WVU sleuthing program collars high-profile partnerships with major vendors
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. Sept. 11, 2007: West Virginia University’s Michael Bell chuckled a bit as he pulled up the ballistic database in an Oglebay Hall computer lab.
Immediately, the monitor in Room 331 pulsed with the digital aftermath of gun violence: Lining up one by one were sharp, high-resolution images of spent bullets, bullet holes and shell casings. It was enough of an arsenal to fill a “Scarface” sequel, and it was catalogued and collated - bullet to gun, gun to bullet, trajectory to trajectory.
Just a few short years ago, detectives and ballistics examiners doing that kind of work would have logged lots of overtime to complete the project.
But this day, it was all there in mere seconds for Bell, a former New Mexico State Police crime scene analyst who now instructs future sleuths in WVU’s Forensic and Investigative Sciences Program.
“If you’re going to work with the big guys,” he said, “you’re going to need the big toys.”
The forensic program here now has the big toys, and the big building, to go with its even bigger reputation. In 10 years at WVU, the program has grown to attract some 500 majors from across 35 states and five countries.
It’s been featured in media outlets from The Chronicle of Higher Education to “True Hollywood Stories” on cable television’s E! Entertainment Network.
And the program’s new home is Oglebay Hall, a stately, landmark building on the Downtown Campus that recently underwent a $23.5 million makeover just for its new tenant.
Then there are the “toys” like the ballistics database employed by law agencies worldwide to go along with a complete line of professional Nikon cameras the company provided for free. Other partnership opportunities are in the works, Bell said.
“A lot of it is marketing on the part of the companies,” he said, “but I do need to note that they don’t just sign on with anybody. These are top-notch corporations, and they’re aligning themselves with us because we’re top-notch, too.”
WVU’s forensic graduates over the years have quickly landed in key positions in police departments, crime labs and federal entities all across the country, Bell said. Having hands-on access to the latest technology, he said, just plain helps.
The idea, he said, is to yank that traditional, new job learning curve into a straight line - from being hired one day and doing the job like a veteran investigator the next.
“If a piece of diagnostic equipment is being in the field or in the crime lab, you can bet we’ve got it,” he said. “It used to be that you’d see a piece of equipment and you’d say, ‘Well, I saw it in a catalogue or a textbook, and this will be my first time actually working with it.’ Well, our graduates have already spent the past four or five semesters working with it, and they might know it better than some of the veteran investigators who have been on the job for years and years.”
Dr. Keith Morris, the program’s interim director who once headed South Africa’s national crime lab system, agrees.
There’s the newly outfitted Oglebay Hall and - across town on the Evansdale Campus - a learning complex of three crime scene houses and a forensic garage, he said.
There’s a faculty of proven law enforcement professionals, several with international backgrounds including Morris, who once headed South Africa’s national crime lab system.
There are students who get past initial preconceived “CSI” TV notions to dig into a rigorous program that rivals any premedicine curriculum.
And there are more corporate deals in the works, Morris said. The program is getting ready to contract with a Connecticut shoemaker since footprints figure into any forensic investigation.
“Right now, there’s no place I’d rather be than right here,” Morris said. “Every day is like Christmas morning, you know?”
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