Protz teaches more than just public speaking — she makes sure you know you are awesome!
By Julie Gerke
Photos courtesy of Lincoln Land Community College
As a youngster, Brenda Baptist Protz would write letters to the editor of the local daily newspaper and would often add a postscript to then-editor Buford Green: “Someday, I will have your job.”
She eventually worked with Green at the now-defunct Jacksonville Area Showcase (a precursor to The Source) and later became a reporter at the Vandalia Daily News.
As life changed, so did her goals: She’s now a professor of communication at Lincoln Land Community College, where she joined the staff in January 2001.
Each year, her Communications 101 classes touch more than 150 students who learn the basic fundamentals of public speaking, which include a demonstration speech (how to make cookies, maybe), an informative speech (something that requires research), and a persuasive speech (why you should do – or not do – something).
“What ended up happening a lot was [with informative speeches], students would do about things like diseases. … Then [with the third speech], we’d be persuaded not to do or to do things, many of which were also horrible,” she said. “There wasn’t a lot of subject matter that didn’t have a negative connotation.”
She added an impromptu assignment in which students could draw a topic and then talk for two minutes. One of the topics was “Tell the class why you’re an awesome person.”
Stories about yourself are better when you get feedback from others, so part of the assignment was for students to interview up to five people from different parts of their lives.
Social worker Stephanie Adams of Lincoln had to take Comm 101 as a pre-requisite for her bachelor’s degree. She enrolled in Protz’s class in spring 2018, the first semester “I Am Awesome” became part of the class assignments.
“It was a difficult assignment, because I’d spent the first 45 years of my life not thinking much of myself— asking [people to pinpoint my awesomeness] was uncomfortable, to say the least, but I did it,” Adams said.
The responses (loyalty and her readiness to help anyone at the drop of a hat) helped build her confidence after a rocky childhood and a “horrendous” divorce. She’d already started on a journey of self-discovery, studying a photographic portrait of herself, trying to see what she thought others saw.
The speech was “another leg of that journey,” Adams said. “I knew they meant it and didn’t have to say what they said. It was another step in realizing I’m just as awesome as I think other people are.”
One year, Protz’s students asked her to present her own “Why I’m Awesome” speech. She, too, turned to those who knew her best: her daughters, Jenna and Brandy, and her parents, Frank and Barbara Baptist.
Those words, particularly from Jenna and her dad, continue to bring strength to Protz: Jenna died a year later in a car crash that also claimed her best friend and paternal grandparents. COVID claimed Protz’s dad a year after that.
Both had written their answers, and Protz cherishes those notes.
“It has been a game changer for many young people who didn’t know how their parents felt about them, people who thought they were amazing,” Protz said. “It not only boosts self-esteem, but when they go to job interviews, they are able to talk more positively about themselves.”
Louis Criscione, a Springfield native now working in Little Rock as a bridge designer for Arkansas Department of Transportation, graduated from LLCC before earning a bachelor’s degree from the Missouri University of Science and Technology.
“I’m comfortable talking, but I’m not the best public speaker,” he said. The “Awesome” speech “gave me more confidence. It basically allowed me to focus on the positive, to be the best person you can be.”
Another former student, Chrissi Batty of Jacksonville, was initially “terrified” to give her first speech in class. “[Professor]Protz, she’s really fun and welcoming,” Batty affirmed, however. “She made class a hundred times less scary than I thought. I’ve never loved going to class but I like going to her class.”
Batty, working on her associate in arts degree in preparation for transferring to University of Illinois-Springfield to major in elementary education, learned to speak in front of people with more confidence.
Hyler Pence of Palmyra, finishing his master’s degree in environmental science at UIS, echoed that sentiment.
He was in Protz’s fall 2019 class after being home-schooled during high school. To get a better picture of his own awesomeness, he spoke to his siblings, friends from the LLCC honor society and managers at the bait shop where he worked.
He expected the comments he heard from family and friends, but was surprised by his managers who lauded his personality and customer service traits.
Now, he can talk about himself without sounding like he is bragging, and provide answers studded with personal experience. “Before,” Pence said, “I’d struggle find to stuff to talk about. Now I can talk with confidence and not have that shyness and nervousness.”
Adams, the social worker who is a case manager for Memorial Behavioral Health, uses Protz’s classroom lessons to help her clients, friends, family and even strangers.
“Sometimes you have to hear it from other people,” she said, “because we don’t ever think of ourselves as being awesome. … You don’t have to do huge, earth-changing things to be awesome.”
Jenna R. Protz Memorial scholarship established at Lincoln Land Community College
Brenda Baptist Protz has taught for decades at Lincoln Land Community College, so it was a natural extension of her grief to establish a scholarship in memory of her daughter Jenna, who died in a car crash near Hillsboro in late 2019.
Jenna was 14 when she died in the collision, which also took the lives of her best friend and her paternal grandparents. She was a freshman at Vandalia High School, where her father, Randy, is principal, and dreamed of becoming a forensic pathologist and playing college basketball.
The Jenna R. Protz Memorial Scholarship is for students who attend LLCC. The one-year scholarship of $250 is awarded annually, and can be used for tuition, fees, books and related educational expenses while the student attends Lincoln Land. Recipients will be chosen by the LLCC Foundation Scholarship selection committee.
Applicants must have at least a 2.5 grade point average on a 4.0 scale; pursue an associate of arts degree in criminal justice; and be enrolled with a minimum of six credit hours. Preference is given to female students who are high school or college athletes.
