The Task: In September 2014, a student leader of the Sphinx Club at Wabash College invited me to deliver to the campus community a “Chapel Talk,” so-called not because they should be religious but because they occur in the Chapel on campus.
The Process: Chapel Talk rhetors are given autonomy in choosing a topic but it is common for them to offer some lesson or important message for the audience. I chose a topic based on recent professional development opportunities about social privilege and belonging that I had pursued. For this talk, I read studies relevant to the concept of privilege and outlined a speech that I thought would resonate with and hopefully inspire an audience that has immense privilege (mostly male, mostly white, mostly American, etc.). I then practiced the speech with a student who was a seasoned speech tutor and used his feedback to improve the content.
The Goal, Strategy, & Tactics: My goals for the speech were for audience members to be able to define “privilege,” understand why it’s not a dirty word, and recognize ways to leverage their own privilege for productive social change. This video showcases my skill in adapting a persuasive message to a target audience, employing credible research, and using stylistic devices such as metaphor, anaphora, alliteration, and humor for communicative impact. You can download the speech manuscript (as prepared for delivery) here.
The Outcome: More than 300 people attended the speech. In 2018, one senior, Austin Harrison, reflected on his experience at Wabash in the student newspaper, The Bachelor, and called my speech “the single most important talk that I heard outside of a Wabash classroom” (p. 6). Some faculty have continued use the below video in their classes more than a decade after I delivered it.