Two Lowell House students will take the podium in Lowell dining hall to deliver a five-minute speech on a topic of personal significance on weeknights at 7:20 p.m. this semester. Students will prepare their speeches with help from Lowell Senior Common Room members who will continue to serve as advisers for upcoming speakers.

Lowell House Resident Scholar Sandy Alexander leads the program and was inspired by his own experience preparing and delivering a speech at Memorial Church.

"It was a perfect, engaging, terrifying assignment," Alexander said, recalling what drew him to make Lowell students take the speech-writing plunge. "I spent 30 hours on my five-minute talk; involved my parents, my wife, my friends; learned a ton; and said something that mattered to me."

Don't fret if you can't make it at 7:20 p.m.; videos and texts of the speeches will be posted online the following day.

Photo by The Harvard Crimson