People of CHC — Jess Day: Alumna and Associate Director of Athletics and Recreation

She sits in her office in the basement of Clement Hall surrounded by CHC memorabilia. Inside her office, a whiteboard hangs on the wall with notes from student athletes. “CHC Volleyball” with hearts. Names and signatures from the Chestnut Hill Women’s Basketball team. An ornament with a picture of Chestnut Hill’s Women’s Bowling team is hanging on her cork board.

Outside her office usually sits a line of students patiently waiting for her help.

Jess Day, the newly appointed associate director of athletics and recreation, makes sure that she is available for student-athletes since she understands the lives of student athletes from her own experience. She calls herself “student oriented and student-friendly,” and almost every student-athlete on campus has gone to see her at least once during their four years at the school.

Originally from a rural town south of Pittsburg, PA, Day came to Chestnut Hill College in 2005 to play for the school’s softball team. Day is the all-time leader in runs scored (50), and holds second in hits (113), total bases (156), doubles (24), starts (141), and triples (5). She also holds a few third-place records for the Chestnut Hill College. During her season in 2008, Day set the record for most hits in a single season, 35, until the record was broken in 2016.

While at Chestnut Hill, she says was “really fortunate” to be a part of so many things. As a Resident Assistant for two years, the College’s very first orientation coordinator senior year, and a four-year member of the College’s softball team, her favorite memory was Christmas Decorating night. “It was something I always looked forward to and it was always something that was exciting to me in the creative fashion,” she said.

After her graduation from Chestnut Hill with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and human services, Day went on to the Ohio State University to get her master’s degree in higher education administration and student affairs. Post-graduation she worked at Thomas Edison State College and Neumann University before working at Philadelphia University, now Jefferson.

She came back to Chestnut Hill in 2015, where she was named the assistant director of athletics for academic success and community engagement. With the new promotion Day says that she will miss working so closely with students, but “that’s never going to be too far from anything I do at all. I will always be student focused,” she says in regard to her new job position.

According to Day, coming back to Chestnut Hill was a “very easy transition because a lot of the people who I work with now are people I worked with as a student.”

“It’s a unique experience, to a certain extent I think I have had an advantage because I knew a lot about Chestnut Hill, I knew a lot about how certain things worked,” she said. “I knew a lot about the good things and maybe some of the quirks of the college, but it is different to see if from a staff member, and I still want the students that I work with to still have the same great experience that I had when I graduated 10 years ago.”

Her biggest reason for coming back to work at Chestnut Hill? The community. Knowing that she was supported by so many people as a student made coming back to the school so much easier. “I wanted to be a part of that community that gave back to our students I think there is so many ways to do that,” Day said.

For a short time, Day served as the college’s interim softball coach at the beginning of the 2018–2019 academic year. According to her, “coaching is a whole different type of challenge that I have never gotten to experience so I am grateful for the opportunity.” While she enjoys coaching, she would rather sit in her office to “coach” students through their college experience as opposed to on the field. “I can manage this a little bit easier, even with 330 [student athletes], I sort of know what I am doing. [Coaching] was just a whole new world,” she added.

In addition to working with students daily, Day is also the advisor for Chestnut Hill College’s Student-Athletic Advisory Committee, also known as SAAC. With this organization she works with representatives from each of the school’s 18 NCAA Division II teams, to give the athletes a voice in the college and administration.

Not only does she do all of this, she also is a mentor for the Athletic Communications and Community Engagement Intern, and is the moderator for Chi Alpha Sigma, the National College Athlete Honor Society.

“Under Day’s academic guidance, Chestnut Hill College student-athletes have enjoyed tremendous success in the classroom, garnering institutional, conference, regional, and national recognition on the Chestnut Hill College Dean’s List, the Chestnut Hill College Athletics Academic Honor Roll, the Google Cloud/College Sports Information Directors Association (CoSIDA) Academic All-District Teams, the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (CACC) All-Academic Teams, East Coast Conference (ECC) Commissioner’s Honor Roll, the Collegiate Sprint Football League (CSFL) All-Academic Team, the National Tenpin Coaches Association (NTCA) All-Academic Team, Division II Athletic Directors Association (D2ADA) Academic Achievement Award, the Philadelphia Inquirer Academic All-Area Teams, and the Diverse: Issues in Higher Education Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholars,” her bio on Chestnut Hill Athletics’ website reads.

Her advice to all students: “Make the most of your experience, and I say that not lightly, each experience is different to each person. My advice would be what you can do to get what you want. You only get one shot at it really if we are being honest, so you might as well make the four years count.”

Aside from her job at Chestnut Hill, Day enjoys traveling the globe. During spring break this year, she visited Iceland, but the most exciting trip she has taken was two summers ago where she hiked Machu Picchu.

“I love to experience new things, to see new things, and to go different places that I’ve never been to before,” she said. “Whether that be somewhere in the city on a Saturday or Iceland over spring break, I like to be able to get some different experiences.”

Published April 2019 in The Griffin Student newspaper from Chestnut Hill College.