The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Speaker urges students to get involved
Michael Strautmanis delivers keynote speech at Founders’s Day event
This year’s Founder’s Day, an annual celebration that highlights Lake Erie College’s continuing legacy and the lasting influence of those who founded the institution, enjoyed an influential keynote speaker, Michael Strautmanis.
After being introduced by College President Brian Posler, Strautmanis delivered his speech, “Finding Your Purpose: A Path to Leading from Every Seat” to an engaged student audience. Strautmanis worked the crowd with regional humor delivered with the same casual ease seen in late night talk show hosts, including his discovery that “some people are Browns fans, and then there are happier people.”
The talk highlighted the speaker’s personal journey, being raised by a single mother in Chicago before reaching Washington, D.C., as civil rights lawyer where he sought to increase judicial and economic equality. Strautmanis would later join the Obama administration as Chief of Staff to Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett in the Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs.
His long-running friendship with the former president has provided Strautmanis a lasting source of inspiration. He shared several insights that Obama impressed upon him, including one that proved the day’s thesis argument, “Change only happens when everyday people get involved.”
Maintaining the theme, Strautmanis urged his audience to be the change they want to see in the world, telling the students before him, “Get in the game. Look for the place to give your all — a place where you truly shine. Get involved with something bigger than yourself.”
He echoed former president Obama’s campaign slogan, “hope and change,” insisting that, despite the increased political division and resultant recent violence, there has never been a more critical time to foster and develop such fundamental tenets.
“Children have to turn to who they’ve, frankly, always had to turn to,” he added. “Everywhere you look, in every neighborhood, park, and community hall there are always people stepping up. I think we often spend too much time looking outside for that kind of role model and leadership. I’ve seen it in Chicago, in rural communities, I’ve seen right here in Painesville; there are people stepping up to make things better. If we can turn our children to the role models in the community that are doing the quiet heroic work of helping one another, I think we’ll all be more optimistic and less hopeless.”
His message resonated with the audience, with student Isaiah McQueen saying, “I liked the subject matter. It was very prevalent to what’s going on around here. I think it was really good for him to come and speak to us.” When asked what struck him personally, McQueen said, “When he talked about ‘taking that one moment to make a difference.’ Taking that leap to get in the game, to make that difference, I thought that was very relevant and helpful to a lot of students around here.”
Talking in front of an audience is nothing new to Strautmanis.
“When I was in middle school I started doing public speaking, including delivering Dr. Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream…’ speech.”
His current lecture, however, is a much newer experience with Strautmanis adding, “This was something that is very new. It’s come out of a lot of different experiences I’ve had.”
Among those different experiences include Strautmanis’s time with the Obama administration, as well as his following role with the Walt Disney Co. where he led an enterprisewide initiative to further bolster the company’s commitment to social responsibility programs.
He currently serves as Chief Engagement Officer for the Obama Foundation where he oversees community affairs and partnerships within the Foundation.
If that wasn’t enough to keep him busy, he has also contributed to West Wingers: Stories from Dream Chasers, Change Makers, and Hope Creators Inside the Obama White House, in which he features as a prominent author. The book was on sale in the lobby after the lecture with all proceeds going to charity
The Founder’s Day speech was not the only activity Strautmanis will be taking part in at Lake Erie College. In addition to a reception that followed his talk, he will also will be meeting with students from the Black Student Union for one-on-one discussions and will be dropping in on several science classes the following day.
To the speaker’s confessed chagrin, he will not, however, be around for the debut of the campus’s new smoothie machine next week.
“Get in the game. Look for the place to give your all — a place where you truly shine. Get involved with something bigger than yourself..” —Michael Strautmanis, keynote speaker at Lake Erie College’s Founder’s Day event.