TEDxUMBC Takes Flight
Community voices inform and inspire UMBC through first TEDx event on campus.
While staying at a hotel during a conference in 2007, Kimberly Moffitt came across a key card with a phrase on it that caught her eye: Walk in like you own the place. The words struck her so much that she requested another key card with the same phrase on it to take home to her two children.
Seven years later, Moffitt, an associate professor of American studies, points to the phrase as inspiration for founding a charter school for boys in Baltimore and used it as the basis for her talk at TEDxUMBC.
Sondheim Scholar Rebecca Behnke ’15, dance and social work, and Niranjani Chidamber ’15, political science, brought TEDx to UMBC for the first time this fall. TEDx events are local, self-organized programs built on the TED vision of sharing Ideas Worth Spreading through informative and inspiring talks.
After applying for and receiving a TED license in October 2013, Chidamber and Behnke teamed up with the Honors College and Interdisciplinary Studies Department to develop a theme Reaching New Heights and solicited speakers for the event. As the process moved forward, the organizers gained support from the Graduate Student Association, BreakingGround, the Social Work Program and the Alex Brown Center for Entrepreneurship.
TED has a large global presence and UMBC is up-and-coming and has so many innovative faculty and students, says Chidamber. I think it was a good platform to showcase the university, the people and ideas that are around campus.
Clearly, UMBC was ready for TEDx. Tickets sold out in a single day, prompting the organizers to plan a livecast in a second location.
Selected from dozens of applicants, ten speakers representing UMBC faculty, staff, students, and the local community participated in TEDxUMBC. They discussed topics ranging from a visual representation of Baltimore circa 1815 to finding mathematical ideas in unlikely places.
Moffitt discussed her involvement in founding the Baltimore Collegiate School for Boys, a public charter school opening next year to serve boys in grades 4 through 12. The school will provide academic programs and a full host of support services to students and families, including social workers, school psychologists, and a collegiate fellows program to connect students with mentors.
During her talk, Moffitt explained that she became involved in the school not as an educator or a researcher, but as a parent concerned with her son’s classroom experiences as he moved beyond the early elementary years. She sees the school as an opportunity to cultivate a supportive educational space for her child and other young boys across Baltimore City.
After her presentation, Moffitt shared how powerful it was for her to discuss the charter school in the context of TEDxUMBCs theme. So many people at UMBC are taking on projects and connecting to Baltimore City because they are attempting to Reach New Heights, she observes. It affirms so much of what we are already doing.
Speakers interpreted this theme Reaching New Heights in many different ways. Lee Blaney, assistant professor of chemical and biochemical engineering, described a water sanitation project in Kenya, and how engaging American and Kenyan students in this work is what will make it have a broad, lasting impact. Yoo-Jin Kang 15, modern languages and linguistics and interdisciplinary studies, advocated for improving education about relationship violence to make sure our community is one that fulfills the promise of effectively supporting all students. UMBCs first environmental sustainability coordinator, Tanvi Gadhia 09, geography and environmental systems, spoke about empowering ourselves and others to live more sustainably in a world that faces serious challenges.
So much of what we do at UMBC that makes us successful bubbles up, Moffitt reflects. Its not coming from the top down. It generally is faculty, staff, and students who are thinking about how to do things differently, to make things better, and to impact change. And then they decide to start working on it.
See the UMBC Facebook page for photos of TEDxUMBC.
(11/3/2014)
