News

Historic and systemic obstacles, made more pressing by the COVID-19 pandemic, mean current and prospective students from underrepresented groups often need financial help to start or continue their education at West Virginia University. The WVU Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is launching a crowdfunding campaign to raise scholarship support for students from these groups.

WVU Medicine Children’s marked a construction milestone as the final steel beam was placed for its new hospital, thanks to generous donor support throughout the 2019-’20 fiscal year.

More than $52 million has been raised to date for the “Grow Children’s” capital campaign, which seeks to raise $60 million in private support for the state-of-the-art facility and associated program improvements.

West Virginia University bid farewell to longtime benefactors Betty J. Puskar and Carolyn Eberly Blaney in 2020. 

Blaney, a loyal WVU alumna who carried on a longstanding family tradition of philanthropy, passed away Friday, May 8, at the age of 96. Puskar, a longtime supporter of WVU and WVU Medicine, died at the age of 80 on Sunday, June 14, at her home in Morgantown.

Pamela Maphis Larrick will serve as chair of the WVU Foundation Board of Directors for the coming year. 

She was formerly an advertising and marketing executive who spent her career in New York City. Larrick also was CEO/ Chairman of two global digital agencies within the IPG Network and CEO/Chairman of Omnicom’s Javelin Agency. In 2005, she co-founded  IPG’s Women’s Leadership Network.

^{WVU Medicine commemorated the placing of the final steel beam on the new nine-story WVU Medicine Children’s Hospital during a virtual topping out ceremony.}

^{Betty Puskar}

^{Slated for completion in 2021, the 150-bed, nine-story hospital is under construction next to J.W. Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown, which houses existing WVU Medicine Children’s services on its sixth floor.}

^{WVU students Charde De Lestre (left) and Amanda Hammons (right)}