At last year’s TEDxUSF, USF student Rhodel Whyte presented a TEDx talk on his identity as an international student.  This year will feature eight speakers who will present on the topic “Challenging What Is.” SPECIAL TO THE ORACLE

Though TEDxUSF is in November, the deadline is fast approaching for those who would like to attend. 

The last day to apply for TEDxUSF tickets will be Sunday. To apply for a ticket, students must go to BullSync’s website,
usf.edu/BullSync and search “TEDxUSF ticket request.” Tickets are free for USF students, $15 for USF faculty and staff and $20 for alumni and community members. 

Tickets are not guaranteed after applying. The TEDxUSF Planning Team will specially select audience members and send invitations that must be accepted and confirmed within four days. Audience members must stay for the entire event and cannot go out for breaks, as the entire event will be filmed. 

According to the website, “the TED organization also encourages the TEDxUSF Planning Team to cultivate the audience so that a diverse representation of our campus community is able to attend.” 

The event will take place Nov. 18 in the Marshall Student Center (MSC) Ballroom from 6 to 10 p.m. 

TEDxUSF is an independently organized event designed to simulate the experience of a TED Talk. TEDx events use TED general guidelines but the events themselves are self-organized.

TED is a nonprofit organization that seeks to share ideas using TED Talks, short speeches on a wide range of topics and in multiple languages. The talks are featured on their website, TED.com, and other TED-sponsored platforms. 

Famous TED speakers include Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Benoit Mandelbrot and former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. 

TEDxUSF’s theme this year is “Challenging What Is.” This year’s talks will focus on social change and seeking to challenge current ways of thinking. 

“One of the most significant catalysts for social change consists of people challenging social institutions and societal beliefs,” according to the TEDxUSF website.

The event will feature live performances by two local musicians, TED Talks by faculty and staff, break sessions with food, conversation among guests and speakers and participation in the live filming of the main program that features eight speakers.

Marc Defant is a USF St. Petersburg professor of geochemistry who studies volcanoes. He wrote a book on the history of the universe and his lecture will be “Why we are Alone in the Galaxy.”

A senior in the College of Nursing, Terrell Foster joined the U.S. Air Force Reserves as a medic and plans to earn a doctorate in nursing. His future work as a nurse practitioner will focus on minority populations. His lecture is “We Could Be Heroes.”

After her mother’s passing, College of Nursing Administrative Specialist Sally Galloway finished degrees in music and studied holistic health. She has since been a health coach, massage therapist, nutrition counselor and author. Her lecture will be on “Rediscovering America’s LOST Diet: It’s Not on the Pyramid.”

“The Color of Love: Racial Features, Stigma, and Socialization in Black Brazilian Families” author and assistant professor of sociology and Latin American studies Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman will speak on the topics discussed in her book in a lecture entitled “The Color of Love: Racial Features and Stigma in Brazil and the U.S.”

Ryan Iacovacci, a gardener at the Freedom House Farm in New Port Richey and USF alumnus, deals with local farm to table agricultural distribution, the topic of his lecture “Beyond Big Ag, Beyond Civilization.”

Founder of Art Can Change The World — an organization that seeks to educate people across cultural boundaries about social and cultural issues — and USF doctoral student in communication Marquese McFerguson will talk about “Art, Social Change and Uncomfortable Conversations.”

USF alumna Sam(ira) Obeid, and activist with Equality Florida, an organization working for civil rights for the LGBT community, will focus on queer voices of color and issues of identity. While her specialty is photography and video, she is also a poet. Her lecture will be “We Are All Trans.”

Also lecturing on “We Are All Trans” is associate professor of sociology Sara Crawley, a researcher on gender, sexualities, social psychology, feminism and queer theory. She has written a book on these topics entitled “Gendering Bodies.” Crawley is also affiliate faculty with the Women’s and Gender Studies department at USF.

USF Sarasota-Manatee Director of the Core Curriculum Phillip Wagner explores masculinity and femininity and associated labels, researching the connections between gender, identity and health and participating in activism against things such as domestic violence. His lecture will be called “Bellies, Boobs, and Bulges: Challenging Ideal Bodies.”