The first community Taylor Toth found at James Madison College came through a connection with a fellow student. It was the college's student organization fair during her first week on campus. Karah Tanski (SRP & CCP ’23) was staffing the JMC Student Senate table as the organization’s president and she encouraged Toth to run.
Four years later, Toth is a graduating senior and the outgoing president of JMC Student Senate, an elected body that serves as the official voice of students at JMC. She graduates with a double major in Political Theory & Constitutional Democracy (PTCD) and Social Relations & Policy (SRP), along with minors in Business, History and European Studies.
Toth went on to connect with and foster community in many corners of campus life: Along with four years in Student Senate, she was both a member and co-president of the Empowering Women in Law student organization. She has advised fellow students as a Career Peer in JMC’s Career Services Office since her first year. She held government internships across the state legislature, a congressional district office and the Michigan Department of Attorney General. She studied abroad in Italy, attended JMC career exposure trips to New York and Chicago, supported recruitment efforts as a student ambassador and served on MSU’s Homecoming Court. Toth has received the Spartan Volunteer Service Award three years running, an honor that requires at least 100 hours of community engagement in a year.
“One of the most striking things about Taylor is the way she shows up for her peers — not only in visible, above-and-beyond ways, but also through the quieter moments that often matter just as much,” said Karissa Chabot-Purchase, JMC’s director of Career Services.
“For the peers she supports, those small, thoughtful moments make a meaningful and lasting difference. And it’s these everyday acts that define the spirit of the Madison community.”
Investing in community
Asked about her motivation for on-campus engagement, Toth credits the influence of her parents.
Toth’s father was her and her brothers’ coach in basketball, football and softball for much of their childhood. Her parents started a non-profit organization in support of breast cancer research, Curves for the Cure.
“My parents were super engaged,” Toth said. “Watching them be as involved as they were has made me want to do that for my communities.”
Toth says she was not especially engaged before MSU, when COVID put high school clubs and student organizations on hiatus during the years when she would have joined them. She arrived at college ready to make up for it.
She joined Student Senate and Empowering Women in Law in her first weeks on campus and picked up a job in JMC’s Career Services Office soon after.
The months following the February 2023 campus shooting sharpened what she had absorbed at home. Watching the outpouring of MSU community support, she said, made her want to do the same for other people.
Reflecting on the work she’s done on campus, the accomplishments Toth names first are the ones that will support future MSU students.
As the PTCD caucus chair in Student Senate last year, she helped reinstate the PTCD field party, a gathering of faculty and students that had been on hiatus since before COVID. As co-president of Empowering Women in Law (EWIL) this year, she helped create a scholarship to offset LSAT prep and application costs for members pursuing law school. She also compiled a resource document for members applying to internships and law programs, a reference she did not have when she arrived at JMC, before she had met a single lawyer. That work helped earn EWIL recognition as the 2026 Outstanding Professional Organization from the Office of Spartan Experiences.
“I care about helping others succeed,” Toth said, “because I wouldn’t have been able to succeed without the mentors I’ve had in my life. I want to be that resource for others.”
Charting a path to law school
Internships are central to the JMC experience. Field experience is required for graduation, and most students start looking well before they have to. Toth began applying in her first year.
Her first two internships were in political offices. She spent a summer in the Michigan House Democratic Member Services Office, doing canvassing, text banking, and phone banking. Then, for her JMC field experience, she worked in then-Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin’s District Office, handling constituent casework with federal agencies like the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the Social Security Administration. Both experiences helped her clarify what she wanted to pursue next.
In January of her junior year, she took a position as a student assistant in the Revenue and Tax Division of the Michigan Department of Attorney General. She has been there for a year and a half, and several colleagues are JMC alumni. She has sat in on oral arguments before the Michigan Supreme Court and helped with trial preparation. The position is what confirmed for her that she wants to go to law school.
After graduation, Toth will keep working at the Attorney General’s office through the summer. Law school is next, once the timing feels right.