If you’d like me to work with your students, staff, team, or community, here’s what I bring to the room:
- stories from the classroom, field, and garden
- exercises that get people out of their heads and into their bodies
- questions that linger long after the session ends
- the energy of a halftime speech and the honesty of a kitchen-table conversation
I’ve spent the last two decades building student-run projects, social impact labs, football cultures, and classrooms that double as rites of passage. My speaking and workshops live at the intersection of interiority, teaching, masculinity, and change-making.
If we work together, you can expect:
- I’ll reply promptly to your emails and telephone calls.
- I’ll listen and make sure we are on the same page.
- I’ll show up.
- I’ll be on time.
- No Diva Shit. Period. My people raised me right (except for the cussing).
- I’ll use thought-provoking stories, activities and games to engage you and your audience in complex material.
- I’ll stick around and find ways to collaborate with attendees.
- I’ll follow up afterwards for feedback.
Talks and workshops
I customize each session to the room, but here are some starting points:
- Football as a Rite of Passage – What the game does to us, for us, and through us.
- Rewild School – a pedagogy of possibility for students and teachers who want more than domestication.
- Liminal Living– helping students and adults navigate the in-between spaces of their lives.
- Sidekick Manifesto – rethinking hero stories in social impact and learning to take a different kind of role.
- Do-Goodernomics – an unsettling exploration of what happens when good intentions collide with scarcity, incentives, and the desire to be seen as helpful.
- The Mismatch Game – An interactive learning experience designed to surface the hidden assumptions that shape how we think about poverty, charity, and social change.
(If you have something else in mind, we can shape a session around the particular threshold your people are standing on.)
What people are saying
“Shawn’s vulnerability and authenticity allowed me to truly learn from his mistakes and experiences… I was able to engage and evaluate his message knowing he was not attempting to frame himself as some service messiah.” – Elon University Student
“Shawn presented during the first-ever Kiva U Summit. He was rated among the highest of the 47 speakers at the event and was considered ‘inspiring,’ ‘innovative’ and ‘enlightening’ by Summit attendees.” – Jessica Hansen (KIVA)
“Shawn is a double threat – he knows his topic area better than anyone and he is fun and engaging to listen to. He is always at the top of my list when I’m looking for someone to speak or lead a conversation.” – Dan Morrison
The Next Step
If you’d like to explore working together, send me an email at shumphre@umw.edu with a few details about your group and what you’re hoping for. I’ll get back to you.