Elon President Connie Ledoux Book presented the medallion to three longtime leaders at the university in academics, athletics and community engagement during an event marking the start of a new academic year. The university also recognized three named professorships during the event.
Elon University honored three longtime leaders for their years of service and contributions to the university and its community on Monday, Aug. 19, with the presentation of the Elon Medallion, the most prestigious service award bestowed by the institution. The bronze medallions were presented by President Connie Ledoux Book during a ceremony in Alumni Gym at the start of the annual Planning Week for faculty and staff that marks the beginning of a new academic year.
Elon Medallions
Receiving Elon Medallions were former Provost Emeritx Steven House, former Senior Associate Athletics Director Kyle Wills and former Vice President for Access and Success Jean Rattigan-Rohr.
Kyle Wills
For 43 years, Kyle D. Wills devoted his life to Elon University, playing an essential role in building a winning tradition in Elon athletics while nurturing lasting relationships in our community, including generations of student-athletes whom Kyle mentored and helped to succeed in competition and in life.
Wills grew up on Elon’s campus, spending countless hours in Alumni Gym with his father, Terry Wills, who served as the institution’s first athletic trainer and assistant athletic director from 1970 to 1975, marking the beginning of a lifelong connection to Elon and the athletics community. As an Elon student, Wills served as head equipment manager for the football team that won four conference championships and captured the NAIA title in 1980, helping to redefine the term “gym rat” by living in Alumni Gym.
After earning his degree in physical education in 1981, Wills returned to his alma mater to serve as supervisor of athletic facilities, demonstrating a can-do attitude, attention to detail, and a strong work ethic that enabled student-athletes and Elon athletics to excel and move forward in significant ways. In recognition of his commitment to excellence in all aspects of his work, Wills rose through the administrative ranks, receiving promotions to business manager in 1987, assistant athletic director for business and operations in 1995, associate athletic director in 1998, and senior associate athletic director for business and operations in 2004, a title he held until his retirement in 2023.
“Fifty-four years ago, I walked through that door over there with my parents,” Wills said, motioning to one of the Alumni Gym doors. “The amount of changes since then have been unbelievable. … When people ask me about Elon and what has happened over my time here, I tell them that Elon is always moving forward.”
Leveraging his deep institutional history, Wills played a central role in Elon’s membership in five athletic conferences and rise from NAIA level to NCAA Division I and membership in the Coastal Athletic Association.
Endearing himself to colleagues with his deep sense of loyalty, no-nonsense style, and commitment to getting the job done correctly no matter how late the hour, Kyle worked tirelessly with colleagues across campus to create the best possible game-day environment for every fan and player, helping to enhance Elon’s reputation for excellence. Wills also excelled at managing budgets and all aspects of business operations for athletics, providing players and coaches the resources they needed to succeed while ensuring Elon received the greatest value for everything from uniforms to travel costs to contracts with vendors, famously coining the phrase, “If you ain’t got it, you can’t spend it.”
In recognition of his faithful service and significant contributions to Elon, including never missing a home football game in more than 50 years, Kyle was inducted into the Elon Sports Hall of Fame as an athletics administrator (2015), served on Staff Advisory Council (2012-2016), including one year as chair and was named Administrative Staff Member of the Year (2021).
“I have made a lifetime of friends here,” Wills said. “It was a really, really good time right here for 43 years. I wouldn’t change it for anything.”
Steven House
With boundless energy, passion and integrity, Steven D. House faithfully served Elon for two decades, playing an essential role in the university’s remarkable rise to national distinction while caring deeply for colleagues and generations of students who are making a profound impact on the world.
House joined the Elon community in 2001 to serve as founding dean of Elon College, the College of Arts and Sciences, bringing together 17 academic departments and 19 programs in the arts and humanities, science, mathematics and social sciences to create a college that serves as a hallmark of quality for the university. With a deep belief in the centrality of the arts and sciences, House led significant increases in the quality and quantity of faculty and students, helped expand living-learning communities, and led the creation of the Elon College Fellows program that each year engages hundreds of students in rigorous engaged learning opportunities and powerful mentoring.
“I love to tell stories and for the past 23 years, I have been blessed to tell Elon’s story, your story,” House said. “Thank you for giving me such great stories to tell.”
In recognition of his strong and steady leadership and unmatched work ethic, House was given the additional title of associate vice president for academic affairs in 2006 and joined the president’s senior staff. Three years later, he was named provost and vice president for academic affairs and helped lead unprecedented growth in academic programs, including launching new programs in physician assistant studies and design thinking, and creation of the School of Health Sciences.
House has been famously collaborative, persistent and optimistic. He led a faculty team that worked tirelessly to develop Elon’s application to shelter a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, assessed where academic programs needed to be strengthened, developed an action plan and implemented changes that moved the institution forward. Following deeper investments in Belk Library, foreign languages, faculty scholarship and development, and other key areas, the university received approval to host a Phi Beta Kappa chapter in 2010, strengthening Elon’s identity as a premier liberal arts institution and national university.
House also leveraged his can-do spirit and love for data to ensure completion of the NewCentury@Elon and Elon Commitment strategic plans, working with colleagues to create timelines and budgets to achieve the goals of each plan, which solidified Elon’s reputation as the national leader in engaged, experiential learning.
