Jeffrey Goldstein will step down as Lafayette College’s director of health services at the end of August. His departure was announced last Wednesday on the Bailey Health Center’s Instagram.
According to Goldstein, he will be succeeded by physician assistant Jodi Schluter, who has worked closely with him for over a decade.
“I leave this position with mixed emotions,” said Goldstein, who joined the role in 2000. “I don’t feel like now is the right time to retire, but I think that’s true of most people that are in the stage of retirement.”
Goldstein described his retirement as an “incremental process,” one that started with him taking more time off throughout the past academic year.
“A couple of afternoons a week I was out of here early,” he said. “I don’t think students recognized it.”
For the 2024-25 academic year, Goldstein said he would continue working part-time at Bailey Health Center “both to support the college in the transition and also to do what I love to do, which is take care of students.”
Reflecting on the accomplishments during his time as director of which he was most proud, Goldstein emphasized the expansion of student collaboration and input.
“For a long time, we kind of functioned a little bit in a silo where we just did medical care,” Goldstein said. “In many ways, just operating within that silo, we didn’t necessarily hear the voices of the students as much as we should have. I think over the last two or three years, largely as a result of having really positive relationships with various students on campus, I was able to open up that line of communication better.”
Goldstein specifically cited the Peer Health Mentor program and the health center’s free STI testing initiative as products of student collaboration and feedback, the latter having been sparked in collaboration with student organization Lafayette for Reproductive Autonomy, Justice and Empowerment.
Goldstein’s successor, Schluter, said that Goldstein prioritized teaching students “how to self-advocate in health care.”
Staff nurse Tricia Shoudt, who worked with Goldstein for 20 years, said that Goldstein has “evolved” how the health center collaborated with students during his time at Lafayette.
“Our job is not only to medically manage the student but to educate them along this process,” Shoudt said. “I think he has aided in that, keeping us up to date with different resources available to increase the educational component.”
Goldstein also praised his collaboration with other Lafayette departments and local healthcare providers. He highlighted working “with the dean’s office to everybody in Student Life, making sure that we have an open line of communication.” Goldstein also worked with the college’s counseling center, the sports medicine team and St. Luke’s Hospital to provide accessible mental health services and to better respond to emergencies.
This article was updated on Aug. 29.
