With classes ending Friday (May 1), finals ahead next week and Commencement Weekend scheduled for May 15-17, President Michael T. Benson is celebrating the graduates and University faculty and staff as he closes his first academic year as a Mountaineer.
Dear Colleagues,
In just a few weeks, we’ll come together as a University community, donning our gold and blue regalia, to celebrate Commencement with our graduates.
The roots of the word “commencement,” which date back to the late 13th century, translate to “a beginning, act, or fact of coming into existence.” So, Commencement is not an ending, it’s an inception point for what’s next for the soon-to-be newest members of the Mountaineer alumni family who are overflowing with potential.
Our graduates are representatives of the investments each of you make in this University and its mission each day, and you are to be commended for your dedication.
Last Friday night (April 24), I was able to thank a few of you personally when we hosted the 2026 Faculty and Staff Awards at Blaney House.
Awardees included the following:
• Carol Arantes, assistant professor of wildlife and fisheries in the Davis College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, won the Faculty Award for Outstanding Global Contributions.
• Paul M. Martinelli was the recipient of the inaugural Paul M. Martinelli Classified Staff/ACCE Recognition Award.
• Brian Boone, associate professor of surgical oncology in the School of Medicine, Donald Adjeroh, professor and associate chair of computer science in the Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, and Chris Scheitle, professor of sociology in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, were selected as Benedum Distinguished Scholars.
• Angela Wowczuk, a service assistant professor in the School of Pharmacy, was awarded the Ethel and Gary Heebink Award for Distinguished State Service in recognition of her exceptional service to the University, students and community.
• This year, the WVU Foundation Awards for Outstanding Teaching honored four faculty members for their commitment to impactful instruction: Cody Hood, teaching assistant professor in the School of Mathematical and Data Sciences; Jignesh Solanki, teaching associate professor Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering; Erin Brock Carlson, associate professor in the Department of English; and Muzibur Rahman, assistant professor of construction management at WVU Tech.
• Five faculty members and two graduate students were named recipients of the Travis Stimeling Award for Mentoring Undergraduates in Research, while five honorees were presented Nicholas Evans Awards for Advising Excellence.
• In recognition of her dedication to and exceptional teaching of writing, Catherine Gouge, a professor in the Department of English, is the 2025-26 recipient of the Caperton Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Writing.
• The First-Year Seminar Advisory Council named WenJuan (Helen) Mo the 2026 First-Year Seminar Instructor of the Year.
Also on Friday (April 24), I was invited to join the Center for Community Engagement’s annual Excellence in Community Engagement Awards ceremony honoring extraordinary accomplishments in engaged learning and community impact. See the winners.
I’d also like to congratulate our Student Employee of the Year winners.
Thank you all for the work you’re doing. In the rush of the end of the semester, please make sure to take time to acknowledge and appreciate all we’ve accomplished this academic year.
It was especially gratifying to be at the White House last week to celebrate the NCAA Championship win for the WVU rifle team. The trip marked the third time in University history and the first time since 2017 that a Mountaineer athletic team visited the White House and met with the U.S. president for NCAA Champions Day.
For this Benson Connection, I’m reaching out to you from the road on the closing leg of our “Welcome Home Tour” of the Mountain State which started in the weeks immediately after I began my tenure here last July.
While being out with all of you on our campuses and representing the University across the nation during my first year, I have also been inspired while traveling across West Virginia with my fellow “road warriors” to see the real, life-changing impact West Virginia’s University has in our local communities.
This week’s tour stops include Hampshire, Hardy, Marion, Morgan, Pocahontas, and Webster counties. Next week, we’ll head to Cabell, Fayette, Mason, Putnam, and Wyoming counties, while also going “out Wayne.”
We’re especially looking forward to joining Eberly Distinguished Chair for Academic Excellence Duncan Lorimer FRS and Eberly Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy and Chair Maura McLaughlin, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, at the Green Bank Observatory.
Plans are being finalized for official stops in what will be the 55th and final county on the “Welcome Home Tour” — our home county of Monongalia.
Named for the Monongahela River, Monongalia County was created by an act of the Virginia General Assembly 250 years ago this October. With a pioneering spirit, the county grew economically through the farming and coal industries before becoming an educational center when WVU was established in 1867.
It was several years later in 1872 when Daniel Coit Gilman, who would go on to become the first president of Johns Hopkins University and is considered the father of the modern American research university, was recruited to serve as the third president of the land-grant University of California.
In his UC inaugural address on Nov. 7, 1872, Gilman said this of what he described as, “the university of this state.”
“It must be adapted to this people, to their public and private schools, to their peculiar geographical position, the requirements of their new society and their undeveloped resources….It is ‘of the people and for the people,’ not in any low or unworthy sense, but in the highest and noblest relations to their intellectual and moral well-being.”
The same sentiment holds true today for West Virginia University, also a land-grant institution, and it is up to all of us to do the work necessary to ensure the University continues to serve future generations of West Virginians and people around the world.
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.