Leadership garners Med. student magazine cover

By Lindsey Alpert

Daily Staff Reporter

Leaders are born every day, but only a select few get to see their face on the cover of a magazine.

Second-year Medical student Alice Lin is one if these few. She's on the cover and the focus of the fall issue of the magazine "Student Leader" being released tomorrow.

The magazine, founded in 1993, is published three times a year and distributed to 1,200 schools nationwide. The editors select a student leader for the cover of each issue.

"We were just amazed by all that Alice has accomplished cumulatively over her career at the University of Michigan," said Teresa Beard, the magazine's editor. "She's truly a role model for other Asian-American students to get involved in student programs."

Lin said she saw an e-mail this summer saying the magazine was looking for an Asian-American woman who leads a student government or Asian organization in an upper-Midwest school.

She alerted Director of Student Activities and Leadership Susan Wilson to the call for submissions, and Wilson nominated Lin.

"I really encouraged her to apply, and then I nominated her," Wilson said. "She's really done a lot of work as an undergraduate and graduate student and for lots of organizations."

After sifting through as many as 100 applications, the editors at the magazine selected Lin as the issue's covergirl.

"I found out in mid-August when I was in Germany on vacation," said Lin. "I was really excited. It's kind of a cool thing, 'you're going to be on the cover of a magazine.'"

The magazine will surely be seen by the 120 members of the United Asian American Medical Student Association of which she is president. "I wanted to show that Asian students can be leaders, not just studious, because there's a stereotype," Lin said.

Lin also has served as president of the Inteflex Student Council, on the Red Cross' First Aid Station Team, on the Student Leadership Roundtable, as president of the Taiwanese American Students for Awareness, as a volunteer for Project SERVE, on Michigan Leadership Initiatives and in the Borodin Society, a musical group affiliated with the medical school's "Gifts of Art" program, in which she plays violin.

Lin said her friends ask how she has time for everything.

"It's something I've always been interested in and I feel like my life isn't complete without extracurriculars," she said. "I do all my studies, but I manage to make the time because I'm happier when I'm occupied."

As a full-time medical student and newly elected executive vice president of the national Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association, she has little free time.

"I definitely have to get through medical school," Lin said. "I'd like to encourage everyone to get involved and contribute to this campus in some way."