Peers Advocating for Wellness (PAWs) brought Mike Domitrz to the Mount recently to speak about relationships and consent. He is a Hall-of-Fame speaker, author, coach, and founder of The Center for Respect and Peak Impact Retreats.
The presentation was a fun, interactive program that is nothing like you have ever seen before. Domitrz got into the profession after his older sister, Cheri, was raped on her college campus. After this he transferred schools to be closer to home, pitched his idea to a fellow public speaker, and hit the ground running. He wanted to make an impact on those in his area and all over the world about consent.
After the program senior Jetta McCart reflected on her experience with the program. “I thought that it was very informative and engaging, so I found that it was actually fun to attend. One thing that I am going to take away from this is that I am going to intervene when I see something about to happen because that’s who I am!” she said.
“Dateline” interviewed Domitrz himself for some more details about how he got into public speaking.
“I was studying theater in Chicago, but after what happened to my sister I transferred to a school closer to home and I was an athlete there. We were required to attend a program about this stuff. Back then it was unheard of for campuses to bring a speaker in to talk to their athletes about sexual assault,” he said.”I was sort of lost since the incident happened, but what the speaker was talking about sparked something in me."
Convinced that he wanted to do something about the problem, he “went up to the speaker after and said that I would want to do this. After that I connected with him again and started writing my own speeches off of the notes he had given me.”
When asked what some of his favorite places to speak were, he replied, “Oh this is a tough one. I would have to say Australia just because of recency bias. But the most unique would have to be the polar ice caps and the deserts of South Africa.”
This program was so good and it should be presented to all people when learning about sexual assault. Domitrz is a great speaker who makes the program so interactive so it doesn’t feel like someone is lecturing about these things. He makes the space not feel uncomfortable as some similar programs do.
After seeing him present twice, we can confidently say that we will intervene when we see something that seems fishy because it is “Who I Am!”