{"id":1703,"date":"2015-10-09T21:55:20","date_gmt":"2015-10-10T05:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=1703"},"modified":"2015-10-09T22:03:51","modified_gmt":"2015-10-10T06:03:51","slug":"western-professor-speaks-at-tedx-salem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/western-professor-speaks-at-tedx-salem\/","title":{"rendered":"Western professor speaks at TEDx Salem"},"content":{"rendered":"
By: Conner Williams\r\nEditor in Chief\r\nInformation contributed \r\nBy:Jenna Beresheim News Editor<\/pre>\n
The third annual TEDx Salem conference took place last Saturday, Oct. 3, 2015 at the Convention Center in Salem. <\/p>\n
The event drew a crowd of approximately 450 people, according to Brian Hart, co-curator of the conference. <\/p>\n
TEDx events are different than TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conferences as the \u201cx\u201d denotes that it is a local an independently sponsored event. <\/p>\n
TED is a nonprofit organization that was founded in 1984 under the slogan \u201cIdeas Worth Spreading.\u201d The organization has hosted some very significant individuals as speakers, including Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Al Gore, J.J. Abrams, and many others. <\/p>\n
The famous \u201cTED Talks\u201d cover everything from scientific ideas, to academia, to cultural and social topics. <\/p>\n
The theme of the Salem talks was fearlessness; specifically, what it means to be fearless. <\/p>\n
But rather than attempt to define the term or represent it in one avenue of thought, Hart emphasized that the objective of the conference was to allow each individual to decide for themselves after hearing all of the speakers\u2019 presentations. <\/p>\n
Among the 13 speakers was CM Hall, project coordinator of the Western Region Interpreter Education Center at Western Oregon University, and professor of deafblind interpreting and LGBTQ+ studies.<\/p>\n
Hall said that everyone who can hear is an audist \u2013 someone that believes or are treated as if they are superior based on their ability to hear \u2013 and her presentation was aimed at bringing social justice along with better access and fairness to those of the deafblind community. <\/p>\n
Hall was originally invited to speak at the TEDx Salem conference after she launched a petition in July on Change.org to get the American Sign Language (ASL) \u201cI Love You\u201d hand-shape to become an emoji.<\/p>\n
Hall hopes that after her talk, people who can hear and see will, \u201cwork to engage with deaf people and work to dismantle audists, and see it similar to racism, heterosexism and albeism \u2013 as a social justice issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to her service as an advocate for the deafblind community and professor at Western, Hall hinted that she plans to run for office someday.<\/p>\n
Hall said that she was not as nervous for her presentation as she was for what comes next, particularly about the \u201chaters\u201d that come to the surface once the talk is edited and posted online.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know we are so thick in the middle of a hater\/troll Internet culture and I don\u2019t want to be affected by that negativity,\u201d Hall said in an email interview. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what I think about the most: how the message will resonate, and I just assume there will be hater sentiment as we now assume there is for everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI may just need to sing a lot of Tay-Tay\u2019s \u201cShake It Off\u201d cuz the haters gonna hate hate hate. And really, what can I do but shake it off?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The third annual TEDx Salem conference took place last Saturday, Oct. 3, 2015 at the Convention Center in Salem. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":825,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/825"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1703\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}