Jay Davis directs the First Year Student Enrichment Program for the Student Affairs Office at Dartmouth College, helping first-generation incoming students to thrive both inside and outside of the classroom. In addition, he directs the King Scholars Program – a program designed to prepare exceptional undergraduates from developing countries to help alleviate poverty in their home regions.
Jay was previously the founder, and Executive Director for sixteen years, for the Summer Enrichment at Dartmouth (SEAD) program, a multi-year program that expands the educational opportunities for promising low-income high school students from under-resourced urban and rural schools. He also directed and taught in the Secondary Teacher Education Program for the Dartmouth Department of Education, and was a high school and middle school English teacher for eleven years before, including work in an under-resourced urban public high school, a college preparatory boarding school, and in a school for students with learning disabilities. He is a National Facilitator for the School Reform Initiative and has conducted diversity trainings focused on developing collegial relationships, encouraging reflective practice around identity issues, and rethinking facilitative leadership in the restructuring of schools.
A member of the Lyme, NH School Board and of the Board of Directors for the Upper Valley Trails Association, Davis has co-authored articles on research he conducted in Bosnia, and he is co-editor of Crossing Customs: International Students Write on Collegiate Life and Culture. He co-chairs the Money Matters Committee at Dartmouth, serves as Advisor to the Thriving Through Transition Living and Learning Community, is the campus liaison for Stanford University’s College Transition Collaborative, serves on numerous search committees for the College, and has been a member of the Dartmouth Strategic Planning Committee. He is a regular presenter at the Rockefeller Center for Leadership at Dartmouth as well as at national conferences on college access and success for students from underrepresented populations, with a 2018 presentation series at British universities. He is a recipient of the “Campus Compact for New Hampshire Good Steward Award,” selected by the president of Dartmouth College, and the 2017 Nelson Armstrong Award for the Dartmouth administrator who has made the largest contribution to the lives of African-American students.
Davis lives in Lyme, NH with his wife Julie and children Andrew and Katie, where he coaches youth soccer, xc skiing and baseball.