Incoming board chair excited for what’s to come at the K-State Alumni Association
On an ordinary day in 2018, Jeff Ellison ’90 got a call from Kendal Frazier ’73, then chair of the K-State Alumni Association’s board of directors, asking him if he would like to join the board.
“It came out of the blue, like it is for many other board members,” he said. “And I probably had the same response as a lot of others did, ‘I think you may have called the wrong number, but yeah I’d be interested.’”
But that phone call was years in the making.
Ellison had stayed involved with K-State after graduating with a degree in architecture. He’d been an active member of the St. Joseph Alumni Club – He and his wife, Becky ’91, now serve as leaders of the club. He’d become friends with other members of the Association’s board of directors. The Ellisons set up excellence funds in the College of Architecture, Planning and Design and the College of Health and Human Sciences through the KSU Foundation. His firm Ellison – Auxier even put in a bid to design the K-State Alumni Center. Though the firm didn’t get the bid, he had formed a relationship with Amy Button Renz ’76, ’86, who was president and CEO at the time, and they stayed in touch. Ellison also serves on the College of Architecture, Planning and Design’s Dean’s Advisory Council.
After that phone call he was added to the 2019 class of board members. Through his time on the board of directors, he made friendships and connections, and when called upon, offered advice to the Alumni Association in its mission to reach, connect and serve the K-State community.
“I think the thing you enjoy the most is just getting back on campus, getting involved again, finding out what's going on, and then meeting different board members. When you're at K-State, you find that you meet so many people that become your friends forever, and so it's a similar experience on the board.”
The board serves as the governing body of the Alumni Association and providing strategic oversight and oversees the financial matters and investments of the Alumni Association and Alumni Center. Typically, members serve a term of four years. However, Ellison’s time on the board was extended by a year due to COVID-19 pandemic and the limited interaction of virtual meetings.
Some of his favorite memories include touring the Sunset Zoo with the board, connecting with board members, university leaders and hearing about the various university updates the board is briefed on at each meeting.
“It’s nice to see the amounts of research and the groundbreaking things that the professors are doing at K-State,” he said. “It is just truly inspiring. There's so many great things going on, and then beyond that, the updates we get from the university, from the president, from the administration. It's always nice to get a little bit of an inside look on the things that are happening, because so much has happened in the last five years especially in athletics, with NIL and the portal.”
In June he will assume his duties as chair of the board of directors. Ellison said the goal for this year under his leadership as chair will be to assist the Association staff as they work to continue its mission.
“I try to tell other new board members that we're not running the Association,” he said. “We're just trying to give some advice and a little bit of oversight to the administration when they need it.”
Based on his industry experience, Ellison was selected by the board to chair a committee tasked with helping the Alumni Association modernize and update the Alumni Center. His expertise helps the Alumni Association navigate the process and understand the complexities of modernizing a space that’s nearly 25 years old.
“Obviously, it has been great for everything the Association tries to do,” he said. “But there's a time, just like in your own home or any other business office, that you just need a little update. And that's really what we're talking about. We're not really going away from purple, but we are wanting to update color schemes with that in mind, update some furniture.”
Ellison said major upgrades will include lighting, color schemes (with more emphasis on purple), new furniture, improvements to the Hagans Library, the Amy Button Renz Family Banquet Room, Barret Wildcat Den, and Tointon Great Room and more technology upgrades to make the space more appealing and desirable to use by campus and guests, and other necessary upgrades.
“I think what everybody wants to do is make it a place, where people want to visit when they come to campus,” he said. “Whether that's prospective students, because we get a lot of those even though it's an Alumni Center, and also for folks that haven't been on campus for a while. We want to make it a comfortable, welcoming place that's fun to be at.”