TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

tedxsalem VI

Popular healthstyle blogger Darya Rose comes to TEDxSalem

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Darya Rose is a neu­ro­sci­en­tist, author and pop­u­lar blog­ger who has trained her sights and tal­ents on solv­ing the age-old prob­lem of eat­ing healthy and los­ing weight.

Her holis­tic approach to food and health is a breath of fresh air com­pared to the stuffy super­mar­ket shelves of diet shakes and appetite sup­pres­sants.

After receiv­ing her BA in Mol­e­c­u­lar and Cell Biol­o­gy from UC Berke­ley, Rose received her PhD from UC San Fran­cis­co and writes about food, health and weight loss. Her web­site ‘Sum­mer Toma­to’ was one of TIME’s top 50 web­sites in 2011 and if social media is any indi­ca­tor, her mes­sage that “life should be awe­some” is reach­ing far and wide.

Rose describes her­self as a “food­ist”, which is a term for some­one who has aban­doned diet­ing to enjoy life using real food and also the name of her book – Food­ist: Using Real Food and Real Sci­ence to Lose Weight With­out Diet­ing. After going through the mul­ti­verse of diet­ing from a young age, Rose has first-hand knowl­edge of why diets don’t work and the things peo­ple do to make them­selves an excep­tion to that rule.

Almost 10,000 peo­ple have joined Rose for one of her ongo­ing Mind­ful Meal Chal­lenges, and the feed­back speaks for itself.

“The feed­back I get from read­ers and stu­dents is by far the most reward­ing part of what I do. Hear­ing that some­one has end­ed their life­long strug­gle with diet­ing or their kids have learned to love cau­li­flower fills me with pride and joy.”

TEDx Salem VI is your oppor­tu­ni­ty to join Darya Rose as she dis­cuss­es how psy­chol­o­gy impacts our abil­i­ty to cre­ate healthy eat­ing habits. In the mean­time, we offer you a Q and A with Rose.

What is your top food indul­gence and how often do you eat it?

Peo­ple are often sur­prised to learn that I love burg­ers. I’m picky about where the ingre­di­ents come from (espe­cial­ly the meat), of course. But it is some­thing I indulge in about once a month.

Has preg­nan­cy changed your rela­tion­ship with food or your phi­los­o­phy and under­stand­ing of a healthy diet?

Preg­nan­cy has giv­en me much more of an appre­ci­a­tion for the influ­ences of hor­mones and phys­i­cal require­ments on hunger and crav­ings. I’ve learned there real­ly isn’t a lot you can do about how hun­gry you are or what you need to eat while preg­nant, not to men­tion while still nurs­ing. So I’ve been extra care­ful to try and make as many healthy choic­es as I can and stay active.

What is the Mind­ful Meal Chal­lenge and how is it dif­fer­ent than a diet?

The Mind­ful Meal Chal­lenge is designed to help some­one begin a mind­ful eat­ing prac­tice, which is a lot eas­i­er said than done. It’s only 5 days, focus­es on one meal a day, and does­n’t resem­ble a diet at all.

Does your approach work for every­one? Are there mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors includ­ing genes, health his­to­ry and life-long strug­gles with sig­nif­i­cant weight swings? 

I believe my approach does work for every­one in the sense that any­one can make improve­ments in their habits for the health­i­er and keep them. In terms of weight loss, every­one’s jour­ney is dif­fer­ent and there are a lot of fac­tors that can impact how dif­fi­cult or easy it is, includ­ing bio­log­i­cal lim­i­ta­tions and per­son­al cir­cum­stances. What’s impor­tant is that you main­tain a mind­set that this isn’t a sin­gle prob­lem with a sin­gle solu­tion, and you need to be will­ing to exper­i­ment. Good health is made up of many small, dai­ly habits, but not all those habits need to look the same for every­one. Be curi­ous about your­self, be will­ing to try many things, and most of all have patience. Healthy lifestyles aren’t built overnight.

