Building a New BOG at WVU

Jeff James

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The three new Board of Governor appointees for WVU – Ray Lane, Oliver Luck and Charles Vest – certainly seem to add a great deal of international and relevant experiences to the 18 member board. Ray Lane is a well-respected venture capitalist and former President and Chief Operating Officer at Oracle and may lend some guidance on how WVU can better commercialize its research. While some may think Oliver Luck is more of a nostalgic sports selection, he is a former Rhodes Scholar candidate with executive and international business experience. And Charles Vest is the former president of MIT, an R&D and technology dynamo if there ever was one.

Hopefully these new appointments will breathe new life and insights into WVU’s BOG and help it repair its reputation and ascend to new heights in helping WVU become a force in infusing new economy growth into West Virginia.

The only downside to these appointments? It would have been a good opportunity to also breathe some diverse thinking into the BOG by appointing more women and people of color. Here’s hoping that becomes a priority not just for WVU’s BOG, but for all WV education, business and non-profit boards.

We wish the new BOG members the best of luck. West Virginia needs a strong, healthy, progressive WVU – along with Marshall, and other colleges and universities – in order to thrive.

2 responses to “Building a New BOG at WVU”

  1. GarrisonMustGo Avatar
    GarrisonMustGo

    I have to disagree about the women and people of color issue. Not that I am opposed to appointing minorities, but with the state that WVU is in right now, the priority needs to be getting the best people possible that are not in the pocket of Governor Manchin and Steve Goodwin regardless of sex, race, or any other factor. To my knowledge, Charles Vest is an fantastic start. I am not yet sold on the other two. To rule out white men for the BOG positions based only on the fact that they are white men would be a huge mistake. Maybe sometime in the future when the mess is cleared we can say, “ok, you would be a great BOG member, however you are not a female or a minority so we have decided to go with someone else.” But for now, that is not the way to go.

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  2. Jeff Avatar
    Jeff

    Your comment about not being entirely sold on two of the three is sort of my point in that perhaps the BEST selections would have been women or people of color. We need to broaden our net in searching for the best and when we do that, things tend to diversify. Diversity isn’t about ruling out white guys, it’s about proactively “ruling in” everyone else to find the best overall voices. The strong tendency – not just in WV but everywhere – is to habitually tap into the same pool…It just takes some more effort to ensure a more diverse pool is evaluated. Regardless, I think the three who were selected bring a diversity of experiences to the BOG that weren’t there before and should strengthen it quite a bit.

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