Dr. John Jobson has been appointed director of residential life and housing at Hope College.
A 1995 Hope graduate, Jobson previously worked in student life at Michigan State University in East Lansing. He joined the Hope staff on Friday, July 1.
Jobson had been employed at Michigan State University since 2000. He was most recently assistant director of student life at the university, where he had also been a judicial affairs graduate assistant and interim assistant director of student life.
During 1998-99, he worked at Iowa State University in the Office of Judicial Affairs as a program assistant. He was previously employed at Indiana University, serving in the Office of Student Ethics and Anti-Harassment Programs, the Career Development Center and the Student Activities Office.
His professional memberships include the American College Personnel Association, the American Educational Research Association and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators.
Jobson completed his doctorate at Michigan State University in 2004, majoring in higher, adult and lifelong education. He received the 2004 Walter F. and Mary Jane Johnson Dissertation Research Award, given to the higher, adult and lifelong education student identified by the faculty as having prepared the strongest dissertation proposal, "Transition to College and Identity Change: Relationships and Associated Events."
He completed a Master of Science in Education degree at Indiana University in 1998, majoring in higher education-student affairs. He graduated from Hope in 1995 with a major in political science and minor in psychology.
As a Hope student, Jobson was a resident assistant, and served on the college's Residential Life Committee and the College Judicial Board in addition to being a facilitator with C.A.A.R.E., a Hope program designed to help prevent sexual assault. He was also among the student coordinators of the college's Model United Nations program for high school students.
A multiple letter-winner on the college's football team, he was a student representative for Hope to the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association. In the spring of 1995 he received the college's Otto Vander Velde All-Campus Award, presented for outstanding contribution to Hope in athletics, scholarship and participation in student activities.
Jobson came to Hope from Cadillac, and graduated from Cadillac High School in 1991. He and his wife, Katie, have a young son at home, Nathaniel.
Enrollment at Hope is about 3,100 students, of whom approximately 2,200 live on campus in 11 residence halls ranging in capacity from 48 to 265, 12 apartment facilities and some 60 cottages (houses on or near campus). New students will begin moving in for the college's 2005-06 academic year on Friday, Aug. 26, and returning students will begin arriving on Sunday, Aug. 28. Fall semester classes will begin at Hope on Tuesday, Aug. 30.