Coming Home: A New Meaning of Homecoming

October 3, 2017

As we anticipate an ambitious Homecoming Weekend and the excitement of families visiting and the swirl of activity on campus, I couldn’t help thinking about our growing JU Family. Our beautiful riverfront campus has served students as their educational and cultural ‘home away from home’ since October 2, 1950, and today more than 30,000 JU alumni are excelling around the world.

I’m one of those thousands, and when I meet up with fellow alumni, we inevitably discuss how proud we are of this University, how much it has meant to us. But since becoming President of this great University, I’ve witnessed more than our graduates feeling that distinct brand of JU pride. Now, I have the privilege of seeing how JU is proud to welcome those alumni coming home, investing their careers here to make us better.

These men and women are talented products of JU – they lived, learned, laughed, worked, competed and succeeded here.

We’re not talking about returning to campus for a special event, or the commencement of a loved one, or even a quick visit to a Homecoming game. When I say, “coming home,” I’m referring to the more than 100 alumni who now work here, for their alma mater. These men and women are talented products of JU – they lived, learned, laughed, worked, competed and succeeded here. They can honestly tell you what it was like and what it is like. They are a testament that the best way to understand an institution is to become a part of it, and these returning alums never really stopped being a part.

We have JU graduates in dozens of professional roles on our campus, in finance and the fine arts, athletics and academics, in our faculty and on our staff. Some arrived to their positions with their JU degrees already, and many earned them while working at the University. Dozens of Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in nearly all the disciplines offered on campus.

This is the caliber of talent concentrated on this campus and making an impact on the culture of this University, and I could not be more grateful.

So, during this Homecoming season, I’m offering an invitation and a challenge. Plug back into the unique spirit and heritage of your University. Trust me, you'll be energized. And the challenge is this: don’t simply be proud of your alma mater, make JU proud of you.

Engage again. Make us better. Come full circle, and experience the incredible warmth of being surrounded by lives that are really just beginning.

You are welcome here.

Tim Cost
President
Jacksonville University
Class of 1981