WVU Parkersburg President Torie Jackson Named 2026 Entrepreneurial President of the Year
Dr. Torie Jackson, president of West Virginia University at Parkersburg in Wood County, West Virginia, was named the National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship's 2026 Entrepreneurial President of the Year on November 2 at the association's annual conference in Boston, with the award presented by 2025 honoree Dr. Michael Baston. Years earlier Jackson had first walked the campus as a student, saying she came 'to start my education, and to believe that I could become more than what I already was.'
Her clearest example sits in Vienna, a few miles from the main campus: when Ohio Valley University closed, it left behind more than 250 acres of buildings, athletic fields and empty parking lots. The WVU at Parkersburg Foundation purchased the property in 2023 with help from a $10 million Ross Foundation gift, and it is now home to the college's Innovation and Technology Center.
This fall the college recorded its 12th consecutive semester of enrollment growth, with headcount up 2% from a year earlier; it passed 3,000 students in fall 2025, a 9% jump, while community colleges across West Virginia were losing students. Jackson became interim president in May 2022 and president in May 2023 after a national search.
(Source: WVU Parkersburg)
Source: WVU Parkersburg
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：西弗吉尼亚州 Parkersburg 市区与俄亥俄河。Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant) 摄，CC BY-SA 2.5，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: Downtown Parkersburg, West Virginia, along the Ohio River. By Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant), CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.
