Training the Next Generation in Justice jeremy Travis

Throughout his extensive career in law and criminal justice, Jeremy Travis has always made time to give back to the community. It is something emphasized by his parents growing up, and he continues to strive for that goal in both his professional and personal endeavors today.

Travis grew up in Massachusetts, but has always had a strong connection with New York, since his father’s family was from Brooklyn. He now continues that legacy by living in Brooklyn with his own family, working as the president of John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Coming to New York was always a goal for Travis; he jokes that the famous Frank Sinatra song worked as inspiration.

“The line when he says ‘If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere’ really explains why I wanted to move to New York,” he said. “I was young and I wanted to come to the most exciting city in the world.” After graduating from Yale in 1970 he moved to New York, and into his first apartment on West 85th Street. From there he began his career in law, ultimately serving as law clerk to then U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

After attending the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and the Law School at New York University, he worked as Deputy Commissioner for Legal Matters for the NYPD, Chief Counsel to the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Special Advisor to New York City Mayor Ed Koch, and Special Counsel to the Police Commissioner of the NYPD.

Throughout all of his outstanding accomplishments he remains extremely connected to the community, and with his new position of president at John Jay, he has helped support the West Side in numerous ways.

“Being able to give back has always been the main part of why I do what I do,” he said. “We really value our relationship with the city.” The school just celebrated its 50th year in 2014, so its development has coincided with the redevelopment of the West Side. One of their main buildings was formerly an abandoned high school, and prior to the college’s development, drug addicts and prostitutes frequented the building.

“John Jay has come of age at the same time as the West Side,” Travis said. “We see ourselves as being an important part of that development, and have a responsibility to continue it.”

Travis has gotten the school involved with the West Side community through different outlets both involving his students and the public. JASA, the Jewish Association for Serving the Aging, uses both the pool and college classrooms every Sunday for seniors interested in exercising and taking various adult education classes. He also regularly offers their auditoriums to hold forums and press conferences for public officials; it is where Mayor Bill de Blasio introduced his Vision Zero traffic fatality reduction plan.

Under Travis’s leadership, John Jay has become one of the most sought after institutions, and he has both increased the size of the faculty, and student enrollment. His excitement of New York has not faded, and he is always looking for new opportunities to partner with surrounding businesses.

“I’m extremely lucky to have our school located in one of the most vibrant parts of the city,” he said. Neighboring both Lincoln Center and the New York Philharmonic, he encourages the faculty to bring students to performances so they can experience the diversity New York offers, something he loves most about the city.

Travis offers a rare blend of wisdom from years of experience in his field, and a youthful excitement about the community that surrounds him. The same eagerness that brought him to New York after college seems to still remain.

“We love the fact that we are considered a good neighbor,” he said. “We are a public institution and I take that very seriously. I’ve always loved the sense of engagement that the West Side is known for, we want to be a good support system and continue that engagement.”