Jonathan M. Young is Director of Corporate Relations at the Reginald F. Lewis College of Business at Virginia State University (VSU) and a Member of the School Board in the City of Richmond. Regarding the latter, Young was elected to the Richmond School Board in November 2016 in a four way race.
In winning over 6,100 votes, Young was elected on a commitment to transform the City’s schools with a population of 24,000 students. His campaign for office regarded empowering principals and teachers absent any interference or micromanagement from downtown.
Young’s responsibilities at VSU include initiating, cultivating, and strengthening relationships with industry for the purpose of business/academic collaboration. In his tenure at VSU including in corporate development, Jonathan has developed innovative new market-driven programs including most recently two initiatives; Project Shadow and Small-Group Role Play, both facilitated by industry.
Aimed at increasing students’ exposure to industry, both programs refine “soft skills”, augment career awareness, and develop “real world” skill-sets not often learned in a traditional classroom. It should be noted that the programs have been profiled on NBC and FOX as has his entrepreneurship program been featured on NBC.
Young has now created and coordinated five new industry advisory boards that provide consultation pertinent to among other action items, curriculum development that meet the needs of 21st century business. Jonathan secured funding for and then created and coordinated an online continuing education program for professionals pertinent to supply-chain management. He has developed and hosted hundreds of events on campus.
Jonathan is responsible for marketing to industry to include news releases, newsletters, social media, website, etc. Young has successfully secured tens of thousands of dollars of new industry investment and has developed a portfolio of over 600 companies that regularly participate in VSU programs.
Prior to joining VSU, Jonathan Young was a Director in the Office of the Governor for the Commonwealth of Virginia. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from the College of William and Mary and his Master’s in Public Administration from Virginia Commonwealth University.
He serves and/or has served on several Boards of Directors including the Chesterfield County Chamber of Commerce, Red Cross for Southside Virginia, Crater Hospice, and Southampton Citizen’s Association where he is President of an organization representing 2,500 homes.
To contact Jonathan Young please call 804-524-5987 , email jyoung@vsu.edu or connect with him on LinkedIn and Facebook.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
- What constitutes a real business education
- What does business look like for education during COVID
- What constitute emerging market trends in the business of education
- What constitute threats and opportunities for business education
- What does K-12 and higher education do going forward subsequent lessons learned during COVID
