Leading with Purpose: Dr. Michael T. Benson on WVU’s Mission for West Virginia

Our Communiversity Today, sponsored by Pendleton Community Bank, is a community affairs program from West Virginia University Institute of Technology in Beckley. Hosted by Dr. T. Ramon Stuart, president of WVU Tech, the program explores the vital connection between the university and the community it serves. Each episode asks the critical questions: “Why not us, and why not now?” as leaders and changemakers work together to build a brighter future for Southern West Virginia.

In this episode, Dr. Stuart welcomes Dr. Michael T. Benson, the 27th President of West Virginia University. Dr. Benson talks about his path to leadership, his upbringing as the youngest of six children, and the years he spent in Italy, England and Israel that shaped how he thinks about education and community.

He describes his family’s agricultural roots and the respect for hard work and rural America they left him with. Those roots inform how he sees a land-grant institution’s job: not only research and teaching, but reaching every county in the state through outreach, education and innovation.

Dr. Benson lays out his vision for WVU’s future around pride, empowerment, transformation and outreach, and explains what the university’s “Let’s Go” initiative is meant to deliver: leading with pride, empowering through education, transforming lives through healthcare and opportunity, growing WVU’s reach into all 55 counties, and outworking the odds. His aim is a university that belongs to every citizen of the state.

Dr. Stuart and Dr. Benson close on a shared conviction: education changes lives, and Southern West Virginia is a foundation the state can build on.