This just in via an e-mail message from the West Virginia University student chapter of the Sierra Club:
At 11:00 AM, delegates from the West Virginia University Sierra Student Coalition will be presenting over 1,000 petition signatures to university president Jim Clements at his office in Stewart Hall on the university’s downtown campus.
In the petition, faculty, students, and Morgantown residents ask the university to reject future donations from coal corporation CEOs Bob Murray and Don Blankenship, and demand that the WVU College of Engineering and Mineral Resources chair be named in honor of the miners who made the ultimate sacrifice, and not Murray, whose criminal negligence caused their death.
The Sierra Student Coalition will issue a statement at the event. The press is invited to attend.
The WVU Sierra Student Coalition is a grassroots environmental organization striving for real improvements in our campus and community.
Coal Tattoo readers will recall that WVU named a chair’s position in its mining engineering department for a $1 million donation from Bob Murray of Murray Energy. WVU also recently collected a $500,000 donation from Blankenship’s Massey Energy.
I’ve asked to talk to WVU President Jim Clements to get his reaction to the student petition. Let’s see if Clements has decided to be any more open with the press and the public than he was the last time I wanted to talk about WVU’s dealings with the coal industry.
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[...] Blogs @ The Charleston Gazette – » WVU students protest ‘dirty coal money’ donations blogs.wvgazette.com – view page – cached This just in via an e-mail message from the West Virginia University student chapter of the Sierra Club: [...]
Here’s an e-mail I received from a WVU PR person whose main job appears to be refusing my interview requests:
Sorry, the President won’t be able to speak with you. I can give you the statement below, however.
———–
WVU President Jim Clements is in receipt of the Sierra Club petition presented to him this morning (12-09). He met briefly with the Club’s student leadership and had a very good conversation with them.
As has been reported, this gift was negotiated by the College of Engineering and accepted through the WVU Foundation.
These officials have made it clear that the gift was given in good faith from a donor who was appreciative of a University that educated his sons and is engaged in significant research in mine safety and the extraction and utilization of coal resources.
Dan Kim
Ken.
Way to go SSC! Dirty coal money has no place in a clean university.
Keep on the good work.
When news broke of WVU’s receipt of the coal money, it grieved me.
Seeing the students stand up against such a blatant piece of pro-coal propaganda renews my faith in the students.
Now if we could just do something about those miserable TV ads during games . . . (of course, that’s not the U’s doing).
Wow … Just got a call back from Jim Clements and did a very brief interview with him on this issue.
His story?
Basically, the donations from Murry and from Massey that started this controversy were in the works before he took over at WVU, so he’s not going to get into whether they were right or wrong.
Next, Clements said he told the students he would agree to start a discussion on campus about what sorts of financial contributions the university should and should not accept.
“Those are gifts that have been in the works for years,” Clements said. “What the Sierra Club was asking was — what are the policies for future gifts?
“I’m happy to sit down and talk about what the university should consider,” Clements said. “[But] you can’t solve it in 15 minutes.”
Ken.
Well WVU doesnt have to take the money. VT will take it . They already have a A.T Massey Coal Company chair of Mine Engineering. Im sure they would welcome a Bob Murray Professorship. Take the money so that the engineers that come out of the school will be better because of it. After all, these students will be working for the mining industry some day.
Scott 14: You say that Virginia Tech would gladly welcome the money from Blankenship and Murray. You say that these students will be working for the mining industry someday. Maybe they will, and maybe they won’t. Can you foresee the future?
Poor Consol miners. February will be here before you know it. I can see Consol canceling the February cut-offs, for it was just a scare tactic anyway to make the mining community believe that the anti-mtr protesters was the reason for the shut down.
Get real Consol. Give your employees a bonus and no cut off slips.
Scott14, in all seriousness, would you work for Murray, knowing the way he ran the crandall mine?
kinf of a double standard.coal is dirty but burning couches and trashing the streets of morgantown after a ballgame! what a joke!
Eastwood78, before you go about talking about something you know nothing about let me inform you that the ikes fork 1 and 2 permit is the only place left to work on this job. We have a limited amount of work on the job 4 side but not much and it is all high ratio. As you can see it is not a scare tatic when you have no where to work your equipment. Of cource I could be wrong, maybe you have already tresspassed on our property. JB, I would do what I have to do to support my family at the standard they are used to.
This is crazy. A donation to help the school, you folks are un-happy because a school was given money. The students will benefit. How can that be wrong? How much has the Sierra Club given? The money the locale enviros have spent on court cases could have been given to WVU, a childrens hospital or something. You decided to donate to the court system. I work for a coal company and make donations, is my money any less green than yours. The end result is that education will benefit from the money. To help provide for the students is the right thing to do.
[...] Yet another development on the “Good Money from Not-So-Good Benefactors” front: According to the Coal Tattoo blog, members of the West Virginia University student chapter of the Sierra Club presented a petition [...]