CONWAY — Michael Benson, most recently the president at Eastern Kentucky University, will be announced as the new president at Coastal Carolina University on Friday, multiple sources familiar with the search told The Post and Courier on Thursday night.
The university confirmed the appointment on Friday morning and introduced him at Saturday's home football game.
Benson, 55, was a finalist for president at the College of Charleston in 2018 as well as chancellor at the University of Mississippi in 2019.
Eastern Kentucky, where Benson left after 6 1/2 years in January, has an enrollment of 17,000, larger than Coastal’s 10,500. Coastal has grown by a near state-high 20 percent over the past decade and started playing football at NCAA’s top level in 2017.
That growth came under the guidance from current president David DeCenzo, who announced his retirement last year and is expected to leave next June.
Those with knowledge of the situation confirmed that contractual negotiations ended on Thursday, with a news release expected Friday. The university is expected to introduce Benson at the next Board of Trustees meeting in late October.
During his open-to-the-public process with the College of Charleston, Benson addressed two key issues — free speech and diversity.
With the former, Benson found himself in the middle of a faculty uprising at Eastern Kentucky, where more than 100 signed a letter opposing President Donald Trump’s rally on campus, where they told Benson they opposed Trump’s attacks on “the values of inquiry, learning, and free speech.”
Benson returned that he was committed to “free speech, regardless of how offensive it might be.”
At the rally, Trump promised to bring back coal industry jobs and said Democrats wanted to provide sanctuary to “murderous thugs from other countries who will kill us all.”
“I am a proponent of free speech, but not speech that falls in certain categories,” Benson told the College of Charleston crowd gathered to listen to the three finalists, a job ultimately garnered by Andrew T. Hsu.
Coastal Carolina, the state's fourth-largest four-year college, is no stranger to faculty feedback, including this past summer when more than 100 instructors and staffers sent a letter to DeCenzo condemning racially insensitive comments made by former football coach and current presidential advisor, Joe Moglia.
During the College of Charleston process, Benson made his position known on issues of diversity and race — focused on aiding students to be “in a position to be successful.”
“I would look holistically at what the College is doing that is working — or not working — and put resources into those efforts that will help us increase, specifically, our African American student population,” Benson said.
Benson is originally from Utah, but spent his childhood in Texas. He graduated from Brigham Young University in 1990 with a degree in political science and a double minor in English and history.
In 1995, he earned a doctorate in Middle Eastern History from the University of Oxford.
He also added a master’s degree in nonprofit administration in 2011 from the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame, while also pursuing a master's degree of liberal arts at Johns Hopkins University that he is scheduled to complete in 2021.
He’s also studied abroad in Italy, England and Israel, while also fluent in Italian. He’s an Eagle Scout and a classical pianist.
Benson was the youngest college president in the history of the Utah System of Higher Education when he took over at Snow College at the age of 36, helping the college raise more private money than the school’s previous 115 years combined.
He followed his tenure at Snow College by serving as president at Southern Utah University from 2006-2013.
Benson is well-known for his work in higher education, contributing writing to the Huffington Post, Jerusalem Post, Kansas City Star, Louisville Courier Journal, Lexington Herald-Leader and Inside Higher Ed.
Benson and his wife, Debi, have three children. Benson also has two adult children.
