2017 Speakers – TEDxTuscaloosa

Roderick Borisade

Spoken Word Artist

Born to a drug-addicted mother and an absent father, Roderick Borisade struggled hard in life during his preteen years. After losing his older brother (Eric) to cancer in 1996, he named himself “Odd?Rod”. He went against the odds and pushed himself through high school to earn a full college scholarship to UNF. Starting an open mic at college, he developed leadership and speaking skills that brought in 200 students a month to express themselves. He learned that his story of perseverance was helping others to cope with what they were going through. It was that notion that catapulted him into every school, rehab, and jail that he could to let people know that they can make it too. Since 2011, he’s toured over 350 colleges and earned many awards including 2014 & 2016 APCA Spokenword Artist of the Year. In October of 2016, he recieved a standing ovation for his performance at TedxJacksonville’s “Fear Less” conference. Most importantly, he’s inspired a nation of people to push through every obstacle placed before them and live their life as leaders.

Ronald Dulek

Educator, Business

Ronald Dulek, Ph.D., is the John R. Miller Professor of Management at the University of Alabama. He and his wife, Sally, reside ten months a year in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and two months a year in a remote bush house in Sabie Park, Mpumalanga, South Africa.

Ron has been on the faculty at the University of Alabama for 40 years; for 17 of those years he was Head of the Management and Marketing Department. Ron has authored or co-authored eight books and published more than 50 refereed journal articles. In 2006, the Association for Business Communication selected Ron for its highest research honor: the Kitty O. Locker Award for Outstanding Research.

Ron has been voted MBA/ EMBA Teacher of the Year thirty-three times. He is a recipient of the National Alumni Association’s Outstanding Commitment to Teaching Award, the Thomas D. Moore Outstanding Undergraduate Teacher Award, The College of Continuing Studies Outstanding Teacher Award, and the Penny Allen Award for Outstanding Commitment to Students. In 2007, the senior class at the University of Alabama selected Ron as the inaugural speaker for the University’s Last Lecture Series.

Ron currently serves on the Board of Directors of Alabama Credit Union, the University of Alabama Press, and the Morris Mayer Advisory Board.

Barbara-Shae Jackson

Writer, Poet, PhD Student

Barbara-Shae Jackson is an accomplished writer and poet who was born in Montgomery, AL and spent her formative years, as a military child, in Naples, Italy. She received her B.A. in English and African-American studies from Mary Baldwin College. Post undergrad, she spent three years as the Associate Director for Coming to the Table, a program of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) where she was a resident writer and researcher focusing on the effects of generational trauma associated with the legacies of U.S. slavery. While working at EMU she studied under Howard Zehr, the grandfather of Restorative Justice and interviewed Nobel Peace Prize winner Leymah Gbowee, who was instrumental in bringing an end to the second Liberian Civil war. Barbara-Shae is a published writer whose work has been featured in MOTIVATED Magazine (Fear and the Deconstruction of Racial Stereotypes) and ESSENCE Magazine’s Bestseller Souls of My Young Sisters a compilation (Motherless Child). She was a guest poet invited to perform during the Mississippi Freedom 50th return of the Freedom Riders National Celebration and was a part of the 200 piece choir performing alongside poet Nikki Giovanni in her revised Truth Is on Its Way tour. Prior to her acceptance to the University of Alabama, Barbara-Shae taught English in Angola, Africa as a part of their infrastructure rebuild post-civil war. Currently she is a Psychology Doctoral student working with Dr. Sheila Black studying Metaphor Interpretation and Race, Collective Memory and Their Influence on Visual Art Interpretation.

Jeremy Reid

Administrator at The University of Alabama

Amy Soverow

Studio Artist

Birmingham glass artist Amy Soverow misses her daily newspaper. Prior to owning and operating her glass art studio, Soverow spent 35 years working in the media industry. She has been a college professor, conducted research for TV and radio stations around the country, and started 24/7 cable channels in St. Louis and Washington, DC. Locally, she was Research Director for FOX6 WBRC-TV and Research Manager for The Birmingham News, and for Alabama Media Group, the parent company of state wide “news” website, al.com.
Soverow’s most recent research, “Down the Digital Clickhole”, shows how losing the daily newspaper, 4 days a week, in Birmingham, Mobile and Huntsville (leaving Alabama as the only state in the nation without a daily paper in its 3 largest cities), has hurt the state’s information stream as well as its economy. More importantly, Soverow asks the question about how best to get reliable information in a time when traditional media is losing ground to social and digital media.

Kate Thomas

Educator, Health Promotion

Kate Hendricks Thomas is an Assistant Professor of Public Health at Charleston Southern University. She is a teacher, speaker, and writer. Dr. Thomas, also a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, helps businesses and military veterans optimize their performance through resilient leadership training. Her behavioral health research, published in journals like Best Practices in Mental Health, the Journal of Environmental Psychology, and Military Behavioral Health, has been praised as “masterful” and “constructive.” She lives in Charleston, SC with her wild toddler and the Great Dane who dotes on him..