Sweet Summertime

Summer in the SMC Admissions office is heavenly...planning travel for the fall (my territory changed...did you notice? I will be representing Rhode Island, Cape Cod, Quincy, Plymouth, Norfolk and Bristol counties in Massachusetts, Utah and Colorado), meeting incoming students, giving presentations to prospective students and taking some much deserved time off. Yes, life is good :-)

Last week Mallory and I took off on a whirlwind journey to NYC which some people called crazy, and I DEFINITELY called crazy when I was getting home at 1:00 AM after being up since 4:45 AM. But now that I'm rested I remember how awesome it was ;-)

Being the twitter junkies (well, @MalloryWood is a junkie, I dabble) that we are, we both follow @JetBlueCheeps in order to get updates about cheap flights from our favorite airline, JetBlue, which has excellent flight options out of Burlington. Well, didn't we stumble up on cheap flights from Burlington to JFK a few weeks ago...the rest is history.

We got up at 4:45 AM for our 6:30 departure, which started the day off on a very early foot. We got to NYC by 7:30 and took MTA into Manhattan so that we could get to the set of the Today Show. Not only did we get to see all of the Today Show anchors, we also met Ann Curry!

We then shopped around, had a delicious lunch in Hell's Kitchen and headed to Broadway to see Sister Act. There aren't even enough words to describe how amazing the show was...we laughed hysterically, I cried (obviously - I can't seem to control my tears while on Broadway) and we've done a lot of singing since we got home!

After the show we decided to head to the stage door to see if we could meet any of the actors, only to find a huge commotion going on outside the theater...well, apparently Justin Bieber was doing the Top 10 List on the Letterman show, so a huge crowd gathered to see him come out their stage door. Mallory and I both got swept up in the excitement of the paparazzi and screaming girls and took quite a few photos despite not being able to sing more than 3 words of any of his songs...

After the Bieber Fever commotion died down, we achieved our true purpose of getting autographs from the cast of Sister Act - everyone of the actors was super down to earth and friendly, and we got a ton of autographs. But the one we really wanted was Patina Miller, who played Delores VanCartier. Long story short, we ended up on the stage of the show, taking pictures with her. What a perfect ending to a wonderful day!

I was exhausted for the rest of the week, but it was all worth it for a great day in NYC with a great friend. On the plane home that night at 1:00 AM I swore I'd never do it again...but we'll see :-)

SMC Staff Community Service Day

All of the participants!

Can you find me? I was struggling big time looking into the sun...

Last Wednesday all SMC faculty and staff we invited to participate in a campus wide community service day which included service both on campus and off. Colleagues participated in power washing campus buildings, picking up litter near the townhouses and cleaning the chapel as well as off campus service at Camp Ta-Kum-Ta, Catamount Outdoor Family Center, Winooski Senior Center, COTS and others.

I spent my morning at the Winooski Senior Center, where my group and I baked 9 dozen cupcakes for their BINGO event the next night. Two of the group members also went on Meals on Wheels routes throughout Winooski. It was so much fun to participate in service with a small group off SMC staff from all over campus, including athletics, Applied Linguistics, IT and both the English and Education Departments. We had a ton of fun baking and chatting, all for a good cause.

The Community Service Day was such a wonderful testament to the strong community that we have here on campus, among students as well as faculty and staff. It was a great way to kick off my first summer back at SMC as a staff member!

Commencement - Where to Now?

This Monday, the Saint Michael's College Class of 2011 officially became alumni! A huge congratulations goes out to each and every member of this influential and successful class.

Check out two videos that Mallory made to recap Commencement!

The common concern among recent graduates from any college is where they're off to next...but based on the statistics from the Career Development Office, the education that students receive at Saint Michael's College serves them well!

The most current statistics (for the class of 2010) indicate the following about the whereabouts of SMC grads six months after graduation:

70% full time employment

19% graduate school

9% part-time employment

7% full-time volunteer

2% other

(These numbers don't add up to 100% because some students are doing more than one of these things - i.e. part-time employment plus graduate school...)

Even with the current, difficult economic climate, Saint Michael's College graduates are out in the world, conquering their next steps. Congratulations to all, and welcome to the Alumni Association!

