Despite surging cases caused by the Omicron variant, Western Carolina University will start the spring semester as scheduled Jan. 10 with in-person classes and activities — though with “stringent” precautions in place, the university said.

Don’t swat at that mosquito. 

Swedish entomologist Anders Lindström is sitting in a Western Carolina University lab, patiently waiting for the insect to stay put on a leaf cutting long enough to take its photo. When the mosquito takes flight, Lindström captures it in a vial and puts it back on the leaf.

The Western Carolina University Board of Trustees voted unanimously during its Dec. 3 meeting to recommend a schedule of fees for the upcoming academic year that includes an $86 increase to the school’s athletic training program fee — but only after granting a request from Student Government Association President Rebecca Hart, a member of the board, to commit to passing a resolution to retire the fee once it’s served its purpose. 

By Molly Phillips • Contributing writer | Over the summer, 16 students from Western Carolina University — led by Dr. Brett Riggs, Dr. Jane Eastman and field assistant Karen Biggert — drove each weekday from Cullowhee to Franklin to spend more than four hot, sticky weeks outdoors. Their mission? To apply scientific techniques to discover archaeological evidence on Mainspring’s Watauga Mound  property, and learn more about what northern Macon County looked like hundreds of years ago. 

Western Carolina University leaders are celebrating passage of a state budget bill that funds every item on the university’s legislative agenda, including raises for faculty and staff and $35.5 million to renovate Moore Building, the oldest building on WCU’s campus. 

If the proposed master plan is adopted, over the coming years the university will focus its development efforts on five districts described in the document. 

At a board retreat this month, Western Carolina University trustees got their first look at a draft proposed 10-year master plan update that calls for a reimagined library, beefed-up athletic facilities, and overall improvements to campus organization and aesthetics. 

Enrollment, retention and freshman interest at Western Carolina University are all down this fall compared to last year, and university leaders are preparing to combat what they believe will be a lingering issue through the pandemic and beyond. 

Until 2016, then-Chancellor David O. Belcher spent much of his time and energy as leader of Western Carolina University in Cullowhee telling anyone who would listen that WCU’s future was in danger. Specifically, the future of its engineering, science and nursing programs. 

With case numbers surging and fall semester beginning, local colleges and universities are reinstituting indoor masking requirements that had been lifted for the summer months.