Class of 2015 graduate was the first Golden Tiger to win the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s Arthur Ashe, Jr. Sportsmanship & Leadership Award

As a student at Brenau, Dominika Jasova, WC ‘15, wanted to give back to her community.

A member of the Golden Tigers tennis team from 2012-2014, her charitable efforts were recognized on and off the court. She became the first Brenau athlete to win the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s Arthur Ashe Jr. Sportsmanship & Leadership Award in 2014.

The award recognizes outstanding individuals in all collegiate divisions at the regional and national levels. The ITA has a comprehensive awards program for players and coaches to honor excellence in academics, leadership, sportsmanship and athletic performance. Its significance is so widely recognized that the biweekly newsmagazine Diverse: Issues in Higher Education is interviewing previous winners, including Jasova, for its next issue.

Jasova, who earned a bachelor’s of business administration with a concentration in marketing, is a financial analyst and crimes compliant analyst for Ernst & Young in Jacksonville, Florida.

“I really developed a passion for finance at Brenau,” she says. “I wanted to learn how money worked, where it went, how it’s transferred, how people use it.”

Jasova also earned a master’s in business administration from Valdosta State University. She wanted to work for a bank, but she finds her work today more stimulating. She is tasked with finding suspicious activity on customer accounts and reporting it back to clients. Her department identifies crimes from money laundering and fraud to trafficking and terrorism.

Originally from Kosice, Slovakia, she transferred to Brenau from Lewis–Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho, and excelled academically and athletically during her time in Gainesville.

Head tennis coach Andre Ferreira says his only complaint about Jasova is he couldn’t coach her longer. “We only had her two years, and I wish we could have had her for four” he says. “She was a tremendous tennis player, one of the best to come through our program. But she was also a tremendous student. She was getting awards from every direction all the time.”

Today, she is one of the youngest analysts in her office and says she enjoys being around more experienced professionals. “I’m trying to look up to them and learn from them.”

Jasova says she’s grateful for Brenau and her education at a small women’s college. “It was a special atmosphere,” she says. “It made me feel like we as women can do anything – I can be smart, intelligent, can open my own business, be creative. I can do whatever I want to try.”

Brenau’s small class sizes and campus meant she couldn’t cut corners as a student or an athlete. “Professors and coaches expect you to be on time and they hold you to expectations,” she says. “That was especially true for me on the tennis court but also off. There were no easy ways around work.”

Jasova had plenty of work as a student at Brenau. She spent her free time between classes, practices and matches working with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Hall County, fundraising for Rally for the Cure with her teammates, volunteering at a women’s shelter in town and organizing community events for cultural markers such as Hispanic Heritage Month.

These efforts were the primary factors in her selection as the 2014 Arthur Ashe Jr. Award winner, an honor she still appreciates.

“I think it meant a lot to me and my team, but also to all the people who engaged with me on campus,” she says. “They shaped me to be a better person. Brenau made it possible for us to work with these organizations, and it was really empowering for me. So that award went to me but I think also to all the people who made it possible for me to do that.”

Ferreira says he is not remotely surprised by Jasova’s success post-graduation.

“She has always been driven,” he says. “Tennis was a big part of that for her, but you could see then she knew what she wanted next. Even then, she had a business mind and focus and was so independent. She knew what she wanted, and she went after it.”