Maddie Martin

With Learner, Responsibility, Arranger, Relator, and Self-Assurance as her top strengths, Maddie Martin has an ExperienceVT map full of activities. She has truly taken advantage of opportunities to fully ExperienceVT. Maddie, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, has been president of Chi Delta Alpha, served Special Olympics and The Big Event, participated In the I WILL: Inspiring Women in Lifelong Leadership Institute, volunteered as a note taker for Services for Students with Disabilities, participated in a service trip to Guatemala, and has been recognized as an Aspirations Fellow. As a member of the Thrive Living-Learning Community, Maddie led various Thrive community projects and served as a Thrive Peer Mentor.

As a senior, Maddie has been a true role model for Self-Understanding and Integrity and ExperienceVT overall, having engaged in a wide variety of learning experiences, academic pursuits, and community projects that represent her core values and who she is as a human being. One of Maddie’s biggest contributions to Virginia Tech, and Student Affairs in particular, is her oversight of experience content creation for the ExperienceVT web app as Learning Partnerships’ Experiential Learning Communications Intern. Thanks to her writing proficiency and passion for student experiences, nearly 1,000 experiences are available in the ExperienceVT web app for students to add to their personal ExperienceVT maps. With more information, students will be able to meaningfully reflect on which opportunities align with their goals and choose which Aspirations they hope to grow in through those experiences.

Taran Cardone, Director of the Office for Learning Partnerships, has been with Maddie on her journey from day one at Virginia Tech -- then as the Thrive Program Director and now as her internship supervisor. Taran had this to say about Maddie, “Maddie is exactly the kind of student that reinforces the value of the educational process. To see a student enter the University with goals and then use her strengths to shape her Virginia Tech experience is the epitome of why we do what we do. When Maddie arrived as a first-year student, she and I connected at Deet’s coffee shop about what made her come alive and her answer was: 1) helping people and 2) writing and communications. We talked about her role as high school yearbook editor-in-chief and the way she shaped that role to promote her passion for inclusion. She and her leadership team framed their yearbook around their peers’ stories of seeking belonging and confronting harmful stereotypes. I knew at that point that Maddie would impact Virginia Tech in a BIG way.

Through genuine personal reflection that incorporates all that she is learning, Maddie has pursued self-understanding and integrity to the fullest extent and is well on her way to achieving her goal of becoming a student affairs educator in her own right. The Office for Learning Partnerships is extremely proud of Maddie and her fundamental role in shaping a new office and new initiatives that help her peers and the University community to ExperienceVT.”

Maddie, for your thoughtfulness, conscientiousness, and intentionality in all that you do, it is my honor to present to you the Aspire! Award for Pursue Self-Understanding and Integrity.