In the Biology Program, Donors Are Helping Make Every Experiment Count

There is a moment in a biology lab, Dr. Glenna Pirner will tell you, that no textbook can manufacture. It happens when a student peers into a microscope, or analyzes a data readout, or watches a crayfish react to a stimulus it never expected – and suddenly, the living world clicks into focus.

“There really is nothing more satisfying,” said Pirner, assistant professor of biology at Fairmont State University, “than seeing students do the work and have it mean something.”

That moment of meaning is what Pirner and her colleagues have built their teaching philosophy around. And increasingly, thanks to the generosity of donors, it is a moment more biology students get to experience.

Fairmont State’s biology faculty have designed a program with clear conviction: students should graduate as whole scientists, not specialists narrowed too early. The program Pirner describes reflects that belief. There are no formal tracks. Students move through coursework that touches plants, bacteria, animals and human systems alike – a breadth that mirrors the complexity of the field itself, and, she argues, the complexity of the careers waiting on the other side of a degree.
 
“We try to produce what we call well-rounded biologists,” she said. “Making sure we cover the full spectrum and then preparing all of them for the future workforce.”

That preparation has a hands-on structure. In their junior year, students undertake original research projects in either animal or plant physiology. Senior year brings a capstone. By the time many of the biology students walk across a commencement stage, they have designed an experiment, conducted it, analyzed the results and, in a growing number of cases, presented their findings at a regional or national conference.

The range of what they study would surprise anyone who remembers high school biology as a parade of diagrams. During the spring 2026 term alone, one animal physiology class ran projects on the effects of high- versus low-sugar diets in mice, tracking voluntary exercise on measured wheels. Another group examined the escape reflex in crayfish – that characteristic backward dart – comparing how caffeine and alcohol affect the speed of the neurological response. A third studied metabolism in geckos, looking at how light, temperature and the physiology of ectothermy interact at the enzymatic level. ”We try to tie in more than just ‘if we do this, what happens,’” Pirner said. “We try to dig a little deeper into the physiology behind it.”

Outside the classroom, Pirner recently took over as full-time faculty advisor for the university’s Beta Beta Beta (TriBeta) chapter, the national biological honor society. The group held a plant sale earlier this spring that performed well, and she is already planning expanded programming – more activities, more fundraising, more of the informal cohesion that turns a club into a community.

Four TriBeta students traveled to a regional conference during the spring term. Two presented research. One of them, a student who studied the effects of sunscreen chemicals on aquatic plant photosynthesis – tracing what happens when UV-blocking compounds wash off swimmers and into the water – placed second overall in oral competition.
 
“She was able to show real, measurable differences,” Pirner said, with the quiet pride of a mentor who has watched a student’s curiosity become a credible scientific contribution.

None of this happens cleanly without reliable equipment. It is the part of the conversation Pirner returns to with the frankness of someone who has watched a semester’s worth of student effort evaporate because a spectrophotometer returned noise instead of data.

“There is nothing more frustrating to an instructor and a student,” she said, “than going to a lab, doing the work, and getting data that means nothing.”

This year, support from Day of Giving donors and a recent gift from Truist West Virginia Foundation helped the biology department invest in new microscopes – a tangible upgrade that has already changed the quality of what students can see and document. The department is also working toward updated sensor and water-testing equipment, a process that will move forward as a newly hired lab manager comes on board this summer and conducts a full assessment of what can be calibrated, what should be replaced and what the program most urgently needs next.

For Pirner, the equipment question is never really about hardware. It is about what happens to a student’s confidence and curiosity when the tools keep pace with their ambition. Recent donor support – including the microscope investment – has already moved that needle, and she is grateful for every gift that has helped close the gap between what students deserve and what a department’s budget alone can provide. 

“Donors are absolutely making a difference in the students’ overall experience,” she said. “It builds confidence in their research and the quality of work they can produce.”

Students who get real data from functioning instruments build more than scientific knowledge. They develop the habit of inquiry. Some will go on to medical school – the program reliably sends two to four students annually – while others will move into wildlife management, research, industry or fields that don’t yet have names. All of them carry forward what they were able to do, or not do, in a lab at Fairmont State.

“The better experience we can provide students,” Pirner said, “the better off everybody is – from the student level all the way up.”

For those who have supported the biology program, that is not an abstract return on investment. It is a crayfish darting backward under a student’s careful watch, a data set that finally makes sense, a young scientist standing at a podium, earning an award – and knowing exactly why.

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