DANBURY, CONN. — Insert Since she was 13 years old, Western Connecticut State University graduate Erin Broderick has played the recurring role of Elliot Stabler’s daughter, Maureen, on CBS’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.”

The 22-year-old New Fairfield resident started in commercials when she was a little girl and then gave up sports and extracurricular activities in high school to pursue her acting career. She has appeared in at least two dozen episodes of “Law & Order.”

While she enjoyed the hot lights and excitement of prime-time television, Broderick took a year off after graduation from New Fairfield High School. In between working, taking acting classes and auditioning, she took a course at WestConn and decided that’s where she wanted to be.

“I was happy in this environment and being near my family,” Broderick said. She graduated from WestConn in May with a bachelor’s degree in communications and a minor in religion.

Although she had no idea what to study when she started her college career, Broderick took classes in anything that interested her. She fell in love with media arts, where she helped direct and produce a 20-minute movie and learned to write scripts.

“I found myself so much more interested in behind scenes,” said Broderick. “I would spend hours in the editing room. I learned so much about myself through my classes here.”

Now that she’s a college graduate, Broderick has decided not to pursue the silver screen, but instead she wants to find a career that will blend her interest in communication and media arts with her minor in religion.

Broderick said back in 2005, her father, a physician, went to New Orleans to help run clinics for victims of Hurricane Katrina. When he returned with photos of the devastation, Broderick wanted to help. So she spent the following summer in New Orleans running a work camp for high school students who came to help rebuild the city. With the help of another staff member and cook, Broderick supervised 150 teens who came from as far away as Alaska to help with relief efforts.

“This changed my idea of acting,” Broderick said. Her work with helping others encouraged her to pursue a minor in religion.

Broderick said she’s now looking toward graduate school where she wants to pursue international relations. She said she’s looking forward to completing the journey she started at WestConn.

“I threw myself into school life,” Broderick said. “WestConn was a good environment to focus myself and I think I got as much out of it as I put into it. WestConn gave me a really well-rounded college experience.”

Western Connecticut State University offers outstanding faculty in a range of quality academic programs. Our diverse university community provides students an enriching and supportive environment that takes advantage of the unique cultural offerings of Western Connecticut and New York. Our vision: To be an affordable public university with the characteristics of New England’s best small private universities.