Tulsa Community College Announces TEDx Event

In late April, TEDxTulsaCC will bring Tulsa’s best ideas to our community and the world while highlighting the innovative and creative spirit of Tulsa. Speakers, many from Tulsa, will spark conversations and engage participants to think differently and connect differently.

TEDxTulsaCC is 5 p.m., Saturday, April 29 at the Thomas K. McKeon Center for Creativity at the TCC Metro Campus. While the event is invitation only with a limited number of seats, the public has several options to participate. The event will be simulcast on the web, so anyone with an internet connection can stream the event on their computer. The public can also attend a watch party hosted by TYPROS, Tulsa’s Young Professionals, at Fly Loft, 117 N. Boston Avenue. Registration is encouraged.

“TEDx has put Tulsa in the spotlight by giving us a platform to bring our community's best ideas to national and international audiences,” said Annina Collier, Dean and George Kaiser Family Foundation Endowed Chair for the Thomas K. McKeon Center for Creativity.

Using the theme of “Subliminal,” the event will present fresh ideas, create connections and enhance partnerships within our community. While examining subliminal influences on our thoughts, actions and communication, participants won’t simply observe, they will have a multi-sensory experience.

“We will encourage attendees to engage with each other through interactive activities. The evening will feature a shape-shifting art show and surprise musical performances, including the world premiere of a new choral work,” said Collier. “Plus, we want to empower participants to act on their own great ideas.”

The event is supported by Tulsa Community College’s Thomas K. McKeon Center for Creativity and Tulsa’s non-profit and community leaders. The “Subliminal” art show will be on exhibit at the McKeon Center for Creativity throughout the month of May. After the event, all of the speakers' talks will be submitted to the TEDx YouTube channel.

TEDxTulsaCC topics and speakers:

• Unlocking the Voices of Incarcerated Women - Ellen Stackable is the Executive Director of Poetic Justice, an organization that teaches creative writing to incarcerated women. Poetic Justice classes give a voice to the voiceless and empower women to change as they engage in self-reflective, therapeutic writing.
• The Science Beneath the Sketch - Kim Doner is an award-winning children’s book writer and illustrator, including two New York Times bestsellers. A self-proclaimed chameleon, the story behind the subject dictates the medium Doner uses, whether it’s watercolor, ink, markers or oils.
• Our Journey to Protect & Interpret Deaf Culture - Glenna Cooper is Assistant Professor and Department Chair for American Sign Language Education, English As Second Language, and World Language at Tulsa Community College.
• Ending Racially Biased Policing - Drew Diamond is the Executive Director of the Jewish Federation of Tulsa and the Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art. But he began his career as an employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and served on the Tulsa Police Department for 22 years, acting as Chief from 1987 until 1991.
• Building the World's First Learning Health System - David Kendrick, MD, MPH, FACP chairs the Department of Medical Informatics at the University of Oklahoma’s School of Community Medicine and serves the OU Health Sciences Center as the Assistant Provost for Strategic Planning. Dr. Kendrick is also the principal investigator and CEO of MyHealth Access Network, Oklahoma’s non-profit health information network.
• How Tulsa Increased Young Voter Turnout by 50% - Daniel Regan is chairman of the board for Tulsa’s Young Professionals, one of the largest groups of its kind in the nation. He led a campaign to reinvigorate civic engagement amongst the millennial demographic. As a result, in 2016 Tulsa saw some of the largest increases in young voter turnout in decades.
• Stop Doing, Start Pretending: Computing Matters - George Louthan serves as the Director of the Tandy Supercomputing Center, an initiative of the Oklahoma Innovation Institute in Tulsa, OK, that provides high performance computing resources to the Tulsa region.
• Tuition-Free College Changes A Community - Nash McQuarters is a Tulsa native and currently serves as the Senior Admissions Counselor for Tulsa Community College, where he promotes higher education at TCC to high school students within the Tulsa area.
• Woody Guthrie & the Art of Making Good - Will Kaufman is one of the world’s leading authorities on Woody Guthrie and he happens to reside in the United Kingdom. He is the author of “Woody Guthrie, American Radical” and the forthcoming “Woody Guthrie’s Modern World Blues.”