Ted talks, graduation speakers and school assemblies featuring people who share insight from their experiences have been commonplace, anywhere from elementary school gyms to auditoriums of the most prestigious universities worldwide. Trying to motivate or just to gain the attention of a crowd is a tall task. The UA speaker series provides UAHS students and the community with an outside point of view.
The club is run by Melissa Hasebrook, english teacher at UAHS, and designing with materials teacher Alicia Mcginty. The administrators give the structure but students have a lot of participation like choosing speakers or the topics of the speakers. Their meetings are held on Monday and Thursday during gold period. The administrators and student participants have been building a club from scratch, It’s been a challenge. especially considering the ideas of the Speaker Series must reflect student interests. but they have been building a base for future club members to build off of since the club started last year. The ideas that the speaker series are trying to convey are important and exposure to these new ides could be beneficial to the students of UAHS.
“I think it’s really good to expose kids to lots of different ideas and people who are doing things that might never have occurred to them yet, and so to see different perspectives, different ideas, different ways of living,” Hasebrook said.
The Speaker Series is a relatively new club at UAHS. At their meetings they collaborate on possible speakers and are currently getting their website up and running. Recently, they had a stroke of bad luck with a scheduled speaker, Hasebrook elaborated with an update on the situation.
“We had a speaker coming in from California, but because of the wildfires and a couple of things, he’s not able to come and so we’re having to pivot pretty quickly. Mr. Foster, who is kind of one of the people who are behind this effort. He’s looking at speakers, and he’s trying to figure out who our next speaker might be,” Hasebrook said.
Finding speakers may seem easy, but it can be really tough as the big-name speakers usually come with a hefty price tag. Rumors that David Gogins, the eccentric veteran motivational speaker, would speak in the series school have circulated. On paper, it’s a great idea to get a big-name celebrity to come to UAHS, but the price tag for an event like that is a major setback; a speech from Gogins would’ve cost around $200,000.
“The really big names are expensive without personal connections. Their speaker fees can be a lot, so while there are lots of people I’d love to get, the price makes it hard because we can’t swing $200,000. We’re not gonna sell that many tickets,” Hasebrook said.
Because they are a new club they have faced adversity. Considering a speaker bailed on them last second and the difficulty of finding a big name speaker they have made progress behind the scenes. The key to having a successful club is a base, an idea which can help the club reach people and eventually create an impact.
“We started by working with kids who come to the summer institute here, and those kids then helped us figure out ‘what are the issues that are near and dear to the students’ heart[s]’, ‘what are the issues that kids want to hear about?’ And we then distilled that down into three, sort of bigger areas and then we tried to find speakers that fit that. So one of the big areas was the idea of mental health, mental hygiene, mental wellness. And so that led us to get Dr. Santos, who spoke about happiness. The second was entrepreneurship. ‘What is it [like] to go out there and start your own business?’ And our third big area was the idea of social impact. ‘How can we use our lives to have a broader social impact?’” Hasebrook said.
Not only are administrators committed to putting the speaker series on the map, but students in the club are also excited for the future.
“Probably [helping] to leave a legacy, also the basics on the website, and knowing that the work I did here is going to continue for the future of Speaker Series,” senior Sarah Schnider said.
Joining a club like the speaker series can help students stay engaged in the community. Especially the speaker series though where students can have a real impact on future speakers.
“[Students] could have a significant impact on our choice of speakers by joining this group and being a part of it, and that they can help direct this program if they don’t want to join by filling out the surveys, or by actually getting involved and doing the work of figuring out who we want to have,” Hasebrook said.
Student engagement is important for the Speaker Series and a good speaker could have a positive impact on students’ prospectives.
“This club can help me make an impact because of the positive impacts the speakers could have on people,” junior Killian Blair said.
The Speaker series’ impact is especially important in a community like UA. Everyone ” and exposure to outside ideas could be exactly what a student needs to help to improve their present or get excited about their future. Student engagement is important for the Speaker Series and knowing the speakers students want helps their club significantly.
