Eastern Mennonite University has named Jason Good, PhD, in a new role for the university as vice president for innovation and student recruitment, effective Jan. 27, 2020. Good comes most recently from a senior sales position at CT Assist, a Harrisonburg-based healthcare staffing company.
Good brings expertise and success in recruitment, retention, financial aid, budget management, collaborative decision-making, and entrepreneurial educational programming. He also has a unique range of experiences within higher education that contribute to an unusually holistic perspective: He’s worked in administration, admissions, athletics, cross-cultural programming, and in a variety of teaching roles.
“Jason’s unique academic and administrative experience in higher education, coupled with his proven entrepreneurial capabilities, will help us as we strive to live fully into our mission and vision here at EMU,” said President Susan Schultz Huxman. “I look forward to working with Jason on innovative programs and partnerships that will extend access and opportunity to a new generation of EMU students.”
In his new role, Good will be responsible for working with the president on forging innovative private and public partnerships to enhance student learning and opportunity. In addition, he will collaborate with the provost and VP of advancement to launch and fund new innovative programming at EMU. As importantly, he will develop a comprehensive student recruitment model that brings undergraduate, graduate and pre-graduate recruitment under one roof, a model that Huxman says is “critical in today’s professional student recruitment world.” Good also will provide oversight of the admissions and marketing and communication departments.
As director of the Study Abroad program at James Madison from 2015-19, Good oversaw 90 faculty-led study abroad programs. He established eight new international for-credit internship programs, targeted outreach to incoming transfer students, and developed an incoming first-year study abroad program.
Good has also held several roles at EMU. From 2013-15, he was director of admissions, leading the university to two of the strongest enrollment years in recent history. He has also been director of retention and associate director of admissions, in addition to other involvements as a graduate and undergraduate adjunct faculty member, head soccer coach, and cross-cultural faculty leader.
He holds a PhD and an MA in Hispanic Studies from Universidad de Cádiz in Andalucía, Spain, and a BA in sociology and environmental science from EMU.
Huxman noted Good’s range of experiences and success in collaborating with multiple constituencies on and off campus to achieve goals, among other valuable skillsets. “Jason is uniquely equipped to bring special attention to many of our new strategic initiatives as we enter into the university’s second century,” she said.
Among those initiatives is a focus on diversity and inclusion. Good brings considerable experience working in intercultural environments and in advocacy for underrepresented students. His dissertation focused on the integration of immigrant students into educational systems, specifically analyzing how to welcome and retain underrepresented groups. He is chair of the board of the Scholars Latino Initiative, which creates college opportunities for first-generation Latinx high school students in the Shenandoah Valley.
“I am thrilled to rejoin an educational community with a proven legacy of academic excellence, training leaders who unify and who are equipped as change-makers in their communities,” Good said. “I am tremendously hopeful for EMU’s second century and inspired to join the leadership team with a commitment to use my role to work innovatively to remove barriers to education and increase access and inclusion for students from all walks of life.”