LEWISTON — Meredith Kendall of Lewiston, a Central Maine Medical Center College of Nursing and Health Professions instructor, was recently named the 2012 recipient of the Saint Joseph’s College Alumni Association’s Alumni of the Year Award.

Alumni of the Year Awards are presented to one traditional and one distance education graduate of Saint Joseph’s College who has distinguished herself or himself professionally or in service to the community. The Alumni of the Year are people who represent the core values of Saint Joseph’s College and strive to make the world a better place. Kendall was the distance education recipient for this year. She was a distance student while working full-time as a medical-surgical nurse.

A 2005 magna cum laude graduate of Saint Joseph’s College, Kendall holds a master’s degree in nursing education. She is a nursing instructor at the CMMC CONHP, where she lectures and teaches clinicals. Last year she helped create a tutoring center for the college.

She is the author of two books about reiki: “Reiki Nurse: My Life as a Nurse and How Reiki Changed It” and “Reiki Stories: My Hot Hands.” They are used as textbooks in college reiki classes and are available in print and as e-books.

Kendall volunteered more than 100 hours last year, including work at The Pierce House, an assisted living facility where she teaches yoga, maintains the website, is a member of the board of trustees and serves on the Policy and Admissions Committee.

She volunteers at the Patrick Dempsey Center for Cancer Hope & Healing, where she shares reiki with people with cancer and their caregivers. She helped develop the reiki program there, and manages a team of reiki practitioners. She teaches reiki classes and holds monthly reiki shares for practitioners. During the Dempsey Challenge, she spends the weekend at the event site with massage therapists, reiki practitioners, athletes and cancer survivors. She is a member of the Challenge Local Organizing Committee.

Kendall is conducting research on reiki at the Dempsey Center, and is planning to publish the results. She is also a member of the CMMC Institutional Review Board, working to protect the rights of human research subjects.

She also manages a blood pressure clinic at an elderly apartment complex.