TEDxSalem

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DeafBlind, but Definitely Not Disconnected

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Here’s what Jen­ny­Lynn Diet­rich would like you to know about her:

She’s tak­en ser­vice learn­ing trips to Guatemala and Ghana. She’s a choco­late snob who wouldn’t dare touch the gener­ic stuff. She’s engaged to be mar­ried next year. She loves to paint, draw, and per­form on the the­ater stage. And she’s pas­sion­ate about help­ing oth­ers, point­ing them toward the resources that could help them change their lives.

You might learn these things if you just ask her. But Diet­rich says peo­ple are often too afraid or intim­i­dat­ed by two of her more obvi­ous traits: she is deaf and blind.

One of the main points Diet­rich hopes to make in her TEDxSalem talk, enti­tled “Deaf­Blind: Blind but Not Blind,” is that peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties val­ue auton­o­my — they want to be seen as reg­u­lar pro­duc­tive mem­bers of soci­ety, just like those with­out dis­abil­i­ties.

“We don’t want people’s pity,” she says. “We just want to be accept­ed as equals.”

Born with a rare hered­i­tary con­di­tion called Stick­ler syn­drome, Diet­rich is ful­ly blind in her left eye and has lim­it­ed vision in her right. She’s also pro­found­ly deaf in her left ear, but she can hear a bit in her right with a hear­ing aid. Her pre­ferred method to com­mu­ni­cate is Amer­i­can Sign Lan­guage. She also uses a form of com­mu­ni­ca­tion called Pro­Tac­tile — devel­oped by the Deaf­Blind com­mu­ni­ty — that involves sign­ing on someone’s hand or using parts of their body to help give visu­al or emo­tion­al cues.

Dur­ing her ear­ly years grow­ing up in Okla­homa, Diet­rich attend­ed a main­stream school. It wasn’t until high school that she went to a state school for the deaf. She went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Stud­ies from Gal­laudet Uni­ver­si­ty in Wash­ing­ton, D.C.

Ulti­mate­ly she moved to Seat­tle to work as a Case Man­ag­er at the Deaf­Blind Ser­vice Cen­ter. She helped oth­er Deaf­Blind peo­ple by pro­vid­ing ser­vices to make their lives eas­i­er — includ­ing advo­ca­cy, infor­ma­tion and refer­rals, edu­ca­tion, and out­reach — and she ulti­mate­ly dis­cov­ered she had a pas­sion for help­ing oth­ers.

One of the most use­ful resources Diet­rich found in Seat­tle was Sup­port Ser­vice Providers (SSPs) — sight­ed guides who pro­vide Deaf­Blind peo­ple with visu­al infor­ma­tion about their envi­ron­ment so that they can par­tic­i­pate in reg­u­lar main­stream activ­i­ties such as gro­cery shop­ping, read­ing mail, or bank­ing.

“When I moved to Ore­gon, it was a chal­lenge because there’s not an SSP pro­gram here for peo­ple like me to access,” she says. “I’ve been work­ing hard this year to get some­thing like that estab­lished here by reach­ing out to oth­er Deaf­Blind peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty and lead­ers in pub­lic ser­vice.”

Diet­rich came to the Willamette Val­ley to pur­sue grad­u­ate stud­ies at West­ern Ore­gon Uni­ver­si­ty. She is no longer a stu­dent there, but she is focus­ing her time on attempt­ing to devel­op sup­ports for Deaf­Blind peo­ple in the state. She is cur­rent­ly a facil­i­ta­tor for a non­prof­it called the Ore­gon Deaf­Blind Com­mu­ni­ty Alliance Net­work, some­thing she hopes will become a larg­er statewide orga­ni­za­tion to help pro­vide resources to those who need it.

Advo­ca­cy would be a crit­i­cal part of their work — to help the gen­er­al pub­lic look beyond their dis­abil­i­ties and learn about their inter­ests, their per­son­al­i­ties, and their goals.

“Instead of watch­ing us in fear from afar,” she says, “be brave, and come and learn from us by engag­ing with us!”

TEDxSalem VI

TEDxSalem VI is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. It runs 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Tick­ets are on sale now for $55, $45 for stu­dents. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Rebecca Shapiro sets the stage for TEDxSalem

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Rebec­ca Shapiro’s art runs the gamut from post­card-sized cre­ations to 40-foot wide instal­la­tions using every­thing from glue, 24K gold foil and encaus­tic, pig­ments mixed with hot beeswax.

