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Eric Butorac

Eric Butorac has competed on the ATP tour for the past decade, winning 18 ATP doubles titles along the way. He reached the finals of the 2014 Australian Open and the semi-finals in mixed doubles for both the French and U.S. Open. He has career doubles wins over Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, Stan Wawrinka and the Bryan brothers. He spent eight years on the ATP Player Council, and in 2014, succeeded Roger Federer as president. A three-time Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) All-American while playing for Gustavus Adolphus College, Butorac won the NCAA DIII singles and doubles championships as well as the 2003 National Arthur Ashe Sportsmanship Award. He also spent four seasons as the volunteer assistant coach at Harvard University. Butorac retired from tennis at the 2016 U.S. Open and is now the director of player relations and pro tennis operations for the United States Tennis Association.

TEDx Talk – “Don’t Dream Big”

Focusing on day-to-day life experiences as opposed to distant goals, can lead you down a happier and more successful path.

Ranier Maningding

Ranier Maningding is a Filipino-American advertising copywriter and writer for The Love Life of an Asian Guy (LLAG), a growing social media platform for race, politics and pop culture. Created in 2008, LLAG started as a Wordpress blog for Maningding to debunk myths about Asian male identities and stereotypes through candid stories about his college dating life. After the shooting of Michael Brown in 2014, Maningding saw a lack of solidarity from the Asian-American community and shifted the focus of LLAG from dating to politics, to help combat injustice toward the Black community and push against the grain of white supremacy. Since 2014, LLAG has grown from 2,000 to 200,000 readers, reaching upwards of 11 million timelines per week. Maningding’s work has been featured in The Huffington Post, Mic, Buzzfeed and he continues to speak at Universities around the country.

TEDx Talk – “Social Activism is the New Civil Rights Movement”

Social activists have digitized the civil rights movement, changing the course of race and politics from the comfort of their smartphones. More than just tweets and shares, these small efforts combine to create tangible change in society. From better casting choices in big budget Hollywood films to more authentic dining experiences at high-end restaurants, social activism is a vehicle for change and progress. Is it all smoke and mirrors or have the “SJWs” tapped into something deeper?

Mollie Teitelbaum

Mollie Teitelbaum is a senior at ������Ƶ, majoring in philosophy and comparative literature. The concept for her TED talk was developed for her honors thesis in philosophy that was defended last semester. When she is not philosophizing, she can be found on the stage or behind the scenes, acting and directing on campus. For two years, she has served on the executive board of the Hinman Production Company, a student-run theater group. In her spare time, she enjoys debating theology, playing guitar poorly, and showing off pictures of her niece and nephew. Graduating in three years, she plans to use the “fourth year,” prior to enrolling in law school, to do volunteer work in Israel and East Asia. She hopes to pursue the growing field of implicit bias professionally, through research and advocacy, to further enhance the equity of our judicial system.

TEDx Talk – “So that's why you annoy me! Combating peccadillic implicit bias”

Implicit biases are automatic associations learned through direct and indirect societal messaging that impact our behavior without our knowing it. I have identified a category of these biases that causes unfair treatment. Peccadillic implicit biases are negatively valenced, automatic associations that target relatively non-blameworthy traits or habits of individuals. These biases make us treat people worse (subconsciously), for what tend to be minor, unintentional offenses. I believe we have an obligation to identify our own peccadillic implicit biases and engage in techniques that mitigate the impact of these biases on our behavior.

Black Dance Repetoire

Intermission

Black Dance Repertoire was founded in 1985 by four women with the vision of bringing the art of ethnic dance to the community. We are a multi-cultural dance group whose purpose is to entertain. Since its inception, BDR has performed for many events on campus sponsored by student organizations, administrative offices and athletic programs. Black Dance Repertoire has also extended its services outside of the campus realm, performing not only through dance but through numerous acts of community service.

Gunnar Garfors

Gunnar Garfors is one of a very few to have visited every country in the world. More people have been in space. Born in Hammerfest, Norway, the world's northernmost city, he and six brothers and sisters grew up on the wild and stunningly beautiful Norwegian West Coast. He holds several travel world records, i.e. visiting five continents in a single day and going to 22 U.S. states in 24 hours. He often presents on traveling at international conferences and is regularly seen debating media issues at broadcasting events. Originally a journalist, he now works with DAB+ digital radio for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation and hosts travel segments on Norway's biggest radio show. He authored How I Ran Out of Countries, a best-selling book about his adventures to “everywhere.” He’s on social media as @garfors.

