{"id":3252,"date":"2016-05-18T16:51:01","date_gmt":"2016-05-18T20:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/commencement\/?p=3252"},"modified":"2016-05-18T16:51:01","modified_gmt":"2016-05-18T20:51:01","slug":"runyon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/commencement\/sp2016\/runyon\/","title":{"rendered":"Caitlin Runyon &#8211; Student Speaker, communication studies"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Caitlin Runyon<\/h1>\n<div class=\"profilepic\">\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1303\/Runyon-NL4-213x300.jpg\" alt=\"Caitlin Runyon\" width=\"213\" height=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<ul class=\"wholist\">\n<li><strong>Hometown:<\/strong> Clifton Park, New York<\/li>\n<li><strong>Major:<\/strong> Communication Studies<\/li>\n<li><strong>Graduation Year:<\/strong> 2016<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Caitlin Runyon said she was suffering from the sophomore slump when she was walking through the Ram\u2019s Den and saw a fellow student sitting alone in the depths of sadness. Instead of walking past him and not saying anything, Runyon decided to sit down and talk. That conversation changed both of their lives. Runyon decided to get more involved on campus, and her lunch partner shook off his homesickness and began to thrive at the University of Rhode Island.<\/p>\n<p>Now well out of her slump, Runyon has been selected as this year\u2019s student commencement speaker. She will present her speech to about 15,000 people \u2013 including roughly 3,000 fellow graduates on Sunday May 22, at URI\u2019s 130th Commencement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecoming the student commencement speaker is a great way to wrap up my experiences at URI,\u201d said the Clifton Park, N.Y., native. \u201cI have been asked many times as to why I want to be the student speaker, and it is because I love public speaking. I will never say that public speaking is easy for me; I am always nervous, but I love a challenge, especially one that involves communicating and speaking,\u201d Runyon said.<\/p>\n<p>As a freshman and sophomore, Runyon said she was unsure of her major and had no sense of her future beyond graduation. \u201cI knew that I was going to find my major, I just wasn\u2019t sure how I was going to do it,\u201d she said. \u201cBy exploring different disciplines, I was able to take classes with different professors, and figure out that communication studies was best for me,\u201d Runyon said.<\/p>\n<p>She has maintained a 3.97 GPA as a communication studies major, with a minor in leadership studies and international relations.<\/p>\n<p>Runyon was able to incorporate her public speaking ability into a leadership minor. During her years at URI, she was also able to travel to other countries for volunteer work as well as feed her passion for helping others.<\/p>\n<p>During the summer of 2015, Runyon traveled to Austria to participate in the Salzburg Academy on Global Media and Social Change. There, she worked with peers from around the world to develop media-based solutions for the United Nations, Red Cross, and Global Voices.<\/p>\n<p>Over spring break, she traveled to Santa Fe, N.M., where she worked for Habitat for Humanity, rebuilding houses and working for food depots.<\/p>\n<p>Runyon was also an assistant instructor\/peer mentor for first year leadership development courses at URI where she also found some of her best friends.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am so thankful for the people I have met through my mentoring program. My Ram Family has been there through the ups and downs of my college career,\u201d said Runyon. \u201cMy peers supported and believed in me when I didn\u2019t believe in myself, and I am forever thankful for that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>After graduation, Runyon will run a 4K for Cancer, a 49-day, 4,000 mile relay from San Francisco to Baltimore to raise money for the Ulman Cancer Fund for young adults.<\/p>\n<p>Runyon hopes to teach and work abroad, and can see herself one day going back to college to pursue a masters in higher education.<\/p>\n<p><em>URI photo by Nora Lewis<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Media Contact: <a href=\"mailto:jredlich@uri.edu\">Jhodi Redlich<\/a>, 401-874-4500<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Caitlin Runyon said she was suffering from the sophomore slump when she was walking through the Ram\u2019s Den and saw a fellow student sitting alone in the depths of sadness. Instead of walking past him and not saying anything, Runyon decided to sit down and talk. That conversation changed both of their lives. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":727,"featured_media":3251,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sp2016"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/727"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}