With thousands of University alumni returning to Morgantown to celebrate Homecoming, President Michael T. Benson is marking a milestone and reflecting on this fall season of transition and change.
Dear Faculty and Staff,
This week, I’ll record my 100th day as president of West Virginia University.
With the colors starting to fade and temperatures falling into sweater weather, I count myself very fortunate indeed to associate with all of you as we work to continuously improve WVU.
The welcome I’ve received has been astounding and I’m thankful for the many people who’ve offered their advice and guidance, providing critical counsel on the decisions being made now for the long-term benefit of the University.
At one point during the earliest days of being here, my wife, Debi, suggested I should pace myself. For you runners out there, one of my heroes growing up was Steve Prefontaine, or “Pre” as everyone called him. He said a lot of memorable things, but this is one of my favorite Prefontaine quotes: “If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.”
This philosophy has informed the way we are doing business in my office.
We start early. We stay late. We go.
These first 100 days are only the beginning of a new era at WVU.
I’ve been spending significant chunks of time on nights and weekends, while traveling and home at Blaney House, going through the thoughtful, extensive feedback so many of you took time to provide to inform our work on the University’s Strategic Compass.
My leadership team and I appreciate your careful consideration of the path forward into the future for this University.
Next month, we’ll unveil the Strategic Compass, a plan that — drawing on all the input gathered through a survey and during in-person college, school, and unit-level meetings — includes a new mission statement, guiding principles, and strategic priorities and goals to steer WVU in the coming years.
The crafting of this plan started before I became president and I’m ready to share it with you so we can begin, in earnest, to work together to put it into action. We’re all deeply invested in the University’s future and the Strategic Compass reflects that.
Here are a few other updates:
• I invite you all to the Homecoming Parade starting at 6 p.m. Friday (Oct. 24) on High Street as we welcome past, present, and future Mountaineers. I look forward to seeing you there.
• Saturday’s Homecoming football game against TCU is the Coal Rush game, a tribute to West Virginia’s proud coal industry tradition. During a stop on my “Welcome Home Tour” in Logan County, I took a mantrip into Core Natural Resources’ Mountain Laurel Complex. Each time I visit a coal mine, it reminds me that we cannot ever take for granted the power that runs our homes, campuses, and communities.
We’ll do a different kind of “lighting up” at Milan Puskar Stadium on Saturday with the first full-stadium light show using LED wristbands courtesy of Coca-Cola. It should be fun and illuminating.
• Raleigh County, the home of WVU Institute of Technology, and Mineral County, the home of WVU Potomac State College, are two of the latest West Virginia counties I’ve officially visited in my quest to get to all 55 by next summer. I’m already at 30 counties, and I know we will reach our goal.
I extend my sincere thanks to President Stuart, President Wallace, and their faculty, staff, and students for the warm welcomes. Our regional campuses open doors of opportunity to so many students and are vital to serving our land-grant mission.
• It’s soccer season and I’ve enjoyed cheering on the Mountaineer men’s and women’s soccer teams, along with the nationally-ranked Salt Lake Community College Bruins, my son Truman’s team.
If you have not been to Dick Dlesk Soccer Stadium lately, please join us one of these nights before the regular season comes to a close. It should be packed for the Mountain State Derby with the men’s team and Marshall at 7 p.m. on Halloween, Oct. 31.
• A recent stop at the West Virginia State Museum in Charleston was a treat for me and I recommend it to everyone who wants to better understand the Mountain State. One of the highlights in the collection is a 35-star flag that was hand-stitched soon after West Virginia became a state, a flag that flew over the Soldiers Cemetery during President Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” on Nov. 19, 1863.
I snapped a photo both of the flag and the small plaque describing its historical significance.
Nearly 162 years later, the principles espoused in arguably the most famous 2 ½ minute speech in history still resonate in this nation “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
While I am in no way comparing myself to America’s greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, it is important that we all understand that — with the work we do each day for the well-being of our students, our communities, and ourselves — we are writing what will one day be the history of West Virginia University.
With that in mind, let’s be bold in our actions.
Let’s work together for the common good.
Let’s take on the next 100 days, and the 100 days after that, and the 100 days after that with vim and vigor.
Let’s Go!
Michael T. Benson
President and Professor of History
West Virginia University
The Benson Connection is a regular ENews column for faculty and staff from the University’s 27th president.