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The Office of the President

President Michael T. Benson

Born: 
February 28, 1965, as the youngest of six, to Mark and Lela Benson in Salt Lake City, Utah

Education:
East High School, Salt Lake City, 1983
Bachelor of Arts in Political Science with minors in English and History, Brigham Young University
Doctor of Philosophy (D.Phil.) in Modern Middle Eastern History, University of Oxford (St. Antony's College)

Michael T. Benson was appointed the 15th president of Southern Utah University on November 10, 2006, by the Utah State Board of Regents.  Prior to his tenure at SUU, Michael served as the 14th President of Snow College for five years.  Age 36 at the time of his appointment, he is the youngest college or university president in the history of the Utah System of Higher Education.  Benson recently completed a two-year term as the Chair of the Executive Committee of the Utah State Campus Compact.  Before his service at Snow, Dr. Benson was special assistant to the president and secretary to the University of Utah, a cabinet-level position on that campus.  He also holds the rank of full professor at SUU in the Department of Political Science. 

Michael earned his B.A., cum laude, from Brigham Young University and a doctorate in modern Middle Eastern history from the University of Oxford (St. Antony’s College) where he was a Rotary Foundation Scholar.  He is currently a candidate for a master’s degree in non-profit administration at the Mendoza School of Business at the University of Notre Dame.  Benson and his wife Debi (Woods) are the parents of a one-year old son, Truman Taft, and a newborn daughter, Tatum Anne.  Michael is also the father of Emma, age 11, and Samuel, age 9.

A devotee of the achievements and character of Harry S. Truman, Benson wrote his dissertation at Oxford on the former U.S. president.  Published in 1997, Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel (Praeger), has received rave reviews and is considered a landmark work in the area of U.S. foreign policy and presidential history.  Dr. Benson’s expertise in Middle Eastern history has led to several consulting contracts, including work as an academic advisor and essayist for the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, and as a consulting historian and essayist for the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, Missouri.  He is regularly sought after for speaking engagements on the modern Middle East and is a frequent contributor to newspapers and other publications and leads an annual tour to Israel and Egypt.

A committed fund raiser, Dr. Benson helped Snow College raise more money in his 5 year tenure as president than in the previous 117 years of the institution’s history combined. The highlight of these efforts was the 2003 dedication of the $19 million Eccles Center for the Performing Arts, the finest facility of its kind in all of central Utah.  For his commitment to fine arts generally and to music specifically, the Utah Music Educators Association named Dr. Benson the 2005 “Administrator of the Year.”  A mere two weeks into his presidency at SUU, Benson announced the largest gift ever to a capital facility in the institution’s history -- $3 million – earmarked for the expansion of the Science Complex on campus. 

Michael is a past member of the Zions Bank Central Utah Board of Advisors and currently serves on the Wells Fargo Southwest Utah Board of Advisors.  An accomplished athlete, Michael has completed several marathons, including the Boston Marathon, with his fastest time (2 hours and 41 minutes) winning his age division in the St. George Marathon. As an undergraduate at Brigham Young, Michael was a member of the 1988 Junior Varsity Basketball Team. He has also participated in the world’s oldest collegiate rivalry, leading the Oxford Blues Basketball Team as a player/coach over Cambridge University in the 1994 Varsity Match.  He currently maintains a 4 handicap in his favorite sport, golf.

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Last Update: Tuesday, July 29, 2008