Jessica Minnis-McClain received her MPA from JMU and is a PhD candidate at VT.  She has over 28 years of experience in higher education working in a variety of roles including as a References assistant in Carnegie Mellon’s Humanities library, graduate admissions officer at JMU, research assistant at VT, and as an instructor and academic advisor in the political science department at JMU.  She has also worked in public finance and budgeting at the state and local level and served as a project manager in the public sector.  She currently works for SCHEV- State Council of Higher Education for Virginia as an Associate for Finance Policy and Innovation where she provides research and policy support for higher education in the Commonwealth.  Her research interests are education and emergency management policy.