Any­thing else that read­ers should know?

I’ve taught myself to like dozens of foods I used to despise, includ­ing cilantro (I have the gene!), beets, spinach, fen­nel, egg­plant, brus­sels sprouts, cucum­bers, lamb, liv­er, olives, oily fish, sea urchin, and prob­a­bly a bunch of stuff I’ve for­got­ten. I still strug­gle a bit with nat­to and car­doons, but I’ll eat them.

Darya Rose

Home­town: Orange, CA

Fam­i­ly: Hus­band Kevin, daugh­ter Zel­da, mini labradoo­dle Toast­er + new baby on the way (we’ve play­ful­ly nick­named her Smelda––Smelda Rose LOL)

Hob­bies: read­ing, hik­ing, cook­ing, eat­ing

Favorite Music: The Bea­t­les

Favorite author or book: “Foun­da­tion” by Isaac Asi­mov

How did you name your dog and baby? We named our dog Toast­er, because we were obsessed with Bat­tlestar Galac­ti­ca when we got him and we’re pret­ty sure he’s a Cylon.

We named our daugh­ter Zel­da, because I played over 200 hours of the lat­est game Breath of the Wild on Nin­ten­do Switch.

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.

Singer-songwriter Kristen Grainger to host TEDxSalem VI

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Kris­ten Grainger will take the stage Jan. 5 as the first woman to host TEDxSalem, and we couldn’t be more thrilled.

She’s an award-win­ning singer/songwriter in the band True North and a long­time com­mu­ni­ca­tions strate­gist in Ore­gon pol­i­tics and high­er edu­ca­tion.

Despite writ­ing speech­es for two Ore­gon gov­er­nors, one attor­ney gen­er­al and three uni­ver­si­ty pres­i­dents, she said she is not a speech giv­er so TEDxSalem will be a refresh­ing change of pace.

“I am excit­ed, flat­tered and up for the chal­lenge, par­tic­u­lar­ly since, hav­ing viewed pri­or hosts’ videos, I know that have some big shoes to fill. I’m also proud to be the first female host for a Salem TEDx event.”

We offer you a Q and A with Grainger to get to know her before the big day.

 

What was your first TED expe­ri­ence?

My long-time friend and sis­ter-in-law is a physi­cian and doc­u­men­tary film­mak­er and was part of a TED talk spon­sored by the Gates Foun­da­tion about world health. (She shared her doc­u­men­tary “Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Opti­mists” about find­ing hope in the slums of Kolkata.)

That was my first expo­sure to TED. It was mem­o­rable because, well, it was a fam­i­ly mem­ber on a world stage, issue-wise. The total effect of all of the pre­sen­ters in that new con­text was mind-blow­ing.

 

Do you have a favorite TED Talk? How has it impact­ed your life or per­spec­tive?

Rox­ane Gay’s Con­fes­sions of a Bad Fem­i­nist and oth­ers — the inter­face between the speak­er and the lis­ten­er is pow­er­ful and the for­mat is acces­si­ble and con­ducive to learn­ing. I gained greater aware­ness of spe­cif­ic issues and broad­ened my own perspective/world view.

 

Ever thought of doing your own talk? What would it be about? 

Not real­ly before now. If I did:

  1. Why does col­lege cost so much?
  2. How Women Lead
  3. It’s In Me, and It’s Got to Come Out: Cathar­tic Song­writ­ing

 

You are on the board for The­atre 33. I am curi­ous to know more about what that is.

It is a non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to help­ing region­al play­wrights vet and improve new works. The­atre 33 pro­vides pro­duc­tion resources to pro­duce plays as works in progress. The play­wrights get feed­back from a live audi­ence and use that info to improve or mod­i­fy their work mid­stream. This is of huge ben­e­fit to the cre­ative process.

 

When did you start the band True North? What is your lat­est project?

