Michael T. Benson

Immediate Past Board Chair and Chair, Board Nominations Committee

Michael T. Benson, the 27th president of West Virginia University, was elected to the Omicron Delta Kappa Board of Trustees in July 2021. Mike is a 2012 initiate of the Southern Utah University Circle, which he helped to establish when he was president at that institution. Prior to his appointment at Southern Utah, Mike served as president of Snow College. His current term on the board will conclude on June 30, 2026, and he is the 2024-25 Board Chair.

Before leading Coastal Carolina, Mike served as the 13th president of Eastern Kentucky University from 2013-20 and was named president emeritus of EKU in December 2019. He was also instrumental in the establishment of the EKU Circle of O∆K. While at EKU, Mike held an appointment as professor of government. He recently served as a visiting professor in the Department of History of Science and Technology in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. Mike’s latest book, Daniel Coit Gilman and the Birth of the American Research University, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2022.

Mike earned his bachelor’s degree cum laude from Brigham Young University in 1990 with a major in political science and double minors in English and history. He is an initiate of the BYU chapter of Phi Kappa Phi. Mike completed his doctorate in modern history from the University of Oxford (St. Antony’s College) in 1995, where he was a Rotary Foundation Scholar and recipient of the Oxford Graduate Overseas Fellowship. He also earned a master’s degree cum laude in nonprofit administration in 2011 from the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame, where he was the recipient of the prestigious Father Theodore Hesburgh Founder’s Award. Mike completed a Master of Liberal Arts at Johns Hopkins University in August 2021 and was elected to the Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Programs National Honor Society.

Mike, his wife Debi, and their family live in Myrtle Beach, S.C.