News for WVU Potomac State College

As WVU Potomac State College prepares to welcome first-time students, it offers a few back-to-school reminders. Most preparation should already be done if all deadlines have been met. Welcome Week activities start when students return to campus this Sunday, August 16.

Retired WVU Potomac State College Dean of Curriculum Instruction, Dinah Courrier, has had many titles in her life. Teacher. Professor. Philanthropist. Historian. Wife. Mother. Grandmother. Archivist. Activist. Editor. She was even once an Apple Blossom princess. She never thought she would add “best-selling author” to her resume until a quarter of a century ago, when she published what is widely regarded today as the “Bible of PSC,” a recommended (if not required) reading for all employees of the College.

In 2001, Courrier published the reader-friendly history book, Potomac State College. The book was part of Tempus Publishing of Charleston, SC’s series of “College History” books. Both an enlightening read and a delightful photo album, the book chronicles the first 100 years of the PSC campus located on top of former Fort Fuller in Keyser.

As students move back to campus, the decorating trend this year is all about dopamine.

WVU Potomac State College is proud to announce the nomination of two alumni into the Catamounts Athletics Hall of Fame, in recognition of their exceptional contributions to athletics and sportsmanship.

Students who live just outside of West Virginia but within close proximity to the WVU Potomac State College campus are now eligible for a newly established scholarship made possible by Bonnie R. Miller.

WVU Potomac State College student-athletes will compete on a newly refurbished playing surface inside Lough Gymnasium thanks to a partnership with WVU Medicine Potomac Valley Hospital.

Possibly no one has taken the lyrics of Country Roads to heart or embodies the spirit of that song more than Sabrina Cave as she has taken her career "home, to the place she belongs."

“It is safe to say I started out my career and my education with WVU and basically loved it so much I never left,” she said.

When students in the WVU School of Nursing Keyser Campus program start classes this fall, they will be aided and assisted by the latest technology that will allow them to explore human anatomy with a view from the inside out.

WVU Potomac State College STEM and Physics professor Joan Vogtman was recently recognized for her efforts - both subtle and direct – in assisting students with known and unspoken disabilities on their paths to educational success.

The phrase "if you don't use it, you lose it," is most apt for students in the summer months – between the end of the spring semester and the beginning of classes in the fall. During that window, the academic brain can be on a temporary vacation. But now that we are at the halfway mark through “summer break,” it is time – say WVU Potomac State College instructors and mental health counselors – to start gently nudging the grey matter awake and get back to learning mode. 

Academically, there is something known commonly as “brain drain” or clinically referred to as the “curve of forgetting.” This curve is a psychological phenomenon that purports that memory retention declines over time when there is no active attempt to remember information. Discovered by German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus, it reveals a steep drop-off where humans lose about 50% to 80% of newly learned material within a few days if that information is not reviewed.