TEDx comes to Marquette
Student-organized TED Talks-style event takes place on March 30
TEDxMarquetteU is a new student organization looking to make an impact on campus and the greater Milwaukee community. They seek to amplify bold and exciting ideas through dynamic speakers in the distinct style of TED Talks.
“Rooted” is the theme of their first event. It will explore stories on how our roots shape, fuel us, and make us who we are.
They joined the Marquette in Milwaukee with Mike Lovell podcast to share details for their big first event on March 30th, which is open to the community. We’ll hear from what inspired them to bring TED to campus and also get some tips from Marquette University President Michael Lovell, who has delivered his own TED Talk about innovation.
Listen to the full podcast on Apple Podcasts or Soundcloud or read below for an edited transcript.
Guests
Nathan Gregg: Speakers Committee, Opus College of Engineering alumnus
Griselda Aldrete: Speaker, CEO of Hispanic Professionals of Greater Milwaukee
Yasmeen Atta, Speakers Co-Chair and Burke Scholar
Kyle Hagge, Associate Director and Co-founder and Trinity Fellow
Michael Lovell: Marquette University President
Moderator: Lauren Burke, Marquette University Executive Producer
I have some numbers here for you. The first TED conference was in 1984. The first annual event was in 1990, and the talks were first available for free online in 2006. So TED Talks have basically been around since… I’m guessing before your entire student organization was born. Why does this appeal to your generation as a way of information sharing?
Yasmeen Atta: YouTube. Honestly, I think it’s all about the technology. A lot of people are obsessed with Netflix — I’m very much a YouTube person; YouTube all the way. I think that the ease and accessibility of just being able to click on a YouTube video and after however many minutes — 10, 15 minutes — just being able to be inspired by a talk… so many of them you just leave and you feel something different. You feel some sort of change, whether it’s an inspiration or a motivation to do something within your life. So [it is] that ease that we have right now with technology and the state that it is in right now. These talks will also be put up on YouTube as well, so there will be a way for everyone to access them at some point.
Kyle Hagge: I think in addition to that, they’re really good conversation starters. Outside of doing this big event in March, we held a smaller event [in December]. We played TED Talks to a community of people that came to the event, and they were on a lot of refugee issues or sex trafficking issues. Then we brought people in from the community that are working in those spaces. So I think all TED Talks, they have this ability to really draw you in and get you curious about a topic — and then [to] be able to have people from the community who work on that topic answer some of the questions of “How do we apply it to Milwaukee?” is a really cool thing that TED can help facilitate.
Nathan Gregg: I definitely agree. I think personally, the whole TED — technology, entertainment, design — those topics really transcend any generation. YouTube, like you were saying, definitely helps spread it because it’s such a great medium; it’s easy for anyone to access. That’s a huge thing that people really like. You don’t have to pay for a subscription; that’s why so many people got engaged and it’s nice that it is now, like you said, online for free. So I think that’s a really big reason why it has spread in our generation so much.
Dr. Lovell, you’ve given a TED Talk, Two Truths of Innovation. What tips do you have for giving a TED Talk?
Mike Lovell: I think one of the reasons why TED Talks are so popular [is] obviously the ease of getting to them, but TED Talks are really about us telling a story. You think about throughout our history and in our society, that is the way we’ve shared information with each other. So to take 10 minutes to be able to tell a story… and typically I’m a firm believer that if you can only focus on two or three takeaways in that story, that’s what the audience will appreciate and actually be able to comprehend what you’re trying to say.
So I think, again, keeping it fairly simple so that you only get those two or three main points you’re trying to point out, and ten minutes is usually about all you need to do that and keep someone’s full attention. So those are really the things that I focus on. But again, those tangible stories — because when people say tangible things that actually happened in their lives, that’s what really grabs you, right?
It’s not something that’s esoteric or something that’s theoretical. It’s something that, “Wow, you can actually learn because this person experienced that.”
Open to any of any of you. Do you remember the first TED Talk you ever saw or one that maybe you continue to go back to that’s inspirational to you?
Griselda Aldrete: The first one I saw was on Sheryl Sandberg, the “lean in” — and that was when the “lean in” movement was huge. But then I think you just start to find [it] that way, and then you become a subscriber, and then you start to get more. My law professor, Andrew Schneider, did one, and that was a really good one as well and one that I’ve floated around a couple of times to my girlfriends.
