Lana Latif has already met her goal of securing a job with a Big Four accounting firm -- and she’s still in grad school. Latif will earn her master’s in accountancy in 2021 before heading to Pittsburgh to be an assurance associate at Ernst & Young. According to her mentor, Gary LeDonne, this is a great success story for Latif who came to WVU after living with her family in Palestine.
Fans Arrive Like Butterflies
Large, one-off events such as music concerts can create economic impacts not seen from professional sports, suggests rockin’ research by Joshua Hall, chair and professor of economics. Hall and Justin Parker, a 2020 Ph.D. economics graduate, found that Pearl Jam’s Seattle “Home Shows” in August 2018 generated $58 million in additional hotel revenue and $9 million in hotel tax revenue. That dwarfs Seattle Mariners baseball games ($140,000 in additional hotel revenue on game days). Their research was published in the Annals of Tourism Research Empirical Insights.
When Life Hands You Lemons
In September 2019, our CEO Club donated the money from its Lemonade Day, which was held spring 2019, to WVU Medicine Children’s. Not only did local Morgantown kids learn how to run a profitable lemonade stand, but they were also able to support a great cause that will go on to help other children in our community.
Get Hyped
How did a global megacompany decide to invest in the Mountain State in developing the transportation of the future? Well, we have the Chambers College, Vantage Ventures and its Executive Director Sarah Biller to thank for helping land Virgin Hyperloop. The company announced it would build a certification center spanning nearly 800 acres in Tucker and Grant counties. When completed, the Virgin Hyperloop system expects to carry passengers in pods through a vacuum tube at speeds breaking 600 mph. Read more about it in an upcoming feature story in 2021 in WVU Magazine.
Life-changing
Working as a program manager at Honeywell seems like a sweet enough gig, but imagine expanding your technical skills and knowledge base while in that position. Scott Branham chose that path when he enrolled in WVU Online’s Business Data Analytics program. Read more about Branham’s journey here.
Lasting Impact
A good book can change your life. A good research paper can change many lives.