{"id":2183,"date":"2025-11-03T21:42:44","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T21:42:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shp.rutgers.edu\/annual-report\/?page_id=2183"},"modified":"2025-12-09T18:33:29","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T18:33:29","slug":"love-loss-and-a-longboard","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/shp.rutgers.edu\/community-impact-report\/love-loss-and-a-longboard\/","title":{"rendered":"LOVE, LOSS AND A LONGBOARD"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Love, Loss, and a Longboard\n\n<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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When a prospective student rolled up to his informational interview on a longboard \u2013 and popped it\ninto his hand with a practiced kick \u2013 Jennifer Joseph, an assistant professor in the Rutgers School of\nHealth Professions physician assistant program, was horrified.\n<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t
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\u201cI thought, \u2018I have to meet with this punk for the next half hour and try to give him advice?\u2019\u201d said Joseph, laughing.<\/p>

But that meeting turned into an hour. By the end, she was sold.<\/p>

\u201cWe became fast friends,\u201d she said. \u201cHe had a place in my heart from that time forward.\u201d<\/p>

That \u201cpunk\u201d was Joey Leveille\u2014known for skating down the aisle during the most recent season of Netflix\u2019s reality dating show Love Is Blind<\/em>.\u00a0 While things didn\u2019t end with a wedding, Leveille, a 2015 graduate of SHP\u2019s physician assistant program, won over viewers with his sincerity, his quirkiness, and his fu\u00a0 n-loving personality.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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A Reality Romance (Sort of)<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Leveille, who lives in Minnesota, said he turned down producers twice before finally agreeing to appear on the show, which was filmed in 2023 and 2024, and premiered in February 2025.<\/p>

\u201cI was dating someone the first few times they called, but that didn\u2019t work out \u2013 and then the third time was the charm,\u201d said Leveille, who works as a physician assistant and administrative manager at a same-day clinic outside Duluth.<\/p>

The premise of Love Is Blind<\/em> is simple: Fall in love with someone \u2013 and get engaged \u2013 before you ever see them. In Season 8, Leveille was one of a group of hopefuls looking to meet their match through a wall. The then-35-year-old quickly connected with Monica, a 27-year-old digital marketer.<\/p>

They bonded over a mutual dislike of country lyrics, a shared love of swing dancing, and that The Sound of Music<\/em> is their favorite movie.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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After proposing to Monica during \u201cpod week,\u201d Leveille met her face-to-face, bounding into the room in his signature energetic style.<\/p>

\u201cIt was the wildest thing ever,\u201d he said. \u201cYou know this person \u2013 but you don\u2019t know this person. You\u2019re connecting emotionally first, then meeting physically. It was like a mind explosion.\u201d<\/p>

Compared with others on the show, their relationship was surprisingly drama-free \u2013 until Monica\u2019s sister refused to give her blessing, and she began to have doubts.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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On what was to be their wedding day, Leveille rolled up to the altar on his longboard dressed in a baby-blue suit, but Monica ultimately said no. Leveille took it with grace. In an interview, he said they actually had agreed the night before that neither was ready, and the refusal did not come as a surprise.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Back to Real Life (with a Little Fame)<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Off-screen, Leveille is back to work. His appearance on Love Is Blind<\/em>, followed by talk shows, have made him somewhat of a celebrity.<\/p>

\u00a0\u201cThat guy gave me a strep throat test!\u201d one fan posted online.
Leveille said he doesn\u2019t mind the attention.<\/p>

\u201cPeople ask me for pictures, and I\u2019m glad to do it,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m an extrovert \u2013 I don\u2019t mind at all.\u201d<\/p>

Leveille, who was home-schooled through high school, was a student at a Minnesota college when he came to Rutgers through a summer program for low-income students to participate in research. That experience led to publishing a paper on Alzheimer\u2019s disease \u2013 and a meeting with Joseph to learn about becoming a physician assistant.<\/p>

Two years later, he was accepted into our physician assistant program.<\/p>

\u201cHe had so much depth and compassion,\u201d Joseph said. \u201cAt the time, he was working overnight shifts at a traumatic brain injury facility to pay for school \u2014 and still had a 3.9 GPA. He loved working with people and helping them.\u201d<\/p>

She added, \u201cSo, the boy with the longboard turned out to be one of the best students I\u2019ve ever met.\u201d<\/p>

As for the longboard? Leveille calls it his\u201cemotional support.\u201d Skating helps ease his anxiety. And yes, it really was his idea to ride it up to the altar (with Monica\u2019s consent).<\/p>

Leveille was planning to return to the PA program in the fall as part of a panel of alumni to speak with students.<\/p>

He might even glide in on his board.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Love, Loss, and a Longboard When a prospective student rolled up to his informational interview on a longboard \u2013 and popped it into his hand with a practiced kick \u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"elementor_header_footer","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2183","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shp.rutgers.edu\/community-impact-report\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shp.rutgers.edu\/community-impact-report\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shp.rutgers.edu\/community-impact-report\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shp.rutgers.edu\/community-impact-report\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shp.rutgers.edu\/community-impact-report\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2183"}],"version-history":[{"count":62,"href":"https:\/\/shp.rutgers.edu\/community-impact-report\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4257,"href":"https:\/\/shp.rutgers.edu\/community-impact-report\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2183\/revisions\/4257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shp.rutgers.edu\/community-impact-report\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}