Who is Wichita State University president Jay Golden?

Before becoming the 14th president of Wichita State University, Jay Golden had a varied career in education, the corporate world and even some stints as a motorcycle cop and fraud investigator.

Golden said he went from being an undergraduate who wasn’t the best student at the University of Phoenix and Arizona State University to someone who became something of a perpetual student through various programs and degrees.

“I kept going back to school and getting more engaged,” he said.

Golden’s bachelor’s degree was in management, and he got a master’s in environmental engineering through a joint program between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Cambridge in England.

He received a doctorate in engineering from Cambridge.

Most recently, Golden was vice chancellor at East Carolina University, where he in part focused on building public-private partnerships and research campuses. He taught in engineering and in the marketing and supply chain department as well.

Golden also had faculty and administrative positions at Duke University and Arizona State, where he developed a Sustainability Consortium for collaboration between academics and 150 worldwide industry representatives who did research and workforce development.

Earlier in his career, Golden started an engineering services company that eventually operated through the southwest.

As an entrepreneur who wants to help create more entrepreneurs, Golden said he’s been particularly pleased to learn of what he calls Wichita’s entrepreneurial spirit and history.

This story was originally published January 5, 2020 at 4:47 AM with the headline "Who is Wichita State University president Jay Golden?."