StuGov Buzz: You’re inviTED to TEDxTrumanStateUniversity

Truman State University’s first TEDx conference, TEDxTrumanStateUniversity, is this weekend, and we couldn’t be more excited. TED is an internationally acclaimed, non-profit organization that hosts conferences around the world. Their conferences feature a variety of speakers who give short, powerful talks about their unique ideas and perspectives. The TED organization grants individual licenses to schools, cities, and community organizations to host their own TED-like conferences — known as TEDx — and this is what we’re bringing to Truman. Our conference has been organized entirely by students, who have been hard at work since last March to make this event a reality.

Our primary goal for the conference is to showcase the brilliant ideas present on our campus. As a student or faculty member, it’s easy to find oneself caught up in the events surrounding your particular major or discipline. There is so much incredible work being done in every area of study at Truman, and we hope that our conference will offer the audience a unique opportunity to hear ideas across a wide variety of disciplines.

To ensure that the conference would be truly representative of the university, our speaker applications were only open to Truman students, faculty, and alumni. Despite this limited pool of applicants, we were absolutely overwhelmed with the response. We received over fifty applications submitted from nearly every discipline on campus, all of which could’ve been amazing TEDx talks. Narrowing down the field to just twelve speakers was an extraordinarily difficult process. If you’d like a sneak peek of our speakers, check out our Facebook @TEDxTrumanStateUniversity!

The conference will be held in the Georgian Rooms in the SUB on Sunday, November 4, and will consist of two sessions, each featuring six speakers. Light refreshments will be provided, and there will also be interactive activities based upon the subjects discussed in the talks. The first session will run from 1:00-3:00, and the second session will run from 3:30-5:30. Tickets will be available for all students, faculty, and staff during the week of October 29-November 2. You can pick up your free ticket from the Student Government office in SUB 1107, located on the lower level of the SUB in the CSI complex. Our office hours are 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. every day, with additional hours from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, November 1.

Per TEDx rules and regulations, we can only have 100 guests in each session of the conference. We strongly encourage you to pick up a ticket early in the week, to ensure that you are able to attend. Because of the limited availability of tickets, guests will be asked to select a ticket for just one session, and may be placed on a waitlist for their least preferred session if they would like to attend both. If you miss out on a ticket, no worries — we will also be offering a livestream of the conference in the Baldwin Little Theater! You can drop in anytime between 1:00 and 5:30, and no ticket is required for entry.

Thanks for your support, and we can’t wait to see you on the 4th!