Had you asked Bursar Jay Harper while a freshman at Elon whether he would ever be back to work at the university, he would have said no. He had much bigger plans.

“My freshman year I was pretty wide-eyed in the sense that I could go anywhere and do anything,” Harper said. “I had not planned on staying in the area. I had much bigger sights than staying in this area.”

Harper grew up 30 minutes east of Elon in Hillsboro where he still lives today with his two sons, Pearson, 10, Cameron, 6 and his wife.

In college, he was a workaholic. Instead of hanging out with friends and spending endless nights in the library, Harper commuted to Elon from his home with his parents in Hillsboro. He also worked part time in Durham.

“I didn’t do a whole lot of visiting professors,” he said. “I just did what I was supposed to do. I didn’t hang around campus a lot.”

After he graduated from Elon in 1994, Harper was offered a full-time job at Carpenter’s Incorporated as a business manager. After working there for eight years, Harper began looking for another job and an opening at Elon happened to come up.

“I didn’t just one day say, ‘I’m going to look specifi cally at Elon,’ but when I was looking, I looked mainly because of the great experience that I had as an undergrad,” Harper said. “My mother worked at Duke and I really got a taste of what working in higher ed was like. However, she said, ‘You don’t want to work at Duke.’”

Harper said Duke was too big, and the sense of community is unlike Elon’s. Elon, despite its growth, feels like a family.

As Bursar, Harper collects tuition from students and parents. He has a regimented schedule of tasks he must accomplish every day, and while some parts of his job may seem mundane, his fear of failure really keeps him going.

“If I’m in a position where I have to do x-y-z and if I do those things, I consider that being successful,” Harper said.

Harper said the best part about his job is speaking with families and helping them in some way.

“I get to talk to talk to people from different countries and from all over the United States. It’s great having a conversation with someone you otherwise might not get to,” Harper said. “I really do like that feeling of ‘You just don’t know how much you helped me with this.’”

Although he loves his job, Harper is fi rst and foremost a family man. Nothing makes him happier than spending time with Pearson and Cameron.

Sports are a huge part of his life. Whether he is attending a Durham Bulls baseball game with the family, taking his sons to basketball practice or cheering on the Duke Blue Devils, sports are things that connect his whole family.

Harper said balancing family and work is extremely important to him. But at the end of the day, he said, “I’m fi ne not being the person out there in the forefront, as long as I have a sense of accomplishment.”

THE MAN BEHIND THE BILLS

35 // � e Legacies of Elon’s Leaders

Story By Samantha King

Jay Harper� e Legacies of Elon’s Leaders // 36

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Story By Samantha King GET TO KNOWJay HarperArrived at Elon in 2002 (graduated from Elon in 1994)Hometown: Hillsboro, NCFavorite Leader: Pam Brumbaugh, Director of Experiential Education