Megan studied abroad in Granada, Spain and traveled through Europe. Courtesy of Megan McLaughlin
By Laura Sanicola
The web of student leadership at Fordham University involves many players. Of course, there are the public figureheads, comprised of elected student government officials such as those in the Residence Hall Association (RHA) and United Student Government (USG). There are the retreat leaders, New Student Orientation captains and the student athletes whose faces are intrinsically associated with Fordham University.
Megan McLaughlin, FCRH ’15 is not one of those public figureheads.
The native of Fremont, California wields a quiet influence over student affairs. She meets regularly and develops close relations with some of the most powerful administrators at Fordham, while overseeing the operations of the Fordham Undergraduate Research Journal as editor-in-chief and performing vice presidential duties of Phi Alpha Theta, Fordham’s History Honors Society. She is also a member of the Fordham Club, Dean’s Academic Council, Rose Hill Society and Alpha Sigma Nu — making her one of the most involved behind-the-scenes students of the Rose Hill campus.
“Sometimes I look at my emails and just sort of wonder who let me get to the place where I get to make decisions that affect other students and professors,” Megan half-seriously remarked about her influence at Fordham. “College is one of the last places where you really get a chance to do some of these things.”
The spheres that Megan dominates directly impact students’ lives. In the Fordham Club, her committee has restarted Spark Lunches with professors and is working on making syllabi available to students year-round. She is also currently in the midst of writing her honors thesis and finishing her double major in history and Spanish language and literature.
“I mean, I don’t have tons of free time,” she quipped, again, in seriousness.
She continued, “But [after graduation] I’m probably not ever going to help make department-wide academic or student life changes at a university…you have to make the most of the opportunities you have while you can.”
Perhaps most impressive is that her successes at Fordham are tantamount to her professional successes of the past six months. Megan holds acceptance letters from several top 10 law schools, an important step towards realizing a childhood dream.
“[As a child] I just thought that the ability to put the bad guys in jail (without having to chase them down or duck bullets) was the neatest thing,” Megan said. “I was even a judge for Halloween once.”
Megan’s understanding of the law has become more nuanced throughout the years, though her desire to study criminal law has stayed constant.
“The law is man-made, and men aren’t perfect,” she explains. “They don’t always get it right or they get the law right, and the law is fundamentally unfair. People practice law — it’s not something that has been perfected. It’s a work in progress, and being a lawyer is being a part of that process.”
Megan finds happiness in the most daunting of tasks, often many that are largely unrelated to her career goals. She effectively convinced me that running FURJ is nothing short of “pure enjoyment” — occasionally mixed with the stress and terror of hitting deadlines and managing a staff and producing a journal — but mostly sheer enjoyment.
Under her leadership, FURJ has restarted its website, began sponsoring lectures in conjunction with other clubs and is now working towards getting a digital object identifier for published articles. Megan takes no off-season.
Following a summer internship on Capitol Hill for a member of Congress (“where I realized that politics are a better spectator sport, at least for me”), Megan worked in a U.S. District Court, where she gained experience in legal writing, observed arraignments, sentencings and trials.
Her last internship was “the shortest commute ever” at the New York Division of Human Rights, located on 1 Fordham Plaza. Megan spent a semester investigating possible violations of New York’s Human Rights law, performing online research and calling companies.
For now, she is patiently waiting for the rest of her law school decisions to roll in. One could say she left her mark at Fordham, but she probably won’t be the one to say so. She prefers to let her actions speak for themselves.
