MORGANTOWN – “We choose to go to the moon.”
It’s the title of a famous speech delivered at Rice University by President John F. Kennedy on Sept. 12, 1962.
In it, as the title suggests, Kennedy makes the case for putting Americans on the moon, stating “Man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred …”
It’s this speech that WVU President Michael Benson points to when making his case for putting WVU among the nation’s stellar research institutions with membership in the Association of American Universities.
Benson has pushed the aspiration since arriving on campus, explaining that the 71 member universities jointly receive disproportionate support running well into the billions of dollars from federal funding agencies like the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, among others.
He’s also cautioned that the road to membership is long and arduous.
“Not because they are easy, but because they are hard,” Kennedy once said.
“This is our moonshot,” Benson told the WVU Board of Governors on Friday before picking up the less referenced portion of the late president’s famous quote … “Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win … ”
Just as the BOG has accepted the challenge to keep WVU on the forefront of a rapidly changing athletic playing field, so too should the body accept the challenge presented by AAU membership, Benson said.
“Chancellors, presidents, commissioners will look as much at your academic stature as they will your facilities and your athletic performance,” he said. “If you don’t believe me, the last three national championship games in football have all featured AAU institutions – Michigan and Washington, Ohio State and Notre Dame, and this year, Miami and Indiana. And if you were to collectively take their R&D dollars, it’s in the billions of dollars what they do every single year.”
“I’m very excited about our quest.”
As part of a lengthy executive session during Friday’s meeting, BOG Chair Rusty Hutson said the board was provided “an overview of the AAU evaluation process and the university’s efforts to strengthen key performance indicators in pursuit of potential AAU membership.”
Hutson said the briefing included “confidential and strategically sensitive” benchmarking data tied to the effort.
