Jamie Penven
Dr. James Penven serves as the Director of Living-Learning Programs at Virginia Tech. In this role he provides leadership for living-learning programs and works collaboratively with faculty and staff to ensure all living-learning communities and Residential Colleges thrive and provide an environment that connects students in community and enhances student engagement and learning. Prior to this role Jamie served as the Assistant Vice President for Student Success and Retention and earlier as the Director of Housing and Residential Life at Radford University. Before his service at Radford he served for 18 years in several roles at Virginia Tech Housing. He began his higher education career at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington as a Residence Coordinator.
Jamie earned a BA in Sociology at West Virginia Wesleyan College, a MA in Counselor Education/Student Affairs at Marshall University, and his Ph.D. in Higher Education from Virginia Tech. His dissertation explored the costs and benefits of residential colleges as perceived by senior housing officers and live-in faculty principals.
Along with a fellow Virginia Tech Colleague Jamie launched the Residential College Symposium in 2014 and served on the Residential College Society’s inaugural executive team for four years. He also currently serves as an Associate Editor with the Journal of College and University Student Housing. His research interests include, Residential Colleges, Faculty engagement with living-learning programs, living-learning programs, and the integration of student academic and intellectual life.
Jamie loves working with living-learning programs because he believes LLPs transform a student’s experience, sense of belonging, and learning while at the university. His favorite Aspiration for Student Learning is Practice Civility. He said, “True civility requires us to seek to understand one another. When we disagree, it challenges us to remember each other as a beautiful and wonderful creation and then to engage with one another in that light.”
