December 6th, 2013
President Emeritus of The Ohio State University and former West Virginia University President E. Gordon Gee was named today as president of WVU, effective in early January.
WVU’s Board of Governors voted unanimously Thursday to approve the selection, and the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission unanimously voted its approval today.
Dr. Gee will serve in that role until a permanent president is in place. He will take an unpaid leave of absence from Ohio State, and will continue his commitment to lead and complete his work for Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s Quality and Value Initiative: https://www.ohiohighered.org/quality-and-value.
He also will remain involved with the newly established Center for Higher Education Enterprise, approved Thursday at Ohio State. Deborah Merritt, the John Deaver Drinko/Baker & Hostetler Chair in Law at Ohio State’s Moritz College of Law, has been appointed associate director of the center and will coordinate its day-to-day operations.
Gee, 69, replaces Jim Clements, who announced in November he would leave the presidency at the end of the year. Gee will live at Blaney House, and fully participate in the active life of a University president.