CCJS Alumna is Helping Terps Get Connected—To Each Other & Their Community

April Smith ’05 Has Served as the Award-Winning Baltimore Terps Alumni Network’s Community Service Chair for the Last Five Years

When it came time for April Smith ’05 to apply to college, she decided to cast a wide net, applying to one college from each state between Connecticut and Florida. She had a very specific criteria list though: the school had to have great academics, it had to be diverse, and it had to have a good basketball team.

The University of Maryland checked all of those boxes, so Smith applied, and was accepted. 
But if she’s being honest, UMD wasn’t even on the short list of schools she actually planned to attend; coming from a small all girls school with a graduating class of less than 50 she was really only interested in working toward her bachelor’s degree from a smaller college or university.

“My first time visiting Maryland was at orientation,” Smith recalled with a laugh.

Smith’s college counselor was the one who ultimately convinced her to attend UMD in the end, “maybe for a year, and then if you don’t like it you can transfer.” Smith’s counselor made the suggestion because, in addition to the Baltimore native being eligible to receive in-state tuition, as a child, Smith had been hospitalized for her asthma for weeks, and for that reason, they thought it might be a good idea to stay close to home.

“My story isn’t the whole ‘Oh I always wanted to go to Maryland’ kind of story, but reality isn’t always like that, and that doesn’t mean it’s not a beautiful story,” said Smith. “Going to Maryland is literally one of the best decisions of my life.”

Smith’s Maryland story is far from over either. Smith continues to come to UMD—with her twin boys, as well as her mother, who also attended  UMD—for many events, including the annual Valentine’s Day Dance and, of course, basketball games.

Since 2021, Smith has also served as the community service chair of the Baltimore Terps Alumni Network, which won the “Network of the Year” award at the Alumni Association’s Volunteer Leadership Conference Awards last fall. In that role, she has helped organize multiple service events benefitting organizations in and around Baltimore County, from supply drives for school teachers and food giveaways at local churches, to community park cleanups. Most recently, she’s organized an April 18 service event benefitting the Baltimore Humane Society.

“Maryland public school students need to have 75 community service hours in order to graduate. Since I went to a private school, I didn’t need to have service hours, but we were still heavily community service based. We would have events on Saturday mornings and we did it because we wanted to show up for our community. That stayed with me,” Smith said.

The experiences Smith had at UMD have stayed with her over the years, too. She graduated with her bachelor’s degree in criminology and criminal justice in 2005, and has put those skills to the test in her career as an investigator; first for the state, and now for Baltimore City.

In her present role in Baltimore City’s Law Department, any time that the city is sued, Smith assists the city’s defense council in gathering information about the case ahead of any appearance in court.

“The research methods class I took as a student has definitely been helpful to me over the years, as well as the legal classes I took, since we do a lot of stuff based off of the city’s charter,” said Smith. “Plus, as a college student in general, you’re juggling multiple things, classes, financial aid, housing, etc., and that’s what real life is all about. One day I might go to work thinking I’m going to work on this one case, and then there’s a new deadline that needs to be met in court and my whole day is upside down.”

Smith also credits the many different kinds of people she got to work with at UMD with helping her be effective in working toward a common goal with people with different kinds of knowledge, expertise, which extends into her work with the Baltimore Terps Alumni Network.

“The benefit of joining an alumni network is that it gets you reconnected to UMD, and connected with new people. I’m so proud of how the Baltimore Terps Alumni Network has grown, and how when everyone comes out, it’s like a little family community,” said Smith. “We can all get so caught up in our day-to-day lives, and joining a network is a fun way to let your hair down—and that’s important. Just because we’re adults doesn’t mean we can’t have fun.”

Learn More About UMD’s Alumni Networks

Published on Thu, Mar 5, 2026 - 9:47AM