First: a cup of coffee. Rifling through the 24 mugs that are stacked in her cabinet, Librarian Media Specialist and Siren adviser Jennifer Campbell, affectionately known as “JCam” by her students, picks out her favorite black mug, pours herself a cup of dark, life-giving liquid and takes a long gulp, preparing herself for another day. Then, it’s time to get out the door. Campbell grabs her black volleyball backpack full of supplies for the day, hops into her charcoal grey Prius and hits the road.

Arriving at Sion, Campbell immediately goes to her grey desk in the library, sets her things down, puts her lunch in the refrigerator, grabs the paper of the day, returns to her desk and sits down.

As a college student, Campbell was never interested in common majors. She wanted something different, classes that would challenge her both mentally and spiritually such as herbal medicine and art, but she didn’t stop the adventure there.

In the past, Campbell lived in Seattle, Washington and would hike the same couple trails every day. According to Campbell, it is a miraculous experience to follow the same trail throughout the year and watch the area transform with the seasons.

Campbell is a skydiving survivor, an avid camper and hiker and has always been intent on living life to the fullest.

“If something frightens me and it is an irrational fear I make myself combat that fear,” Campbell said.

Skydiving was always something that frightened Campbell, and therefore it was on her list of things to do. Roped in by a friend of hers one day, she went. Strapped to a short, stout, smelly man, Campbell jumped from the plane, conquering another fear.

Art, however, was never scary to Campbell. It has always been a passion of hers. To her, art is beautiful, dynamic and pure. It is something she has always excelled and enjoyed, and now she strives to share her love for art and life with her students.

“The beauty of art is learning problem solving. You learn how to express. It is a release. And yet when something is a failure you can go back and recreate it,” Campbell said. “Art has that ebb and flow. There is always something you can take away and grow and shift. It’s fluid.”

As adviser of the Siren, Campbell gets to embrace her love for art, life and living to the fullest every day along with one of her other passions: teaching. Getting to know her students, laughing with them, creating with them and showing each of them how their creativity can change lives is what Campbell enjoys the most.

“Having conversations about life and helping girls grow up [is my favorite part of teaching],” Campbell said. “I really love the idea of teaching life skills and [helping kids] realize that you have to be a complete person. Obviously you need to make money to live, but I’d rather be happy 20 times more than being rich. Live life and be happy.”

Failure is not to be feared in art, according to Campbell. This is one of the things she believes and works to teach her students: that failure is alright and a chance to learn, grow and thrive.

“She never really judged our artwork,” senior Evie Hauptman said. “She just helped us to get better. She inspired us.”

Campbell is not just another librarian that routinely drinks her morning coffee and sits behind the long, gray desk that sticks out of the library wall. According to Senior Katie Kentfield, Campbell has her own cool and adventurous style that inspires her to express herself.

“Jcam has inspired me to come out of my box creatively,” Kentfield said. “She has her own cool style and it makes me think that I can have my own cool style. She is just the coolest person.”

Campbell enjoys working at Sion not only to teach students the values she believes are important such as the acceptance of failure and the importance of happiness, but also for the community Sion brings. For her, the kindness of the students and the faculty are what makes her job truly amazing.

“My favorite moment of teaching at Sion is not one moment,” Campbell said. “It’s all the moments.”