James J. McGovern


James J. McGovern, Ph.D., served eleven years as president of A.T. Still University, which has campuses in Kirksville, Missouri, and Mesa, Arizona. He was also a professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health. During his presidency, he increased enrollment from 600 to over 3,000 students and founded five more schools, which offer degrees such as: Au.D., D.M.D., D.O., D.P.T., D.H.Ed.,and D.H.Sc. He retired in 2008, and became president of the National Center for Green Care which is a resource and research center for autistic, developmental, and senior cognitive disabilities.

Biography

In 1997, McGovern was appointed president of the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine and went on to found five more graduate schools and the A.T. Still University of Health Sciences. The five additional schools are: the Arizona School of Health Sciences, the School of Health Management, the Arizona School of Dentistry and Oral Health, the School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona, and the Postgraduate School of Osteopathic Clinic Research. A proposal for a Ph.D. program was submitted in December 2007 as part of the last school and had about two dozen senior professors ready to guide clinical research from some of the finest universities in Europe and a number from top universities in the United States.
In 2003, he co-authored “Your Healer Within: A Unified Field Theory for Healthcare,” with his wife, Rene McGovern, an ATSU professor of neurobehavioral sciences. The book’s release coincided with a traveling ATSU exhibit on wellness featured at the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building in Washington, D.C. and has been translated into several foreign languages.
During his presidency, he approximately quadrupled the endowment and tripled the sponsored research. He developed a new campus with several buildings in Mesa, Arizona and an Information Technologies Center in Kirksville, Missouri. He established an Interdisciplinary Research Committee which led to the institution receiving its first National Institutes of Health research awards.
McGovern, a former physics professor, previously served in high administrative positions at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio; Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va.; the Illinois and Connecticut Boards of Higher Education; and the State University of New York. He is the former director of health finance for the state of Illinois. He was also the director of the Issues Analysis Institute which was part of the State University of New York and helped city and county agencies develop cost-effective organizations. A New York native, he earned his doctorate degree from the Department of Administrative and Organizational Studies, New York University, in 1973. He holds a master's degree from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a bachelor's degree from Iona College, both in New York.
McGovern has received awards and certificates from organizations such as the Virginia Center on Aging, the Virginia Hospital Research and Education Foundation, the University of Chicago Healthcare Institute, Stanford University Management Institute, Northwestern University Executive Management Institute, the Mercy Health Care Foundation, and Illinois Association of Retarded Citizens.
He was a member of numerous professional organizations, including the New York Academy of Sciences, Virginia Academy of Science, American College of Healthcare Executives, Association of American Medical Colleges, Group on Institutional Planning, College and University Systems Exchange, Healthcare Financial Management Association, and the American Association of University Administrators.
He is presently on the Board of the Chandler-Gilbert Community College and chairman of the board of the National Municipal Advisors and president of the National Center for Green Care.