On Sat. March 8, St. Olaf hosted a TEDx event in the Pause, where six separate speakers shared talks relating to the overarching theme of “Perception.”
All speeches, three given by St. Olaf students and three given by adults in the community, challenged our perceptions on various topics — from cultural trends like “girl dinner” to transnational adoption.
In an interview with The Olaf Messenger, Sophia González ’26 discussed the process of creating her talk titled “The Power of the Unscientific Method.” As a physics, math, and philosophy triple major, she saw a lot of contradictions between what can be accepted as a theory and what a theory is.
“I came up with my topic gradually,” she explained. “Why do we have a lot of theories that don’t agree with each other?”
González said that her talk centered around the perception that the scientific method is the most trustworthy way of making scientific breakthroughs, but explained how some advances, like the moon landing, were based on falsified theories.
“Sticking to scientific methods is admirable,” González said, “but stepping outside of the method is where you find groundbreaking discoveries.”
Carson Bridigum ’28 intertwined his experience of living with cerebral palsy to how disability is portrayed in the media, and how these portrayals cause us to perceive disability as something to be pitied or feared. He challenged the audience’s perception of disabled people in the community.
“Have we mentally moved on from groups we created as children?” he asked, posing the idea that “we need to teach unbiased caring” to all.
Carleton College Professor of Psychology Julia Strand took a slightly more educational approach to her talk. Strand, chair of the psychology department, explained that the way we perceive color is influenced by what our brain has predicted to encounter through sight, not by wavelengths or our eyes, making color personal.
“Perceiving things differently from one another isn’t something to argue about,” Strand said, “it’s something to marvel at.”
Other talks, like those by Cailin Mayotte ’27 and Visiting Assistant Professor of Race, Ethnic, Gender, and Sexuality Studies SooJin Pate, were also highly impactful, but in a less light-hearted way.
“Girl power is a brand, not a revolution,” Mayotte claimed in her talk titled “Girl Power, Girl Math, Girl Dinner: How Feminism Got Lost in the Translation.” Terms that began with the intention of empowering girls and women were eventually connected to injurious experiences that often affect women, such as eating disorders and the concept of girl dinners.
“Language shapes perception, perception shapes reality. What reality are we creating when we use these terms?” Mayotte asked.
Pate’s talk titled “Adopting Across Borders: Who Benefits and Who Suffers?” broke down the illusion of transnational adoption as a humanitarian act to a system privileging white people in the US. Adoption of South Korean children was set up by the US military in the late 1940s, and funds were directed away from social services which would help struggling families and single parents, and directed the funds into private orphanages established by the US military. Today, the same structure continues to exist.
In his talk titled “Point of View: the Power of Media to Change Perspective,” Twin Cities PBS executive producer Daniel Bergin summarized the event well in his conclusion.
“When we know the truth, healing can begin. If you know someone’s story, you cannot harm them,” Bergin said.
