Gilmer reflects on presidency
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PARKERSBURG -- In his four years in the Mid-Ohio Valley, West Virginia University at Parkersburg President Chris Gilmer has built a sense of community at the college for its students and for the areas it serves.
Gilmer's official last day at WVU-P will be June 30. He has taken the position of President at West Virginia University Potomac State College in Keyser, W.Va.
In looking back on his time here he has an overwhelming sense of appreciation from many in this community.
"My time here has been wonderful," Gilmer said. "I will always remember WVU-P, the Mid-Ohio Valley and all the people here as the people who took a chance on me and gave me the opportunity to become a college president which is what I always wanted to be."
One of his proudest achievements was being able to bring back a sense of stability to the community with the college.
Gilmer recalls when he first came here and someone telling him that WVU-P was "the hidden gem of the MOV," understanding the person meant it in the best way possible, but Gilmer wanted to make it something more.
"I wanted us to be a gem, but I didn't want us to be hidden anymore," he said. "(WVU-P) is back in the front of the the mind of the Mid-Ohio Valley."
As he prepares to depart from the university, the school has about a year's worth of cash reserves on hand at $19,213,461 which increased by around 50 percent over the last four years.
From July 2018 to the present, the university has received $11,467,437 in federal grant funds.
During that time they received 128 competitive grants.
The value of the WVU-P Foundation Portfolio Variable is at $14 million.
The university has an enrollment, from fall 2021 to present of 2,478 and 1,752 full-time equivalents. The school has 393 full and part-time employees, including 106 full-time faculty.
WVU-P has 56 academic programs, including 17 certificates, 24 associate degrees and 15 bachelor's degrees. The university has 14 Educational and Outreach Sites which increased from two in July 2018
The university received $1.8 million, only one of two schools nationally to be chosen, to implement the City University of New York's retention model which was named ACSEND (Accelerating Student Completion: Encouraging New Dreams) here and the university is finishing up its second year of the program locally.
The program helps focus on course work, like English and math, that might cause some students not to follow through. WVU-P has seen an 30 percent higher rate of students succeed with the program compared to those who aren't involved in it.
"We have proven that it works," Gilmer said. "We are looking to expand the principles of this program across all of our student population here at WVU-P.
"I think this is the single thing academically that has made the most difference in the institution."
This fall will see the opening of the new Coplin Health Services Clinic at the college, a project Gilmer has worked on for the last four years and one he plans to come back and participate in the opening.
It will be available to students, their families, faculty and staff and provide low-cost to no-cost primary health care with a physician attending on campus.
"We know that there are a lot of barriers to college and healthcare is one of the main ones," Gilmer said. "The clinic is one of the things I am the most proudest of."
Gilmer said he will miss the people in this area the most and has plans to visit with many of the friends he made.
He has often talked about growing up in rural Mississippi and being the first person in his family to graduate from college.
He tells the story of how his grandfather sold a number of cattle to pay for his first tuition at the community college he went to.
The day he came to interview he was driving up from Charleston and saw a cattle truck pulling a load of cattle ahead of him. Gilmer took it as a sign from his grandfather of good things to come from this position.
"I feel like it was a sign, because this has been a perfect fit for us in every way," he said. "You can only do as much as the people will let you do.
"I will always remember this as a community that was accepting and that allowed us to come in and took us in at face value and embraced us from the very beginning and that made it so much easier for us to do the things we wanted to do."
Gilmer and his spouse, David Creel, will continue to be ambassadors for WVU-P wherever they go.
He is also proud of the impact he has had in the lives of the students here, including one who gave him a mandolin for Christmas and taught him to play a number of songs on it.
"It is one of the most cherished things I will take with me," he said. "There is a list of students I can talk about that in some small way I have had the blessing of being able to change their lives. I want them to know that they changed our lives in the process as well. We will take the joy of the experience that we had with them forward wherever we go."