ocean’s most important circulation system is on the verge of collapse. Scientists have been keeping a wary eye on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation for years, noting that as sea temperatures rise, the system is becoming slower and less resilient. The AMOC carries warm salt water from the tropics north to the North Atlantic, then carries colder, less salty water south along the ocean floor. The general consensus among the scientific community is that, as more Arctic ...

AI can have a place in news, but it will never be a journalist

How will the news and journalism industries handle generative artificial intelligence? That’s the kind of broad and long-ranging question that it’s too soon to answer, mostly because we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what AI can do. Google recently approached several large news organizations, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal’s owner, News Corp, about using a “tool” Google has been calling Genesis. The generative AI (artificial intelligence that can create “new” written or visual content) is ...

Congrats to Corey DeHaas, North’s new principal

We would like to congratulate Corey DeHaas on being named North Elementary’s new principal, and we wish him luck. DeHaas was previously an assistant principal at South Middle School and at Mountainview Elementary before that. In total, he’s been with Monongalia County Schools for roughly 12 years.  He has been at North Elementary in an interim role as its top administrator since February.   DeHaas seems to be a good fit for the school, and the Board of Education was smart to promote him. Having the interim principal become the official principal allows for the ...