Tagged: WKU

The state Nature Preserves Commission has given three WKU professors its annual award for work that protects biological diversity.

Alfred Meier, Ouida Meier and Scott Grubbs were given this year's Biological Diversity Protection Award for their work creating the Upper Green River Biological Preserve. The preserve is on the banks of the Green River in Hart County.

The Green River is the most important river in Kentucky for the conservation of rare native mussels and fish. It hosts 109 fish species and nearly 60 mussel species. The area is also important for an endangered bat species found on the preserve and as a breeding and migratory habitat for songbirds.

A new honors college and international center at WKU and renovations to the University of Kentucky's football stadium and the University of Louisville are among the projects that will benefit from a bipartisan General Assembly agreement is allowing state universities to use their own ability to issue bonds for capital projects.

The soon-to-be approved projects were rejected during 2012 budget negotiations, but will be revived once lawmakers pass an authorization bill, House Speaker Greg Stumbo says.

The plan allows for $363-million in renovation and construction projects at six of Kentucky's eight state universities.

Stumbo says the projects were rejected because of election-year politics — because House lawmakers are elected in even-numbered years — and secondly because universities made unreasonable bonding requests.

And while many projects were rejected last year, the newly agreed upon ones are ready to start immediately.

“We had asked at the end of the last session to bring us a realistic list, what can you accomplish, what is shovel ready, what do you have the funding sources identified for, what can you accomplish in this next year,” Stumbo says.

Robert Griffin III, the star rookie quarterback with the Washington Redskins, had his torn lateral collateral ligament repaired and a "re-do" of his previous anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. ESPN is reporting a full recovery is expected.

Griffin III is just one of the latest athletes to suffer a knee injury involving the ACL.

WKU Public Radio recently reported on the surgical and recovery process involved in ACL injuries. We profiled WKU senior wide receiver Marcus Vasquez, a wide receiver on the football team who came back this past season from a torn ACL.

Two other WKU athletes recovering from torn ACL's are sophomore basketball player Nigel Snipes, and women's freshman basketball player Kendall Noble.