She is a Port­land author and artist adept in paint­ing, draw­ing, pho­tog­ra­phy and more. She is also rec­og­nized as the cre­ator of the inter­na­tion­al TEDx Artist in Res­i­dence pro­gram.

We are thrilled that she’s com­ing to TEDxSalem as our Artist in Res­i­dent Jan. 5. She and mem­bers of the Black Uni­corn Col­lec­tive cre­at­ed the stage dis­play that will set the tone and con­vey this year’s theme. 

It’s clear that her theme about trans­for­ma­tion is an under­cur­rent in all of her work, whether as a free­lancer her­self, encour­ag­ing and pro­mot­ing the work of oth­er peo­ple, or striv­ing to express what she and oth­ers feel through the many medi­ums at her fin­ger­tips.

She stud­ied graph­ic design, med­ical illus­tra­tion, pho­tog­ra­phy and print­mak­ing and received a BA in stu­dio art from Smith Col­lege. Her pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ence includes col­lec­tions, domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al com­mis­sions, exhibits and involve­ment with TEDx pro­grams local­ly and in Cana­da.

She has been a pub­lic speak­er for TEDx events around the US and is a cham­pi­on of inde­pen­dent work­ers, pro­mot­ing advo­ca­cy and net­work­ing for free­lance work­ers. As an author, Rebec­ca focus­es on oppor­tu­ni­ties for inde­pen­dent work­ers and max­i­miz­ing rela­tion­ships with oth­ers for mutu­al ben­e­fit.

Much of her fine art is abstract and metaphor­i­cal, striv­ing for rela­tion­ships and con­nec­tion. Her pieces have been dis­played in Whistler, CA, Northamp­ton MA, and New Zealand as well as at the Port­land Inter­na­tion­al Air­port. 

She will share more of her inspir­ing expe­ri­ences with her own work as the back­drop on Jan. 5.

Rebec­ca Shapiro

Home­town: Port­land, OR, born at OHSU

Fam­i­ly: daugh­ter Anie, son Tobi­ahs, dog­go Bear, hedge­hog Kiko, and mouse Gre­go­ry Rod­er­ick Rem­ing­ton

Hob­bies: hunt­ing for mush­rooms, pho­tog­ra­phy, invent­ing and mak­ing stuff, trav­el, talk­ing to strangers

Music: jazz, Appalachi­an & folk music

Favorite author: JRR Tolkien & Diana Gabal­don

Favorite food: dark choco­late & whisky

TEDxSalem VI

TEDxSalem VI is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. It runs 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Tick­ets are on sale now for $55, $45 for stu­dents. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Melissa Michaux builds pathways to restorative justice

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Melis­sa Michaux’s work is life chang­ing.

The Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Pol­i­tics at Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty start­ed the Restora­tive Jus­tice pro­gram at the school, which works with inmates at the Ore­gon State Pen­i­ten­tiary.  It pro­vides an insight­ful expe­ri­ence for stu­dents about the prison sys­tem and those with­in.

The pro­gram inspires com­pas­sion and gives mean­ing to the par­tic­i­pants through their involve­ment on both sides of the prison walls.

“I hope the Willamette stu­dents have an increased under­stand­ing of the stakes involved in pub­lic pol­i­cy, specif­i­cal­ly crim­i­nal jus­tice pol­i­cy, by meet­ing peo­ple who are affect­ed by the sys­tem we have in place ” she said.

The pro­gram also pro­vides a space for learn­ing and growth that allows inmates to devel­op their own ideas and under­stand­ing about why they are in prison and to devel­op a sense of effi­ca­cy for pos­i­tive­ly affect­ing the world around them, she said.

Michaux is the incom­ing Chair of the new Pol­i­tics, Pol­i­cy, Law and Ethics depart­ment at Willamette. She is a cham­pi­on of com­pas­sion­ate approach­es to pris­on­ers – both dur­ing their incar­cer­a­tion and on paths to rein­te­gra­tion into soci­ety.

“Restora­tive Jus­tice in prison is nec­es­sary,” she said, “to trans­form pris­on­ers for safer com­mu­ni­ties.”

Michaux received her PhD from Bran­deis Uni­ver­si­ty and her BA with Hon­ors from Boston Col­lege. She has exten­sive­ly dis­cussed health­care pol­i­cy and wel­fare reform and Amer­i­can Pol­i­tics, as well as the pol­i­tics of moth­er­hood. There is a com­mon thread through these sub­jects and that thread is mean­ing­ful lives, for all.

Hear more from Pro­fes­sor Michaux at TEDxSalem Jan­u­ary 5.

