By TAYLOR STUCK
The Herald-Dispatch
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Marshall University President Jerome Gilbert and West Virginia University President Gordon Gee are going to build a wall around West Virginia, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich is going to pay for it. At least, that’s Gee’s plan.
(Photo by Lori Wolfe)
OK, not really, but the two university presidents are hoping to work with other state leaders to keep the best and brightest who pass through their halls in West Virginia.
“The one thing I will say about West Virginia – which I cannot underscore enough – is, our greatest asset is our people,” Gee said Wednesday during a news conference before a Huntington Regional Chamber of Commerce discussion on economic development.
Gee and Gilbert have teamed up to figure out how the universities can better lead the state toward economic development. Gee came to Huntington on Wednesday to hear ideas from the city’s business leaders, which could be incorporated in Gee’s economic development plan that will be unveiled at the state economic summit in August.
Gilbert said higher education is the solution to economic development in the state.
“I don’t think we have adequately used higher education as a marketing tool to attract businesses to the state,” Gilbert said. “I think we can do a better job as universities of being partners with the Department of Commerce, taking our faculty, the ideas we generate and the discoveries we make and using those as tools to help market opportunities that are here in the state. Many businesses want to be in regions where they can tap into universities and higher education, and we haven’t used that as a marketing tool.”
Part of the solution, Gilbert said, is making sure there are quality jobs available in the state for graduates. Part of that includes working to create more scholarship opportunities so students don’t end up with crippling debt.
“We also need to encourage them to be involved entrepreneurially while they are students and when they get out to look at business creation,” Gilbert said.
To help encourage job growth, Gee said the state needs broadband internet statewide and to remass communities.
“We ought to be the cybersecurity center of the country,” Gee said. “We have the FBI in Fairmont. We have crime cyber facilities. We are just far enough away from Washington to be safe, but we are still within their driving distance.”
The biggest hurdle, though, Gee said, is overcoming the “negative elitism” mindset many state residents have.
They said leaders need a sense of hope and vision of what the state can be. Optimism is what they bring to the table.
“West Virginia is large enough to have every problem in urban and rural America — and we do; we can’t deny that — but we are also small enough that we can actually be able to solve those problems,” Gee said.
Wednesday’s discussion took place at the St. Mary’s Center for Education.
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