E. Gordon Gee Story Archives - Page 3 of 6 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

West Virginia University Fires AD Shane Lyons As Football Team Falters

West Virginia fired athletic director Shane Lyons on Monday, a move that comes amid the worst stretch for the football team in more than four decades.

President Gordon Gee said there were no immediate plans to make changes under coach Neal Brown.

Lyons is gone after nearly eight years. Gee said in a statement that Rob Alsop, WVU’s vice president for strategic initiatives, has been named interim athletic director while a search is ongoing for Lyons’ replacement.

Brown has a 21-24 record in his fourth season, including 4-6 this year. It’s the worst stretch since the football team went 17-27 under Frank Cignetti from 1976-79.

In September, after West Virginia started the football season 0-2 and fans turned up their criticism of Brown, Lyons said he would take a wait-and-see approach for the remainder of the season.

Fans also had criticized Lyons’ move to give Brown a contract extension following a 6-4 record in 2020, his only winning season.

“We are supporting coach Neal Brown and our team as we complete our season over the next few weeks,” Gee said in a statement. “We are aware there are some deficiencies, but we have not given up on the coach and the team, and they have not given up on each other.

“The evaluation of the football program will be the first task of our new athletic director and no changes will be made until that review has been completed.”

Lyons was hired in January 2015 to succeed Oliver Luck. He previously served as deputy athletic director at Alabama and as associate commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Lyons is a Parkersburg native who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in sport management at West Virginia. When Lyons was hired, Alabama football coach Nick Saban, another West Virginia native, said that Lyons “understands that passion and what the Mountaineers represent.”

But with the fan base in an uproar over the football program, patience in the administration waned.

“I deeply appreciate Shane’s leadership over the past eight years and I wish him well,” Gee said. “But with the ever-changing landscape of intercollegiate athletics, I believe this is an opportunity to bring a fresh perspective to our program.”

WVU Faculty Senate Votes Down Resolution That Would Have Found 'No Confidence' In President Gee, Provost

West Virginia University’s Faculty Senate voted 20 to 103 to kill a resolution Monday that would have found “no confidence” in President Gordon Gee and Provost Maryanne Reed.

The resolution, which was amended during Monday’s meeting to remove COVID-19 vaccine-related concerns, claimed that Gee and Reed have not been inclusive in their hiring practices for senior administrative officials.

It also claimed a lack of transparency in the university’s “Academic Transformation” initiative. It further claimed that Gee and Reed have failed to respect shared governance, which means seeking input from governing boards, faculty, professional staff and administration.

Both Gee and Reed spoke ahead of the vote. They stood by the hires made during the COVID-19 pandemic, and argued they have been transparent and that their doors are always open.

“The people that we have hired are talented, they have impeccable qualifications, they are changing the trajectory of this institution,” Gee said. “I’m here to make us better, you are here to make us better … Shared governance is about all of us sharing in responsibility.”

Reed also defended the collaborative efforts with leadership.

“Gordon and I and our entire senior leadership team are responsible for leading this university and ensuring that we all thrive,” Reed said. “But you know, leadership doesn’t always come from the top. Every one of us can demonstrate leadership by speaking up for what we believe in, even if those views are unpopular, and I applaud those of you who had the courage to speak out today.”

While a handful of faculty members spoke in defense of Gee and Reed, none stood to speak in favor of the resolution.

Some faculty members expressed publicly that they felt uncomfortable knowing that voting online about the resolution would not be anonymous.

Gee started his second term as WVU’s president in 2014. Reed was hired as provost in 2019.

Gee Talks Budget and Free Speech in State of the University Address

In the midst of struggling with proposed state budget cuts, West Virginia University President E. Gordon Gee gave his State of the University address yesterday, emphasizing the university’s importance to the state as a whole as well as its dedication to free speech.

Gee used the address on Wednesday, March 22, to emphasize his stance that the university is an investment for the state, and not an item to be cut by state lawmakers.

In his budget presented to lawmakers during his State of the University address, Gov. Jim Justice’s proposed budget cut 4.4 percent of the state appropriations given to WVU and Marshall University in the upcoming fiscal year. For WVU, that amounts to about $6 million dollars.

Last week, Republican legislative leaders announced they would cut state funding to higher education by $50 million in the 2018 budget that would take effect July 1 of this year. They have not presented a budget plan specifying how much of those reductions would come from WVU’s budget, but Gee said that during the past three years, the state’s largest university has seen a $30 million reduction in state funding, leading to higher tuition for students.

Gee said continuing to cut government alone would be detrimental to the state. He called on the university to help West Virginia focus on investing instead.

“No one can define themselves into greatness by reducing their budgets willy-nilly. Support the things that are good,” he said after the speech.

Gee said in his address that most careers today require a college degree, and the university offers students a diverse array of programs that contribute West Virginia’s economy.

“Nothing — I will say this unequivocally — nothing is more important right now than the power and opportunity for economic growth of the state provided by this university,” he said after the speech. “We are the economic engine. We hire more people, we created more economic activity. We have more economic return on state investment. You support the things that brought you to the dance. You don’t dance with things that shouldn’t be danced with.”

