Editorial
Front Page - Friday, October 23, 2009
Chattanooga native feels lucky to give back to her community
Samara Litvack
“UTC has been a part of my life for a long time,” says Jayne Holder from her office on Oak Street. Today she is the university’s alumni affairs director, but her journey with the university began when she was a young girl, attending Mocs football games with her father.
Holder later attended school at UTC and, after a stint in Memphis while her late husband attended dental school, she moved up the ranks at the university from volunteer to employee.
“I have been working at UTC for years now,” she says. “I started out in the alumni office as administrative assistant and then moved to the development office and was the director of major gifts and planned giving for a year. And then when the director of alumni affairs came open, I was approached about applying and so I did.”
Now, five years later, Holder’s office is responsible for coordinating all events that connect UTC alumni back to campus. While she says the list of events they coordinate would be “miles and miles” long, she offers a few examples, including class reunions and homecoming, just to name a few.
“We have an alumni board of directors made up of 25 folks that is extremely active,” says Holder.
The board has also approved a host of specialty events, as well, including Dinner with 12 Strangers, which brings students into alumni’s homes for meet and greets on a one-on-one level, and Breakfast with the Chancellor, through which the UTC chancellor visits different corporations in various towns, representing the college.
“We have started a program where we go into low performing high schools, especially in areas outside of Hamilton County, and just talk to them about college access and how important a college education is,” says Holder. This program also addresses what is specifically available to these prospective students at UTC, as well as ways of applying for financial aid.
Holder’s office also includes a student alumni council that works to engage current students with alumni, as well as to plan events that bring current and past students together.
With only four people on staff, Holder’s office works to keep nearly the 45,000 alumni for whom they have contact information engaged with the university. While upholding traditional alumni activities, the alumni affairs office is also branching out through advances in technology and social media.
“We have four UTC students who are writing a blog,” says Holder. “One writes a blog weekly on our alumni Web site to relate to alums what college life is like today.”
The office has also begun doing more social networking through Facebook and Twitter, as new alumni wish to be communicated with differently than those who graduated before them.
But even as time brings about change, Holder feels very fortunate to be working as director of alumni affairs.
“UTC is one of Chattanooga’s greatest assets and I’m in a position that I get to meet with all these nice folks and get to partner with the community and spread a nice message of what a wonderful community we have,” she says.
“It’s a fun job. It’s busy. It’s not 8 to 5, but when I get out and walk on campus, I feel lucky because of this environment. It’s a place that I have a passion for.”
When Holder isn’t working with UTC, she spends most of her time on another campus, right down the road on Central Avenue at the Ronald McDonald House.
Her volunteer efforts with the organization began 15 years ago, and her interest in its work stems from a variety of places. When she was 7 years old, for example, her 15-year-old aunt died of leukemia. Holder vividly remembers watching her exhausted grandparents drive back and forth to Memphis to take their daughter to St. Jude’s.
“Wouldn’t that have been wonderful if they’d had a place like that?” she says. “And been able to be closer to their child and just had that support system?”
Later in her life, Holder’s husband was involved with the organization’s Care Mobile, a dental-care-on-wheels concept that treats underserved children in the area.
“Because my husband was a dentist, I knew that there was a need for that kind of service,” she says. “I knew that children in the area were not always receiving the kind of dental care that they needed.”
Add to those two very personal stories her affiliation with Alpha Delta Pi, whose national charity is Ronald McDonald House, and it’s plain to see why Holder felt drawn to the organization. She began her service there once a month as a volunteer, filling in wherever her she could during her shift. Today, she is serving her second year as president of the board of directors, which she calls “the most active board of directors” she’s ever seen.
“We are 50 strong and they work so hard and there’s such a passion for the mission of the organization,” she says. “They really do work hard and the community support for the Ronald McDonald House is phenomenal.”
Holder says the Chattanooga chapter is the envy of many of its affiliates because of the unmatched support it gets from the community. With over 500 volunteers, families who access its services are provided with exceptional care, and are gracious to have some of the burdens of a difficult situation lightened by the organization.
“It’s a remarkable place,” she says. “I always say about the Ronald McDonald House, you hate that you have to have a place like that, but you’re so glad that you do when it’s needed.”
As passionate as Holder is about her volunteer work and her position with UTC, it’s hard to believe she’s got energy left for much else at the end of the day. But there is one other topic of conversation brings that very same spark to her eye, and that, of course, is her family.
With a son in Chattanooga, a daughter in San Diego and a daughter in New York City, every spare second Holder can rustle up is spent visiting, traveling and seeing as much of her children as she can. And since her first granddaughter was born on the West Coast, you better believe she’s traveling as much as humanly possible to see her.
But between trips, Holder’s time is spent split between UTC and Ronald McDonald House, and she is equally proud of both of her endeavors.
“I’m lucky in that so much of what I do here are some of the same things I would be doing socially anyway,” she says.
“I have been very blessed to grow up in Chattanooga. It’s a wonderful city and I feel very lucky that through my work here – paid work and volunteer work – that I can give back to a community that does so much.”
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