MengMeng Xu recently won the university’s Sally Sterling Byrd Award.

As she rides out the tail end of a full scholarship to this university, biochemistry and economics major MengMeng Xu just added another award to her already overflowing resumé, recognized as this year’s female senior who exemplified model citizenship and advanced the university.

But Xu stressed that her four years as an undergraduate student have been more about giving back to the university community than what she can get out of it.

On May 1, the university honored Xu with the Sally Sterling Byrd Award, a citizenship prize for women, noting her scholarship, leadership and cancer research as reasons she was chosen, but Xu said her efforts were more about finding herself than bolstering her resumé.

“College is sort of just realizing who you are as a person and what’s important to you,” Xu said. “A lot of people are going through college just to get degrees, but what I’ve learned about myself and the potential that both I and everyone around me has is really amazing.”

Xu said the Byrd award was the highlight of a long list of distinctions she’s received, including the Maryland Daily Record’s Circle of Excellence Scholarship, the Banneker/Key Scholarship and the Barry M. Goldwater scholarship — a prestigious science award.

“I think it’s really an honor because it’s for doing as much as you can for Maryland,” said Xu, who will begin work toward a medical degree at Duke University in the fall. “I try to give back as much as I can because I feel like I got a lot here.”

Despite a 3.95 grade point average, near-perfect MCAT scores and a collection of awards, several people said Xu’s modesty outshines her accomplishments.

Associate Director of Student Conduct Andrea Goodwin, who has worked with Xu as an adviser for the Student Honor Council and has also been her teacher, said Xu was a joy to work with.

“She is kind, caring, one of the most humble individuals that I have ever known, responsible and has so much character and integrity.”

Though Xu spent her academic career as a double major who frequented research labs, she made it a point to become involved in other activities during her four years at this university — most notably presiding as an officer in the Student Honor Council and working as a member of the Peer Leadership Council, a group of students who host leadership workshops and conferences for other students.

“I can’t even begin to describe how impactful that’s been for me,” she said of the leadership council. “They’re the people I can go to to talk about anything.”

She added that she saw the honor council as a way to make student judicial hearings as fair as possible.

“I had a pretty bad K-12 experience with government [classes], so I tried for [University Student Judiciary] because I figured that government was something I couldn’t ignore,” Xu said. “Then I got really involved and learned a lot about how procedures work, and we try to be as objective and fair as possible.”

Goodwin stressed Xu’s ability to treat everyone equally during student honor reviews.

“She treats everyone with kindness and respect,” Goodwin said. “She has such a strong sense of ethics and moral responsibility.”

Xu said she constantly draws stimulation from this university and her peers and professors here.

“I love this campus. I love how you can see and feel history here just by seeing the trees and how big they are,” Xu said. ” And mostly, it’s the people here; I think I’ve been really lucky finding people that I find inspiring.”

farrell at umdbk dot com