Theme: Coloring Outside the Lines

TEDxULM will be an intellectual and creative platform which would highlight Monroe’s proud history and encourage the University of Louisiana Monroe(ULM) affiliates as well as the extended community of northeast Louisiana to give a voice to their unspoken ideas, some of which have the potential to impact similar communities at a global level. It will be a platform to share locally brewed ideas and spark interesting discussions about unexplored perspectives.

Coloring Outside the Lines is primarily about creativity with no boundaries. It encourages the use of innovative thoughts and ideas in order to create something extraordinary and expand the universe of the mind. The speakers at TEDxULM will be thought leaders and trailblazers from diverse fields who look at things in non-traditional and in unconventional ways. They will shed light on perspectives that our audience might not have explored before, be it in entrepreneurship, arts, science or language.

Bayou Pointe Event Center
1 Warhawk Way
Monroe, Louisiana, 71209
United States

Baylor Barbee

Author, Speaker and Triathlete

Baylor Barbee is an award-winning speaker, author and triathlete. With an emphasis on mindset development, Baylor pushes audiences to overcome adversities and surpass their goals through his speaking, professional development solutions, and books. Baylor is an Amazon best-selling author and was named by the Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau as one of the Top 12 Most Influential African-Americans in Dallas. A former Division 1 scholarship athlete, Baylor played football for Baylor University where he earned a B.B.A in Marketing & Entrepreneurship and a Master’s Degree in Education.

Jaleesa Harris

English Instructor

Jaleesa Harris is an English instructor at the University of Louisiana at Monroe located in Monroe, Louisiana. As an educator, her primary focus includes freshman composition and African American literature. She was awarded the NEH Summer Seminars and Institutes Program Ernest Gaines and the Southern Experience. She is the Vice-Chair of the ULM Women’s Symposium and is an active advisor for several campus organizations. She enjoys reading multicultural literature, writing and traveling. What she lacks in the ability to synopsize herself she makes up for in quick, sometimes witty, rapport.

Mara Loeb

Associate Professor at School of Humanities - ULM

Mara Loeb was born in Iowa, the 5th child of 8, and the 3rd daughter of 6. After leaving home and living in 10 cities (2 in Canada) she ended what she calls “her gypsy years” and settled down to earn her B.A. and M.A. in Speech and Theater and a 2nd B.A. in Art Education. ULM (then NLU) hired her as Costumer and she fell in love with the Louisiana culture and people. In 1991 she left to earn her Ph.D. and when it came time to choose a topic for her dissertation, it seemed natural to focus on the strong influence storytelling had in her family, as it does most, to shape, guide, and define them. She shares her passion for storytelling in all her classes, but especially in the Honors class, Storytelling, Identity, and Culture. She shares her home with her dogs Shadow and Trixie, the most recent in a steady line of rescues; though it’s never clear who is rescuing whom.

Mariana Sheppard

Photographer

Mariana Sheppard is a photographer based in New Orleans, Louisiana. She often uses self-portraiture to explore themes of womanhood and genealogy. Her documentary work has been on view at the McKenna Museum of African American Art and has appeared in a variety of films such as "Sister Hearts" (2017) and "Intersection" (2017). Her photography has been used by a number of brands including OWN, SheaMoisture, Saucony, Tidal, and Square. Sheppard received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Louisiana State University and holds a Masters Degree from Columbia University.

Roxanne Bourque

Early Childhood Developmental Specialist

Dr. Roxanne M. Bourque serves as an Education Activist— a teacher of teachers specializing in systemic preparation of college students who embrace the transformative process of teacher preparation in Early Childhood Development and Education. Dr. Bourque is a faculty member in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, College of Education. Bourque earned a Ph.D. in Creative Systemic Studies and Counseling Leadership from the University of Louisiana at Monroe. Her dissertation title is, "Young minds on fire: Early teaching and the joie de vivre; The nature and aesthetics of Kinder-Cybernetics” (2016).

Vanelis Rivera

English Instructor

Vanelis "Van" Rivera is a full-time English Instructor at the University of Louisiana at Monroe and a freelance culture and lifestyle writer for Bayou Life Magazine. She has also published music features in She Shreds Magazine. Hailing from Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, she's got a nomadic spirit and a thirst for novel experiences. A writer at heart, she dabbles in creative nonfiction, fiction, and screenwriting. Her interests include film, music, reading, yoga, hiking, and road-tripping. Multifaceted in most aspects, Van flows "anywhere the wind blows."