Faculty Selected for 2015 Governor's Honors Academy at FSU

Fairmont State University will host the 2015 Governor’s Honors Academy on its main campus in Fairmont on June 29 through July 19.

About 200 high school juniors will participate in the three-week residential program administered by the West Virginia Department of Education and the Arts, which also assists with in-kind support. Dr. J. Robert Baker, Director of the Honors Program at FSU, will serve as dean. The theme of the 2015 GHA is “The Sustainable Life.”

“This year’s theme, which is incorporated into each course, explores the concept of ‘The Sustainable Life’ and its meaning. The theme may immediately call to mind environmental sustainability, that is, those human activities which minimize damage to the natural environment and destruction of the planet’s balance,” Baker said.

Faculty and staff are carefully selected, giving students a specially designed curriculum. Students attend workshops, classes and a variety of stimulating extra-curricular activities in the areas of arts, humanities, mathematics, science and technology.

“Students attending GHA are just a short year away from entering college, and their experience on the campus of Fairmont State University changes their ideas about living on campus from dreams to reality. While living in a community of scholars, the 200 rising seniors from all over our state experience relationships with outstanding, excited faculty and, possibly for the first time, learn and study with students who are much like themselves,” said Sherry Keffer, Director of Governor’s Schools.

“We are so fortunate to have the support of our government leaders, allowing us to give students a truly transformative experience that revitalizes them intellectually and academically while raising their social consciousness and responsibility.”

2015 faculty and course topics are as follows:

• Toneta Akers-Toler of Beckley, “Beyond Words = Best” and “Your Best Adventure: Understanding your Body . . . Energy, Space, and Time”;
• Adam Booth of Shepherdstown, “Green Hills of Wonder”;
• Christopher Edwards of Charleston, “Protecting the Sustainable Life through the Law and Trail Advocacy” and “The U.S. Supreme Court of Appeals: Making Life Sustainable since 1790”;
• Cody Hood of Morgantown, “You Can’t Make This Stuff Up” and “Breaking the Mold: Discovering Ways to Be Who I Want to Be”;
• Karen Gergely of Shepherdstown, “By Your Powers Combined!” and “Perfect Strangers”;
• Rebecca Giorcelli of Fairmont, “There’s an App for That! An App-Driven Approach to Learning Computer Programming Logic” and “Smart Homes, Smart Cars and Computer Interfaces for Reading Minds”;
• Matthew Hokom of Fairmont, “The Examined Life: Philosophy, Virtue and Happiness” and “The Personal Essay and the Search for Meaning”;
• Dan Hollis of Huntington, “Bill of Rights” and “First Amendment: Congress Shall Make No Law”;
• James Mathews of Fairmont, “Writing the Unreal: Fantasy, Magical Realism and Creative Writing” and “Understanding the Art of the Motion Picture”;
• John Shirley of Berkeley Springs, “The Theatre of Knowledge” and “Acting Shakespeare: Text-based Approaches to Creating Character”;
• Doug Squire of Morgantown, “The Art of Problem Solving: Set Theory, Combinatorics and Games ” and “Math Logic: What Does Math Have to Do with Philosophy, Politics & Debate”;
• Kelly St. Pierre of Cleveland, “Building a Sustainable Life: Music and Social Justice” and “Make Some Noise: Popular Music and Political Advocacy”;
• Sarah Tomasweski of Sunnyside, N.Y., “Bon Appetit” and “13 Sustainable Things”;
• Maria Miller of Fairmont, “Science Sustains Us; What Sustains Us” and “It All Started with a Big Bang”;
• Michael Vannatta of Morgantown, “The Story of DNA: How DNA Has Progressed & Sustained Science” and “From Quantum Mechanics to Quantum Dots: The Study of the Small”;
• Nick Wilbur of Fairmont, “Medicine, Environment and Movies: The Biology of Sustaining Life” and “Sustaining Life with YouTube: Biology is Stainability through Tech”;
• Sam Yates of Washington, D.C., “The Trouble with Normal(cy): Intro to Disability and Pop Culture” and “Sustaining America: Cultural Dreamscapes in the United States”;
• Tyler Crain of Monessen as Videographer.

In 1984, Gov. John D. Rockefeller started West Virginia’s first Governor’s School, the West Virginia Governor’s Honors Academy. GHA is a project born of a partnership among education, business leaders and state government. It is designed to stimulate and support excellence in education through a three-week residential summer program, which is provided without cost to 200 of the state’s top achieving rising high school seniors.

The mission of the academy is to operate an academically rich environment designed for high ability/high achieving students in an institution of higher education, challenging them to grow intellectually, creatively and socially in a culturally diverse atmosphere.

For more information, visit http://www.govschools.wv.gov/about_us/Pages/default.aspx.