Coastal Carolina University’s President Michael Benson is leaving? Here’s where he’ll go
A local West Virginia outlet reported that Coastal Carolina University’s President, Michael T. Benson, will be leaving Conway for Morgantown.
CCU did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment on Friday afternoon.
According to MetroNews reporter Hoppy Kercheval, Benson was selected out of 10 finalists to be the next University of West Virginia President.
The public land grant university was first established 158 years ago in 1867.
On Thursday, WVU’s newsroom released a press release from their Board of Governors announcing that they had chosen a top candidate as their next president. The release did not include the name of the new president and said that would be made public after the new contract is signed.
“At a time when the higher education landscape is changing, we think that this person can best lead West Virginia University — the state’s flagship university — forward and serve as its 27th president,” Rick Pill, BOG chair, said in the release.
A message was left with WVU’s communications team on Friday afternoon as well.
Benson began serving as CCU’s third president on Jan. 2, 2021. He is a veteran of higher education administration who served as the 13th president of Eastern Kentucky University from August 2013 to January 2020, and was named president emeritus of EKU in December 2019.
While at EKU, he held an appointment as Professor of Government. He is currently a visiting professor in the Department of History of Science and Technology at Johns Hopkins University, according to previous Sun News reporting.
