Fast Facts about Marguerite Jones
Senior Director of Alumni Services and Travel Program Director
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore
The Johns Hopkins Alumni Association’s travel program started in 1972. Today, the program takes up to 400 of the more than 200,500 alumni on trips around the world each year. With nine schools, the university enrolls 21,000 students.
Born: Baltimore
Education: B.A. in romance languages and M.A. in administrative science at Johns Hopkins University
Employment: Jones taught French briefly before joining the Alumni Relations program at Johns Hopkins more than 30 years ago. She has taken on various roles, but has led the travel program for most of that time.
Family: Jones has one daughter with her husband, Greg, as well as two poodles and a parrot.
Hobbies: Gardening and needlepoint
Travel Director Profile
Marguerite Jones opened the door to her room and screamed. Whatever she expected to see, it wasn’t a baboon sitting at her window.
“I screamed; then it screamed and ran off,” said Jones, senior director of alumni services and travel program director for the Johns Hopkins University. “Things like that are so incredible. It’s something I’ve never forgotten.”
This personal encounter with Tanzania’s local wildlife has stayed with Jones, as well as numerous other extraordinary adventures she has experienced during her many years leading the Johns Hopkins University’s alumni travel program. Over the years, Jones has shared her love of travel with her fellow alumni, creating trips for up to 400 passengers a year that connect them to the destination and to each other.
Starting Young
Jones had the chance to stand eye-to-eye with a baboon and travel the world with the alumni program partially because of her passion for travel that began at an early age.
“I know this goes way back, but when I was in fourth grade, I had to memorize 100 pictures of art and architecture and where they were from,” said Jones. “It brought travel to life for me. I still feel art history is an important connective thread in my travels.”
On top of this formative experience, Jones toured all over Europe at 12, spent six weeks studying in France in high school and received a Rotary Fellowship to study in France after college. After all these remarkable European excursions, it is no wonder Jones wanted to find a career in travel.
“When I was first looking for work, I was looking for something in travel,” said Jones. “I started in alumni relations. Then when the travel opportunity came, I took it.”
She now stays extremely busy, with only 50 percent of her job entailing coordinating 25 to 30 trips a year and the other half working with the alumni council and alumni awards and nominations.
The alumni group mainly travels internationally, with Europe as an ongoing favorite, yet also occasionally visits destinations in the United States such as Alaska, the Mississippi River and national parks.
“Domestic tours are great trips to have in your back pocket when things go crazy in the world,” said Jones. “We’ve also put together in-house long weekends in interesting destinations in the U.S. We’ve done Santa Fe, Charleston, Louisville and St. Michaels, Maryland. Those are our own academic, highly experiential weekends.”