Home­town: Bal­ti­more
Fam­i­ly: hus­band Rick and three daugh­ters Sophie (25), Emma (16) and Clara (13)
Hob­bies: ten­nis and read­ing mem­oirs
Favorite Music: favorite band is Pink Mar­ti­ni
Favorite Author: Mar­garet Atwood
Favorite Food: blue crabs
Favorite TV Show of All Time: “Buffy the Vam­pire Slay­er” (Our dog is named after Buffy’s sec­ond boyfriend Riley Finn.)

TEDxSalem VI

TEDxSalem VI is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. It runs 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Tick­ets are on sale now for $55, $45 for stu­dents. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

TEDxSalem speaker starts her own college

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Michelle Jones thought traditional colleges were broken — so she started her own.

The U.S. high­er edu­ca­tion sys­tem has become a punch­ing bag in recent years — with tuition climb­ing, stu­dents tak­ing on enor­mous debt and grad­u­ates who still don’t know what to do with their lives. Prospec­tive stu­dents now judge col­leges not on what they will learn but on whether they will get a job.

Despite all the crit­i­cism, few are com­ing up with valid alter­na­tives, said Jones, a long­time pro­fes­sor and one of 12 fea­tured speak­ers at TEDxSalem VI Jan. 5.

“Most peo­ple in high­er edu­ca­tion agree that it’s bro­ken and we need oth­er options,” she says, “they just don’t know how to go about doing it.”

Jones describes the whole sys­tem — where stu­dents pick a col­lege, then choose a major, then fig­ure out what they’re going to do, then try it out — as “back­wards.” So, in 2016, she did some­thing extreme: she start­ed her own col­lege.

The result was Wayfind­ing Acad­e­my in Port­land, a two-year, non­prof­it, lib­er­al arts-focused col­lege where stu­dents can earn an asso­ciate of arts degree, sim­i­lar to a com­mu­ni­ty col­lege.

“We have fac­ul­ty, class­es, stu­dents, all those nor­mal things,” she says. “But none of it func­tions the way a tra­di­tion­al col­lege would func­tion.”

But let’s back up a bit. How does some­one even get the idea to start their own col­lege?

For Jones, it didn’t hap­pen until long after her own col­lege expe­ri­ence. After grad­u­at­ing high school, she did what every­one else did, she enrolled in a four-year col­lege. She earned a bachelor’s degree in two per­pet­u­al­ly pop­u­lar sub­jects, busi­ness and psy­chol­o­gy, at Trin­i­ty Uni­ver­si­ty in San Anto­nio, Texas.

Her men­tor intro­duced her to orga­ni­za­tion­al behav­ior, psy­chol­o­gy applied to the work­place set­ting. She became so inter­est­ed in the field that she went on to study it at Clare­mont Grad­u­ate Uni­ver­si­ty in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, earn­ing a master’s and a PhD.

From there, she start­ed teach­ing, work­ing at about five uni­ver­si­ties before becom­ing a fac­ul­ty mem­ber at Prov­i­dence Col­lege in Prov­i­dence, R.I. There, she co-taught an elec­tive called “We Don’t Need No Edu­ca­tion” where she chal­lenged stu­dents to con­sid­er what they would do dif­fer­ent­ly if they designed their own col­lege. The idea of rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing high­er edu­ca­tion nev­er left her, even when she moved to the North­west, where she ulti­mate­ly taught at Con­cor­dia Uni­ver­si­ty.

“I real­ized the whole sys­tem doesn’t real­ly work to the ben­e­fit of the stu­dent,” she says. “I would hear from many stu­dents who were angry, say­ing, ‘I’m in a lot of debt, I still don’t know what I want to do with my life, I’ve changed my major a bunch of times, and now it’s too late.’ The whole thing felt like a no-win sit­u­a­tion for them.”

Armed with her years of observ­ing col­leges from the inside, she gath­ered oth­er like-mind­ed pro­fes­sion­als who want­ed to change the sys­tem, set up a cam­pus and cur­ricu­lum, raised mon­ey, and made sure the school was an approved degree-grant­i­ng orga­ni­za­tion with Oregon’s High­er Edu­ca­tion Coor­di­nat­ing Com­mis­sion.

The acad­e­my grad­u­at­ed its first class in 2018. But what was so dif­fer­ent about their expe­ri­ence ver­sus a more tra­di­tion­al col­lege? And did their time at Wayfind­ing serve them well?

For those details, you’ll have to attend Jones’s talk. She promis­es a few sur­pris­es that might upend what you think is true about col­leges, and a thought-pro­vok­ing look at how serv­ing stu­dents bet­ter can impact our cul­ture and com­mu­ni­ties.

