Hello, West Virginia,

If we haven’t met, I would like to introduce myself. I am Michael T. Benson — you can call me “Mike” — president of West Virginia University.

I officially started July 15 and I am amazed at how three decades of work in higher education across the United States have brought me, step by step, to the place I belong — the beautiful state of West Virginia in a position to lead its flagship, land-grant institution into a new era.

My wife, Debi, is especially looking forward to experiencing the four seasons the Mountain State offers after our time under the palm trees at Coastal Carolina University in the Myrtle Beach area of South Carolina, a destination so many of you know from summer travels.

Our kids — Truman, Tatum and Talmage — have also visited Morgantown, played regional golf courses with friends and are looking forward to exploring many other parts of the state, and I am excited for my two oldest children — Emma and Samuel — to visit as well and experience the gold and blue spirit.

As I have done at other colleges and universities, I plan to continue teaching history at WVU, a field that reminds us that we are where we are because of the people who have come before us. And as my hero Harry Truman often said, “There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.”

It was July 3, 1862, for example, less than a year before West Virginia became a state, when President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Land-Grant Acts into law, a key step that set the course for the founding of WVU in 1867.

To begin my time as the University’s 27th president, I am hitting the road to listen and learn about how West Virginians embrace our University and its impacts in their respective communities.

Between Monday, July 28, and Friday, Aug. 1, I am excited to visit historic and cultural sites, WVU Medicine hospital facilities, business and industry locations, and land-grant activities in counties that include Hancock, Brooke, Ohio, Marshall, Wetzel, Tyler, Pleasants, Wood, Jackson, Kanawha, Clay, Braxton, Lewis, Harrison, Taylor, Barbour, Randolph and Upshur counties.

If I don’t make it to your area on this initial trip, I’ll hopefully get a chance to meet you in person soon either in Morgantown or out along our country roads.

Importantly, I’ll be talking with state and community leaders and the many other West Virginians who understand the critical role West Virginia University plays in the state and who support our work to prepare the institution and its current and prospective students for the future.

Now is really our chance to create the future of West Virginia University to position us for success, and it will take all of us working together to accomplish that goal.

As I look ahead, I see the University continuing to improve and expand as an educational training ground built on exploration by putting the student experience first, leading to growing enrollment supported by sound financial planning.

We should all be proud to say “This is West Virginia’s University.”

Let’s work collaboratively to improve the Mountain State.

Let’s provide our kids opportunities to do more than they ever thought they could.

Let’s build our future together.

Let’s Go!

Michael T. Benson is the president of West Virginia University.

Born in Utah, Benson was raised in Texas and Indiana, and worked and studied abroad for more than six years in Italy, England and Israel. He is an accomplished athlete who played basketball at both BYU and Oxford.

Benson earned his doctoral degree in modern history from the University of Oxford, St. Antony’s College. He also has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Brigham Young University, a master’s degree in nonprofit administration from the University of Notre Dame, and a Master of Liberal Arts from Johns Hopkins University.

He is the author of several books, including “Daniel Coit Gilman and the Birth of the American Research University,” published by the Johns Hopkins University Press in 2022. Forbes Magazine named it among the best higher education books in 2023.

An avid traveler, he has visited all 50 states and five of the seven continents.