When Tommy King, who served as president of William Carey University for 15 years, announced his retirement in July, everyone from the university knew it wouldn’t be an easy task to find his replacement.
But with the recent inauguration of Ben Burnett as the 10th president of the university, those concerns have been allayed, as Burnett – among his other qualities – brings 36 years of experience in the field of education to the role. Burnett’s inauguration took place on October 10 at the Thomas Fine Arts Center on the WCU campus, with King officiating the oath of office and investiture to Burnett.
“Today’s event has rather little to do with me, but rather it’s about the future of William Carey University of we continue our 130-year legacy of educating tomorrow’s leaders in a Christian and caring environment,” Burnett said. “As the 10th president of this great university, it’s not my intention to fill the shoes of anybody that’s come before me, but rather to stand on their shoulders.
“I have to admit, this has been the most difficult task, to envision myself as a college president as anything I’ve done in my career. It’s more evident to me now, standing before you, that I wouldn’t be here without the support of literally thousands of people who God blessed me with in my lifetime.”
The inauguration ceremony began with a processional, followed by an invocation and a presentation of a Plaque of Appreciation to Burnett’s father, Dr. Marshall E. Burnett. That was followed by the welcome and introductions, a hymn of praise, reading of a scripture and greetings to the new president from several state, school and local officials.
“Dr. Burnett, we have known each other since your days as Lamar County (School District) superintendent, and my days as a first-term lawmaker on the House Education Committee,” Hattiesburg Mayor Toby Barker said. “In those days, were both elected officials, but you had a lot more policy and life experience than I had.
“Yet despite that, you always treated me as an equal and respected the roles we both had. Then and now, you epitomize servant leadership. Even when we disagreed, you were always gracious, encouraging, and most importantly, you valued the continuing line of communication – one that I am both profoundly grateful and excited for in this next chapter.”
Burnett, a lifelong resident of Mississippi and the Pine Belt, formerly served as executive vice president of the university. He assumed the duties of the president on August 16.
Burnett’s 36 years of experience in the field of education stretches back to 1986, when he served as assistant band director for Meridian High School. Two years later, he returned to his alma mater, Oak Grove High School, to become band director there.
While under Burnett’s leadership, the Oak Grove band consistently rated superior and grew from 50 members to more than 220. Burnett has served as president of the Mississippi Bandmasters and was the recipient of the A.E. McClain Outstanding Young Band Director award, and was inducted into the Southeast Mississippi Band Directors’ Association Hall of Fame in 2013.
In 1997, Burnett began a 10-year stint as principal of Oak Grove Middle School, during which time he also was president of the Mississippi Association of Middle Level Education and Mississippi’s Middle School Principal of the Year.
In August 2007, Burnett was elected as superintendent of the Lamar County School District, a position he was re-elected to four years later. While he was at that position, the school district was rated an “A” school district by the Mississippi Department of Education, and received state and federal grants for early childhood, school safety, dyslexia training and after-school tutoring.
Burnett retired in 2014, but soon after accepted the position of dean of the William Carey University School of Education. He was named executive vice president in April 2020.
“I do (feel like my background has prepared me for this), and Dr. King and I had a similar pathway coming to Carey,” Burnett said in a previous story. “We were both K-12 school administrators, and we both retired from K-12 after 28 years, so his preparation coming here 23 years ago was similar to mine.
“I want to be real clear – I don’t see myself as filling his shoes, but walking alongside of those and adding to his accomplishments. But then also I want to bring my own thoughts and ideas to the position.”
Burnett has received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music education and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in educational leadership and administration from the University of Southern Mississippi. Some of his other awards include the Governor’s Education Taskforce, MASA Golden Lamp Award, MSBA Beacon Award, Mississippi Gifted Advocate Award, Lamar Times Person of the Year, Lamar County Teacher of the Year and inclusion in the Southeast Mississippi Band Directors Hall of Fame.
He served as a board member of YMCA of Hattiesburg, United Way, Bethany Christian Services, Dream of Hattiesburg, Child Evangelism Fellowship of Mississippi, Pearl River Community College, Gulf Coast Education Initiative, Pine Belt 360 and PREPS Inc. Burnett also was a treasurer of the Mississippi Association of Colleges of Teacher Education and a member of Mississippi Professional Educators, Phi Delta Kappa, the Rotary Club and Speech Language Task Force.
As an elder at Willow Pointe Baptist Church, he has served in many capacities, including worship pastor, praise band leader, communications coordinator and chairman of elders.
He is married to Lynn Wilson Burnett; the couple has one son, David Lane Burnett.
“Hearing all of these great things said about Dr. Burnett and about William Carey University today, I’m humbled – not only by our past, not only by this great president (King) that has served us, this new president who will begin serving us, but what God has in store for William Carey University in the future,” said inaugural speaker Jimmy Stewart, a WCU graduate who serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Gulfport. “Dr. Burnett, in his role as president, will guide us through what may at times be turbulence, experiences and storms.
“William Carey has experienced storms through the decades; there are some on the horizon today. But our God has persevered and provided and protected us all along the way, and brought us to this pivotal point in our history today, transitioning from our ninth president to our tenth in our 13th year.”
Burnett certainly knows the challenges going into the position, especially with demographic changes across the country seeing less students graduating from high school over the next five to ten years.
“So higher education institutions are going to be challenged to just continue as they have,” he said. “Then with the advent of COVID, higher education has changed – it’s become more flexible, and in a good way, we’re trying to meet the needs of the students more.
“So my challenge will be not to just maintain the momentum we have, but to create even better momentum given these challenges.”
In addition, Burnett plans to market the university on a national platform.
“I think we’re fairly well-known regionally, but we want to carry the William Carey name to everybody across the country,” he said. “We have a huge alumni base, not just in Mississippi, but we graduate between 1,000 and 1,200 students every summer.
“So we’ve got a huge number of graduates out there that we want to pay attention to, and we want our alumni base to grow. But we also want them to support the university by helping us recruit students across the country, and to share their experiences with them.”
