{"id":260891,"date":"2026-05-06T17:46:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T17:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/260891\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T17:46:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T17:46:07","slug":"kindness-is-key-to-her-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/260891\/","title":{"rendered":"Kindness is key to her leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"

It could be a Post-it note\u2014or several\u2014stuck to your door with silly stickers and kind thoughts, a heartfelt card, or a gift, personalized for the recipient.<\/p>\n

Those are some of the ways that University of Miami senior Margaret Todd shows her appreciation for friends, mentors, and co-workers. It is through these acts of kindness, or her sincere, upbeat personality, that Todd has the uncanny ability to transform the mindset of nearly anyone around her into a happier one.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarge is like pure sunshine,\u201d said Heather Stevens, assistant to the senior vice president for student affairs, who also helps advise Student Government (SG) and has mentored Todd. \u201cShe comes into a room with exuberance to be there, and she brings this positive energy that we can have a good time and accomplish things.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a student leader, Todd\u2019s thoughtful approach also helps others feel included and heard at the University, whether it\u2019s in Student Government Executive Board meetings, in its ECO Agency<\/a>\u2014where she served as chair this past year\u2014on the Homecoming Executive Committee, or in the Division of Student Affairs\u2019 communications office, where she worked for the last three years.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is so positive in every room that she enters but wants to make sure that other people feel that way too,\u201d said Ivana Liberatore, a friend of Todd\u2019s, who just finished her term as Student Government president. \u201cAt every executive board meeting, she was instrumental in fostering a community of friendship within SG, and honestly, within everything that she does. She is good at connecting people in every organization she is a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Todd graduates with honors from the Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science<\/a>, majoring in ocean sciences with minors in meteorology and geospatial technology. Her passion for marine science and the environment led her from Falls Church, Virginia, to the University and to ECO Agency, where she has been involved since her sophomore year.<\/p>\n

As chair, Todd helped lead several sustainability initiatives, including installing a shaded, solar-powered table with charging outlets outside the Cox Science Building; planting a native butterfly garden with Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden; advancing glass recycling efforts; and organizing the first ECO Gala in partnership with the Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy<\/a>, said its co-adviser, Teddy Lhoutellier. It is one of many collaborative events she planned for ECO in the last few years, friends said.<\/p>\n

Despite her many commitments\u2014including Student Government, student affairs, and serving as vice chair of marketing for this year\u2019s Centennial Homecoming\u2014Todd also completed an honors thesis examining how Saharan dust may fuel sargassum blooms in the Caribbean.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unreal the time management skills she has, but Margaret gets it done,\u201d said Peter Kellogg, a recent alumnus, friend, and former ECO board member.<\/p>\n

Her adviser, Maria \u201cJosefina\u201d Olascoaga, said Todd quickly mastered the coding needed for her research.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce she had it going, Margaret was very independent and quickly managed to analyze different regions and time periods with very detailed, clean coding,\u201d she said. \u201cShe learned a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

During her time at the U, Todd said one of her favorite experiences was working in the communications office at the Division of Student Affairs. She began writing articles for its news site, which has been a big source of support for Lindsey Hines, its director of marketing and communications.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe started writing, and little by little, it has gotten to the point where I can just throw ideas at her, and she does interviews and creates articles,\u201d Hines said. \u201cShe has been a tremendous help because she takes the initiative, wants to learn, and does not want to be complacent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hines said it\u2019s not just Todd\u2019s productivity she will miss after graduation, but her bubbly, happy aura. Each week, Todd would scrawl an open-ended question on a whiteboard to engage staff in the office, and many times, employees from other divisions would come in to add their own answers or just read the humorous responses.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe makes it her goal to include everyone and make them feel welcome,\u201d Hines added. \u201cShe is one of the most thoughtful students I have encountered at the U. And she is always thinking about others and not herself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outside of academics, Todd enjoys Taylor Swift and Hurricanes sports events. She rarely misses a football game and counts the football team\u2019s success this year as one of her favorite college memories. She met friends at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas for New Year\u2019s Eve and even made it to the National Championship at Hard Rock Stadium.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t have asked for a more exciting season,\u201d Todd said. \u201cIt had my heart racing!\u201d<\/p>\n

She also helped coordinate a partnership between ECO and UM Athletics for the baseball team\u2019s April \u201cGreen Game,\u201d where they promoted sustainability efforts like composting.<\/p>\n

After graduation, Todd hopes to combine her interests in marine science and communications.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of the opportunities I pursued as a student, I was able to gain experiences in two completely different fields that have unique crossovers,\u201d she said. \u201cNowhere else could I be pursuing a senior thesis in ocean sciences while writing stories for News@theU. It is something that is unique to UM, and I am grateful I got to experience it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It could be a Post-it note\u2014or several\u2014stuck to your door with silly stickers and kind thoughts, a heartfelt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-260891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}