Whether serving as chair of the budget committee, partnering with Student Life to create one of the nation’s most vibrant residential campuses, celebrating faculty and student accomplishments, or delivering a lecture to his Elon 101 class about the connections between philosophy and science, House always led with his heart, treating others with kindness and respect as an expression of his deep and abiding faith. Beloved as an enthusiastic champion for Elon, Steven, together with his wife, Pat House, attended thousands of university events and generously supported this community by endowing the Steven and Patricia House Excellence in Mentoring Award to honor a faculty or staff member who embodies a sustained commitment to student mentoring.
In recognition of his distinguished service in the Provost’s Office, House was named executive vice president and provost in 2015, expanding his responsibilities to include working directly with athletics and admissions and financial planning.
House stepped down as provost in 2019 and continued serving the Elon community as executive vice president before retiring in 2021 as executive vice president and provost emeritx following 20 years of extraordinary service.
“It has been a joy to be a part of a community that is devoted to the Elon mission and is ready to change higher education,” House said. “For all of you, my challenge is that you will always be passionately curious and that your love of learning and your love of Elon be a joy-filled journey.”
A respected cardiovascular physiologist, House earned his bachelor of science degree in biology from Calvin College, a doctorate in physiology at the University of Arizona and served as a postdoctoral fellow in physiology and cellular biophysics at Columbia University.
Jean Rattigan-Rohr
Poet, playwright, broadcaster, actress, teacher and champion for children only begin to describe Jean Rattigan-Rohr. For 16 years, she has shared her intellect and heart with the Elon and Alamance County communities, gently but firmly offering the reminder that when we invest in a child’s education, we can change the world.
Growing up in Kingston, Jamaica, Rattigan-Rohr developed a love for learning and public speaking at an early age, participating in speech and drama competitions that prepared her for a successful career in radio and television, and, ultimately, the classroom, where her presence alone brought learning to life. she discovered her calling as an educator while home-schooling her son, Christopher, who was struggling to read due to dyslexia. That experience motivated Rattigan-Rohr to earn a bachelor’s degree in speech language pathology and audiology, a master’s degree in special education and a doctorate in curriculum and instruction from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she taught for four years before coming to Elon.
Rattigan-Rohr joined the faculty in the Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education in 2007, quickly earning a reputation as a dynamic and engaging teaching-scholar-mentor who inspired many of her students to pursue careers in teaching, including one alumna who said, “When I think about the educator I want to be, I think of Jean Rohr.”
“Thank you, Elon, for giving me the space and the place to think deeply about why some children find reading to be so incredibly daunting while others do not,” Rattigan-Rohr said. “Thank you for the many moments in which I have been profoundly moved by the genuine and abiding gratitude of parents whose children I have been given the privilege to serve.”
In 2008, understanding firsthand the essential role that literacy plays in a child’s education, Rattigan-Rohr founded the “It Takes A Village Project,” a successful tutoring initiative for struggling young readers with involvement of families and Elon students, faculty, and staff. Through her thoughtful leadership, philanthropic support, and partnerships with the Alamance-Burlington School System and community organizations, the Village Project flourished and currently serves more than 1,000 students in elementary and middle schools, while becoming an international model for literacy education with programs in Jamaica, along with UNCG, Winston-Salem State University and Concordia universities.
In 2013, then-President Leo M. Lambert appointed Rattigan-Rohr to a two-year term as faculty administrative fellow and assistant to the president, with a special focus on coordinating and integrating academic and support services for Elon’s growing college access and success programs while also serving as a member of the senior staff. With her unique ability to bring people and programs together, Rattigan-Rohr was named director of Elon’s Center for Access and Success, which opened in 2014 and included the Village Project, Odyssey scholarship program, services for first-generation students, and the Elon Academy, initiatives that serve students from pre-kindergarten to college that have helped thousands of outstanding students from underrepresented communities earn college degrees.
In 2016, Rattigan-Rohr assumed the additional title of executive director of community partnerships at Elon, becoming a permanent member of the senior staff while representing the university in community partnerships in Alamance County and across the Triad before being promoted to vice president for access and success in 2019.
A prolific fundraiser, Rattigan-Rohr secured more than $4 million to support her work and research, including a $1.25 million grant from the Oak Foundation in 2021 to significantly expand the Village Project to serve 1,200 students in all 12 Title 1 elementary schools in Alamance County and launch the Start Early in Medicine program, a partnership with the university’s physician assistant studies program and Alamance Community College.
A respected scholar, Rattigan-Rohr shared her research nationally and internationally on literacy development of traditionally marginalized students, parental involvement, and visioning, and is the author of many peer-reviewed publications in top education journals along with her 2012 book, “It Takes a Village: A Collaborative Approach to the Struggling Reader Dilemma.”
Rattigan-Rohr is the recipient of Elon’s Periclean Award for Civic Engagement and Social Responsibility (2013) and the Ron Waters Award from the Alamance Partnership for Children (2020), where she served on the board for three years.
“Thank you to all the people who make Elon University the forward-thinking institution of higher education that it is,” Rattigan-Rohr said. “I do not take for granted the great grace, good fortune and many blessings I have received here over the years.”
Following more than a decade of dedicated and transformational service in college access and success, Rattigan-Rohr was named special assistant to the president in 2022 before retiring in 2023 as vice president and professor of education emerita.