MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Around 500 people attended the 2025 Focus Forward: Long Live West Virginia in Morgantown on Tuesday.
The event included the final fireside chat with soon-to-retire West Virginia University President Gordon Gee and current Marshall University President Brad Smith.
After the fireside chat, Gee said the future of WVU is bright and that he isn’t planning to retire but rather is leaving the presidency. He added that his time leading West Virginia University is one of the greatest honors of his life.
“The university is blessed to have a great leader coming in, and I’m blessed for being there,” Gee said. “West Virginia has been a gift for me from the moment I stepped onto this stage, and for 45 years I’ve had that wonderful relationship.”
WVU was one of the first institutions to undertake the academic transformation process due to budget issues. Despite the disruption, he said it was needed in order to ensure the future financial security of the institution.
“I’ve had calls from numerous university presidents asking me to come talk to their boards,” Gee said. “I just think the world has changed, and we were the first to recognize that, and I think now we’re a stronger institution.”
Very early after Smith became president of Marshall University, a collaboration developed between schools that Gee said once waged hand-to-hand combat as their primary form of communication. Gee said the two institutions picked “lanes” and operated within them to improve the issues in the state.
“We’re not the only rural community in the United States,” Smith said. “We can help, not only here but in India, so there are a lot of things we’re doing because we’ve decided where to focus—we’re partnering with private industry to take our ideas and commercialize them, and we’re letting people know that if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere.”
For WVU, that meant tackling things like addiction and Alzheimer’s treatments at the WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, and for Marshall University, it was about advancements in rural health, gerontology, and cybersecurity.
“All the things that are going on in terms of addiction, Alzheimer’s, and all the things we’re doing—we’re leading the world,” Gee said. “In West Virginia there are certain programs in which we lead the world, and I think that is something we take tremendous pride in.”
The relationship with students going to football games, Up All Night at the Mountainlair, or mingling with the students on campus or in downtown Morgantown is what keeps Gee vibrant. The interactions with those students also give him the opportunity to understand what students and the institution need to succeed.
“There’s a vibrancy to it, there’s a curiosity and an ability to engage with people that are much younger than you,” Gee said. “But at the same time, you are thinking outside the world you find yourself in.”