On Feb. 17 Bucks President Dr. Patrick Jones hosted an event on the Newtown campus appropriately titled, “Pizza With the President.”
For students, meeting Bucks’ sixth President and CEO, Dr. Jones, was quite an experience. Despite the short time students had to get to know him and hear him speak, Jones managed to capture their attention and earn their respect.
An event like this gave students a chance to learn more about their college president, the responsibilities of the role, and who Jones is as a person. “It’s a chance to get to know the students and to make sure they know who I am,” Jones said.
Although the event lasted only an hour, Jones made it clear that he is always available to help students, answer questions, and address concerns while fostering a comfortable environment for them to get to know him.
Many students attended the event to see the president and to enjoy the free pizza, free drinks and to scan a Bucks+ QR code, which offered a chance to win a gift card.
Jones presented himself as a lively and chatty person. He greeted those that attended with an elbow bump. He was very interactive with the students who were curious to learn about him or to simply spark a casual conversation.
As time went on, more kept coming into the room for either the snacks or to actually meet Jones.
Radio BUX’s co-president, Daniel McDevitt, a Bucks student who majors in communications, met Jones and had the chance to even interview him for a broadcast right before the event began.
Chris Seifert, Director of Student Engagement at Bucks, opened the event by introducing Jones and giving him a warm welcome.
Jones became the president of Bucks back on March 19, 2024. Jones has had a career in music education. He was a trombonist, a band director and has a graduate diploma and master’s degree in conducting, as well as a PhD in music. He even spent years as a military band director.
One thing Jones reminisced about was the weather around Bucks, mostly the winter weather that had caused the campuses to be closed for a day or two.
“So, as you know, we’ve closed campuses a couple of times and I always try to take into account when I make the decision to close a campus,” he said, “I take your education very seriously, but I also think about your safety.”
He mentioned that he always considers the safety of the campus, the students and the road conditions. He also considered that not every student has good quality tires with the latest treads.
With that information, he made sure to teach all the students how to know whether a vehicle’s tires are safe to drive on or not. You take a quarter, and you stick it into the grooves of the tire. If the tread doesn’t go as high as George Washington’s head on the quarter, it isn’t safe to drive in the snow.
He had a quarter even passed around and told everyone, “I want you to look at the distance between the edge of the quarter and the top of George Washington’s head passing around,” Jones said.
Another student asked, “How would you define success in life?” Jones answered, “So I would say success is getting to a place where you feel that you’re making a difference and you’re comfortable with who you are.”
“We spend a large part of our lives striving, right, striving to become something we’re learning, we’re growing. And then when we get to that point where we say, I’m comfortable with who I am and where I am, and then there, of course, those measures of success, like we achieve an outcome and those kinds of things,” said Jones.
A concern at Bucks that Jones raised involved voter registration. Some individuals, as Jones called them, “unscrupulous people,” have shown up around the campus, claiming to be here to help students register to vote. Jones called them out for trying to collect students’ personal information.
Jones made sure to reassure everyone in the room that any voter registration drives at Bucks fall under Seifert, not the individuals who go around asking if you registered to vote or not, and that they would “help” you if you didn’t.
Jones also mentioned a League of Women Voters–sponsored documentary, “Join or Die,” to be shown at Zlock Auditorium, about a Harvard researcher’s work on Americans becoming less involved in community groups.
After the event, Jones said he felt “wonderful” meeting students and encouraging them to succeed, adding, “That’s why we’re here—for the students.”