On Wednesday, April 15, over 2,000 listeners filled Trinity’s Laurie Auditorium to hear the highly anticipated speaker, Brené Brown. As part of the Flora Cameron Lecture on Politics and Public Affairs, Trinity invites distinguished speakers each year. This year’s highlighted lecturer was a research professor at the University of Houston, visiting professor of management at the University of Texas McCombs School of Business, seven-time author, past TEDx speaker and two-time award-winning podcast host.
Brown presented an hour-long keynote speech titled “Daring to Lead,” followed by a Q&A portion moderated by President Vanessa Beasley. In her address, Brown discussed the skills that future leaders will need for success, including curiosity, emotional awareness and humility.
“For transformation, you’ve got to break a lot of things. You’ve got to break systems and structures and ways of thinking,” Brown said.
The promise of hearing Brown brought a crowd of thousands to Laurie Auditorium. Bruce Bravo, senior director of conferences and special programs, helped bring Brown to campus.
“All of these extracurricular events have value, culturally. They expand your horizons, if you will. So yes, if I can get a speaker like Brené, which is what our institution, what our leadership, is looking for, it’s incredible. Not only are we offering something to our faculty, staff, students and alumni, we are also offering an event to the public,” Bravo said.
A week before the event, Kyle Gillette, interim associate provost in Academic Affairs, attended a content call with Brown and her team. Trinity worked to make sure Brown’s speech would work within the parameters of The Conversation, the series of workshops and public debates that this Cameron lecture falls into. Gillette expected that the lecture would have a profound impact on listeners at the event.
“The Conversation is a way of helping students develop the capacity to engage with people from different perspectives,” Gillette said. “I think [Brown’s lecture] will be really memorable and important for life lessons that people will carry with them for a long time.”
In honor of Brown’s visit to campus, Trinity Chaplain Alex Serna-Wallender led two parallel book clubs for students and faculty and staff on Brown’s “The Gifts of Imperfection.” Each book club met three times over three months. Although not officially connected with the Cameron lecture series, Serna-Wallender attributed the time frame of the meetings to Brown’s visit.
“I’ve really liked ‘The Gifts of Imperfection,’ and I have wanted to figure out how, at some point, to do a book club on it,” Sena-Wallender said. “It had been an idea percolating for a while and this felt like a great moment.”
The faculty and staff book club attracted community members from all over campus. Betty Curry, director for Academic Support, attended all three of the meetings and found it to be a “bridge builder” for the Trinity community.
“It has been a wonderful time to come together. It brings people from all over campus who, even though it’s a small place, we don’t always get to see everybody in all the different offices,” Curry said. “To me, it’s one of the many ways that Trinity supports our lifetime learning … and this is a particularly great book for that.”
The student book club had a similar outcome. Students found the meetings to be a great place for connection. Danielle Semine, sophomore psychology major, shared how the book club allowed her to get to know and connect with people outside of her circle. She said that the student book club participants would be going to the Brown lecture and getting dinner together afterward.
For Semine, the book club familiarized her with Brown’s work and gave her more appreciation for the lecture. Semine also shared that reading Brown’s book affirmed her dedication to studying psychology.
“It made me realize ‘Wow, I could be doing this.’ Studying human connection and how we go about our lives and interact with other people is so important,” Semine said. “There is so much value in it and it reaffirmed that, yes, this is what I’m meant to be doing.”
During the Q&A, Brown referred to the concept of a fear line, which she claims has changed her life. According to her, everyone either operates above or below this fear line. When below the line, people resort to a villain, hero or victim mentality. Above the line, people become the challenger, coach and creator.
Benjamin Williams, associate dean of Student Affairs, felt this concept resonated with him. He plans to apply this idea to his work at Trinity.
“It’s so important that we think about for ourselves, acknowledging when we’re above the line, like she talked about. How can we lean in to be creative and challenge processes, and then also give ourselves space to acknowledge when we’re below a line?” Williams said.
The last question of the night asked why Brown chose to speak at this engagement when she often declines invitations. Brown said she was the first or second most requested speaker in the world, receiving four to five thousand requests annually, and accepting only 12 to 20.
“I’m here because I think you’ve got something really important and an unlock on something that people don’t understand. I really do believe there is a liberal arts renaissance that’s gonna happen,” Brown said. “You’re doing courageous conversation work. This is the preparation that the world needs right now.”
