Department of Human Resources
Office of Student Employment

UMD "Student Employee of the Year" 2007

Second Runner Up (Tie)

MEGHAN KEIL

I am pleased to be writing this letter on behalf of the entire UMD Career Services staff to nominate Meghan Keil, for the UMD Student Employee of the Year.

Meghan has been a strong asset and contributor in our office since the fall of 2005 when she was hired to work in the Career Resource Center (CRC) as a Career Peer Assistant. She has worked 12-20 hours per week performing an extensive variety of tasks for the office. Her responsibilities with the office have expanded over her time as her strengths have been exhibited. Due to her exhibited leadership and motivation, Meghan successfully moved into the role as the Lead Peer Assistant this last fall. Among the responsibilities of the Lead Peer, she has the role of overseeing the CRC, acting liaison between the Career Peer Assistants and the Career Services staff, managing the requests for presentations and facilitating the outreach efforts of the CRC. She works diligently and is very successful in coordinating all the aspects of her job, her academics and outside activities, among which is President of Student Association. Meghan takes great pride in all the work she does and we all benefit from her diligence and enthusiasm.

Meghan has been my right hand din coordinating the Career Peer Assistants, the Career Resource Center and the many activities and presentations we do. She brings an incredible organizational skill to the role and uses it to oversee the workings of our peer program. She is always on time and works effectively to complete any task given her. She also encourages and facilitates success in the other members of the CRC and is always available to assist with troubleshooting and problem solving. She facilitates the CRC staff meetings, maintains her hours in the Career Resource Center, makes herself available to do classroom ePortfolio presentations, assists our Director with the review of resumes and is always willing to help out in the office when the need arises. I can trust Meghan to fully develop a project, implement it and the provide feedback and evaluation of the process.

One project Meghan oversees is the scheduling of presenters for our more than 70 outreach presentations each year. She not only makes sure that peers are available to conduct the sessions; she often steps in herself to cover the sessions that ened extra assistances. She also works directly with the instructors to tailor the presentations to any specific needs the instructor might have. Feedback from instructors often reflects on the thoroughness and professionalism of the presentations. The other Peer Assistants genuinely like and respect Meghan which assists in crating a wonderfully positive environment in which to work. This also serves to help make the Career Resource Center an environment that students feel is a comfortable place in which to come and ask questions.

The services within the Career Resource Center have grown during Meghan’s time in the Career Service Office and with that, her responsibilities have grown alongside. She has demonstrated the strong ability to work independently and has been given numerous tasks to utilize those strengths. Her responsibilities within the Resource Center extend from maintaining the books, videos and computers to working with students to access information on deciding on a major, planning for a career or internship and writing resumes. She has been in the forefront in developing dynamic classroom presentations for the University of Minnesota ePortfolio. She also works individually with the students as they come into the Resource Center with questions regarding ePortfolio; helping them learn about the system, scanning and uploading documents, converting files into digital format and general troubleshooting. She has also assisted in revamping the ePortfolio handouts that accompany each upgrade to the system and has been solicited for feedback by the UM Development Team for ePortfolio on it’s usability.

The quality of Meghan’s work is impeccable. I know that if she takes on a task, she will often exceed my expectations. She sees tremendous value in all she has taken on here at Career Services and it is very evident in the outstanding quality of the work she produces. She has wonderful people skills, is organized, is conscientious, and maintains a positive and professional disposition. She provides excellent front line student service in the Career Resource Center and is very knowledgeable about the issues relating to college students and to career development.

She uses the resources in our office to stay current with the knowledge of career issues and the needs of the student population as well as campus and community resources. This provides her with the ability to effectively answer questions presented by students as well as to provide appropriate referrals when necessary.

Initiative and professionalism are two areas where Meghan excels. The creativity brought to the job by Meghan has prompted us to explore numerous programming ideas that might not have been otherwise developed. Meghan’s desire to serve students’ needs has provided inspiration in further developing our Peer Assistance Program and our outreach efforts.

When Meghan sees potential for “getting out there” and providing the students with services regarding career development, she doesn’t hesitate in presenting her ideas for consideration. It is because of Meghan’s forward thinking about addressing students’ needs that we have developed more outreach to disseminate information to students regarding topics such as choosing majors, job search strategies, resume writing, interviewing skills, and using UMD ePortfolio through the staffing of information tables, hosting open houses and conducting workshops that are open to all students. All of these events have met with tremendous success and are all now built into the responsibilities of our Career Resource Center peers.

Meghan has proven herself to be an invaluable asset to the Career Services Office. Her strength of character, initiative, strong communication skills, leadership and professionalism have all contributed to the ongoing success of the Career Resource Center and her creative ideas have provided inspiration in developing new and unique programming. Her knowledge and unending curiosity in the area of college career development has enabled the students at the university to receive a greater quality of service.

Meghan takes her job seriously and her understanding of the value of professionalism in this role is the foundation for her success. She has taken all she has learned both in the classroom and through her exposure to the information in our office and she lives it. She understands that what she does now as a student employee is paving the way for what she will do once she leaves higher education. She is using this experience as her training ground and feels confident sharing this insight and philosophy not only with the other peer assistants, but with the students she speaks to in the CRC and in her presentations. Meghan is the one we often hold up as our example of success.