The
Minnesota State University Mankato
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Stammering my way through it all My story of a friend overstaying their welcome
GABE HEWITT Editor-in-Chief Speaking at my high school graduation ceremony was one of the most rewarding and terrifying moments of my life. They never tell you to increase the font size of your speech before you give it so it’s easier to read. They also never tell you how incredibly dry your mouth becomes as soon as you get in front of a microphone. But here I was. In front of a crowd of 300. All eyes on me. It was a surreal moment for me because just 10 years earlier, I was being called on to read in class and I-I-I couldn’t do it. I’ve had a stutter for as long as I can remember. It’s hard to describe what having a stutter feels like. Imagine your flow of speech
is doing the hurdles event in track and field except the other peoples’ flows in the race don’t have hurdles in their lanes. These hurdles are called “blocks.” Some hurdles are bigger than others and sometimes you just have to bypass the hurdle because it’s too big. The number of hurdles increase when you’re nervous. A common phrase among family members growing up was “spit it
out” whenever I would get blocked. Some advice: saying that does not help. It took me a while to come to terms with it. I was terrified to speak in early grade school because of it. Kids at that age are awful when they realize you’re different from them in any way. So I never spoke and that alone made me different. They called me “quiet” or a “mute.” “He doesn’t talk,” someone would say
Photos courtesy of Gabe Hewitt
whenever a substitute teacher was taking attendance. I was forever known as the kid who didn’t talk. It appeared my plan had backfired. Reading was a pain. If I was a called on to read, I would sit in my chair and look at the words on the paper
until it was all over. All eyes on me. I would sit silently until the teacher realized it was time to call on someone else. What a relief when they
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Columbia University professor to talk at Kessel Memorial Lecture Todd Gitlin to discuss “Democracy at Risk” at 32nd annual lecture April 3 Mankato, Minn. – Todd Gitlin, a media scholar and professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University in New York City, will deliver the 32nd Annual Kessel Memorial Lecture at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 3 in Minnesota State University, Mankato’s Ostrander Auditorium, located on campus in Centennial Student Union. Gitlin’s presentation, “Democracy at Risk: The Urgency of Action,” is free and open to the public. According to his biography, Gitlin, also a novelist and activist, was a leader of the student “New
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Left” in the 1960s as well as the movement to divest from economic relations with apartheid South Africa in the 1980s. He is today a
His most recent book is a forthcoming novel, “The Opposition.” Gitlin is currently the chair of the Ph.D. program in
“Gitlin writes regularly for many newspapers and magazines.”
climate activist and a member of the board of Partners for Progressive Israel, and he writes regularly for many newspapers and magazines.
communications at Columbia University. Prior to that, he was a professor of culture, journalism and sociology at New York University for seven
years, and before that, he was a professor of sociology and director of the mass communications program at UC Berkeley for 16 years. During 1994-95, he held the chair in American Civilization at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He has been the Bosch Fellow in Public Policy at the American Academy in Berlin, a resident at the Bellagio Study Center in Italy and at the Djerassi Foundation in Woodside, Calif., and a fellow at the Media Studies Center in New York. He has served as a visiting professor at Yale University,
the University of Oslo, the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia, East China Normal University in Shanghai, the Institut Supérieur des Langues de Tunis in Tunisia, the American University of Cairo and the Université de Neuchatel (Switzerland). For more information about the lecture, contact Judie Bjorling, office manager in the University’s Department of Government, at 507-389-2721 or judith. bjorling@mnsu.edu, or Jackie Vieceli, professor of political science, at 507-389-6938 or jacqueline.vieceli@mnsu.edu.
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alissa.thielges@mnsu.edu
News Editor Alissa Thielges