Search committees have been appointed to seek candidates for the top posts in two of West Virginia University’s colleges, Interim Provost Jane Martin announced Friday.

WVU is seeking a new dean in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, the University’s largest college, to take the place of Mary Ellen Mazey, who left the college in February to become the Provost at Auburn University. English Professor Rudolph P. Almasy has been acting as interim dean since that time.

“A broad range of faculty and staff input was sought as the search committees were formed,” Martin said. “We believe they accurately reflect the communities they serve, both within and without academia.”

Gene Cilento, dean of the College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, will chair the committee. Members of the committee include professors Laura Brady, English; Sandra Dixon, Foreign Languages; Barry Edelstein, Psychology; and Ken Showalter, Chemistry; chairs Liz Fones-Wolf, History; Melissa Latimer, Sociology and Anthropology; and Earl Scime, Physics; staff members Katie Stores and Rachel Detlor; and Public Administration student Hannah Thurman. External members of the committee are Rick French and Jonathan Hollyfield, both members of Eberly’s advisory board.

The College of Business and Economics is also set to begin its work. R. Stephen Sears resigned as dean in April of 2008, and Chair of the Division of Economics and Finance William Trumbull was appointed as interim dean.

Dean of Law Joyce McConnell will chair the committee. Members include professors Ron Balvers, Division of Economics and Finance; Rich Brooks, Division of Accounting; Gary Insch, Division of Management; and Nancy McIntyre, Management; Chair, Division of Business Administration Graham Peace; Associate Dean Jess Mancini; classified staff member Susan Maczko; student Victor Sella-Villa; and Board of Visitors members Kim Craig, president and CEO of F.N.B. Wealth Management, and Stu Robbins, retired managing director of Global Equities, DLJ.

The committees’ initial meeting will occur prior to the University’s December break and they plan to have their work completed in time for the respective deans to begin on July 1, 2010.

West Virginia University will kick off the holiday season with the 22nd annual lighting of historic Woodburn Hall on the Downtown Campus.

The lighting ceremony will take place at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 1.

The University community and public are invited to celebrate with WVU first lady Beth Clements and Student Government Association President Jason Zuccari.

WVU Children’s Hospital patients and siblings Jay, 17, and Cheyenne Bowman, 3, will assist in turning the lights on. Jay and Cheyenne’s siblings Kristen, 16, Logan, 14, Charles, 12, and Madison, 9, will also be present with parents Jay and Tracy.

The lights will remain on until Jan. 18.

Mountaineer Idol participants and 2009 Mountaineer Idol winner AJ Warne will sing carols at the event.

A reception, with Santa Claus as the special guest, will be held following the ceremony in the Vandalia Lounge in the Mountainlair. Hot chocolate and cookies will be provided.

The event is free and open to the public.

Anyone who attends is encouraged to bring a toy for WVU’s Students Helping Other People/Toy Mountain program. The toys will be donated to the Salvation Army and Christian Help.

For more information, please contact Gretchen Hoover at (304) 293-8029 or via e-mail at Gretchen.Hoover@mail.wvu.edu.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship is awarded annually to a West Virginia University undergraduate student who has demonstrated an active interest and meaningful involvement in areas of human rights, civil rights, social justice and/or world peace, or other activities exemplary or reflective of the ideals and life of Dr. King.

The recipient of the award will be announced at the Martin Luther King Unity Breakfast at 8 a.m. Monday, January 18, 2010, in the Mountainlair ballrooms.

The full amount of this award ($1,000) will be applied to the 2010/2011 financial aid package of the recipient in the amount of $500 per semester.

To view eligibility requirements for the scholarship and download an application form online go to http://cbc.wvu.edu/r/download/46185.

The application deadline is 4 p.m., Monday, November 30, 2009.

Please submit completed application with all attachments to MLK Scholarship Award, Center for Black Culture and Research, West Virginia University, 590 Spruce St., P.O. Box 6417, Morgantown, WV 26506-6417.

Call (304) 293-7029 for more information.

The 32nd Summer Institute on Aging will be held June 8-10, 2010, at Lakeview Resort and Conference Center in Morgantown, WV.

The theme, “In Honor of Widsom and Experience”, highlights the great wealth of knowledge that our elders possess.

This Institute is designed to provide high quality training in aging services for beginning and experienced social workers, nurses, counselors, supervisors, administrators and professionals in related disciplines. This call for workshop leaders is for practitioners, academicians, and qualified individuals who have pertinent information for the aging field.

All submissions must be made online. The deadline for proposals is November 30, 2009.

View complete criteria for submitting proposals.

Submit proposal electronically.

For additional questions about the call for workshops or online submissions please contact Jacki Englehardt in the West Virginia University Division of Social Work at (304) 293-3501, ext. 3109, or via e-mail at jacki.englehardt@mail.wvu.edu.

Statewide applications are now being accepted for WVU’s Martin Luther King Jr. Achievement Award. The nominee who best exemplifies Dr. King’s ongoing mission will be recognized at the WVU Center for Black Culture and Research’s Unity Breakfast at 8 a.m., January 18, 2010, in the Mountainlair Ballrooms.

Nominees must be residents of West Virginia and must have made, or be making, a substantial contribution in the advancement of concerns such as civil rights, human rights, humanitarianism, social action and advocacy, civility, improving the human condition and acting as a change agent for an inclusive and equal society for all people.

