Presentation titled ‘SPEAK: Vocal Empowerment for Students and Educators’ is set for April 29

Your voice can be a path to power, a CU Boulder expert argues, and she will explain how in a public presentation this month.

Chelsea Hackett, a university research associate, will give a presentation titled “SPEAK: Vocal Empowerment for Students and Educators,” on Monday, April 29, at 3 p.m. via Zoom.

The event is free and open to everyone, but registration is required at this link. The event is sponsored by Be Well, the College of Arts and Sciences' wellness initiative, and is part of its regular Let’s CU Well series of programs.

During the session, Hackett will explore “how to support your voice both within and outside of the classroom. This focuses on three aspects of voice: social/emotional, physical and civic.

“During this interactive hour, you will learn tangible skills to keep your voice healthy, and to practice getting comfortable being uncomfortable so that you can speak about issues that are important to you!”

Hackett is a 2010 CU Boulder theatre performance graduate and PhD graduate of New York University. She is now a research associate at CU Boulder’s Renée Crown Wellness Institute.

She is the co-founder and executive director of SPEAK, a nonprofit that focuses on vocal empowerment for young women and girls. In addition, she is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher and creative consultant.

SPEAK, which Hackett founded with Beth Osnes, a CU Boulder professor of theatre, aims to “support and celebrate the voices of all young women and girls.”

The organization envisions a world in which all young women and girls are “heard, valued, and affirmed, a world that benefits from their unique contributions, one where they are safe to express themselves fully, and are free to co-author an equitable, survivable, and thrive-able future.”

The nonprofit says vocal empowerment “is the ability to express yourself the way you want in any context.” The group’s approach to vocal empowerment addresses three aspects of of voice: physical, which draws from theater and voice and speech pathology; social/emotional, which uses meditations, journal activities and games to help young women and girls explore their internal voices, ideas and emotions; and civic, through which women and girls are encouraged to share their thoughts about vital issues with their communities.

“By combining theatre with voice speech pathology, Dr. Beth Osnes and I have worked to charter a new, creative and trans-disciplinary endeavor we call Vocal Empowerment that is designed for use primarily by young women to become agents of change in their communities, their nations and the world," Hackett says. "This work supports youth in speaking about issues that are important to them, such as sexual violence prevention, climate change and racial justice.”

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