Joey Weed is a junior majoring in mathematics and economics. Weed is highly involved across campus and to add to his responsibilities, he has just become the president of Tide Talks. Tide Talks is a student-run organization that presents student speakers from all backgrounds across campus and gives students the opportunity to speak about their ideas, experiences or lessons learned through college. 

As newly elected president, where do you hope to see Tide Talks go in the future?

We hope to continue its mission from two years ago at the first event-serving as a student platform for sharing experiences and ideas across campus.

How can a student get involved with Tide Talks?

We’re always accepting nominations for speakers and performance artists on our website, and if you’d like to get involved with the planning aspect, we have positions available for Tide Talks Ten, which are also available on our website.

How would you describe Tide Talks in 3 words?

Revolutionary, inspiring, engaging.

How did you get involved with the organization?

I remember going to the first event as a freshman, and I worked across campus on a lot of different projects. Then, this last semester, they were looking for someone to take on the presidential role. I saw it as a great opportunity to continue my college experiences from such a great platform.

Who is your favorite public speaker? Or who has impacted you most as a speaker? This could be anyone, not necessarily from Tide Talks.

I would say Walt Maddox, our mayor. He has a way with connecting with every person in the room and articulating his points in a structured manner, which is easy to digest by the broad audience that he is speaking to. You can tell that he is very informed about issues and policies, but he also highlights his emotional connection with Tuscaloosa.

What do you look for when choosing a speaker?

All of our speakers go through interviews by our speaker development director, and we look for someone who has had a lot of influential experiences that have shaped their worldview. We also look for a broad range of topics.