After months of preparation, those involved in bringing a TEDx event to Fresno State can breathe a sigh of relief and feel a bit of pride after successfully bringing the first of its kind to campus.
The Satellite Student Union was transformed Monday into a theater environment with a cleared space in front of the stage to host performances. The theme of the event was “Exposing Ideas to Inspire”.
Photo by Khlarissa Agee / The Collegian
There were two sessions in the event with a one-hour break. Each session had four speakers and one performer. There was also a video from the official Ted Talks held in Long Beach every year shown during each session.
The first session was bookended by gymnastics group “Break the Barriers,” with the founder, Deby Hergenrader, giving a speech about her troupe of disabled students to kick off the day at 2:30 p.m.
Fresno State student Ian Morris, who was the stage designer and video manager, said the audience was in awe and emotional during the speech and the performance that ended the first session.
“It was really emotional,” Morris said. “Everything she said would touch me and I was fighting back tears. The end, when you see the culmination of her work and what she’s done with “disabled” students, was amazing. We had people in wheel chairs, with guys next to them, throwing other guys in the air and throwing girls with one leg to their fathers. It was freaking unbelievable. It was exciting and scary at the same time.”
It was the first time for the project’s organizer and Fresno State communication professor, Dr. Marnel Niles Goins, watching the Fresno group perform.
“I had to cover my mouth and close my eyes at moments because I was scared because they didn’t use mats,” Goins said.
The first session was attended by about 100 people, the capacity for the event, while the second session that started at 5:30 p.m. had a lighter crowd. It was encouraging to the students who organized the event that their peers who were there to get credit for class stayed longer than they needed to.
“Even those that had to come, they wanted to stay,” said Jamila Ahmed, a registration team member for the event. “Even though they had a later class and would arrive late, they came early because they didn’t want to miss the program. It was good to see there were students here who were excited to be here.”
It was especially rewarding that students enjoyed the show because for the most part it was students who brought the first TEDx — meaning it was an independently organized TED event — to Fresno State.
“I felt like it was too good to be true at the beginning because it was something that never came to this campus,” Ahmed said. “It’s something that you hear about but you would never think you would get first-hand experience in. It was very cool.”
It wasn’t until just before the event that the reality of the situation set in.
“I remember around 1 p.m., I was like ‘This is really going to happen in an hour,’” Ahmed said. “It was exciting to see all the people start to come in. You get to see when the program was being put on. You’re like, ‘Wow, it’s actually happening.’”
Morris agreed that the idea of bringing a TEDx to Fresno State didn’t seem like a real possibility but there was excitement to make it happen.
“You think of TED not as something you can achieve or something you’re ever going to be a part of, and to actually have an opportunity here at Fresno State was really great for us,” Morris said. “Especially since the area — the diversity we have — we have a lot of topics that we can cover and should be covered and need to be. It personally was awesome to have the ability to do that.”
Those ideas were on display throughout the event as local speakers found ways to use their experiences to engage audiences about important issues and inspire.
For Devendra Sharma, a professor of communication at Fresno State, it was the question of inspiration that motivated him to speak.
“I was thinking, ‘What does that mean?”, Sharma said. “What kind of ideas, because we hear ideas all the time, ideas to inspire. I am not an inventor or a scientist coming up with a new idea. I thought the “inspire” word was important to me. Maybe what I do in everyday life, if I can talk about it in an interesting way, then maybe it will inspire a few people.”
Sharma, who describes himself as a performer as well as a professor, sang in Hindi before explaining that the song was about HIV and the need for protected sex. He then gave a speech describing how entertainment can be used to engage an audience and educate them.
“I entertain people about some real issues,” Sharma said. “About social issues, like health and women’s empowerment or HIV. The issues that have taboo around them or are not talked about enough.”
After it was all over, the students who organized the event could take a breath and assess the performance.
“I was actually really happy with it,” Morris said. “Knowing what it entails and all the things that go into this, it can fall apart really easily. The fact it went smooth, I was really proud of the team that we did do this and it worked.”
Goins shared a sense of pride for the students that gave up plenty of sleep to make everything smooth and took a memento with her to remember the night.
“I am really proud of the students,” Goins said. “I feel mostly a sense of relief because I think you can tell we are exhausted but really happy. I was in the office just now, I put down all the programs and I said, ‘You know what? Let me put one in my purse.’ I know later tonight I am going to wake up and look at it and just do a recap of everything that happened.”
When asked about the possibility of another event in 2014, a tired Goins, at first, said she isn’t thinking that far ahead before laughing and correcting herself.
“I am not thinking about 2014,” Goins said. “Actually, I really am already. Next time we are going to do this, we’ll change this, add that, but for now, I couldn’t be more satisfied.”