From left, Dinara Matina, Michaela Goodnight, Rebekah Teter, Johanna Weiler and Wes Lloyd, students in Geography of World Tourism.

WEST LIBERTY, W.Va., Nov. 8, 2018 — West Liberty University College of Liberal and Creative Artsstudents learned first hand about geography and how it impacts tourism when the class took a trip to the nearby Native American burial site known as the Grave Creek Mound.

Geography professor, Dr. Robert Kruse, introduced the class to Marshall County tourism leader Craig White as they learned first hand how tourism works with geography. White is the executive director of the Greater Moundsville Convention and Visitors Bureau.

“I am grateful to Craig for sharing his tourism strategies and giving my students a professional’s viewpoint on how geography goes hand in hand with tourism,” said Dr. Kruse, who has been a professor at WLU since 2005.

Olivia Archey, a recent geography and planning graduate also is employed by Marshall County Tourism which is housed in the Mound Museum, according to Kruse.

“This is the first time that I took my class ‘Geography of World Tourism’ to the mound and it turned out very well. Learning first hand from a professional like Craig is invaluable,” added Kruse.

Craig White is in forefront, behind him from left, Rebekah Teter, Michaela Goodnight, Dinara Matina, Johanna Weiler and Wes Lloyd.

The class toured and looked at ways landscapes are represented to encourage tourism.

The Grave Creek Mound Archeological Complex contains the largest conical mound of its kind and is a remnant of the Adena people dating back to 150 B.C. It was used as a burial site and took about 100 years to create.

The complex also includes a museum where visitors can see exhibits and artifacts regarding the Mound and the Adena people.

For more information about the Grave Creek Mound, please call 304.843.4128.

The Geography and Planning major at WLU offers students a pathway to a variety of careers in jobs relating to land use and economic development, urban and regional planning, and positions in local government and organizations. The curriculum includes a required internship in which students apply concepts of geography and planning beyond the classroom.

For more information, please contact Professor Kruse at rkruse@westliberty.edu.