Dr. Jason Rivera is a mission-driven higher education leader with nearly three decades of experience championing student success, institutional transformation, and community-anchored innovation. He currently serves as Vice Provost for Student Success and Dean of University College at Ball State University, where he has set the strategic direction for student success and led a comprehensive redesign and coordination of student supports throughout the university. Guided by a student success framework grounded in care, high-impact practices, belonging, and identity consciousness, Dr. Rivera has strengthened pathways to degree completion while fostering a more relationship-rich and data-informed campus culture, advanced technology-driven solutions, expanded student support infrastructure, and delivered year-over-year gains in retention and persistence, particularly for first-generation, low-income, and historically underserved students.
Before joining Ball State, Dr. Rivera served as Vice Chancellor for Student Academic Success at Rutgers University–Camden, where he deepened partnerships with regional community colleges and expanded 2+2 and 3+1 pathways that created more accessible and equitable routes to a bachelor’s degree. Earlier in his career, he held leadership positions at Swarthmore College and Montgomery College, where he founded the Achieving the Promise Academy, an institute designed to close performance gaps and promote academic excellence through strengths-based coaching and an ethic of care.
A proven change agent, collaborator, and bridge-builder, Dr. Rivera’s approach to leadership is shaped by his experience across the P–20 pipeline. Called to education as a way to give back, he sought to honor the educators and mentors who supported him throughout his own educational journey as he navigated significant housing and food insecurity. Their care and advocacy ensured he had every opportunity to achieve his fullest potential, an experience that continues to ground his work today. This commitment led him to serve as a public school teacher in New York City and Florida, where he saw firsthand how systemic barriers accumulate across a student’s educational journey and how coordinated partnerships among schools, colleges, families, and communities can radically expand opportunity.
Dr. Rivera’s scholarly work explores college completion for Latino and African American male students, with an emphasis on how care, capital, and community cultural wealth influence persistence and success. He continues to write about equity-minded leadership, relationship-rich educational environments, and the ongoing process of “becoming” within higher education. He was also a presidential fellow of the AGB Institute for Leadership & Governance in Higher Education (Class of 2024–25) and a graduate of the National Community College Hispanic Council Leadership Fellows Program, affirming both his readiness for executive leadership and his long-standing commitment to strengthening leadership pathways for diverse communities.
He earned his Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Maryland, College Park, an M.S.Ed. from the City University of New York’s College of Staten Island, and a B.A. in History and Political Science from Manhattanville University. A first-generation college graduate, Dr. Rivera brings to his leadership a profound appreciation for education’s capacity to transform lives and a lifelong commitment to expanding access, opportunity, and belonging for all students.