Yasmeen Atta: The first one that I ever watched, it was called the Danger of a Single Story. It was about a woman, and her name is — I hope I don’t butcher this — Chimamanda Adichie, and she’s a Nigerian novelist. It was essentially explaining how when you hear one story about a group of people, you are simply putting them within the limits of that box.
If you only focus on that story and see it being repeated multiple times, that’s the only thing that you’ll think about that group of people. So that affected me a lot, being Muslim and being Palestinian and as well. It’s ironic because she mentioned the quote of a Palestinian poet in her talk, which said, “If you want to dispossess a people, the simplest way to do it is to tell their story and to start with ‘secondly.’” That’s something that hit me a lot at that time, [and] still hits me to this day.
So that was the first one that I’ve ever watched, and it’s one that I really, really love.
Nathan Gregg: It’s definitely not the first one I saw, but my favorite one is by Chris Abani. It’s called Muses on Humanity and really talks about the hardship that he has seen throughout his life.
He’s a writer. He talks about the African narrative, and the Biafran War is something that he talks about a lot. He was actually put in prison and [talks about] some of the things that he saw there. But out of all of that hardship he talks about, [that] there’s so much darkness in the world, through that you’re able to see so many good things as well on the other side of that. And even in those dark places, there are so many beautiful things that you can see, along the lines of resilience and optimism within those spaces that can seem so dark.
It’s always gotten to me because I’ve always found that level of resilience very impressive and inspirational in many ways.
Kyle Hagge: On the topic of resilience, one that I really enjoy is Angela Duckworth. It’s called The Power of Grit.
Something I really like about that talk, and just TED Talks in particular, is when they get professors who are in a technical field. They’re able to take their research and make it so accessible, where you can get the gist of it in 10 minutes. And you’re like, “It probably took five years for you to learn that, but I understood it in now 10 [minutes]” — and I feel like I understand a field that I hadn’t been exposed to before. So that talk really did that for me.
Mike Lovell: Simon Sinek is one of my favorites; he’s given many [TED Talks] that I really enjoy. But going alone the same lines, there’s Brené Brown at the University of Texas, and she talks about the anatomy of trust.
I showed those videos to my leadership team, and talking about how trust is not built by one event — it’s all these small things you do for somebody. Actually, if you come into any of the leadership in our offices, on their desk you’ll see a jar of marbles.
So when somebody does something that we appreciate, I encourage them to give them marbles — and so you want to fill your marble jar. But understand that you can do one thing and you can knock the whole jar of marbles over if you break that trust. You know, that’s the way trust is. And that goes back to her video, where she talked about the anatomy of trust — it’s a really, really powerful one.
So your theme is “Rooted.” Why that theme? What does it mean to you?
Nathan Gregg: One of the biggest things that we noticed was that all of our speakers were from in and around the Milwaukee area. So we wanted it to be rooted in Milwaukee. I think we kicked around “Roots” and a few other things, but that was the main reason why we did that.
Kyle Hagge: I think too, like Nathan said, the speakers are all from this area— and we have a good opportunity with a lot of students coming from across the country to come to Marquette who don’t really have those roots set up in Milwaukee. So, [we asked ourselves], “How can we bring on some of these amazing storytellers in our community, and show these different sides of Milwaukee that students might not be getting exposed to,” and help students really find their roots here and start calling Milwaukee home.
Yasmeen Atta: Whether you work in Milwaukee, whether you’re a student, ultimately you are rooted here — that goes for our speakers, that goes for anyone who is involved with this. So to have that theme kind of shows that this is who we are. We love Milwaukee and we want to try to make it as amazing as we can, and so through our speakers and through working on this with each of our speakers and each of our committee members, we’re trying to make the best of it that we can.
So let’s talk about that. How are you guys routed to Milwaukee? What organizations are you working for? How are you rooted in the city?
Kyle Hagge: I did two years of AmeriCorps with a nonprofit called College Possible. Then I applied and was accepted to the Trinity Fellowship program, which is a graduate program focused on economic and social justice.
I’m studying political science, and then I’m placed at the Housing Authority for the City of Milwaukee, working on the Choice Neighborhood Initiative. That has been a great experience and really rooted me in Milwaukee in a lot of different ways. I grew up in a very affluent, privileged area, so working in low-income high schools gave me a perspective that I desperately needed. Continuing that work in affordable housing across the city has been really engaging.
