Whether he is in the stands at a sporting event or in his office in Cutler Hall, Jason Pina is showing off his Ohio University pride.
Pina, whose first day as vice president for Student Affairs was June 13, said it is a year of learning for him.
“When you are new in a position, you also have this extra job of learning what the community is really about and why they’re about those things,” Pina said.
OU announced Pina, who will make $245,000 this academic year, as the new vice president for Student Affairs on March 24.
Ryan Lombardi previously held the position for seven years before leaving OU on July 3, 2015, after taking a job as vice president for Student and Campus Life at Cornell University.
Pina previously worked as the vice president of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts.
Jenny Hall-Jones served as the interim vice president for Student Affairs last academic year in addition to her dean of students duties.
“Jason and I have hit it off really well and so from that perspective I really appreciate having a partner throughout my day-to-day work … to have someone come in and be able to really talk to him about what I went through last year,” Hall-Jones said.
She said she is able to help provide feedback when he asks questions.
“We can really talk through issues, talk through strategies and I really enjoy that,” Hall-Jones said.
Through the recent Roger Ailes conversations, Pina said he was able to see how student leadership on campus responds to issues.
OU President Roderick McDavis announced during a Faculty Senate meeting last week that Ailes’ name would be removed from a WOUB newsroom and that the university will return his donation. Ailes, an OU alumnus, donated $500,000 to the university in 2007.
“It’s always a fine point for rushing to make decisions and taking too long to make decisions,” Pina said. “And as an administrator, seeing the president want viewpoints from every place … and him trying to reconcile that and help make the best decision for the university, it was a very powerful process for me to largely observe.”
OU’s Graduate Student Senate and Student Senate discussed removing Ailes’ name from the newsroom about a week before McDavis made the announcement.
“It helped reaffirm that I had made the right choice of a place I really wanted to work at, not because we took a certain stance or not, but because we take seriously our role at the university and student leaders take seriously their role at the university,” Pina said.
His daughter, Kayla, is a freshman studying chemical engineering at OU.
“It’s pretty interesting (having my dad as the Vice President),” Kayla said. "When I was in middle school, my mom worked at my school as well so I’m sort of used to being a faculty kid."
She said she enjoys being close to her family, especially since she lived two and a half hours away from them while she attended Putney School, a boarding school in southern Vermont.
Jason lives in the faculty apartment in Boyd Hall with his wife and son, which he said is “super convenient.”
“My commute the last 18 years has ranged between 45 minutes to an hour and a half each way," Pina said. "So now, it’s an eight minute walk. I can spend more time with people and be more relaxed because I’m not facing an hour and a half commute home or getting up earlier than I normally would get up."
