Oakland University alumna Jacqueline Glover has a real passion for people and diversity. As the director of operations of the Oakland University Riverview Institute, Glover is integrating her interest for health care with workforce training to help train people in the health care industry.
The Riverview Institute is housed at the former St. John Riverview Hospital and offers an array of allied health and nursing programs including Patient Care Technician, Certified Nurses Aide, Licensed Practical Nurse and the Accelerated Second Degree (nursing) Program. Her role at Riverview is diverse and involves gathering information and assessing the needs of others and determining how OU can better serve the community as a whole. She has the management skills necessary to run a huge urban educational facility.
“A degree in HR encompasses a huge array of skills and I truly believe my studies have prepared me well for my current role,” Glover said. “I am a people person, able to negotiate and interact with all levels of people.”
As part of her degree, her general education requirements gave her the foundation she needed to write grants, manage multimillion dollar budgets and operate many new programs. Before working with the Riverview Institute, Glover started with the Early Self Sufficiency Program and Lutheran Social Services of Michigan where she helped single refugees to become self sufficient quickly with jobs and the skills needed to navigate in a foreign country. From there, she moved up the ladder until she finally became the director of the Employment and Placement Program, where she wrote grants for federal funding to help resettle employee refugees.
Glover said, “It was so great to work in an international workplace…knowing that they were coming from terrible conditions and would take jobs that people here wouldn't take for less money and they would be happy to raise their families, just to be safe and in the best country in the world.”
Glover helped fund more than $3.3 million in grants, and the program was awarded the Fiscal Excellence Award.
She began working with Oakland at the Heathcare Career Center as the director of operations in June of 2008. She co-facilitated a workforce development project that helped place hundreds of unemployed City of Detroit residents in healthcare jobs. Once this project ended, OU moved all of its continuing education programs to its new Riverview Institute location on Jefferson Avenue across from Belle Isle. Glover was integral in getting current program offerings up and running and continues to play a huge part in the success of the Riverview facility.