To call Camp Runamuck — the homeless community that sprang up under Providence’s Crawford Street Bridge in 2009 — a tent city? That was to give it airs. It was a hovel. Garbage in want of a bulldozer.

Comic greats like Steve Martin, Garry Shandling and Nora Ephron will tell you all of life is material. Even the bits that seem anything but. Amma Marfo ’07 understands this.

In her nine years at ESPN, Jennifer Cingari Christie ’08, communications manager for ESPN Films and Original Content, has worked on numerous projects including the promotion of the Oscar-winning “O.J.: Made in America” documentary, The ESPYs, the New York Marathon, the World Series of Poker, and “30 for 30” documentaries and podcasts. She is one of PR News’ 2016 Rising PR Stars 30 and Under.

Recent grad Jarolyn Fernandez, a triple major in health studies, communication studies, and Spanish, could not be more prepared, academically, for her dream career as a patient advocate.

Communication studies and public relations major Colin Rumbel, student commencement speaker for URI’s Class of 2017, hopes to leave every graduating senior feeling the sense of community that he has felt at URI.

Like many new grads entering the job market in the first years of the recession, Katlin Fox knew she might need to re-adjust her immediate expectations. Graduating in 2009 with a B.A. in Public Relations, she had hoped to find a marketing position, but her first post-URI job was as an executive assistant in a construction company. She made the most of it, and her success jumping into middle management even landed her in the pages of The Wall Street Journal.