E. Gordon Gee

Elwood Gordon Gee (born February 2, 1944) is an American academic administrator.

As of 2023, he is serving his second term as president of West Virginia University; his first term there was from 1981 to 1985.

Gee is said to have held more university presidencies than any other American.

He attended the University of Utah and graduated with a B.A. in history in 1968.

After earning a J.D. from Columbia Law School in 1971 and an Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University in 1972, Gee was named a judicial fellow and staff assistant to the Supreme Court for one year.

After clerking for Chief Justice Warren Burger, Gee accepted a position as professor and associate dean at Brigham Young University.

He became dean and professor at West Virginia University's law school in 1979, and president of the university two years later.

As president of a university at age 37, he was one of the youngest chief executives in academia at the time.

Gee was president of Brown for only two years, and his tenure was mired in controversy.

According to The Village Voice and The College Hill Independent, one of the university's campus newspapers, Gee was criticized by students and faculty for treating the school like a Wall Street corporation rather than an Ivy League university.

Critics pointed to his decisions to sign off on an ambitious brain science program without consulting the faculty, to sell $80 million in bonds for the construction of a biomedical sciences building, and to cut the university's extremely popular Charleston String Quartet, which many saw as part of Gee's effort to lead the school away from its close but unprofitable relationship with the arts.

He was head of University of Colorado Boulder from 1985 to 1990, of Ohio State University from 1990 to 1997, of Brown University from 1998 to 2000, of Vanderbilt University from 2000 to 2007, and of Ohio State University for a second time from 2007 to 2013.

Gee left under a storm of criticism in 2000, as members of the Brown community widely accused him of departing from the school after an uncommonly short tenure because of Vanderbilt University's offer of a corporate-level salary and a tenured teaching position for his wife.

Additionally, Gee's 2002 announcement that the administration was going to rename Confederate Memorial Hall without the word Confederate provoked a series of lawsuits.

While Vanderbilt's board expressed some concern about Gee's spending, they also strongly endorsed his successful leadership.

According to a 2003 article by The Chronicle of Higher Education, Gee was the second highest paid university chief executive in the country with a purported total compensation package of more than $1.3 million.

Gee's tumultuous tenure at Brown is commemorated annually with the "E. Gordon Gee Lavatory Complex," a collection of portable toilets that appears during Spring Weekend.

Gee had high student approval ratings.

On March 11, 2003, a student satirical publication at Vanderbilt, The Slant, ran a complete mock-up of The Vanderbilt Hustler, entitled The Vanderbilt Huslter, with the headline "GEE DEAD".

The hoax received some attention from national media, including an appearance on the Drudge Report.

Gee's office responded to the hoax by releasing a photo of him holding a copy of the Hustler (with Gee smiling).

Despite Gee's good humor about the prank, a controversy ensued.

In September 2003, Gee made national headlines when he eliminated the organized athletic department at Vanderbilt and consolidated its activities under the Division of Student Life, the university's general administrative division for student organizations and activities.

Some critics cited this reorganization in the recruiting process to call into question Vanderbilt's commitment to football.

However, Gee's action had its supporters, including NCAA President Myles Brand.

Furthermore, a stellar spring for Vanderbilt athletic teams and a top-30 finish in the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) Director's Cup ranking of college athletic programs for the 2003–04 academic year provided some vindication for Vanderbilt and Gee.

In 2005, when Gee's approval saw a comparatively sharp drop, it still stood at 88.4%.

During his tenure, Vanderbilt saw a dramatic increase in student applications— more than 50% in six years—and a rise in the SAT scores of incoming freshmen.

Under his tenure, the university completed a $1.25 billion fundraising campaign two years ahead of schedule.

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, he received a total compensation of over $1.8 million in 2005/6, the highest of any continuing university president in the United States.

A September 2006 The Wall Street Journal article detailed that some of Gee's problems at Vanderbilt—including his wife's actions (such as smoking marijuana in the chancellor's official residence), criticism of the high cost of renovating his home, and the couple's lavish spending—had come back to haunt him.

On July 11, 2007, Gee announced that he would be returning to Ohio State University as its president, ending his 7-year tenure at Vanderbilt.

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, he was to receive a base salary of total compensation of over $1 million, the highest of any public university president in the United States, though less than his pay at Vanderbilt.

Controversy arose over Gee's alleged usage of public money to live an extravagant lifestyle.

The Dayton Daily News of Dayton, Ohio, reported that "Ohio State has spent more than $64,000 on bow ties, bow tie cookies and O-H and bow tie pins for Gee and others to distribute."

Gee stepped down from the Ohio State presidency in 2013 after controversies about anti-Catholic comments allegedly made in jest about the University of Notre Dame.

He headed an Ohio State-based think tank before returning to West Virginia University.

Gee was born in Vernal, Utah which is southeast of Salt Lake City, the son of an oil company employee and a school teacher.

Growing up a Mormon in Vernal, he served a mission in Germany and Italy.

He is an Eagle Scout and a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award.