I also run a podcast myself called Bridge the City, which Dr. Lovell has been on, and that’s all about inspiring Milwaukee to action, bridging together people, resources, and ideas and trying to talk to members of the community that are making positive change.
We try to leave our listeners — everyday people — with action steps they can do to feel empowered and feel like they can make a difference in their community.
Yasmeen Atta: I’ve lived in “quote-unquote” Milwaukee all my life, but really it’s been in the suburbs. So coming to Marquette and living on campus has really immersed me within the community. Being a Burke Scholar as well, our focus on service is within the Milwaukee community at large.
What I’ve always told people is, “I thought I knew Milwaukee until I came to Marquette,” and that goes for the good and for the bad. So being able to volunteer at different service sites around Milwaukee, taking the bus system — which took a couple tries until I got it solidified; might have taken the wrong one once and walked 14 blocks, but it’s fine — it’s been really incredible.
I volunteer a lot of meal sites — I love food, but I have found that food really does bring people together. I was at St. Ben’s this morning actually for a meal program called The Gathering, and someone had come in straight from Milwaukee County Jail, and he was only looking to make a phone call. But he had come in and he realized there’s a meal program here. So he sat; he had breakfast with us. I was able to talk to him and hear his story. That’s been my favorite part — not only about the Burke Scholars program, but being at Marquette — [and] establishing that connection within Milwaukee through the relationships I’m forming. So many people at these meal sites, I know their names, they know mine; we talk to each other. It’s been really, really incredible. So that’s why I feel rooted here.
Nathan Gregg: I’m originally from Cincinnati. When I came here, like I talked about, I’m very invested in the homeless population. Many times when I’m on the street, whether it’s on Marquette’s campus or off Marquette’s campus, I love to have conversations with whoever comes up and starts talking to me. If they ask me for money, then I would say, “Okay, I don’t have any cash on me, but if you want, I do have a card, so let’s go sit down. Let’s have a meal and let’s talk.”
When I was actually in undergrad, I wasn’t able to work or volunteer for any shelters, but currently I work once a week at The Guest House in Milwaukee, which is a really great shelter. I’ve gotten to continue having those conversations and get more involved in the homeless community. It’s been a really great experience, and now I get to do that at work. It’s just fantastic — to hear where people are coming from and hear the things that they’ve learned and things that they can teach me, it’s unbelievable, honestly. So that’s really what keeps me rooted here.
Dr. Lovell and Griselda, you both are obviously leaders in Milwaukee. But is there anything — any roots, connections — you have to the city that maybe people don’t know about either of you?
Griselda Aldrete: For me, I think through the work that we’re doing, the focus is the Hispanic community — and it’s no secret Hispanics are growing across the country. I think my organization and the conversations we have across the city with different leadership groups or different companies is changing the narrative. “What does it really look like because Hispanics are growing?” They’re not really what’s being portrayed in the media, and not everybody who’s an immigrant is undocumented. [It’s about] just having those crucial dialogues and crucial conversations to help make Milwaukee less segregated, because we still continue to struggle with segregation issues and understanding the backgrounds that we all come from.
As we’ve talked about today, everybody has a story to share. It’s just [about] who’s willing to stop and listen, and then do something about it. When you talk about roots, my dad has always said, “Whatever you do in life, make sure you leave it better than how you found it” — and that applies for work, school, or whatever it is, and whatever impact we can have. HPGM [Hispanic Professionals of Greater Milwaukee] is just having a small nugget and a small impact in trying to change the narrative around our Hispanic community, and making sure that our students have access to quality education, gainful employment, and ultimately bring a culture that’s going to be here, right? You know, if you’re not related to a Hispanic, you soon will be — that’s always the joke because we’re multiplying pretty quickly.
Mike Lovell: When you think about Marquette University, one of the big roles we have is improving the community we’re in, and actually producing students that become the love and life in service to others.
So that’s just incredible to what we do. I think we’ve already heard that one of the ways we do this is not just serving others, it’s actually having relationships with the people within our community. That’s what really moves the needle. I’m very involved in the trauma initiative here in Milwaukee, and trying to address [it]; we’ve come to understand that the major disparities in our city, the fundamental root of that is around trauma that people experience for generations. So as we think about how we heal or help people heal from trauma and help be able to lift themselves up, it’s through relationships, and caring relationships, and giving people resources so that they can heal and grow. I think about what we’ve heard about all the people on the panel today, [and] they’re doing that right now — and that’s really the way that we’re going to make a difference here in Milwaukee.
