Random Student Profile: Madeleine Means

If one were to ask Madeleine Means what sets her apart from the rest of the Syracuse University student body, she might not offer much of an answer. She’s not into wild parties or adventures and doesn’t have any raunchy weekend stories to share. She’s just a friendly person with a calm group of friends and her feet on the ground – and that’s exactly what makes her unique.

Means, a junior fashion design major who goes by ‘Maddie,’ hails from Providence, RI and is proud of it. ‘I have a lot of Providence pride,’ she said in an interview. Her house is next to the campus of the Moses Brown School, the private (and secular) Quaker high school she attended.

Living so close to the school led Means to play host to many of her classmates who lived an hour away or more.

‘There were always a million kids at our house,’ she said. ‘My parents were always cooking dinner for everyone. We had an extended family.’

At Moses Brown, Means learned the value of silent contemplation through the school’s practice of having a minute of silence before all activities. Students also partook in daily Quaker meetings, in which the entire school would gather in silence for 45 minutes.

Means knows that to her SU friends, Quaker meetings ‘sound so strange.’ But she enjoyed the activity: ‘When you’re a little kid, you hate it. But once you get older, you really appreciate it. It’s time to clear your head and think about what you want to think about, and it’s something I miss in my every day life.’

Though she is not a Quaker herself, Means still takes part in Quaker meetings when she is home. She had such a good experience at Moses Brown that she even hopes to send her children to a Quaker school, if not Moses Brown itself.

Her special high school environment prepared Means for college in other unusual ways by allowing her to experience more freedom than the average student. ‘It was more like a college in the way you schedule your own classes,’ she said. ‘It was really relaxed. They had a lot of trust in the students.’

Means is pretty relaxed herself. She says her favorite thing to do is listen to reggae music with her friends. She prefers to sit and talk with people rather than watch TV.

‘She’s very much a social director,’ said Laura Gruber, a high school classmate of Means and a friend since fifth grade. ‘She knows how to relate to people well.’ Gruber attends Suffolk University in Boston.

‘She’s mad laid back,’ said Nils Hagstrom, a junior in the College of Human Services and Health Professions. Hagstrom met Means in Lawrinson Hall freshman year when she fell down a flight of stairs in front of him.

That wouldn’t surprise Evan Gray, a junior psychology major and another friend of Means. ‘She tends to fall down a lot, which is entertaining,’ he said.

Means, Gray and Hagstrom like to play Donkey Kong together, a video game Means also plays with Gruber. ‘She’s an avid player,’ Gruber said, but added that ‘She gets very upset when she loses.’

Warned Gray, ‘She hits when she gets angry!’

Means hopes to be a hit in the fashion industry, but enjoys making simpler designs aimed more at the college-aged demographic than at more sophisticated groups. Monica Ladegard, a junior fine arts major who has worked on many fashion projects with Means, said that ‘a lot of people go for couture, high-end fashion – she’s more into reality, what people are really going to wear. She’s going to start the new trend that everyone will wear.’ Ladegard credited Means as being a highly skilled sewer and design illustrator.

Means feels that she is taking easy classes this semester, but will be under great pressure next year putting together her senior collection. But as always, she remains unstressed and low-key.

‘Next year is really going to kick me in the ass,’ she said, ‘but we’ll deal with that when we get there.’

Published on March 30, 2005 at 12:00 pm