The great university that is West Virginia University has found itself in a bit of a controversy over the way a presidential search committee has handled the process of naming a new president. A federal judge and the state’s GOP chairman have criticized the search for a successor to President David C. Hardesty, Jr., as being overly political. They claim that WVU Board of Governors Chairman Steve Goodwin and others have known from the beginning that they were going to name Michael Garrison as the next president.
Garrison has ties to WVU as an alum, but it’s his other ties that concern some. Garrison was chief of staff to former Gov. Bob Wise and helped to appoint five of the 17 members of the West Virginia Board of Governors, including Goodwin. Goodwin’s sister-in-law, Kay Goodwin, serves as the state’s education secretary and worked under Garrison in the Wise Administration. Garrison also serve as the chairman, until recently, of the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission, which must approve WVU’s selection.
Goodwin, by the way, has insisted that a new president will be named by April 13.
