David Carter Hardesty Jr.
A.B., West Virginia University, 1967B.A., University of Oxford, 1969
J.D., Harvard University, 1973
David Hardesty was West Virginia University student body president and at Oxford, where he enrolled in Queen?s College, president of the Oxford American Student Association.
After receiving a law degree from Harvard University, he served as tax commissioner of West Virginia (1977-80), chairman or secretary of the State Economic Development Authority (1977-80), the Municipal Bond Commission (1977-80), and the West Virginia State Tax Study Commission (1982-84). He has chaired many business and charitable boards and practiced law with Bowles, Rice, McDavid and Love in Charleston, West Virginia.
When the state legislature reorganized higher education in 1989, Hardesty became the first chairperson of the University of West Virginia System Board of Trustees. He had been chairperson of the Board of Advisers of the University.
He served as WVU’s twenty-first president from July 1, 1995, to Sept. 1, 2007, and is a faculty member at the WVU College of Law.