As an English major alumnus of Elon University, Colin Rackley has recently made a generous donation to the Elon English Department for his Elon Day Donation. He has expressed his great admiration for the English department and deeply hopes that other Elon graduates of the English department will make donations as well.
Rackley obtained a degree in a Creative Writing concentration and was part of the graduating class of 1998. During his time as a student, Rackley was involved in the English Department newsletter and the student-led service organization Circle K International (CKI).
Since graduating from Elon, Rackley has worked in a variety of different positions to find his passion. He has worked in transportation, hotel business, and non-profit sectors. When asked how he has applied topics that he learned within the English department or at Elon in general to his career, Rackley replied that he has been able to apply knowledge from Elon in a multitude of ways. For instance, when Rackley was a supervisor in the hotel business he had to be very specific when training another person and detailing the specifics of a job position. He believes that the detail-oriented mindset that he formed from the English department helped him to succeed in this position. Rackley also worked for a non-profit dedicated to assisting troubled youth. As part of his role in this non-profit, he worked to develop advertising, flyers, and events to recruit volunteers for the organization. He stated that the creativity he developed from the English department greatly helped him to accomplish these tasks in an effective manner. When he needed to tell stories at events about troubled youth he used creativity and effective language in order to deliver a persuasive message and moving story. Rackley feels his degree in Creative Writing helped him to communicate to the community.
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