By Kylie Heisz, Kayla Smith & Emmy Wolfe
Learning at the University of Wisconsin – Green Bay goes beyond the walls of a classroom in forms that don’t contain typical lecture materials.
TEDx UWGB Logo courtesy of UWGB TEDx website
The 3rd TEDx event at UWGB was held on October 21st in the Weidner Center for the Performing Arts at 6:30 pm. With a previous theme of Rising, the UWGB TEDx website stated that the goal was to educate the audience on how to rise above challenges, barriers, and unanticipated challenges. TEDx, an organization with a mission to ‘research and discover ideas worth spreading,’ has been held at UWGB for the past two years. The 2019 event had six speakers and the 2018 one had eight. Although the 2020 event was delayed due to COVID-19, the committee is pleased to bring it back to campus this year. The 2021 lineup includes eight speakers, focusing on the topic of resiliency, something the selection committee thought the university needed after the whirlwind that we all experienced in 2019 and 2020.
2021 Speakers at the TEDx UW-Green Bay event
In addition to the outstanding speakers from the community, this year’s event will have student speaker Hannah Beauchamp-Pope, a junior double majoring in Democracy & Justice Studies with an emphasis in Criminal Justice & Psychology with an emphasis in Mental Health. “I hope the audience will take away the idea that we can use love to help us heal from our masked wounds in day-to-day life and as a divided and broken country,” Beauchamp-Pope stated. In addition to Beauchamp Pope, the speakers include Alexandra Campion, Anna Destree, Robert Hornacek, Vicki Medland, Daniel Moore, the Oneida Smoke Dancers, and Michelle Danforth-Anderson.
The selection committee consisted of six community and faculty members, including Forrest Brooks, Ryan Martin, Dr. Ashok Rai, Sheryl Van Gruensven, Aaron Weinschenk, and Jennie Young. Young stated, “we want to highlight what our friends and neighbors right here in Green Bay have to offer the whole world.” Students Yan Xer Lim and Kylie Heisz were added to the process as interns, helping with the planning and process. “Being able to work with the committee and make sure a student’s voice and opinion were heard during the process of selecting speakers was an incredible experience,” Heisz said. The TEDx event is aimed not only at the surrounding community but also to serve students’ interest in expanding their learning environment.