By Carla Carlton

At 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 14, Angela Miller perched on the edge of the stage in Cralle Theatre. Bellarmine’s sixth annual TEDxBellarmineU event was a little more than 24 hours away, and Miller, an adjunct faculty member in the Communication Department, was running through the schedule for that night’s full-dress rehearsal with the core TEDxBellarmineU team.

She handed out two-way radios to those who would need them. For the next hour students would position and check microphones and make sure their video equipment was working. They would set up tables, chairs and scenery in the lobby and the Black Box Theatre, where pre-show entertainment would be held. Patrick Jump, a theater technical director, would check the lights in both theaters. At 6:15 p.m., the first of the seven speakers would take the stage for the run-through.

“There’s going to be a lot of moving parts here tonight,” Miller said. “Please be safe, be careful and help each other.”

TEDx is a program of local, self-organized storytelling events that are licensed by TED, an international nonprofit organization devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading” that was founded 30 years ago. They consist of a series of short (no longer than 18 minutes), carefully prepared talks, demonstrations and performances on a wide range of subjects.

Putting on a TEDx event “can be an extraordinary experience,” the TED website says. “It’s also a big commitment.”

It’s such a commitment, in fact, that only 40 percent of all organizations that hold licenses from TED ever produce a second event, said Dr. Shawn Apostel, associate professor of Communication and Bellarmine’s license holder. Just qualifying for a license is a major accomplishment.

But Bellarmine has produced a TEDx event annually since 2019—including one during the pandemic.

What makes Bellarmine’s TEDx program so successful? “It’s the students,” Apostel said. “They are hard workers, they’re creative and they do amazing work.”

“The license holders that do one or two events are usually trying to do it all themselves, and you just can't. You have to delegate, and I trust my students to do a good job. I'll give feedback and I might push them a bit to do it a little bit differently, but in the end it's theirs.”

The students on the TEDxBellarmineU Core Team help select each year’s theme—this year’s was “Community Resilience”—choose the speakers and handle administrative duties including budgeting, marketing and catering. While the program is a natural draw for students in Communication, the team also includes students from majors as varied as Business Administration, Music and Health Sciences.   

Read about TEDxBellarmineU's unique sign here

Working on TEDx is voluntary and provides no academic credit, but the experience is more valuable than credit, said Abigail Bullock, who graduated with a Communication and Design, Arts & Technology (DAT) double major in May 2024 and spent all four years working with TEDxBellarmineU. She served an assistant stage manager and co-emcee and also handled administrative tasks such as scheduling meetings and booking rooms.

“It's so much more than just putting on a theater production, and it doesn’t feel like a school project,” she said. “It’s an opportunity to integrate what I've been learning in college into a more real-world setting. It's also a wonderful networking opportunity. You get to know so many students from different areas, and we all come together for this one thing.”

And like all things TED, it began with an idea.

Let’s do a show

Joining Bullock and other current students in Cralle Theatre on March 14 was Jacob Schuhmann, who graduated from Bellarmine in 2017 with a major in Communication and is now director of business development for a national company.

Schuhmann has served as an emcee for TEDxBellarmineU four times, including the inaugural event in 2019.

“It’s his fault you are all here,” Miller joked to the TEDxBellarmineU core team.

Schuhmann was an underclassman when he saw the words “TEDx at Bellarmine” written on a whiteboard in Apostel’s office. Another student, Quincy Nelson, had initially suggested to Apostel that Bellarmine pursue a TEDx event, but Nelson didn’t get past the research phase before graduating.

“Quincy made a lot of progress, but we weren't there yet,” Apostel said. “Jacob walked in and said, ‘Quincy’s not here anymore, right? Can I do that?’ And I'm just curious enough to try anything, so we kept going at it.”

“The core of it was just to have a place to spread new ideas. And it's blossomed into something you would have never imagined.”

“It made a lot of sense to me that a university like ours could put something together that brought in new ideas,” Schuhmann said. “When I was in undergrad, we had some controversial figures come and speak. And I thought, We need to be this place.

“We had no idea how complicated was going to be.”

Getting a license from TED took two years, Apostel said. The first time, he applied under Schuhmann’s name, not realizing the license holder had to be the primary organizer. “Then I applied again, and apparently didn’t say things the way they wanted me to say things.” (To say that TED zealously protects its integrity is an understatement.)

The third time, Apostel was successful. TEDx licenses are valid for one year, for one event, in the city where the license is held, so he must reapply each year. Initial licenses restrict attendance to 100 people, so the first TEDxBellarmineU event, in 2019, was held in the Black Box Theatre.

“That first year we were begging for speakers,” Apostel said. “We weren't established yet, but it was ridiculous how many people we got. It was like 16—a lot of people. And we learned really quickly to limit it to seven or eight. It's just too much with more than that. It was wild.”

