President Michael T. Benson is the winner of the University of Notre Dame Alumni Association’s Rev. Robert F. Griffin, C.S.C., Award, an honor bestowed for his outstanding achievements in writing.
“This award means so much to me personally as I’ve always loved to write and appreciate the power of both the written and spoken word,” President Benson said during the award ceremony he attended with his wife, Debi, and son, Sam, earlier this month.
President Benson received his master’s degree in nonprofit management from Notre Dame in 2011.
“Thank you for this most generous honor, forever linking me to the company of writers I greatly admire at an institution I dearly love,” he said during the ceremony at Notre Dame.
At the event, President Benson was introduced by his friend and mentor, Tom Burish, a former provost at Vanderbilt University, former president at Washington and Lee University and Notre Dame Provost Emeritus, who served as provost for 15 years.
“It would seem ideal that the person chosen for the Griffin Award was not only a wonderful writer, but also a wonderful person who is highly ethical, generous, and insightful, who is a visible representative of the university and its values, and who asks of himself and of Notre Dame something great. President Mike Benson is such a person,” Burish said in his introduction.
During is 30-year career in higher education, President Benson’s scholarly work has focused on the development of the research university and its impact on society.
His book, “Daniel Coit Gilman and the Birth of the American Research University,” was released by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2022 and named to the list of “Best Higher Education Books of 2023” by Forbes.
President Benson is also the author of “Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel,” and, with co-author Hal Boyd, published “College for the Commonwealth: A Case for Higher Education in American Democracy” with the University Press of Kentucky.
He was a featured contributor to the Huffington Post for five years; has written articles for The Jerusalem Post, Lexington Herald-Leader, Louisville Courier Journal, The Kansas City Star, Deseret News, and The Salt Lake Tribune, among others; and appeared on ESPN’s The Paul Finebaum Show.
Past recipients of the Rev. Robert F. Griffin, C.S.C., Award include best-selling author Nicholas Sparks in 2004, and Mark Shields, a national columnist, legendary political campaign strategist and longtime contributor to PBS NewsHour, who was posthumously recognized in 2025.
The award is named for a beloved member of the Notre Dame community who wrote for Notre Dame Magazine from 1972 to 1994.
See past recipients of the Rev. Robert F. Griffin, C.S.C., Award.