The TEDxSolano Community College Women event was held in the afternoon on March 13, highlighting a wide range of women’s voices. The theme of the event was “Leading Without Permission,” aiming to “honor women who are redefining leadership—not by permission, but by purpose.”
The event, held in the theatre on the Fairfield campus, consisted of two sessions, hosting nine speakers from across California and Florida, all experts in fields such as psychology, business, law, and more. The two sessions were followed by a reception with food and beverages for attendees and speakers.
Angelika Duculan, VP of the ASSC (Associated Students of Solano College), along with a team of other SCC students, worked to organize the event. She explained the behind-the-scenes work that goes into assembling an event like this.
“The casting call was posted on LinkedIn, around the campus, and Instagram. And then the process of checking if everything is up to bar, is following the Ted X guidelines, making sure that there’s no commercial agenda, there’s no political affiliation, and also branding as well,” said Duculan.
Duculan also shared her intent behind involving Solano Community College with TEDx.
“I wanted to bridge opportunities for our students to see themselves in successful areas. … We have people from law, medicine, and real estate as well, so everyone could feel like they’re seen, and feel like I can do what these women can do.”
The event consisted of nine speakers, including Solano community college faculty, Dr. Gwen Gallagher, Dr Lacey LaVigna, Dr. Nicki Joy Monti, Dr. Patricia White, Elaine Lin Hering, Lorena Fregoso, Maria X. Isip-Bautista, Nicole Redding Wilhelm, and Rania Jaghlit.
Maria X. Isip-Bautista, Sociology/Social Justice Studies Professor at SCC, and Equity and Leadership Consultant, discussed the importance of understanding one’s collective and personal identities, and using that understanding to build community and leadership, in her talk “Cultivating Leadership for an Evolving Humanity”.
One aspect of her talk was the idea of three invitations that she extends to her students: to learn and understand one’s collective history, to extend that thought inwards to a personal/familial history, and to engage and collaborate with other students to build community.
“These three invitations serve as a guide as we journey together to learn about our world, to learn about ourselves, and to build a community from which we can heal and transform so that we can heal and transform the world around us,” said Isip-Bautista.
Relating to the main theme of the TEDx event, Isip-Bautista spoke on her experience with leading without permission.
“If I would have waited around to be invited to leadership, I could have waited my whole life, and it might have never happened,” said Isip-Bautista. “I heard that thread throughout a lot of women’s talks, that we …, in different points in our life, had to figure out the way to shrug off the idea that we were waiting for anybody’s permission.”
Dr. Nicki Joy Monti, psychotherapist, author, radio personality, and speaker shared her personal journey through heartbreak and how it changed her life for the better with her speech titled “Kintsugi Fix: How Heartbreak Saved My Life”, detailing the heartbreak in her life and how to transform damage into meaningful beauty.
When asked how she became involved with the Tedx Solano Community College Women event, Nicki Joy Monti explained, “I’ve been wanting to do a TEDx for a while now, and not being able to find people who knew how to access it”
Emphasizing the message of her speech, Monti stressed the importance of having the “power to change our lives by changing ourselves” and “taking responsibility for what we choose to do.”
By doing so, she believes that we can create a better world.
Rania Jaghlit is a coach, personal trainer, speaker and author. Her talk “A Word From a Former Conformer: Reclaiming Your Voice Between Expectation and Truth”, urged listeners to fight against conformity by building independence of thought, among many other strategies.
Jaghlit spoke on conformity, and how she has used her own personal journey as a mother to escape “conforming habits of just pleasing everyone.”
Of all her points made in her speech, Jaghlit hopes that a message that can inspire the audience is to stay true to themselves, tying into the overall theme of confronting conformity.
“I would say, just be you. Because the world is waiting for you to be you. And we always think that we need to be someone else or act like someone else, but the message is just to be you.”
The TEDxSolano Community College Women event is one of many celebrating Women’s History Month at SCC. Other events include a Women’s Appreciation Luncheon hosted by Girl Yes You Can and Vision Hub, a Women’s Leadership Panel hosted by the Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Student Achievement Program and Phi Theta Kappa, and a Women-Owned Businesses and Vendors event, held in the cafeteria on the Fairfield campus.
