With a thick blanket of snow outside, faculty, students and their families gathered in Macky Auditorium to celebrate their graduation from CU-Boulder. The ceremony recognized 130 graduates from the Department of Communication and journalism and mass communication program.听
Lori Bergen, founding dean of the new College of Media, Communication and Information, encouraged the graduates to always remember this day, surrounded by loved ones, friends and faculty members. 鈥淓veryone who is here today is here to honor your success, and so relish this moment and what it feels like to have succeeded and to have finished,鈥� she said. 鈥淩emember what it feels like because as we honor you today we want you to have that sense many more times in your life.鈥�
Top graduates at the ceremony included Sarah Gilchriese, a communication major who wrote her honors thesis on college sexual assaults, and Alexandra 鈥淎lex鈥� Olivo, who blended her skills in creative writing and copywriting as she pursued her advertising major. (Sarah Gilchriese is on the left of the second image;听Alexandra Olivo is on the right.)
Gilchriese, who hails from Castro Valley, California, wrote an honors thesis entitled 鈥淥rganizational Discourse and Discursive Closure on College Sex Assaults: An Autoethnography About Filing a Title IX Complaint鈥� and received her department鈥檚 academic achievement award. After graduation, she plans to continue her research and attend a master鈥檚 program in organizational communication.
Olivo, as both an English major focusing on creative writing and an advertising major focusing on copywriting, found that her academic interests frequently overlapped. 鈥淐opywriting be really creative, but also have a purpose,鈥� she said. She put both those skills to work in the favorite advertisement she wrote at CU. 鈥淲e are not a cult (join us),鈥� reads the tagline on her Spam ad, playing off the canned meat product鈥檚 loyal following. After graduating and spending several months interning and traveling, the Boulder native plans to move to New York City and pursue a career in fashion and advertising.