38 years of service

Mentor, scholar, leader, friend.

Those were among the words most used to describe Paul Benson, provost and executive vice president of academic affairs and professor of philosophy, during a campus celebration May 11. Faculty and staff gathered in Kennedy Union ballroom to celebrate his 38 years at UD. Benson retires as professor emeritus and provost emeritus July 1.  

During his seven years as provost, Benson elevated the understanding of the role of provost — the chief academic officer on campus — and championed the Marianist mission embodied by the University.

“Whenever I think about the pillar of Marianist education — education for service, justice, peace and the integrity of creation — I continue to be moved and inspired,” he said.

The University hired Benson in 1985 to teach philosophy in a department he described as open, friendly and inclusive — adjectives not often found in a discipline he said is training for “intellectual warfare.” He felt at home teaching and mentoring students, conducting scholarship and serving as a member of the faculty. But when he was called, he said yes to administrative service, first as director of the humanities core program, then as department chair, in 2007 as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and onto provost — despite being a self-proclaimed introvert. He attributed his success to the collaborations staff, faculty and administration opened to him.

Sean Wilkinson, professor emeritus of art and design, was among those who sent tributes to be shared during the celebration: “No one better embodies humility, fair-mindedness, integrity, empathy, sincerity, generosity, sensitivity, clear-thinking, good judgment and innate goodness. We are all beneficiaries of the wisdom he has demonstrated and the example he has set.”

Benson’s leadership has led to notable University achievements during his tenure as provost. Among them are:

• Strengthening and diversifying the student body, resulting in sustained high levels of enrollment at a time other schools are struggling to fill classes while achieving steady increases in Pell-eligible and underrepresented students. Since 2014, the number of Pell-eligible undergraduates has increased 43% while the number of undergraduate students of color has nearly doubled.  
• Creating new enrollment pathways through the University's “new channel” admission strategy, such as UDayton Global, and programs including Flyer Promise and the UD Sinclair Academy, focused on creating access to UD for students who might not otherwise be able to attend UD.
• Increasing and diversifying the faculty, as well as providing enhanced opportunities for faculty to advance their careers in the areas of scholarship, leadership, teaching skills, and community engagement. For example: 
  • Full-time faculty has grown by 21%
  • Gender representation among the full-time faculty has increased from 39% female to 44% female
  • In 2014, 19% of UD’s full professors were female; now 29% of full professors are female.
  • In 2014, one academic dean was female; now four are female.
  • The racial and ethnic diversity of the full-time faculty has improved from 23% who identify as nonwhite to 30% who identify as nonwhite. 
• Deepening the University's engagement with the Dayton community through The Hub at the Arcade Powered by PNC; support for the Greater West Dayton Incubator; helping to conceive, fund and gain approval for the Roger Glass Center for the Arts; and strengthening the capacities of the Fitz Center for Leadership in Community. 
• Establishing the Hanley Sustainability Institute, creating new sustainability degrees and certificates, and bringing national visibility to the University's work in sustainability.
• Putting student success and learning support front and center to create significant advances in retention and graduation rates. Prior to the pandemic, the University set new records for student retention and for four- and six-year graduation rates. While those initiatives were disrupted by the pandemic, investments in the Learning Teaching Center, including the appointment of a new assistant provost for learning, will ensure recovery and continued success. 
• Providing leadership on the University's overall diversity, equity and inclusion efforts by establishing the Office of Diversity and Inclusion and its work to develop a campuswide DEI strategic plan, and creating a new associate provost position for global and intercultural affairs. 

In retirement, Benson and his wife, Stephanie, plan to spend more time with family on the east and west coasts.

Known throughout campus as a voracious reader, Benson couldn’t resist giving his audience one last book recommendation: The Gift, by Lewis Hyde. The reflection on art and the creativity that drives our lives also held lessons for Benson on his role at UD.

“Gift cultures — which, as a university, we strive to be,” he said, “are about receiving what we are given, and then giving them on — and then, by doing that, becoming gifted ourselves.

“... I am making a commitment to you that whatever I end up doing in this next phase of life, I will try to pass that gift forward to others.”

“For all the gifts that you’ve given me in so many ways, I am making a commitment to you that whatever I end up doing in this next phase of life, I will try to pass that gift forward to others.”

Among the honors presented to Benson at the celebration was the announcement of the Paul Benson Opportunity Scholars, an endowed fund supported by his colleagues that will award each year scholarships to students studying in visual or performing arts, a love of Benson’s. The awards will support Flyer Promise Scholars and UD Sinclair Academy students, programs started under Benson’s tenure to help assure highly skilled students have access to a quality UD education regardless of their ability to pay.

President Eric F. Spina said Benson’s leadership has helped the University navigate difficult times for higher education — with a national downturn in the number of high school graduates and a pandemic — and created a campus that is stronger, more diverse, more engaged in the Dayton community and more nationally relevant.

“Paul truly models the Marianist charism in the way he treats others, in the way that he thinks of his vocation and in the way he gives so much of himself to others,” he said.

To the man he calls his friend, Spina extended his thanks: “You leave the University a better place than when you arrived through your hard work and your love of the people and the mission of the place.”