Staff Biography
Jim Verhoye, Ph.D.
CWDS County Consultant - San Bernardino County & Orange County
jverhoye@sdsu.edu
Jim Verhoye is a County Consultant, supporting the counties of San Bernardino and Orange. He grew up in San Diego where he completed a BA and MA in Communication Studies at San Diego State University. He subsequently completed a PhD in Communication Studies at the University of Minnesota. Over the course of twenty years, he worked in five Minnesota state prisons as a college teacher and an Education Director, where he supervised a variety of programs including Adult Basic Education, Career Technical Education, Higher Education, Parenting, Recreation, Reentry, Religion, and all facility volunteers. In 2015, while serving as the Education Director at MCF-Shakopee, he envisioned a choir consisting of incarcerated singers and community singers, which with the founding and visionary leadership of Dr. Amanda Weber, became the “Voices of Hope.” In 2022, he began consulting part-time for the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System Office in support of the federal financial aid program, Ability to Benefit, and in 2023, he joined Amend for a year at the University of California, San Francisco, a public health and human rights program that works in prisons to reduce their debilitating health effects on residents and staff.
In his free time, Jim loves walking on the Mission Beach boardwalk, bodysurfing, attending sporting events, enjoying a pizza sandwich at Poma’s deli in Ocean Beach, and traveling with family and friends.