E. Gordon Gee Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

WVU President Delivers Final State Of University Address

West Virginia University President E. Gordon Gee gave his last state of the university address to the university’s Faculty Assembly Monday.

“Today, after more than a decade as president, I have come to address the state of West Virginia University for a final time,” Gee said to open.

Gee’s contract ends June 30, 2025 after he spent 11 years in the position. He previously served as WVU’s president in the 1980s.

Gee said the end of his second tenure had him reflecting more about the future of WVU than its past.

“My purpose has been to make things better for West Virginians and to build a university with the strength and power to succeed long after I am gone,” he said. “This is just the beginning. West Virginia University is built to last. And we will continue to grow and prosper as we create endless possibilities for our students and the citizens of West Virginia.”

Gee focused on improvements at the university during his tenure, including an improved freshman retention rate, as well as national and international awards received by faculty and students.

He also described the recent faculty and programmatic cuts as an improvement.

“Through the difficult but necessary process of Academic Transformation, we have better aligned complementary programs to serve students today and well into the future in new units: the College of Applied Human Sciences, the College of Creative Arts and Media and the Division for Land-Grant Engagement,” Gee said.

WVU is actively engaged in a national search for Gee’s replacement, and recently held listening sessions across its campuses for community input on the process.

West Virginia University Seeks Public Input In Presidential Search

The series is meant to engage members of the university community in determining the most important attributes of the institution’s next president.

The WVU Presidential Search Committee will hold a series of virtual and in-person listening sessions in September across three of its campuses in Morgantown, Beckley and Kaiser.

The series is meant to engage members of the university community in determining the most important attributes of the institution’s next president. The first listening session was last month with WVU Faculty Senate leadership. There will be separate listening sessions for staff, students, faculty and community members.

Sept. 9
- Morgantown Faculty in-person sessions
- Morgantown Community in-person session

Sept. 10
- Morgantown Staff in-person sessions
- Morgantown Students in-person session

Sept. 11 – Beckley in-person sessions

Sept. 12
- Morgantown Faculty in-person sessions
- Morgantown Staff in-person session
- Virtual session for Faculty, Staff and Students
- Morgantown Students in-person session

Sept. 13 – Keyser in-person sessions

Last year the West Virginia University Board of Governors extended the contract of President E. Gordon Gee through June 2025, in the midst of controversial cuts to hundreds of faculty positions on the Morgantown campus to make up a $45 million budget shortfall.

Participants are asked to come prepared to discuss several questions, including:

What do you see as the key attractions for this leadership opportunity?
What makes you proud to be part of the WVU community and excited about the future?
What are the skill sets, experiences, qualifications, credentials and personal attributes needed in the next President?
What are the key opportunities and challenges facing West Virginia University?
How should the new President seek to capitalize on or address them?

Those interested but unable to attend a session can complete a survey available at presidentialsearch.wvu.edu. A complete schedule of all the listening sessions is also available on the site.

‘WVU Day’ At Capitol Focuses On Workforce Development

Tuesday was WVU Day at the Capitol, and the growing public, private and academic partnership in workforce development was the leading theme on display.

Adorned in blue and gold, many of the capitol rotunda displays focused on technology advancement, a key component to the state’s desire to develop a workforce ready to meet the demands of a high tech future.

However, WVU President Gordon Gee said, contrary to popular opinion, a WVU liberal arts education has not taken a back seat to workforce development.

“We’re a very balanced institution,” Gee said. “We have 300 plus programs across the spectrum, but we think that it’s important, whether you’re a liberal arts graduate, or whether you’re an engineering or STEM graduate, that you stay in West Virginia and take the jobs we have. We have over 30,000 jobs available for young people. And so that is really our focus. We can’t grow West Virginia without growing our workforce.”

Gee did agree there are two tiers to academic workforce development. The high tech tier, a high demand degree in cybersecurity for example, and the vocational trades tier, the skilled jobs on the ground that combine tech and tools at places like NUCOR Steel and Form Energy.

“Some jobs are really available for people who really just want to go out and make certain that they have a good opportunity,” Gee said. “Unlike other jobs that require a lot of education. And the thing that is very important about West Virginia is the fact that we’ve crossed the digital divide with LG coming here. We have both hands on jobs with our steel mills coming or our energy programs, but now we have cybersecurity jobs and jobs that are unusual for an energy state.“

Gee said people can expect to see a lot more public-private-educational partnerships in West Virginia’s future.

“I think it will grow because of the fact that no one has enough money to do everything,” Gee said. “What we have to do is we all have to draft off from each other. Besides, I think it’s important, with the private sector, they tell us what they need, and the public universities need to produce. And it’s that partnership that I think will prevail.”

Justice Calls WVU Curriculum Bloated, Rejects State Bailout

Justice said he did not sense a call for WVU funding help from House or Senate leadership.

With a $1.8 billion state surplus, some legislators in north central West Virginia are asking the state to help West Virginia University out of its $45 million dollar deficit and resulting academic transformation.

Asked in a Wednesday media briefing about providing emergency financial help for its flagship university, Gov. Jim Justice said he questioned the school’s overall academic offerings.

“There is absolutely no question that what has happened is some level of bloating in programs and things that maybe we ought not be teaching at WVU,” Justice said.

