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TCU 360

TCU 360

All TCU. All the time.

TCU 360

Students discuss religious topics in a small group. (Photo courtesy of tcuwesley.org)
Wednesday nights at TCU’s Methodist campus ministry provide religious exploration and fellowship
By Boots Giblin, Staff Writer
Published Mar 27, 2024
Students at the Wesley said they found community on Wednesday nights.

    Pecha Kucha experiments with presenting pairs

    Pecha+Kucha+experiments+with+presenting+pairs

    Whether they were talking about puppy love, deconstructing dance and music, or elaborating on the unexpectedness in life, six students had just 6 minutes and 40 seconds to tell their stories Wednesday night.

    Pecha Kucha, Japanese for “chit chat,” is a concise and fast-paced presentation style in which 20 slides are shown for 20 seconds each.

    More than 100 people attended the Pecha Kucha presentations Wednesday night in the Brown-Lupton University Union Auditorium, including students, family members and TCU faculty and staff.

    “Pecha Kucha allows students to pack more information into a smaller amount of time, eliminating any fluff or tangential speaking, and holding the audience’s attention,” Director of Senior Transitions Chuck Dunning said.

    For the first time, TCU’s Pecha Kecha featured co-presenters, allowing for students to work together in telling a story.

    Two students, Taylor Gillette and Sam Hassler, presented on their own, while Alex Masi and Garrett Wingfield, and Denae McCown and Jason Powell, presented in pairs.

    The six student speakers were nominated by faculty members, asked to develop a topic that interests them and then chosen by a committee to present at this spring’s Pecha Kucha, Dunning said.

    Dunning also added that the Pecha Kucha format is very open-ended and encourages creativity from the presenters.

    “Dance can be such an abstract thing, so it was great to share what I love to do with so many people,” senior modern dance and religion major Alex Masi said.

    Sam Hassler, a senior strategic communication major, shared his passion for dogs with a presentation titled “Puppy Love: How Dogs Earned the Title of Man’s Best Friend.”

    Taylor Gillette, a senior marketing major, discussed what she learned from living all around the world as a child in her presentation “What Does the ‘New Girl’ Know about leadership?”

    Gillette said that although her preparation for Pecha Kucha was time-consuming, she felt it was a great way to sum up her college experience.

    “I’m not in the Honors College, but this felt like my senior thesis,” Gillette said. “I spent a lot of time on this presentation, and this is a great program that I hope will continue at TCU.”