By Ben Conley, The Dominion Post
MORGANTOWN – In his first 13 weeks or so in office, WVU President Michael Benson has traveled miles of winding, country roads as he’s made stops in 28 of the state’s 55 counties (so far) as part of his year-long “Welcome Home” tour.
On Monday, standing in Fitzsimmons Event Hall at the WVU College of Law, Benson used his first State of the University address to begin unfolding the road map that charts the future of the state’s namesake land-grant university.
Lasting about 35 minutes, the speech touched on a wide variety of topics ranging from Christmas lights – Benson intends to bring back the university’s holiday lighting party at Woodburn Hall on Dec. 2 – to the closure of University Avenue through the downtown campus, which he’s very much in support of.
It also laid out a series of short, medium and long-term goals.
Most immediate, Benson said he and his leadership team have been poring over more than 860 responses to the Strategic Compass Feedback Survey from faculty, staff, students, alumni and others as part of a visioning process that will culminate next month with a strategic plan bolstered by a new university mission statement, guiding principles and priorities.
“Our goal is to refine the feedback we’ve gotten, implement those changes, and then we’ll take it to our board of governors, our alumni board, and also our foundation board in early November for their feedback,” Benson said.
Longer term, the university is continuing to focus on enrollment. To do that, Benson said it must “Win West Virginia” in terms of in-state enrollment while strengthening its regional draw.