Justice also said he did not sense an urgent call for WVU funding help from the state House or Senate.

“I do not think there is an appetite from the standpoint of the leadership in the legislature at this point in time to basically bail out WVU,” he said.

Justice said giving WVU “one-time-money” would offer limited help and the state needs to be in a backfill situation. He said he has faith in WVU leadership.

“I have all the confidence in the world and President Gee and the Board of Governors that WVU will get their house in order,” Justice said.

A majority of the WVU Board of Governors are appointed by the governor. They will meet Friday to make a final determination on an academic transformation plan.

PSC Hid Terms Of Contract With Consultant. Then, Cost Doubled

The PSC contracted with Critical Technologies last year to review the fuel management practices of Appalachian Power at its three West Virginia power plants.

The price of a contract between the West Virginia Public Service Commission and an Arizona consulting firm nearly doubled, but the reasons are not clear.

On July 19, the PSC and Critical Technologies Consulting, of Mesa, Arizona, agreed to a change order that increased the cost of their contract from $288,000 to $522,000.

The PSC contracted with Critical Technologies last year to review the fuel management practices of Appalachian Power at its three West Virginia power plants.

Critical Technologies was the winning bidder among four firms that submitted proposals.

WVPB obtained the change order through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The document did not explain why the change was made or what additional services were provided.

The consultant’s report could influence the PSC’s decision on whether to approve the utility’s application to recover $641.7 million from electricity users in West Virginia – a potential $20 a month increase on their bills.

The PSC held an evidentiary hearing on the matter this week.

PSC filings concealed information about payments and services involving Critical Technologies and its three rival firms. The agency cited “trade secrets” as justification for shielding those details from public view.

In a June filing, the PSC warned that disclosing pricing information risked increasing the cost of contracts to the agency.

Patrick McGinley, a professor at the West Virginia University College of Law, said government agencies should be transparent about how they spend public funds.

“Contracts should be public,” he said.

For example, McGinley, said, WVU President Gordon Gee’s contract is publicly available, with no redactions, or information concealed from public view.

So is a contract the PSC agreed to just this week. The agency will pay Van Reen Accounting LLC $122,000 to perform an audit to determine whether Mon Power electricity customers in West Virginia should be reimbursed for company lobbying expenses related to the HB 6 scandal in Ohio.

A decade ago, the railroad companies Norfolk Southern and CSX sued a Maryland agency to prevent the public disclosure of information about flammable crude oil shipments by rail. A judge ruled against the railroads and in favor of the news organizations requesting the data through open records law. The railroads lost a similar effort in Pennsylvania.

Invoking exemptions to open records law is not always justified, McGinley said.

“They hope people go away,” he said. “And they usually do.”

A spokeswoman for the PSC could not explain why the price of the Critical Technologies contract nearly doubled, nor what additional services the consulting firm provided.

Appalachian Power is an underwriter of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

President Gee Faces Vote Of No Confidence Next Week

The University Assembly will meet Sept. 6 at noon to vote on resolutions of no confidence in West Virginia University President Gordon Gee’s leadership, as well as to halt the academic transformation process. The appointment of the university’s president is ultimately up to the Board of Governors.

The resolution purports Gee has mismanaged the university’s finances and failed to provide honest and transparent communication within the university community.

During Monday’s WVU Faculty Senate meeting, Chair Frankie Tack said the resolutions had received the minimum five percent of verified faculty signatures to call an assembly meeting.

The assembly is open to all faculty members across WVU’s three campuses with faculty from Kaiser and Potomac joining remotely. The primary meeting will take place in person at the Center for Creative Arts in Morgantown.

Tack estimated around 700 faculty members will need to attend to form a quorum.

“We are requesting that unit leaders support faculty who have scheduled face-to-face or synchronous online classes during that time in providing out-of-class assignments to their students and canceling class so they can attend the assembly,” she said.

Faculty senators questioned why the meeting was not being held in a hybrid format to allow the largest amount of faculty to participate.

“First, the WVU Zoom is limited to 1,000 participants,” Tack said. She went on to say that the use of the chat and Q&A functions in previous online meetings have not allowed the meetings to remain in order.

“We are bound by our faculty constitution to follow Robert’s Rules of Order, and we cannot do that with that many people online,” Tack said. “We saw this most recently with our last Faculty Senate meeting, where faculty senators were repeatedly asked to stop posting in the chat and the Q&A, and to raise their hand to be recognized. We have a process, and again it’s bound by our constitution. Dropping into the Q&A, and in the chat online is akin to hollering out from your seat in this forum.”

Gee faced a similar vote of no confidence in December 2021, that time alongside Provost Maryanne Reed. Gee addressed the Faculty Senate Monday. That vote was not successful.

“I want to be clear that West Virginia University is not dismantling higher education — but we are disrupting it and I am a firm believer in disruption,” he said. “I have seen numerous stories and posts about how we are ‘gutting’ or ‘eviscerating’ our university. That is simply not true.”

Gee acknowledged that it was a difficult time for the university community, but that change was necessary.

“I’ve had a lot of anger directed at me over time,” he said. “I’m not immune to it, but I certainly understand it so I accept the criticism as it comes with the job.”

An online student petition supporting the resolutions started on Monday has already garnered more than 160 signatures.