Drema Holder has just one son, but during any given semester, that number balloons to more than two-dozen.
For the past six years, Holder has worked part-time in the Moseley Center at Elon University as a program assistant alongside two full-timers and watching over nearly 30 student workers.
These students are Holder’s self-proclaimed “all-time joy,” and the relationship she has deveolped with them has given her the title of “the mother of Moseley Center.”
“I still feel like I’m raising children,” she said.
It’s a tight-knit group inside the Moseley Center that’s made up of Holder, Michael Williams, director of campus center operations, Henry Walling, assistant director, a graduate assistant and 27 student workers.
After a few minutes around the front desk, it’s easy to see why they consider themselves a family.
“What really impacts me are the student workers that we have and how close they’ve become with each other,” Holder said. “I ask them, ‘Would you have ever known this person unless you didn’t work at the front desk?’ and they say, ‘No.’ To me, that’s rewarding. It’s just amazing how they grow and that’s fulfilling for me.”
Holder’s mission is to get to know her co-workers beyond the workplace. She wants to know about their families, friends and lives in general.
“I feel like I have a good working relationship,” she said. “I ask about them. I want to know about their family, what they did on break, what they’re going to be doing. I want them to be able to come to me if they need something or just want to chat about how their weekend went.”
Holder’s main responsibilities are to assist with the daily operations of the Moseley Center as well as to coordinate the shuttle service Elon runs for its students during breaks.
To perform this role, Holder learned a lesson in mitigation, as she often has to deal with angry parents and students.
“By the end of the conversation, people are usually OK,” Williams said. “With her personality, there’s no way you couldn’t. She’s kind but she’ll tell you what you need to know though as well, so that’s the good part. She’s almost like a mother figure to a lot of the folks.”
The students’ relationship with Holder doesn’t end after they graduate from Elon. A number of her student workers have remained in contact with Holder through Facebook, exchanging messages and maintaining the relationship that began on campus.
One of these students is Suzanne Bell ’13. Bell worked at the Moseley Center for three and a half years with Holder, and Bell considers her a “second mom.”
Bell has shared some great memories with Holder, but none was more special than the New Year’s Day she spent at the Holder home a few years ago.
“I was apprehensive about going, but her family welcomed me into their home,” Bell said. “We all chatted for a while and then ate a wonderful meal. It was a special night. One I’ll never forget.”
As she begins to build her professional career and move on with her life, Bell has become more detached from Elon. But the one connection that remains is Holder. They stay connected through simple gestures, like the one Bell made on Holder’s birthday last year by sending her flowers.
“I just thought that was so special,” Holder said.
Elon isn’t the only place where Holder helps others. She has elderly neighbors she assists when needed and frequently volunteers at the Allied Churches food bank.
“I love to help them, take food to them or check on them cause they don’t have much family,” Holder said. “That’s really fulfilling for me to see things that you kind of take for granted.”
Relationships are important to Holder, and she builds them anywhere she can.
Holder is a Burlington native and graduate of Williams High School, has been married for 41 years and still remains close with her brother and two sisters, who also live nearby.
“We are a real close knit family,” she said.
Working with students isn’t something new to Holder. She worked with students for three decades prior to coming to Elon as an administrative assistant for two associate deans at nearby Alamance Community College (ACC). It was there she realized her love for interacting and bonding with students.
“My all-time joy is the students,” Holder said. “I still feel like they’re my little children.”
Over three decades from her start at ACC, Holder has not lost a passion for interacting with the students and brightening their day. On any given day, Holder might bake cookies for the staff or bring in doughnuts from her favorite doughnut shop to share with everyone. This is a gesture Williams appreciates but jokes it will have him in the gym more often.
“To me, they’re my all-time favorite doughnuts so I’ll stop by,” she said. “I feel my co-workers are just so special to me and I like to do things for them.”
After leaving the community college system, Holder moved on to a new phase of her life but knew she wasn’t ready to retire.
“I retired from the state and then wanted to keep working because I felt like I wasn’t old enough to retire,” she said. “I didn’t want to sit home.”
Now, Holder works part-time in the Moseley Center and provides much more than assistance with shuttles to the airport on breaks.
She is someone students can talk to, relate to and go to for help. The reputation she’s built over the last six years at Elon as a motherly figure is one she has embraced, and doesn’t see herself losing hold of any time soon.
“When I dread getting up in the mornings and coming to work, that’s when I’ll know it’s time for me to actually retire,” Holder said. “But right now, I love coming to work, even days that I feel like I’m sick and need to be home, I still want to come to work.”