Crista Hill knows the kind of work she wants to do and the demographics she wants to serve. And in her new capacity as director of veteran and military affairs at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, she’s being given the opportunity to do so.
Crista Hill
Hill is a U.S. Air Force veteran, having served in the military from 1989 to 1993. And after she got out of the military, she raised a family, then simultaneously went back to school and worked full-time, Hill said.
Using her G.I. bill, she both attended and worked as assistant to the business dean at McMurry University, a private Christian college in Abilene, Texas, where she earned her Bachelor of Business Administration in 2003.
Hill said she was hired only months before the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers in New York City. The fallout from the terrorist attack was what spurred her passion to serve military students.
"During 9/11, I just saw the entire university … kind of drop everything and take care of all of the military families,” Hill said, a student veteran herself at the time. “And that was when I knew that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to continue to work in higher education, supporting military-connected students."
Hill began in her new role on Jul. 11, but her experience in the field is extensive. At McMurry, she also spent time as a veterans adviser. At DeVry University, she was an admissions adviser, and at the U.S. Air Force Academy, she was an admissions counselor.
Hill has held several roles at UCCS itself, starting as a graduate recruitment and retention specialist in the School of Public Affairs in 2014. She then worked her way up in veterans and military affairs, becoming assistant director there in 2019, and then interim director from April to June of this year.