The deadline for nominations is 4 p.m., Monday, November 30.

Application forms are available to download online at http://cbc.wvu.edu/mlk_programs.

All application forms must be mailed to: WVU Center for Black Culture and Research, 590 Spruce St., P.O. Box 6417, Morgantown, WV 26506-6417.

For more information please contact, Todd McFadden at 304-293-7029, ext. 110 or via e-mail at todd.mcfadden@mail.wvu.edu.

Novelist Emily Mitchell will be featured during a Morgantown Poets literary event at 7 p.m., on Thursday, Nov. 19, at Monongalia Arts Center (MAC). The Center is located at 107 High Street in downtown Morgantown.

Mitchell’s first novel, The Last Summer of the World, was a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Young Lion’s Fiction Award in 2008.

Her short fiction has appeared in New England Review, Indiana Review, Raritan, and Agni. A new story will be published in a forthcoming issue of Ploughshares. Her reviews have appeared in The New York Times and New Statesman.

The reading is free and open to the public.

Professor L. Christopher Plein spoke Tuesday about the many elements of health care reform during the Wood County Democratic Executive Committee meeting.

Plein, who studies public policy of West Virginia, serves as the assistant dean of the School of Applied Social Sciences at West Virginia University’s Eberly College of Arts and Sciences.

His goal Tuesday was to shed light on the complex issues of health care reform and break it down into manageable parts.

Read more about his speech in the News and Sentinel.

All graduate students planning for a December graduation must complete defense of all theses and dissertations by today, Wednesday, November 18, 2009.

Following defense, all blue Shuttle Sheets must be signed and returned to Department representatives so that they may be copied by the Department and sent to the College Graduate Office within 24 hours of the student’s defense. Forms not signed by the Department will be returned for signature.

A new Plasma Science Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will enable fundamental research on low-temperature plasmas – ionized gases with vast potential for practical technological advancements in fields such as energy, lighting, microelectronics and medicine.

The effort is part of the leadership role that DOE has adopted for stewarding basic plasma sciences and engineering in the U.S., explained Mark Koepke, Robert C. Byrd Professor of Physics and Vladimir Demidov, research professor. The two West Virginia University physics professors are co-principal investigators responsible for the receipt of the grant that will create the Center. There are 21 co-investigators from ten institutions involved in the project.

The Center for Predictive Control of Plasma Kinetics: Multi-phase and Bounded Systems is funded by a $10-million, 5-year grant from the DOE Office of Fusion Energy Sciences. The Center, located at the University of Michigan, brings highly qualified modelers and experimentalists together in a discipline where this has often been difficult to do.

Research conducted at the center could lead to more efficient solar cells, finer-featured microchips and new medical tools that cut and heal tissues with plasma-activated chemistry, rather than heat, as lasers do. Plasma surgical tools could allow wounds to heal faster, explained Mark Kushner, George I. Haddad Professor of Engineering at the University of Michigan. Kushner is the new center’s director.

“Low temperature plasmas create great societal benefits through the technologies they enable,” Kushner said. “This center will advance the fundamental science that will enable plasmas used in technical applications to provide even greater advancements in areas such as energy, materials and healthcare.”

Plasmas, which are a distinct state of matter, are found throughout the universe. They permeate interplanetary space. The sun is a high-temperature plasma. On Earth, low-temperature plasmas enable development of crisp, light-weight television displays as well as solar cells. They carve out the intricate features of silicon microchips, among many other applications.

Using experiments and computational models, researchers at the new center will investigate the science behind methods to best control the portfolio of velocities of the charged particles in low-temperature plasmas. Controlling the portfolio of particle velocities results in designer-level customization of the plasma’s functionality – a vital tool in exploiting plasmas for technology, Koepke said.

“The distribution of energy in a plasma can be manipulated but is difficult to predict beyond past experience,” Demidov said. “Attaining predictive experimental control requires new knowledge in the way plasma energy is transferred from place to place. Along the way, it can be carried by ions, electrons, neutral atoms, charged molecules, photons and excited-state atoms or molecules. Sometimes, the plasma energy in one spot is influenced mostly from processes taking place at a far-away spot in the plasma, and we have demonstrated that we can control that to great advantage.”

The center will develop public-accessible computer models that will allow researchers to enter a particular desired plasma configuration and receive information about what electric and magnetic fields they must apply to achieve those attributes.

In addition to the University of West Virginia, researchers at the following institutions are involved in the project: University of Michigan, The Ohio State University, University of Minnesota, University of Houston; University of California, Berkeley; Sandia National Laboratory, University of Wisconsin, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and the University of Maryland.

This grant application, one of seven applications submitted to DOE, received a mail review by three experts from outside the Department of Energy. Additionally, it was reviewed by a panel of eight independent experts. The application for the Center received the highest rating of the seven applications from both the external panelists and the mail reviewers.

Leeana Tankersley has recently published at travel memoir, “Found Art:Discovering Beauty in Foreign Places (Zondervan 2009).” The book weaves together her experiences as a military wife living in Bahrain, where her husband Steve, a Navy SEAL, was stationed.

Tankersley is a native of San Diego, Calif. She received her BA in English from Liberty University and her MA in English from West Virginia University. She and her husband currently reside in Coronado, Calif.