TEDx Talk – “World’s Least-Visited Countries Revisited”

Chances are you haven't even heard about some of the world’s least-visited countries, let alone know anything about them. Garfors will take you through destinations globetrotters consider the ultimate bucket list. You’re in for a mind-boggling, astonishing and funny ride to some of the most unknown countries on the planet. And – surprise, surprise – they are vastly underestimated. Just don't expect any airline you ever heard of to take you there.

Cevin Soling

Cevin Soling is a writer, scholar, music producer and award-winning filmmaker with graduate degrees from Harvard University in English and education. He has produced and directed seven feature-length films including the first theatrically released documentary on education, The War on Kids, which shows how American public schools have become modeled after prisons as a result of a burgeoning intolerance of youth. His writings have appeared in Forbes, The Atlantic, Wired, The Daily Beast and other outlets. He was a featured guest on The Colbert Report, The Kennedy Show and The Dr. Nancy Show, and his films have been broadcast on HBO, Showtime, The BBC, PBS, MTV, The Sundance Channel, The Documentary Channel and The Learning Channel. He authored The Student Resistance Handbook, which provides students with information on tactics designed to undermine the operation of their schools.

TEDx Talk – “The Truthiness of School”

Compulsory schooling is celebrated as a hallmark of progressive societies despite widespread recognition of its deficiencies. Efforts to improve the institution typically focus on increasing spending, refining curricula, developing high-quality teachers, and identifying the appropriate means and frequency of student testing. What the field of school reform consistently fails to acknowledge is the lack of any explicitly stated purpose of schooling and any analysis of the intrinsic superstructure of schools. By addressing these issues, a better understanding of schooling emerges, along with an appropriate course of action.

Ellyn Kaschak '65

Ellyn Kaschak is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning psychologist, author and professor emerita of psychology at San Jose State University in California. Well-known as a public speaker, feminist and human rights advocate, she is one of the founders of the fields of feminist and multi-cultural psychology. She has been the editor in chief of the journal Women & Therapy for 20 years, has published numerous articles and 12 anthologies, as well as the ground-breaking Engendered Lives: A New Psychology of Women’s Experience and Sight Unseen: Gender and Race through Blind Eyes. She also writes a blog on gender and psychology for Psychology Today. Fluent in Spanish, she lives in Costa Rica, where she teaches in the Gender and Peacekeeping Program at the United Nations campus of the University for Peace.

TEDx Talk – “Seeing Is Believing or Is Believing Seeing?”

I will describe my intensive 10 years of work with individuals who are all blind since birth. Since they have had no opportunity to visually observe the cues the sighted use to code gender, race and sexual orientation, their ideas and the ways they learned them reveal how these constructs are just that and are not based in biology at all. Instead, they are constructed by and for the sighted. Using many examples, I will show unerringly the blindness of the sighted.

Chris Koch

Chris Koch was born in the small farming and ranching community of Nanton in Alberta, Canada. Despite being born without arms and legs, it’s an understatement to say that he has lived a full and active life. Growing up, he helped on the family farm and participated in sports including baseball, soccer and snowboarding. In recent years, Koch has shared his story around the world, spreading his message of “If I Can…” encouraging others to make the most out of life regardless of their situation. He constantly seeks out new adventures and challenges, conveying his message by example. He has traveled the globe extensively, often solo, crossing off bucket-list items including bungee-jumping and swimming with sharks. Koch has also embarked on several fundraising challenges that include climbing all 1,776 stairs of the CN Tower and completing the Calgary Marathon. The best part is, there is much more to come.

TEDx Talk – “If I Can…”

Every day may not be great, but there’s something great in every day. There are times when one bit of bad news or a little bad luck can seemingly ruin our day and so it spirals down into a horrible one. Inversely, some good news or a positive exchange with someone can turn the tides on a bad day so your mood shifts and you end up having a fantastic one. For me, when I let in that little bit of positivity and allow it to grow and build, it makes the fact that I was born without arms and legs absolutely moot.