WEST LIBERTY — West Liberty University now has $100,000, courtesy of WesBanco, to hire an American studies expert to teach at the university.

WLU and WesBanco announced Monday that WesBanco is providing WLU $100,000 for its first-ever endowed professorship. The money will be added to the Kenneth B. McMillen Fund in honor of McMillen, an associate professor of political science who died in 1985.

WLU President W. Franklin Evans has been on the job just three months, but had already begun to seek out donors for an endowed professorship at the school. He explained that before WesBanco stepped forward, he had approached multiple donors and had planned on perhaps combining their donations into an endowed professorship, and he hopes to establish more in the coming months.

Professor endowments provide WLU with extra dollars to recruit top experts in a field to teach at the university, according to Evans.

“It will assist in hiring somebody — somebody who is among the best in their field in American studies,” he said. “Those funds will not only help us to support that person through benefits, but also give us additional resources for that professorship.

Evans hopes WLU next can move on to obtaining other endowed professorships in the sciences, and in business.