MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The state’s largest universities will have a role in governor-elect Jim Justice’s transition into office.
The Provost of Marshall University, Gayle L. Ormiston, Ph.D., and the Provost of WVU, Joyce McConnell, JD, LLM, will serve as co-coordinators on transition policy committees.
McConnell said she’s happy to offer expertise from the higher education.
“At a time like this where we know we need to be making so many positive changes, it’s wonderful that we’ll be able to work with the governor-elect and with those that he appoints to the team.”
Teams, according to McConnell, will be made up of more than higher education representatives. Her understanding is the Justice administration will assign people from “all walks of life representing a number of different interests”. An announcement from Justice Wednesday indicated Ormiston and McConnell will lead discussions for each of the transition policy committees.
“Marshall and WVU will support the teams in two ways by providing some expertise for whatever topic area the team is addressing as well as being responsible for producing a white paper for the governor to use as he moves forward,” explained McConnell.
A white paper is an authoritative report with proposals on issues.
“Let’s say we’re talking about workforce development. It would be a very brief paper that would say this is what we see the issue is which is we need a more educated and developed workforce. These are the five recommendations we think will make a difference,” McConnell offered as an example.
Also in the Justice announcement, Marshall’s president, Jerome A. Gilbert, expressed his eagerness at getting started.
“Our faculty and other experts have expertise in many subject areas that are of great importance to the future of West Virginia, including infrastructure and transportation, education, and healthcare and substance abuse. We look forward to collaborating with our colleagues from WVU and others as we work to move the state ahead.”