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A Student Speechwriter Finds Her Own Voice

Senior Shannon Beckham will give the student address at May 15 commencement

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Shannon Beckham

Shannon Beckham spent last summer as an intern with the White House speechwriting team, digging up factoids, anecdotes and historical references to sprinkle into speeches President Obama gave all over the world.

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In doing so, Beckham learned the president’s voice, the mannerisms and preferences that made his speeches personal.

Now, Beckham faces a tougher task: finding her own unique message. A graduating senior from Arizona, Beckham has been selected to author the student address at Duke’s 2016 commencement ceremony Sunday, May 15, at Wallace Wade Stadium.

“All the experience I have is writing in someone else’s voice,” Beckham said this week. “The biggest challenge with this is finding my own voice. It’s not as easy when it’s you.”

Perhaps not, but Beckham is no novice. Her work at the White House included working on prominent speeches Obama gave on historic visits to Kenya and Ethiopia as well as in announcing the re-establishment of diplomatic ties with Cuba. She pitched in during moments of tragedy as well, such as Obama’s speech in Charleston following a well-publicized shooting in a church there.

Beckham hopes to make a career of speechwriting; for her commencement address at Duke, she wants to follow a piece of advice she gleaned during her White House internship and make her words special for the specific audience.

“You can speak in platitudes, a speech you can give anywhere,” she said. ‘But I want to talk about living out the values we learn here at Duke, like curiosity, empathy and inclusivity – and about guiding our ambition toward not just greatness, but towards goodness.”

Beckham sprinkled all manner of experiences into her time at Duke. A public policy major who will graduate as well with a certificate in policy journalism and media studies, Beckham spent much of her time with the Sanford School of Public Policy’s Reporter’s Lab, working on fact-checking initiatives.

But she also studied abroad in Argentina and did a DukeEngage stint working with Pakistani refugees in India. She founded the Duke chapter of Democracy Matters, an organization that addresses issues related to campaign finance reform. And she is the president of DefMo, a multicultural student dance group.

Beckham expects to draw on many of these experiences in her speech, which was selected from about 30 submitted by graduating seniors to a committee of administrators, faculty members and students.

“She had an honest approach in her speech,” said Sterly Wilder, associate vice president for Duke Alumni Affairs and chair of the selection committee. “She was vulnerable and she wanted her message to be distinctly Duke. It really resonated.”

Before writing her Duke speech, Beckham sat down and watched 10 student speakers from past years. This knack for preparation will likely serve her well after graduation, when she joins the speechwriting team supporting Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency. She’ll be with the campaign at least until the election, she said.

“We’ll have to see how that goes,” she said. “Six months from now I don’t know where I’ll be – which is exciting.”