Veteran law enforcement officer, Jeffrey Alexander – also known as Chili – recently celebrated more than 20 years serving the students and Tarleton State community in Stephenville. One of the favorite campus officers to both students and community members alike, Alexander keeps a busy schedule between his work and family duties. But he took just a few minutes for The Flash’s first Community Q&A.
“No greater love is to serve the good Lord and to be willing to lay my life down for any and all of you in an instant,” Alexander said of his anniversary. “When I clocked in to start my shift on New Year’s Day morning, it was 23 years to the day of my first day on the job here at Tarleton.”
1. Where did you go to school? Brady High School
2. When did you graduate? I graduated from high school in 1982. I graduated from TSU Police Academy in December 1991.
3. Your first law-enforcement job? Tarleton State University Police Department
4. How long at Tarleton? 23 years
5. What made you choose Tarleton? While I was attending the police academy Chief Robert Hooper approached me and asked if I would be interested in working for the University once I completed the Academy. He hired me as a student worker while I was attending the police academy. I started full-time after I graduated.
6. What has changed in the most time you’ve worked at Tarleton? The enrollment when I started it was 3500 to 4000. Now it’s 10,000+!
7. What has changed the least? The motto of the police officer is to serve and protect. So I guess I would say the least changed part of the job is that as an officer you are always on duty to serve and protect others.
8. What is the best thing about working in law-enforcement and Tarleton? Being a father figure and mentoring to the students. For most students, it is their first time away from mama and daddy and some are scared and some are not so scared if you know what I mean. LOL! It is an awesome feeling to have mentored their parents and now mentoring them. That also means I’m getting older.
9. What is the one thing you wish all students knew coming into Tarleton? I wish that students realized that their freshman year is not a party year, but a time to strive for making A’s and B’s. It is easier to maintain a high GPA then try to bring one up.
10. What is the one thing, besides an education, you hope they leave TSU with? A diploma and the core values that the University leaders have tried to instill in them.
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