Scott Welkos
Staff Reporter
JROTC. President of the German Club. Campus Safety Dispatcher. Member of the Homecoming Court. Candidate for Miss Maryland USA. Though this may sound like a description of several people, it is not.
Sophomore Mae Alexander has certainly taken advantage of McDaniel College’s wide array of organizations and available activities.
However, this is a trend which developed long before McDaniel. Alexander attended the Virginia Military Institute and was involved in the JROTC program in high school.
Alexander is majoring in Art and Art History, with a minor in Mathematics. In the fall of 2008, she began working as a dispatcher for the Department of Campus Safety here at McDaniel. She resumed that position in the summer of 2009, but has since had to leave due to scheduling conflicts.
“I loved working there,” said Alexander. “I got to know a lot about the safety on this campus, and I met many different people, from students to faculty.” She also learned about “how our interactions with the campus as a department shape and help this college.”
Though balancing work with school proves difficult for many, this wasn’t the case for Alexander. “It is one of the only jobs on campus that during your downtime you can work on a paper for class without a problem.”
Her duties at Campus Safety included taking phone calls from students, faculty, and citizens of Westminster. She then had to relay information to Campus Safety officers so that they would know as much as possible before entering into a situation.
On Halloween weekend, Alexander competed in the Miss Maryland USA competition. “It was just something different for me,” she explained. “Pageants were never really an option for me then, but I felt like I wanted to branch out and try something different.”
During the pageant, competitors took place in an interview, an evening gown competition, and a swimsuit competition. They also performed a choreographed dance as an opening for the event.
Alexander did not win the competition’s top prize, but instead took home the title of Miss Congeniality. She explained that the award “was a greater honor because that is chosen by the other contestants and not by the judges.”
Following graduation, Alexander hopes to become a teacher as well as a writer. “I am not sure what I want to teach yet,” she admitted. However, she did note that she “would like to work in schools that have a high risk of gang activity, and hopefully help students that feel their only option is to participate in gangs.”