Marshall University is hosting the seventh annual TedxMarshallU March 8 at the Joan C. Edwards Theater.
The event will be two hours. Tickets are $20 for general admission and $5 for Marshall students.
Evan Green, co-organizer for the event, said this year’s theme of “Beyond Borders” was inspired by the HLC’s Quality Learning Objective. Speakers will not talk about just physical borders, but even conceptual borders.
“We have people talking about the physical borders of immigrating to the US,” Green said, “but then we also have people talking about their mental borders and, like, their preconceived mindsets on how they can overcome those.”
Green said one speech focuses on the border between physical and mental health.
“Her thesis, not to give too much away, is largely that this border is not necessarily as clear cut as a lot of medical professionals and society treat it as,” Green said.
Maggie Piaskowski, the event manager, said the event will explore the different ways people can define the idea of what a border is.
“People think of borders like country borders or the borders between places,” Piaskowski said. “There’s borders of what we can do in our minds. There’s just so many different ways we can define borders.”
Piaskowski said attendees will hear from eight speakers during the two-hour event. Of the eight speakers, two are students who were chosen during a pitch event.
Green said the goal of having students add their own perspective to what a border is is to create a discussion that will draw in listeners but not keep any ideas off of the table.
“We try to keep the themes such that they’re not so specific – that everyone’s giving a talk on the same thing or that we’re too narrow,” Green said. “But we want it to be something that creates some sort of guardrails or inspiration points for our speakers.”
Piaskowski said she found previous Tedx events to be impactful on her as a person and hopes this year’s event will have a similar effect on others.
“I think as a whole, for our community, it can really help our development and just push forward that learning is for everyone, and we can always keep exploring new ideas,” she said.
Piaskowski and Green both hope the event will foster discussions on the event’s topics and ideas in the wider Huntington Community.
“We want to create a platform where those people can have their ideas heard,” Green said, “and the people hearing those ideas can learn something new or think about something in a new way.”
Piaskowski said anyone interested in the event can learn more at the TedxMarshallU website or on fliers posted around campus.
Nolan Duncan can be contacted at [email protected].
