Jason Pina said his final goodbyes to Athens, Ohio during the second-to-last Student Senate meeting he will attend because he didn’t want to give a goodbye speech during his final week at Ohio University.
Pina is stepping down from his role as Vice President of Student Affairs after accepting the position of chief strategy officer for Global Programs and University Life at New York University. He will officially leave his position at OU on Oct. 26, according to a university press release.
Pina is known by his friends and colleagues as someone with incredible integrity. He’s also known by students, both old and new, for his one-on-one ability to connect with students and faculty members alike.
“Dr. Jason Pina was a great advisor to Student Senate, but he was also an inspiring mentor to me,” former Student Senate President Lydia Ramlo said. “I’m so grateful to have seen him biweekly not for one but two years. Throughout that time, he constantly challenged me to bring out my best self.”
Pina’s work in Student Senate has helped shape both current members and former members of senate.
“He has been a wonderful mentor and advocate for all programs at OU,” Sophia Boothby, a senior studying environmental biology and the student senator for athletics, said. “He was the first faculty member I met when he brought his son to an OU field hockey game my freshmen year and he is always at Margaret Boyd and Student Senate events showing support.”
Pina is known by students as an administrator that sticks up for the student body.
“He always says, ‘My job as an administrator is to help you as a student make my job as an administrator harder,’” interim Vice President of Student Affairs Jenny Hall-Jones said.
Pina’s expected the same mentality from the student body.
“You [students] need to change this place,” Hall-Jones said. “He always used to say ‘I’m going to do that for you. Even if it makes the President mad at me.’”
Pina also wasn’t afraid of answering hard questions. Even when he couldn’t give a student the answer he wanted, he would tell them the truth.
Before Pina arrived at Ohio University in the summer of 2016, university culinary services was not part of the Student Affairs Division. Pina wanted all parts of student life to be interwoven into student affairs. After this was put into motion, student affairs learned marketing strategies and communication skills with students.
Pina was challenged with managing over 4,000 students and faculty employees when he first arrived on campus. He took this challenge to heart by focusing on making personal connections with colleagues and students.
“The people that work directly for you ... you have to pour your responsibility into them,” Pina said. Pina would make visits to dining halls to keep a finger on the pulse of the community and culinary services, because “it’s not enough to eat in West 82,” he said.
Pina also realized that he was a new kid on the block. He wasn’t like Hall-Jones, who parents and students recognized following student orientation.
“I have to earn your [students] trust,” Pina said. “They have no reason to trust me.”
For Pina to prove to others that he deserved the job, he had to be direct with students by getting to know Athens. He packed his belongings and moved with his family from Rhode Island to the Appalachian hills around the city.
Pina used his first summer in Athens to get the lay of the land as students were on summer break. He walked through every residence hall before the students arrived in August. He spent time in every culinary building and mail rooms to get behind the scenes of their operations.
During his final days at OU, Pina has focused on the phased reintegration of students to the university during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said he has felt guilty for leaving OU during a moment marked by the pandemic and mass unemployment, causing the decision to take a new position at a new university to be difficult.
“My life was consumed with that,” Pina said. “I lost sleep over it.”
Though Pina will be leaving this week, Hall-Jones will continue working toward the goals Pina championed during her time as the interim Vice President, including his focus on student retention to graduation, strategic planning, equity and social justice training.
“These things are going to be with us for years to come because of his leadership,” Hall-Jones said.
