{"id":817,"date":"2018-10-11T14:36:47","date_gmt":"2018-10-11T18:36:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/?p=817"},"modified":"2018-10-11T14:36:47","modified_gmt":"2018-10-11T18:36:47","slug":"alumni-spotlight-jillian-ward-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/2018\/10\/11\/alumni-spotlight-jillian-ward-11\/","title":{"rendered":"Alumni Spotlight: Jillian Ward ’11"},"content":{"rendered":"

MIND, BODY AND SPIRIT*<\/h2>\n
\n

\"\"<\/a>If a university education is meant to build not just a career but a productive and meaningful life, Jillian Ward<\/strong>\u2019s UVM experience provides a compelling example. A native of Woodbridge, Conn., Ward \u201911 was interested in entering the helping professions and declared psychology as her UVM major. It wasn\u2019t until her second semester that she took an introduction to Asian religions class. She liked it so much, she took a few more religion courses, including sections on African religion and Buddhism. After a while she realized she was accumulating enough credits to earn a double major.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were the best classes I ever took, so I just kept taking them. By the time I got to upper level classes, I felt this amazing sense of community shared by a small cohort of students and professors.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it came to deep discussions, developing ideas for a thesis project or getting advice on writing and other academic projects, it was mostly faculty in the religion department whom she turned to for guidance. \u201cThe department became a sort of a sanctuary for me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

After UVM, Ward graduated from the University of San Diego with a master\u2019s degree in nursing, and now works as a trauma and neurology RN at Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego. The perspectives she gained in her religion courses at UVM, and her interest in yoga, have informed her holistic approach to healing. \u201cI did yoga at UVM and enjoyed it. Then I did it more intensely as a way of dealing with the stress of graduate school. I received my certification as a RYT (registered yoga teacher) and teach part time at Core Power YogaI. Now I see yoga as a key part of providing care that treats the patient\u2019s mind, body, and inner spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n

As she becomes grounded in her career, Ward is looking forward: “My goal is to work in palliative care and hospice nursing…One of the reasons why my experience in the religion department was so powerful was the passion the instructors\u2014every one of them\u2014had for the subject matter and for their students,\u201d Ward recalls. \u201cThey showed me how important it is to find something to be passionate about.\u201d<\/p>\n

*In this series, we have pulled text from our newly relaunched website<\/a>\u2013we want to highlight our fantastic alumni in as many venues as possible!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MIND, BODY AND SPIRIT* If a university education is meant to build not just a career but a productive and meaningful life, Jillian Ward\u2019s UVM experience provides a compelling example. A native of Woodbridge, Conn., Ward \u201911 was interested in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1096,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[33374],"tags":[474653,165837,474651,474654,109062,112833,417,449],"class_list":["post-817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni","tag-studyreligion","tag-alumni","tag-alumni-spotlight","tag-graduate","tag-humanities","tag-majors","tag-religion","tag-uvm"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4woDM-db","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1096"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":819,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817\/revisions\/819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}