speech story

STUDENTS ATTEND WILL KEIM SPEECH FOR HAZING PREVENTION WEEK
By: Lauren Madeja
Thousands of WSU students filled Beasley Coliseum Sunday night to end National Hazing Prevention Week right with a speech given by Will Keim. Keim’s hilarious yet moving speech emphasized that life is a gift, and by abusing yourself and others through hazing you are wasting that gift.
“The one mistake you make that drives me crazy is when you take your life for granted,” Keim told the audience.
He then told the students ten things he wanted them to do in order to make sure you don’t take it for granted and waste it doing things like hazing. Among these ten things were to become scholars, to serve the community, to be people of character, and to find something you love to do, all very important things to think about for college students trying to find their way in the world.
Keim explained that hazing can occur at any time in life, not just in college, so if people don’t learn and embrace those ten points early then hazing can affect anyone.
“This stuff hazing starts with bullying in elementary school,” Keim said. “It evolves from bullying to hazing in college and goes into the workplace as harassment.”
Keim’s illumination of how hazing can follow you in every aspect of your life really seemed to have an impact on students. Junior education major, Lauren Krippaehne, who plans to teach elementary school said the speech gave her new insights about the important role she will have as a teacher.
“I never thought about the fact that hazing can start so early,” Krippaehne said. “You always wonder where that bully who picked on you in school ended up, and now I see that a good majority of them are the ones hazing on college campuses. I want to make sure a kid never leaves my class as a bully.”
Sophomore nursing major Justine Ramsey was also inspired by Keim’s words.
“It’s cool that instead of just telling us not to haze, he put an interesting spin on it by telling us how to make ourselves better people in general,” Ramsey said of Keim’s speech. “He knows that if you are a good person you don’t need to be told not to haze because you just won’t do it.”
This speech was organized as the last event of a whole week of activities included in the National Hazing Prevention Week. This week is put on each year by WSU Panhellenic not only to spread awareness about hazing, but to show the campus and the community that WSU students do not support or participate in hazing activities. Some of the other unity building activities included in the week were a free showing of the movie “College” and a Walk of Remembrance to honor the victims of hazing.
Will Keim was no doubt chosen to close such an important week because of his astounding life experience in the subject. Keim admitted in his speech that he himself was hazed as a young fraternity member when he was in college. Since then has become an extremely successful intellectual, publishing several books, speaking at thousands of schools and conferences nationwide, and even founding his own personal empowerment company, The Character Institute. Keim said that even though he succeeded in life, it was despite being hazed instead of because of it, and he wants the world to know there are much better ways to spend your valuable time.
“You get about 25,000 days in life, from birth to death,” Keim said at the end of his speech. “How could you waste any of this precious limited time hazing or being hazed?”
Hopefully those who were in that room never waste that precious time on hazing again.


Outline: Will Keim’s Speech
Lede: Thousands of WSU students filled Beasley Coliseum Sunday night to end National Hazing Prevention Week right with a speech given by Will Keim
Point 1: Will Keim spoke about not taking your life for granted and the ten points to become a better person.
Point 2: Keim then spoke about how hazing starts in elementary school, then continues on to college and adulthood.
Point 3: Introduction of student interviews and quotes.
Point 4: National Hazing Prevention Week background.
Point 5: Will Keim background and ending quote. “You get about 25,000 days in life, from birth to death,” Keim said at the end of his speech. “How could you waste any of this precious limited time hazing or being hazed?”

Contacts: Will Keim- speaker
Lauren Krippaehne- student 206-948-1589
Justine Ramsey- student 360-909-2471

Questions for the speaker:
1) What are some positive team building activities you would suggest as an alternative to hazing to groups who claim hazing builds comradery?
2) What did you learn from your own personal experience with hazing and how did it affect your life?
3) What made you want to be an inspirational speaker and empower people for a living?