CONWAY — Arkansas native Jesse Thill said he expected a career as a college cross-country and track coach, but he found his place when he jumped into a job in alumni work at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
Now Thill, 28, will be touting loyalty to the University of Central Arkansas in Conway as he takes over Feb. 9 as director of alumni services.
“So far, just the outpouring of support and hospitality I’ve felt from the UCA community has been just unbelievable,” Thill said in a telephone interview. Thill said he and his family will move Monday from Gainesville to Conway, where they’ve bought a home. He and his wife, Elizabeth, have two sons, Chance, 4, and Cooper, almost 1.
Thill, associate director of membership and philanthropy for the University of Florida Alumni Association, said he heard about the UCA opening through a professional organization he shared with Jan Newcomer of Greenbrier, UCA’s former director of alumni services. Newcomer retired in December.
“I spoke to my wife, and we knew it was going to take a very special opportunity to pull us from Gainesville. … We felt that UCA was one of them,” Thill said. “I knew about UCA from my days as a coach; we ran into them quite a bit.”
Thill was an assistant cross-country and track coach at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, where he received his undergraduate degree in history and a master’s degree in education in learning systems technology.
Thill said Conway is “just a great place to raise a family, quality schools there,” which is important because of the couple’s sons. If a job was in an area without good schools, Thill said, it would be “a deal-breaker, really.”
His salary will be $63,000 annually.
Thill grew up in Fayetteville and attended Coffeyville Community College in Kansas on a cross-country and track scholarship, then transferred to UALR. “I thought at the time I wanted to be a cross-country and track coach at the college level,” he said.
Thill earned a bachelor’s degree at UALR and got a job as an administrative assistant to the faculty at the UALR Bowen School of Law before earning a master’s degree in education. It was at UALR that he met his wife, who grew up in Little Rock, Thill said.
From there, Thill took a job at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, as education and training technology coordinator.
“Basically, we offered online continuing-education credits to those working in the addiction field,” he said.
“The calling to come back home to Arkansas was strong,” Thill said. After about a year at Brown University, he took a job as an admissions counselor at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
“As an admissions counselor, I managed the online presence and the social media. I also met with students and their parents as they came to campus,” he said. “I loved it. It was great meeting with the students, hearing what they were interested in and talking about what the U of A had to offer.”
Thill still wasn’t sure that was the end-all, be-all job for him.
“I knew that I wanted to make an impact on higher education, and I thought the best area to do that was in advancement. As we went through the recession, we saw that state and federal funds began to shrink. The emphasis on raising the funds — that emphasis
grew,” he said.
Thill worked at the U of A for about 1 1/2 years, and in July 2013, “I was offered an unbelievable opportunity to come to the University of Florida,” he said. “I’d never been a Gators fan previously, but I’d always had a healthy respect for the University of Florida. It’s very iconic when it comes to sports teams. … They really combine great academics with great sports teams.”
Thill said that from the moment he started working with the alumni association, he knew he’d found his niche.
“I really enjoyed engaging and meeting all the alumni out there and really bringing them together in the spirit of the university,” he said.
Newcomer was UCA’s first director of alumni relations who wasn’t a graduate of the university, but it didn’t seem to matter, said those who praised her. Thill said the world is changing.
“I think it’s a plus when you can have that,” he said, adding that, nationally, many alumni-relations employees aren’t graduates of the institution for which they work. “[The alumni field is] a close-knit community. There’s a tremendous sharing of best practices,” he said.
“When I met with the search committee, I thought questions they asked were very well-informed. None of them necessarily had background in alumni work, but they had really done their homework on me and had really done their homework on our industry,” he said, adding that search-committee members asked about the hot topics in the industry.
One of the questions being debated in alumni programs is “dues versus nondues,” Thill said, and whether a university should stick to a dues-paying alumni program.
“UCA is a dues-based program right now,” he said. “I think careful consideration has to be given to that. Certainly, there are numerous amounts of models, and they all work for different alumni associations.”
Thill said he’s still doing his homework on UCA, too. He said he wants to look at data on alumni, “and I really want to hear from our alumni. I also want to hear from the qualitative side. What do our alumni like? What do they want to see more of? Where do we have opportunities to improve?”
Thill said he will get direction from the Alumni Association Board of Directors, as well as from Shelley Mehl, vice president for institutional advancement.
Mehl said in a press release that the search committee was “very impressed by Jesse’s experience and talent. He will build on UCA’s traditions and successfully expand our alumni programming and support.”
Thill said he’s ready to fill that role.
“If we look at it from a 90-day perspective, that takes me through May. There’s the spring sports weekend in April and graduation in May. My first 90 days will certainly be very busy,” he said.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.