Runda Alamour, a UNC Asheville senior, has been named a 2105 Newman Civic Fellow by the national Campus Compact network. A literature major who also is earning teaching certification, Alamour is one of only three North Carolina students among the 201 nationwide to receive this honor.

“Runda exemplifies community leadership,” said UNCA Chancellor Mary K. Grant in nominating Alamour to be a Newman Civic Fellow. Grant noted that Alamour is the UNCA chapter president and the state president of the Student North Carolina Association of Educators. She has volunteered with the Urban Mentoring Academy, tutored middle and high school students and coaches her peers who tutor in the AVID program at Asheville City Schools.

To help build support for public education in North Carolina, Alamour organized a campus rally and recruited as speakers several regional political figures, education leaders, artists and the North Carolina Teacher of the Year. “It speaks to Runda’s leadership style that she organized a rally and an awareness-raising event rather than a protest,” said Grant.

“Runda further demonstrated her leadership skills by organizing a campus vigil and talk-back to honor the three students killed in Chapel Hill,” said Grant. “Her quick response and call to action motivated other students to participate and provided a response that was responsible, respectful and potentially healing.”

“I am grateful and honored,” said Alamour upon learning she had been named a Newman Civic Fellow. “I truly believe that education is powerful and that all students deserve access to a quality, equitable, and free public education. As an educator and Newman Fellow, I will continue to work towards improving the state of education in North Carolina and the United States. One way of doing this, I believe, is by working towards a culture where new and aspiring educators consider themselves leaders and advocate for their students, schools, and themselves in and out of the classroom.”

Named in honor of Frank Newman, one of the founders of Campus Compact, the Newman Civic Fellows award is sponsored by the KPMG Foundation. In keeping with their generation’s emphasis on networks over hierarchies, Newman Civic Fellows will share ideas and materials to further their work through an exclusive online community especially for Fellows.