AmeriCorps Youth Services assistant director named admission counselor at Saint Michael's College

Meghan Jaird, a Burlington resident and 2010 graduate of Saint Michael's College, was named Admission Counselor for Saint Michael’s, starting this month. Ms. Jaird was Assistant Director of National Service Programs for the Washington County Youth Service Bureau, an AmeriCorps program, from 2011 to the present.
“I so much enjoyed my experience at Saint Michael’s that I wanted to share my passion and enthusiasm with future students,” said Ms. Jaird, a Dean’s List student who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in sociology/anthropology and minors in political science and peace and justice studies.
“Now I have ‘come home’ to St. Mike’s and can talk with confidence about how liberal studies helps in the real world,” she said.
In her new position, Ms. Jaird will travel as an ambassador on behalf of Saint Michael’s to areas in eastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, portions of upstate New York, Illinois and Ohio.
Following graduation Ms. Jaird, a community engagement intern, developed a leadership council for middle schoolers in Selma Ala., at the Edmundite Southern Missions. She also developed a homework club and art program for elementary students in Selma.
“The youngsters in Selma taught me more than I taught them,” she said. “They were very knowledgeable about Civil Rights history, especially about the Montgomery to Selma March in 1965.”
As a Saint Michael’s student, Ms. Jaird was a MOVE Core Team Member, helping run student volunteer activities. She also developed and coordinated the Homework Club at the JFK Elementary School in Winooski, Vt., from spring 2008 to spring 2010. Additionally she worked with a program to bring Saint Michael’s students together with elementary-age refugee children in Winooski in a mentoring program. And as founder of the SMC New Sudan Education Initiative, she worked for four years to help establish schools in Southern Sudan through fundraising and advocacy.
Ms. Jaird graduated from Bellows Free Academy in St. Albans. Her grandmother, Aline Bowen resides in St. Albans. Ms. Jaird is a group fitness instructor and a big fan of ice hockey and running.
At Saint Michael’s College www.smcvt.edu students are challenged to do their best, find their niche, take on opportunities to grow, and immerse themselves in academic pursuits. Intellectual rigor, compassion, teamwork, caring—these characterize a Saint Michael’s experience. A residential Catholic college, Saint Michael’s is steeped in the social justice spirit of its founding priests, the Edmundites. Saint Michael’s is located three miles from Burlington, Vermont, one of America's top 10 college towns. Headed by President John J. Neuhauser, the college has 1,900 undergraduate students and 500 graduate students. Identified by the Princeton Review, 2014 as one of the nation’s Best 378 Colleges, and included in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2014, Saint Michael's students and professors have received Rhodes, Woodrow Wilson, Goldwater, Pickering, Guggenheim, Fulbright, and other grants and awards. The college is one of the nation's top-100, Best Liberal Arts Colleges as listed in the 2014 U.S. News & World Report rankings