Threes

We've all heard the saying that bad things come in threes, and from the way things have been going around my apartment lately, I completely agree with this superstition :-)

I live in downtown Burlington with two close friends from SMC, Mallory and Dustin. All three of us work in Higher Ed, we all love to laugh and have fun, love Broadway and live very well together. However, one of the things about living in an apartment as opposed to a dorm is dealing with a property and all of the potential problems. The past few weeks have illustrated pretty much all of these problems.

First, our toilet broke. Not much detail needed here, but that was issue number one.

Second, our heat broke. Which led to us learning that our chimney was blocked, which then led to us learning that the blockage was a family of squirrels, which then led to our chimney sort of crumbling.

Finally, we turned on the TV last night, as we do every Tuesday night at 8:00 to watch GLEE, and it was all snowy and broken. I was nominated to call our cable company, and as I was talking, my roommates got a case of the giggles, which led to me not being able to stop laughing, and led to a very, very unproductive phone call with the poor woman who was supposed to be troubleshooting our TV. The end solution was to have a technician come out on Sunday, so hopefully we will be in a less giggly mood then.

Bottom line - living on your own (even with roommates) is filled with adult-like challenges. But I'm thankful to have a place to call home and wonderful friends to share that with!

Now on to fixing the Check Engine light in my car tomorrow...

Girl Power

As I embark on my second week of spring admissions travel, I am struck by how much I am in the minority among my fellow business travelers - I see very few female business travelers, no matter where I am.

I spent last week in New Jersey traveling around to college fairs and didn't see any other women in my hotel who appeared to be traveling for business, and today I'm flying from Burlington to Baltimore (with a layover in Philadelphia, which is where I am right now) and have seen at least 3 times as many men making their way through the airports for business.

How can I tell who is traveling for business and who is traveling for pleasure? One big sign is being alone, as opposed to with a husband, wife or a group of family members. Professional dress is another big tip-off (although I'm not sure my purple converse exude business traveler...) as is a clear display of packing skill - business travelers usually pack very effectively and have matching luggage, a laptop case etc...Plus, you can always tell the vacationers by their shorts and tans in an airport far from where they received that tan...

I really enjoy traveling for SMC and I have absolutely no problem being in the minority...last week one of the hotel clerks told me that I was the youngest "Gold Elite" hotel rewards member that's she'd ever seen at her hotel. Gotta get famous for something!

If you are in MD/DC/VA I hope to see you as I attend college fairs this week. Thinks of me in a sea of businessmen as a businessWOMAN in my purple converse!!

Lookin' fly :-)

Taking a minute...

"Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without" - Buddha

The past few months have been absolutely crazy. My colleagues and I have worked tirelessly to keep up with our amazing 33% increase in applications to SMC, give enough time to each application to evaluate it fairly and stay on our timeline for getting decision letters out. We mailed out our final batch of acceptance letters on March 17th, but there's not much time to breathe - we've got accepted students to welcome to campus so that they can make their important decision, spring travel to execute and events on campus to close out the academic year.

Yesterday was especially stressful for me - I felt like I was going in 100 different directions all day long, including my first travel visit of the spring over in Plattsburgh, NY, working at Jazzercise, choir practice and a late-night (because of the time differences in our respective parts of the world) Skype date with my two camp friends Amy and Emily. However, during my time on Skype I was just overwhelmed with this peaceful feeling of how lucky I am.

How lucky I am to have people at home and around the world who thought about me on the 24th birthday on Wednesday, how lucky I am to have friends (especially Kristin, Amy and Emily) who all bring me incredible feelings of love and peace, how lucky I am to have a wonderful, rewarding job, how lucky I am to have a supportive family.

The busy, stressful aspects of the day were forgotten and I was overcome with gratitude.

I hope that you will have a similar feeling during this last weekend in March, and that you will do something to bring yourself peace.

Tuition Runs Out...

Mallory Wood, Assistant Director of Marketing at Saint Michael's College (and also my roommate...holler) put together this hilarious video for Tuition Runs Out Day...watch it to learn more, and get a few laughs!