Schuhmann graduated before that first TEDxBellarmineU event, but he returned to serve as emcee, a role he has held every year except the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021. He’s on the road for work about 75 percent of the year, but he always makes time for TEDx. “It keeps me connected to a really, really cool time in my life,” he said. “And it's a lot of fun.”

He downplays his role in getting TEDxBellarmineU off the ground. “It's always been about the team. I don't know if I really did anything independently. I just brought in the right people that could do it because I was involved in a lot of organizations. And what's so cool is that that’s just like what my job is now: I build projects with teams across the country.”

This year TEDxBellarmineU received 192 applications for its seven speaking slots. “That’s a 3 percent acceptance rate,” Apostel said. “So it’s pretty competitive, and it’s getting more so.” And applicants are no longer just from the Bellarmine community. “We’ve even had people come from Canada,” Miller said.

According to TED rules, speakers can neither pay nor charge speakers—but they do receive a gift bag and media exposure: Each speaker is videotaped, and the videos are posted on the TEDxBellarmineU YouTube channel and sent to TED, which may also share them on the TEDx channel. “We now have millions of views of our videos because TED publishes them,” Apostel said.

The videos and still photos at each event are made by student photographers and video editors. “They are spot on, and I don't have to hire that out,” Apostel said. “I was talking with one university, and they budgeted $60,000 for their event. Oh my God. We do ours for like $5,000—and that includes food. And it's because we have Bellarmine students.”

After attending a qualifying TED conference, Apostel can now apply for a 300+ TEDx license. “I could book the YUM! Center now—there’s no limit on the audience,” he said. “But I like having people from the community here on Bellarmine’s campus. I think that's important.”

Cralle Theatre holds about 320 people, and this year’s show was at capacity. The Black Box now serves as a space for pre-show entertainment, including live music and games.

“The core of it was just to have a place to spread new ideas,” Schuhmann said. “And it's blossomed into something you would have never imagined.”

Getting organized

Back at the dress rehearsal, senior Gisela Martinez, who is in her second year with TEDxBellarmineU, has a question for Miller: “Should we have the big potted plants hidden in the Black Box, or not?”

“I will have no opinion,” Miller replies. “That’s RSO life for you.”

This year, TEDxBellarmineU became a Registered Student Organization (RSO) with the goal of making the program self-sustaining. The move allows TEDxBellarmineU to apply for funding from the Student Government Association and to retain any profit from the annual events. Before this year, any money left at the end of the fiscal year went into Bellarmine’s general fund. Tickets this year were $30, with a limited number of early bird tickets for faculty and staff available for $25.

Bullock was the first RSO president, and Martinez, a student from Merida, Mexico, with a double major in Economics and Business Administration and a minor in International Studies, handled the group’s finances. She got involved with TEDxBellarmineU in her sophomore year when Miller recruited her from her public speaking class.

“TEDxBellarmineU has helped me develop communication, organization and time-management skills,” she said. “I was able to apply the finance knowledge I have acquired in my classes by being the team’s treasurer. I have also built a strong resume; the event planning expertise I developed through TEDx helped me get my current internship with the American Heart Association as the Development and Community Events intern.”

TEDxBellarmineU is definitely a great thing to have on a resume, Miller said. “Everyone has heard of TED.”

Martinez also graduated in May 2024. But another thing that makes TEDxBellarmineU self-sustaining is that each core member is responsible for training a “mini-me”—an underclassman who will be able to step into their role. “I am constantly asking them, ‘Who is your mini-me?” Miller said. “ ‘Who are you mentoring to make sure you have a legacy’?”

Alumni of the program also have a tendency to return, she said.

Jacob Gagel ’21/’22 MAC, Bellarmine’s assistant director of Alumni Engagement, was a camera operator for TEDxBellarmineU as a student. “Now I am more of an overseer and help out where needed, mentoring those who are interested in the video production side of things. One of the things I love doing is making films, so being able to help and pursue that passion is always a fun thing to be a part of.”

Bullock predicts she will do the same. “I'm going to be here for grad school next year getting my master’s in digital media, but don't worry—I’ll still be here.”

Gagel said he’s proud that Bellarmine is becoming known in the area for TEDxBellarmineU. “TEDx is about seeking new ideas, being inclusive, and sparking deeper discussions and connection,” he said. “That’s essentially what Bellarmine is about.”

2024 TEDxBellarmineU Speakers

DeWana Hadder: Thought leader from Louisville who has spent 17 years in the nonprofit sector and is pursuing a Ph.D. in education sciences with a concentration in educational policy studies and evaluation at the University of Kentucky.

Zoey Parker: Criminal justice major at Bellarmine who has been playing bluegrass music since the age of 7, sharpening her skills on the banjo ever since.