Rexburg native inaugurated as Utah State University’s 18th president

LOGAN, Utah (KSL.com) — Brad Mortensen, a Rexburg native and Madison High School graduate, was inaugurated Friday as Utah State University’s 17th president, the first alumnus to ascend to the presidency since 1968.

“The landscape blooms with a calling to serve students wherever the sagebrush grows. Our university must transcend the familiar or risk becoming an echo of the past, rather than the propulsion for the future,” Mortensen said. “We stand together, the student in Logan and the student in Blanding, the long tenured professor and the newest extension agent, the donors, the legislators, the staff member who keeps our lights on.”

Mortensen brings more than two decades of higher education leadership to the position, having served as president of Weber State University for the past nearly seven years.

Mortensen led Weber State to multiple recognitions for outstanding return on investment for graduates, established the Miller Advanced Research and Solutions Center in partnership with the Utah Legislature, the U.S. Air Force and the aerospace and defense industry, oversaw the establishment of new graduate education programs, including the Doctor of Nursing Practice, and led the university’s dual enrollment program to become the largest in the U.S. among four-year institutions in 2024.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox called Mortensen “one of the best human beings in our state.”

“This institution has been through some rocky times, and we are in desperate need of the right person to lead all of us into the future, to preserve what is best about being an Aggie and to improve on what is this institution,” Cox said.

Cox added that when he heard USU would be seeking a new president, Mortensen was the first person he reached out to.

“I truly believe that he is the man of the hour. He is an Aggie. He knows what it means — what this institution means — to all of us who have been here. He knows what this institution means to all of those who will come here some day. And he is the healer in chief that this university needs right now,” Cox said.

Geoffrey Landward, commissioner of the Utah System of Higher Education, said Mortensen has already demonstrated the ability to bring faculty, staff, students, industry partners and community leaders together during his tenure at Weber State — something that made the system confident in his ability to lead USU.

For Mortensen’s part, he identified four goals that will spearhead his mission at USU:

1. Expand USU’s statewide reach, strengthening educational opportunity, driving economic mobility and ensuring extension vitality for every household.
2. Enhance student success with “unabashed advocacy for completion” and meaningful return on investment.
3. Lead world-changing discovery, applying USU’s community engagement to “the challenges of land and water, air and energy, space and defense, agriculture and AI and the intersection of technology and human well-being,” Mortensen said.
4. Instill the values of authenticity, integrity and civic mindedness and “champion the pursuit of peace.”

“Our foremost action, however, as Utah’s land grant institution, is to embrace continuous self assessment. The work that remains begins not with a bold declaration of what we know, but with a humble commitment to what we must learn,” Mortensen said.

“May my commitment to be a listening, learning president be matched by USU emulating a learning university. Not just an institution that imparts knowledge, but one that is constantly learning to educate students from every background, learning to serve and enrich our state, and learning to lead with purpose in an ever-changing and too often divided world,” he added.

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