Gordon Gee
President
West Virginia University
SAMANTHA CART
Photo by Tracy A. Toler Photography.
“IF YOU DON’T LIKE CHANGE , you are going to like irrelevance
even less.”
This quote by retired U.S. Army General Eric Shinseki is a
driving force for Dr. Gordon Gee, president of West Virginia
University (WVU). Over the course of his 50-year career, he
has experienced countless changes in education, from new
technologies and ways of thinking to increased diversity and
new dynamics in campus culture. In 1981, he became WVU’s
19th president and one of the youngest people to serve as a
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university president in the country’s history. In 2014, he was
named WVU’s 24th president, and earlier this year, Great Value
Colleges named him the number one university president in
the nation. Gee considers his commitment to the school and
the state not just a job but a calling.
“During my first tenure at WVU, when I was only 36, a
couple of old-time professors told me I didn’t look or act like
a university president,” he says. “I tried to change and become
a little more stoic and standoffish. I discovered that I was not