Enola Thompson-Logan: Distinguished Toastmaster Speaks Out

As the support services administrator for the Student Health and Psychological Services Center at California State University, Dominguez Hills, Enola Thompson-Logan (Class of ’91, B.A., health science; ’93, M.P.A.) chaired a committee in the early 1990s that organized campuswide conferences for staff training and development. As the main organizer, she often had to speak to hundreds of people in public.

“I was getting the sweaty palms and the shaky knees, but no one noticed it,” says she recalls. “I had some [speaking experience] to work with, but I think it was self-confidence that I needed to hone in order to be a better speaker.”

At the urging of her health administration instructor, Barry Hunt, Thompson-Logan joined Toastmasters International, a nonprofit organization that helps its members develop and improve their public speaking skills. Toastmasters turned out to be much more than just a means toward improving her speaking skills. With a belief in its mission, she assumed a leadership role within Toastmasters. In 1997, she established a chapter on the Dominguez Hills campus, which is open to students, faculty, staff, and the local community.

This summer, she was awarded the title of Distinguished Toastmaster, the organization’s highest honor.

As the Dominguez Hills Speaks Toastmasters organizer, Thompson-Logan encourages others to explore the professional and personal development that Toastmasters affords its members.

“Toastmasters has allowed many of us to help others become better speakers,” she says. “Right now, our club is involved in a project that I created for [CSUDH] Outreach interns, where we teach them how to communicate and have better listening skills. They have to go out to speak to students on not only being a college student, but being a Dominguez Hills college student. So, they need to know how to approach many different people from many different cultures and to promote the university.”

Thompson-Logan hopes to encourage many more Cal State Dominguez Hills students to take advantage of having a Toastmasters chapter on campus, saying that, “Toastmasters is where you come to practice before you go to class and get that grade.”

“We have one student who came here to get her master’s in social work. She just wasn’t comfortable speaking to small crowds or large crowds. So, she joined Toastmasters and she actually got an A in her class, with comments from her instructor and the students on the evolution of her speaking [ability]. She attributes that to Toastmasters.”

Along with recruiting students in speech classes this fall to join Toastmasters, Thompson-Logan hopes to build a youth version of the program for high school students from the California Academy of Mathematics and Sciences, which is on the Cal State Dominguez Hills campus.

Thompson-Logan says that the biggest fear that people have when having to speak in public is “being judged by your peers, by strangers, by friends.”

“[When you join] our club, you have to do an icebreaker, introducing yourself because we don’t know who you are,” she says. “A lot of people don’t like writing or talking about themselves. Once they get over that, and they present the speech, then it’s clear to them what their goals are. When they get over that first speech, they are on a roll.”

Dominguez Hills Speaks Toastmasters meets every second and fourth Thursday in Room B-488, Welch Hall, 12:05-1 p.m. For more information, contact (310) 243-2535.

- Joanie Harmon