The address also underscored the university’s devotion to the first amendment. Gee said he emphasized those values because of an increasingly polarized national political climate, in which he says people are being intolerant and unavailable.

“What we see on our campus is something toxic. You take a look at what happened Berkeley, at Middlebury,” he said. “I do not want to be a part of a university in which people do not talk to each other, in which people limit who can come onto this campus because they’re fearful of how people will react.”

Gee called on universities in his address to unite in defense of free speech.

WVU to Meet With International Students

West Virginia University President Gordon Gee says the university will meet with international faculty and students to address concerns about President Donald Trump’s travel ban.

Gee says in a statement that the meeting will be held Monday in the Mountainlair.

Gee says more than 115 countries are represented on the Morgantown campus.

Trump’s order temporarily suspended immigration from seven majority Muslim countries. It also has halted a Syrian refugee program.

WVU’s Office of Global Affairs had told its students and faculty from those countries who are currently in the United States to cancel travel plans outside of the country until further notice.

In Huntington, Marshall University President Jerome Gilbert says the university is checking to confirm how many students it has from the countries in Trump’s order. Marshall has more than 550 international students from 56 countries.

WVU Announces Closure of Residential Complex Arnold Hall

The West Virginia University Board of Governors voted Friday afternoon to shut down Arnold Hall and Apartments, one of its older residence halls, and to add beds to University Place, a public-private apartment that the university has been struggling to fill.

No employees will be fired and no students will be displaced as a result of the Arnold Hall closure.

During the meeting on Friday, Rob Alsop, WVU vice president for legal, government and entrepreneurial engagement, acknowledged that the the cost of construction for University Place exceeded expectations, and that the building is only 46 percent filled to capacity for the current academic year.

The repurposed space in University Place will be called Seneca Hall. It would be the most expensive residence offered by WVU, with prices starting at $4,100 per bed per semester.

Alsop said that low-cost residential options would continue to be available to students who need them.

“Those students who were looking for low cost options and were thinking about Arnold will have options on the Evansdale or Downtown campus to do that,” he said. “And those who want more amenities and can pay for that will have Seneca Hall. We’re not forcing anyone to move. There will be plenty of low cost options, we think, for those students.”

He added that private-public partnerships help stimulate the local economy and reduce the debt on the university’s side.

“For public and private partnerships, what we do is, the private sector either takes on that debt or equity to put money into a project, so they bring that benefit to the table, and then we bring the ability for student housing,” he said. “Another thing is, in the area of Sunnyside where this was located, there was some more rundown housing, and we think we stimulated a number of activities to reinvigorate that part of Sunnyside.”

Dean of Students Corey Farris said he did not foresee any trouble filling Seneca Hall to capacity.

“The types of beds that we’re putting online in Seneca Hall are filling first. Those are private bedrooms and private bathrooms, where they’re not sharing them with 20 other people on the floor,” he said.

Before the vote, WVU President E. Gordon Gee stressed that student housing should be seen as an experience that would help the university recruit and retain students.

One board member, Taunja Willis Miller, abstained from voting.

10:28 p.m. Jan. 27, 2015. A line was added to clarify that space in University Place would be repurposed to become Seneca Hall.

WVU President Condemns Breitbart Editor's Slur Targeting Professor

This article has been updated to clarify the desription of Breitbart News Network.

West Virginia University President E. Gordon Gee released a statement today that defended his decision to allow Milo Yiannopoulos to speak on campus while also condemning Yiannopoulos’ attack on a faculty member.

During a tour stop on Thursday, Dec. 2, at West Virginia University, Yiannopoulos – an editor for Breitbart News Network – praised WVU’s Mountaineer mascot, particularly for the fact that he fires a rifle during football games. Former executive chair Steve Bannon has described Breibart as “the platform for the alt-right,” a name that encompasses white nationalists and others embracing white identity politics, including white supremacy.

Then he added, “There’s one thing about this college however that I’ve got to tell you, I’m not fond of,” he said. A slide with a photo of Daniel Brewster, a sociology instructor who is openly gay, and a homophobic slur appeared on the screen.

Yiannopoulos is known nationally for his sexist and racist stances. The audience responded with laughter, and Yiannopoulos continued to make fun of Brewster’s weight and sexuality.

Gee issued a statement Friday defending the university’s decision to invite Yiannopoulos to speak, while condemning the speaker’s attack on Brewster.

“It is one thing to share differing opinions that others may find offensive,” Gee said in his statement. “It is another to be defamatory and target individuals. I personally condemn the tactic this speaker chose to vindictively attack one of our faculty members, Daniel Brewster.”

Yiannopoulos went after Brewster and accused Brewster, who is openly gay, of holding an event for World AIDS Day during Yiannopoulos’s talk to pull the audience from the speaker’s event.

But a university spokesperson said that Brewster’s event was scheduled in July by the College Republicans, months before Yiannopoulos was invited to speak..

Gee and WVU students also took to Twitter today to show support for Brewster, using the hashtag “#BecauseofBrewster” to publicly state the impact Brewster had on their lives.