“Ore­gon has a long his­to­ry of being on the lead­ing edge of things — we had the first bot­tle bill, we were the first state to have vot­ing by mail, we were the first ‘death with dig­ni­ty’ state,” she says.

“We are now the first to cre­ate an alter­na­tive mod­el of high­er edu­ca­tion.”

TEDxSalem VI

TEDxSalem VI is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. It runs 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Tick­ets are on sale now for $55, $45 for stu­dents. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Tickets on sale now for TEDxSalem VI

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Forty eight days and count­ing until one of the best events in Salem.

TEDxSalem, an offi­cial­ly licensed TEDx event, is back Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5 to deliv­er a full day of ideas worth spread­ing. Don’t miss your chance to be a part of the TEDx expe­ri­ence. Tick­ets are $55, $45 for stu­dents.

Where else will you hear from an under­tak­er, doc­tor of sex­ol­o­gy, chem­istry pro­fes­sor and neu­ro­sci­en­tist in one action-packed day? Twelve com­mu­ni­ty speak­ers will inspire and chal­lenge you on every­thing from restora­tive jus­tice to how your brain changes your beliefs dur­ing moments of sur­prise.

Did we men­tion the live enter­tain­ment, catered lunch and swag bag? TEDxSalem also includes curat­ed TED Talks, snacks, three recess ses­sions to expand your mind and, of course, sur­pris­es.

Need more rea­sons to attend? Here are the 12 speak­ers who will blow your mind.

TEDxSalem Speakers

Jen­ny­Lynn Diet­rich, an Ore­gon Deaf­Blind Com­mu­ni­ty Alliance Net­work facil­i­ta­tor, will give us a look at the Deaf­Blind com­mu­ni­ty.

Michael Rousell of South­ern Ore­gon Uni­ver­si­ty will take us on a jour­ney into how your brain secret­ly changes your beliefs dur­ing moments of sur­prise.

Car­la Brauer, own­er of Der­mesti­dar­i­um, will share how recon­nect­ing with food changed her life and led to a career bring­ing new life to the dead as a bone clean­er.

Eliz­a­beth Fournier, under­tak­er from Cor­ner­stone Funer­al, will explore “The Ulti­mate Act of Envi­ron­men­tal Vol­un­teerism.”

Melis­sa Michaux, Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor, exam­ines “Restora­tive Jus­tice in prison is nec­es­sary to trans­form pris­on­ers for safer com­mu­ni­ties.”

Michelle Jones of the Wayfind­ing Acad­e­my will speak on the high­er edu­ca­tion sys­tem, and new mod­els pro­vid­ing alter­na­tive ways of look­ing at the pur­pose of col­lege.

Darya Rose, weblog­ger, neu­ro­sci­en­tist, and author, will speak on how psy­chol­o­gy impacts your abil­i­ty to cre­ate healthy habits and what to do about it.

Moe Car­rick, author, will explore women advo­cat­ing for men (ver­sus “help­ing” them) with new ideas of redefin­ing mas­culin­i­ty.

Hebah Hasan will share how she over­came the con­straints of her cul­ture to earn an advanced degree and become a leader in her field.

Geri Rich­mond, Pres­i­den­tial Chair in Sci­ence and Pro­fes­sor of Chem­istry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ore­gon, holds numer­ous notable sci­en­tif­ic accom­plish­ments and was recent­ly award­ed the 2018 Priest­ley Medal from the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety.

Rebec­ca Shapiro, Artist-in-Res­i­dence, will cre­ate the TEDxSalem stage dis­play to help set the tone this year. Learn how she will be “Refram­ing the Jour­ney”

TEDxSalem VI

TEDxSalem VI is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. It runs 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Tick­ets are on sale now for $55, $45 for stu­dents. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Not too late to join the TEDxSalem party

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You for­got to buy tick­ets, you thought you would­n’t be in town or you just put it off to the last minute?

That’s OK. We have tick­ets at the door so it’s not too late to join this par­ty. It’s going to be epic. Twelve bril­liant speak­ers, yoga, danc­ing and per­for­mances from Latin jazz singer Edna Vazquez and Enlight­ened The­atrics.

But wait, there’s more: thought­ful break­out ses­sions, snacks, a fab­u­lous lunch and an after par­ty. Join us at Tap­root in down­town Salem to cel­e­brate the day and hang out some more.

Tick­ets will be avail­able for pur­chase at the door for $55 cash or card only. No checks.

We hope to see you at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter, 200 Com­mer­cial St. SE. Doors open now, and event starts at 9 a.m.