Thursday, March 28, 2024

ASMSU brings Failure: Lab to campus on April 1

March 26, 2014

ASMSU, MSU’s undergraduate student government, is partnering with the Grand Rapids-based program Failure:Lab to share stories of hardship and failure of now-successful people.

Kiran Samra, ASMSU’s president, collaborated with other members of the student government who had attended a Failure:Lab previously and liked the concept.

Providing a way for students to hear stories of failure and take them at face value and draw their own conclusions was one of the main reasons for bringing Failure:Lab to MSU, Samra said.

“A lot of times you go through things and (they) may not go as planned,” she said. “We thought this would be impactful for students.”

Of the six speakers featured in the event, MSU athletics director Mark Hollis will be sharing his story, Samra said. Other speakers include College of Human Medicine Dean Marsha D. Rappley.

Samra said each of the speakers at the event are all volunteering to tell their story with no compensation, including Hollis. She said the revenue from the event will go toward covering the cost of marketing and renting the venue.

Jonathan Williams, one of the co-founders of Failure:Lab, said it started from an emotional TED Talk in Detroit where the presenter shared a story about his personal and professional failures and how he overcame those.

“We kept thinking, what if he had just quit at the failure and just walked off stage?” Williams said. “How much more can we learn if the speaker isn’t telling us the lesson and the speaker isn’t telling us what to think?”

Between each of the six speakers there will be different student music performers.

ASMSU’s director of marketing Anna Hogg said she has put a lot of time into advertising for the event and reaching out to students to encourage them to attend.

“It’s really an event where students can take away something valuable,” Hogg said.

Hogg said many of the students ASMSU has talked to about Failure:Lab have been intrigued by it.

The event will be held at 7 p.m. on April 1 in Wharton Center.

Samra said Failure:Lab is a great opportunity for MSU students and performers to contribute to.

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