James R. Wagner, Jr. is all about helping college students; helping them deal with living away from home for perhaps the first time, helping them find co-curricular activities that enhance and broaden the college experience and even helping find themselves during a time of discovery and growth.
Over the past nine years, Wagner has served students at Central Washington University, Eastern Washington University, the University of Idaho and now, Shoreline Community College students are about benefit from all those experiences.
“I really wanted to come to the community college environment,” said the Tacoma native who takes over as Director of Student Life on May 22, 2013. “The students at a community college are much more diverse and have a variety of goals. That sort of environment inspires me.”
Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs James Jansen said Wagner’s diverse experience is the right match for the environment at Shoreline.
“He has worked in student-activities and residential-life positions,” Jansen said. “He has supervised staff and students, developed programming, managed budgets and worked closely with faculty.”
At Shoreline, Wagner will provide staff oversight for student governance and student engagement activities. He will report to Associate Dean of Student Services Kim Thompson, who reports to Jansen.
Wagner is coming from a position at the University of Idaho as coordinator of housing and summer conferences. Before that, he was assistant director of student activities at Eastern and was a residence hall coordinator at Central.
“While I want to get back into student activities, the planed housing project at Shoreline is also very exciting to me,” Wagner said. “I do have a lot of experience in residential life, here at Idaho, when I was at Central and when I was at Washington State University, I was (a residential advisor) at International House.”
Wagner earned a BA in Sociology at Washington State University in 2002, an MS in Family and Consumer Sciences at Central Washington University and is working toward a doctorate in Organizational Learning and Leadership at the University of Idaho.