Griselda, you’re one of these speakers. How did you get involved? What about Rooted spoke to you? Why were you excited about this theme?
Griselda Aldrete: Cold email. I just got an email randomly, I think from Yasmeen, that I had been nominated as a speaker — and I’m like, “Great!”— and then asked if I would be willing to participate. Any time I can wear the Marquette flag, Dr. Lovell knows I’m always going to sign up.
My talk will be centered around mentorship, and really when you think about where we all come from regardless of location.
I think we all have roots, right? My story is a little bit different just because I was born in Milwaukee, but I was raised in Mexico. So my roots are in Mexico, my mom is Salvadorian, and I’m also Milwaukeean by birth. I’ve kind of spent my time in and out of Milwaukee, but been back since 2006; people say I will never leave but we’ll see. But my roots are here. I think how it’s been explained is, we all can build roots wherever we are and how entrenched we are in a community. I think that’s really special about Milwaukee and so I was really excited about the topic.
So what are you hoping that the crowd takes away from this? What are you hoping that Marquette students will take away from your speech?
Griselda Aldrete: For me, mentorship has been crucial to my personal and professional growth, and I think when we think about mentorship, it isn’t someone just with a fancy title. It could be as simple or as easy as another student, a friend, it could be a parent — but I think [what’s important is] demystifying what mentorship is and how we view mentorship. Everybody, regardless of your titles or where you are in your life, whether you’re a student or professional, I think we all can use some guidance, and I continue to rely on my mentors even today. Some are friends that have started as mentors, that now have become friends, and then some are still just on the professional front.
So who are some of the other speakers presenting and what are their topics?
Yasmeen Atta: So we have Bria Smith; she’s a student activist and a high school senior. She is going to be talking about how, in the neighborhood that she was raised, how that ultimately inspired her to be self-confident, [and] to be a student activist. Hopefully through her talk she’s going to inspire others to do the same, and to be active within their own communities as well.
We have Paige Peters, and her talk will be focused on arming yourself with the opportunities around you; being focused on the responsibility that we have to impact others as well, and not only ourselves.
Anna Oakes, who is a CEO — raised by hippies, as she likes to say — and her talk will be very focused on taking ownership of your work, being able to apply your strengths and again, maximizing your impact wherever you are.
We have Joe Sweeney, who is an author, and previously Brett Favre’s agent, which is pretty cool. His [talk] is focusing on networking and the importance of connecting with others and formulating those relationships in our careers.
If you could each give a TED Talk on a specific topic, any topic, what would you give your talk on?
Kyle Hagge: This was actually a question we asked all of the members, and so we have all of our ideas up on our website. Mine was “Kanye West: An Icarus Story” — and I’m just going to leave it at that.
Nathan Gregg: The impact that you can have when you’re engaging with others, especially those who you wouldn’t normally engage with, is something that I’ve always advocated for — especially in the homeless community. People that you just see on the street, and it doesn’t have to be someone who’s homeless, but just anyone that you engage with — the amount of perspective that you can develop and the stories that you can learn [are] just like doing a TED Talk. Everyone has their little 30-second “elevator pitch,” or maybe even a few minutes. So if you take the time to start engaging with people, the amount that you can learn is astounding.
Not only that, but you never know what someone’s coming from before they saw you. Whatever they’re coming from — you could be the best part of their day; just saying “hi” and asking them how they’re doing, that could be the best part of their day. That’s another big thing that I think we neglect, a lot of times when we see people and we don’t engage. It’s become very pervasive in our culture now to just maintain that isolation if you don’t know someone, to kind of respect their privacy, but I’ve seldom had a time where if you engage in a polite manner that people will just reject that. So I found that very important.
Yasmeen Atta: Mine would be on the current impact of the occupation on Palestinian children — not only in their daily lives, but also mentally and emotionally. That goes for two parts: one, being Palestinian and my passion for where I come from, but also with my knowledge of trauma and how that affects people, with my background in health sciences, [and] being able to incorporate that as well.
Mike Lovell: I’d probably give mine on leadership, and it would be titled “Leadership: What I’ve Learned from all the Mistakes I’ve Made.”
Are you guys hoping that this is the first of many to come?
