Deanna Reed has served as the Mayor of Harrisonburg since 2017 and as of January 23, 2023, she has begun a new role as EMU’s Regional Advancement Director in the advancement office. Previously serving on EMU’s board of directors, a role she held from 2019, Reed’s new position mainly entails raising money for the university through connecting and engaging with donors and alumn, building relationships between them and the wider Harrisonburg community.
Reed sees working at EMU as “complimenting” her role as mayor. “One reason I came to this university, why I love it, is that EMU is an incredible university [that] truly prepares students to not only be educated but also to be great citizens,” Reed says.
She sees EMU students getting involved in city and local affairs as vital to connecting the city with its universities saying, “what I don’t want is people being in their own little bubbles (an EMU bubble, a JMU bubble, a Harrisonburg city bubble). Students are part of our population. There is no Harrisonburg without EMU and there is no EMU without Harrisonburg.”
As mayor, Reed created the EMU/City Council Liaison Committee as a way to pop the metaphorical bubble. This serves as a way for students to “feel a part of the city they’re getting educated in.” She also supported the Royals Go Downtown event last semester, as well as EMU participating in Harrisonburg’s Christmas Parade for the first time. “I made a promise to President Huxman [when elected] that as long as I was mayor, we were going to make sure that EMU had the same level of focus that JMU had,” Reed said. “I think I’ve done that well.”
When asked if she wished students were more politically involved in the city, Reed adamantly replied “Yes! I tell students all the time, consider this your home, you need to get involved with local politics. You need to know what’s going on in your city? I want students to be a part of boards and commissions and come to city council meetings. They should get to know us.”
As mayor of a city dominated by it’s universities and their students, she has specific issues that other similar towns without universities don’t have to worry about as much, particularly when it comes to student housing and traffic.
“Half our population is students so come May, half [our] population leaves,” Reed laughs; We get along the roads easier in the summer when all y’all are gone.” That being said, she is quick to point out that “people come here because of the universities. Harrisonburg would be a quiet, sleepy town if we didn’t have y’all here.”
EMU has a unique role in the community as approximately 7,000 alumni live within a 60 mile radius of Harrisonburg, a statistic Reed called “phenomenal.” “Not only do students go here, they stay here. They pour more back into the city that they started only living in for four or so years as students. They become our teachers, social workers, nurses and that impacts not only the community, but our citizens and especially our children.”
A self described “Hometown girl”, Reed became the first African American woman to be mayor of Harrisonburg after previously serving on its city council after winning the most votes ever in a local city council race. She clearly has a love for the city she grew up in and is very involved. Of all the many hats she wears and duties she has, Reed particularly enjoys serving on the Parks and Recreation board, being involved in her sorority, and watching college basketball.
Nowadays, Reed spends most of her time on EMU’s campus, in her office in the Campus Center. “I tell everybody that being mayor is not my full time job. My full time job is at Eastern Mennonite University. [Community members] can find me here and I like them coming here. This is my platform elevating this University. People come here to see the mayor and they get to see the university as well!”