I co-found­ed the band with Dan Wet­zel in 2005. We just released our fifth album, which debuted at #1 in Jan­u­ary on the nation­al folk charts, and it’s still in the top 25. Two tracks on the album won the Wild­flower music fes­ti­val song­writ­ing con­test in in Dal­las, TX last May.

 

What does RE (this year’s theme) mean to you?  

I love that it is total­ly with­out a pre­cise def­i­n­i­tion and sub­ject to inter­pre­ta­tion — it leaves the field wide open, an intel­lec­tu­al grab bag, if you will, of top­ics, sto­ries, issues, and per­spec­tives.

 

Any­thing else that might be inter­est­ing to add?

Cau­tion: I did not com­mit to leav­ing my ukulele at home, because RE could also be inter­pret­ed to mean “Refresh­ing­ly Enter­tain­ing [Host].”

 

Name: Kris­ten Grainger

Age: “Old­er than Bran­di Carlile; younger than Sheryl Crow.”

Edu­ca­tion: BA in English/Creative Writ­ing from Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton

Job Title: Spe­cial Assis­tant to the Pres­i­dent for Strate­gic Ini­tia­tives at Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty

Home­town: Boston, MA

Fam­i­ly: Hus­band: Dan; Step­son: Jake; Daugh­ter: Sam and Son-in-Law: Evan

Pets: Dog, Cody

Favorite movie: “RBG” (today, any­way!)

Favorite song or artist: “Skele­tons” by Rick­ie Lee Jones

Hob­bies: Music, music, music. Also hik­ing, fish­ing, read­ing, movies, and fam­i­ly stuff.

Favorite book: “Pos­ses­sion” by A.S. Byatt

What do you want to be when you grow up?: Pro­fes­sor Karen Hol­man, obvi­ous­ly. Doesn’t every­one??

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.

TEDxSalem reveals this year’s theme

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For two lit­tle let­ters, re is pret­ty pow­er­ful.

The let­ters hold the ker­nel of trans­for­ma­tion for redeem, resound, rejoice, relapse and restore. TEDxSalem VI explores “re” with a day of talks, activ­i­ties and more Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter.

The beau­ty of re is that it changes. In music, re, pro­nounced rey, is the sec­ond tone of a major scale. In chem­istry, it is the sym­bol for the ele­ment rhe­ni­um, a rare, sil­very-white met­al.

As a pre­fix, it can mean “back” or “again,” as in reimag­ine, recy­cle and regen­er­ate. Or going a dif­fer­ent direc­tion, there is rela­tion­ship, reversible and reverb.

Salem Graph­ic Design­er Von Glitsch­ka re-enlist­ed to cre­ate a unique design for this year’s theme. Glitsch­ka is the cre­ative force behind the TEDxSalem logos for Illu­mi­na­tion, Mox­ie, Fear­less, Rev­o­lu­tion and Through the Look­ing Glass.

This year, the let­ters are one con­tin­u­ous line, almost like a light tube for a neon sign.

“It’s very min­i­mal­ist in terms of visu­als,” he said. “The con­cept will come in how it’s placed in con­text.”

Like re itself, the logo shines when it’s placed in words like reverb, reimag­ine, rede­fine and relin­quish.

Vis­it us Jan. 5 to see how our 12 speak­ers reflect this year’s theme on stage. Artist-in-Res­i­dence Rebec­ca Shapiro is already work­ing to set the tone and con­vey the theme. Her con­cept is “Refram­ing the Jour­ney.” Come check it out.

 

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.

Glitschka Studios

Von Glitsch­ka is the cre­ative direc­tor and own­er of Glitsch­ka Stu­dios, a small bou­tique design firm in Salem. Its diverse range of illus­tra­tive designs have been used by some of the most respect­ed glob­al brands. The stu­dio cre­ative­ly col­lab­o­rates with ad agen­cies, design firms, cor­po­rate art depart­ments, and small busi­ness­es to pro­duce com­pelling illus­tra­tive design. For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact Glitsch­ka at (971) 223‑6143 or von@glitschka.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.