TORCH PHOTO/REZA MORENO

Professor Cantelmo delivered his first Talk on March 28.

TEDx, the media organization whose slogan is “ideas worth spreading,” has brought its first Ted Talk to St. John’s after the recent establishment of its own on-campus chapter. The TEDx community wishes to help spread ideas through powerful talks, which is exactly what happened on Wednesday, March 28 in Marillac Terrace.

Professor Douglas Cantelmo, who teaches Discover New York and the Global Passport Program Rome, was the keynote speaker for the evening and was able to bring his teachings on life from a deep perspective. His love and passion for the school was clear as he spoke about how his father was a professor at St. John’s. Now Cantelmo is following in his footsteps.

The talk of the evening was titled, “How We Make a Campus,” based on urban design.

There are five steps to this process. Cantelmo brought in an example for the first idea, which explains organic versus planned design on campus, to show how St. John’s sees our needs and wants pertaining to the Queens campus.

“Your footsteps matter,” Cantelmo said. “I know a lot of times as a professor and also as a former student, sometimes you yourself are being viewed kind of like an X-number.”

Organic design is based off of human needs. For example, the pathways from St. Albert Hall and Marillac Hall to the D’Angelo Center were made because students used to walk across the grass, therefore insinuating that a pathway was needed; planned design may primarily consist of aesthetics.

The event was also sponsored by the NAACP organization on campus as they provided refreshments from Dunkin’ Donuts. Food for Thought wrapped up the night with an open mic for their members and the audience.

President of NAACP, junior Tahmir Williams, said, “We collabed [collaborated] with Ted Talks tonight because NAACP is an org that is centered around community service and we wanted to share that importance with the general body members of Ted Talks tonight.”

The president of the TEDx St. John’s chapter, Neelesh Rastogi, was very pleased with the number of people that showed up. He both opened and ended the night with words of encouragement.

“Today I believe our event was really nice, we got a nice expected audience rate, which we wanted. Now let’s see how the survey turns out because our survey is our benchmarking strategy to see how our audience loves Ted Talks on campus,” Rastogi said.