Jennifer McJunkin feels a bond with the international students she helps as a volunteer community aide at the Northwood Community Apartments on North Campus. That’s because she learned English for the first time as a third-grader after attending kindergarten and first grade in Taiwan.
“I’m able to relate to a lot of the international students; I feel like I still have some language barriers that come out,” says McJunkin, secretary at Lane Hall.
Besides living in Taiwan, she has traveled to Norway, England and Australia and has lived in Vermont, Massachusetts and California.
Settled in Ann Arbor now, McJunkin hasn’t escaped world cultures. “At Northwood we have people from all the Asian countries: from Japan, Koreans, Chinese, people that speak French and Spanish,” she says. “We just had a Chinese New Year celebration in February and that was great. We had kids performing with the Chinese yo-yo and people writing with traditional calligraphy — it was a lot of fun and the residents definitely appreciated that. We’re definitely trying to highlight the different cultures in Northwood.”
At Lane Hall, McJunkin works for both the Institute for Research on Women and Gender and Women’s Studies Department. Her desk is located right in the middle of the two units.
Her days start at 8 a.m., regardless of the weather. “I’m usually the first person you see when you walk into Lane Hall,” McJunkin says. “My supervisor jokes that the two units have joint custody of me.”
After graduating from high school, McJunkin attended the University of California, Riverside, earning her bachelor’s degree in liberal studies. While working there as a program coordinator in the residence halls, she met her husband Ben, now a graduate student at the Law School.
“It was a funny situation how I met my husband,” she says. “Ben lived off campus and didn’t want to live alone anymore so he and his friend switched and Ben ended up hiding out in the dorm for a month before I finally found out he was there.”
Before coming to Michigan, the couple spent four years on the East Coast, first in Massachusetts, then in Vermont. McJunkin spent two years as a community aide at the University of Vermont while attending the New England Culinary Institute, where she earned an associate’s degree in culinary arts.
“I liked culinary school and my internships but I’m not sure what I’ll do with (my degree)” she says. “I like my evenings and weekends; working in the food industry, you have to give a lot of that up.”
Since taking over as Lane Hall’s secretary in August 2006, the culinary dilemma has been pushed aside. Her tasks as secretary include distributing mail, managing facility support for the building, setting up event reservations and taking care of any miscellaneous secretarial support. “We all try to keep everything organized and efficient around here all the time with so many people coming in here daily.”
When she’s not at Lane Hall, McJunkin volunteers 20 hours per week at Northwood. She is one of three aides in charge of 135 apartment units occupied mostly by international and out-of-state graduate students. Her duties include residential support and activity programming. McJunkin has worked on a variety of projects and events, the most recent being “Eggstravaganza,” an egg hunt and relay games for grad student families.
“I love doing programming,” McJunkin says. “With these residents, it’s really rewarding to bring together all the cultures from different regions of the world.”
McJunkin enjoys going out to eat with her husband, reading, knitting and occasionally volunteering at the Humane Society. “As a kid, I was never able to have a pet so working with animals now kind of makes up for it,” she says.
While at U-M, McJunkin also had the opportunity to relive a moment from her youth. “My husband and I had the chance to go to the Law School prom. It was a little surreal, but we had a great time,” she says.
The weekly Spotlight features staff members at the University. To nominate a candidate, please contact the Record staff at [email protected].