Nathan Gregg: Definitely. This is not meant to be an isolated event. We really want this to continue. I know that at some of our meetings we’ve even talked about how we’re going to improve this for next year. I’ve talked to the director, and I’ve talked to Yasmeen, and Kyle about things that we should improve for next year and how we want to make this better. I wouldn’t be doing that if we didn’t plan to make this a continuing thing.
What would be the ultimate goal for this?
Kyle Hagge: I think the ultimate goal from my perspective is to keep this a tradition at Marquette, and to keep TEDxMarquetteU thriving. We’ve hit on a lot of good points about mentorship, and something that is cool is we have participants in the program that are freshmen all the way up to second-year graduate students.
So there’s even mentorship inside of TEDxMarquetteU. To have a freshman coming in and have these great experiences, and then prepare them to eventually be the leaders of TEDxMarquetteU — and then give back to the freshmen four years down the road — is something that I think is really impactful.
Yasmeen Atta: To add on to the point about what would our goals be, just in general [I have seen] a very cool aspect of the process. Whether it’s making documents or Excel spreadsheets, just going through the process as a whole, we’ll notice things where it’s like, “Okay, this definitely worked. Let’s implement this for the future. And this… not so much.”
So it’s cool to see that whoever will be carrying the torch in future years will be able to benefit from our mistakes, in a way, and our strengths at the same time.
Kyle Hagge: I think Yasmeen brings up a good point, too, on how it is a very collaborative process — but that also involves community members in addition to students.
So we’re always looking to fill positions. Next year, there will be people that are graduating and moving on, and there will be positions for students to fill. But we’re also always curating amazing community leaders to give talks. So anyone that’s listening that knows someone [who] they think would give an amazing TED Talk, or if you come across someone in the following months, you can go to our website and nominate that person. They’ll be on a running list for future events.
Griselda Aldrete: As a speaker this year, I have to commend the committee on their work and leadership. I think that speaks to Marquette as an institution, that they’re really trying to instill the mantra of the university, as we want to build leaders for our community for generations to come. So kudos to the committee, because as a speaker, they really have taken care of me and eased my nerves. Congratulations and I look forward to March 30th.
Nathan Gregg: I’d say one quick thing off of that. Personally, I’ve held a bunch of jobs, done tons of group projects at this point, and I have to say this is one of the best groups of people that I’ve ever worked with, at TEDx.
It’s really incredible to see how everyone works together at these meetings. Going off of what Dr. Lovell was talking about with leadership, it’s at every level. Everyone has really strong trust in each other, the accountability is there, all the things that you need in a great organization. The innovation is there because we all trust in each other and because we all feel very comfortable. When you’re at these meetings, no one really feels like they have to hold back any ideas. There’s always free-flowing ideas, and nobody shoots it down if it sounds too ostentatious or outrageous; we figure out a way to make it work or we will discuss it further — and I think that’s really great.
The amount of dedication that we’ve had, everyone’s working incredibly hard and it’s so nice. Everyone’s been in those situations where you’re in an organization and you feel like you have to pick up the slack, and I haven’t felt like that once. In fact, I feel like if anything, people are offering to help me when I don’t even need it and that’s awesome. Like, I would love to be in that position in future jobs!
Yasmeen Atta: I have to add on to that, because I also noticed how incredible this group of people is. The reason I actually got involved was really through Kyle. I’m part of Marquette’s Burke Scholars program, and last year, he came to one of our seminars and kind of just introduced the idea. Then this year, I saw that the link was sent out for applications, and I figured “You know what, I’ll apply, see what happens,” and obviously here we are now. Just like Nathan said, everyone is so dedicated, so focused — our meetings are awesome, we’re always bouncing ideas off of each other, so it’s been a really incredible experience.
Let’s hear what the website is. Tell us information on how people can find out more.
Kyle Hagge: The hub for all TEDxMarquetteU information is tedxmarquetteu.com. From there you can apply to actually join the team, [or] you can nominate speakers, which is open year-round. It doesn’t just need to be around the talk time; we will curate those lists. We’re on all the social media platforms as well. We encourage people to share for the event coming up March 30th.
The talks will be available after the fact online?
Kyle Hagge: Correct. They will all be on YouTube and we will likely have our own version of a podcast too, where anyone can listen to just the audio if they’re out and about and don’t have time to watch video.
Good luck everyone with the event and thanks for coming and chatting about it.
