By Aliza Feldman, Opinions Editor
“What’s new!”
Professor Reuven Russell, Instructor of Speech and Drama at Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women, strides into his Speech Communication class with a presence that commands attention. He cracks jokes, his face animated with exaggerated expressions that make his students laugh.
Russell is an actor, director, comedian and teacher, now marking his 20th year of teaching at Stern. “There are a lot of similarities, a lot of intersection,” Russell told the YU Observer about the overlap between his different roles. When asked about the apparent contradiction — acting is being someone else while public speaking is being yourself — he offered a perspective from the stage: “Whatever other character the actor is trying to be, the whole trick is to make it personal and find that connection.”
The principle of personal connection is what Russell emphasizes most to the students in his speech class. “Make it personal, because the common denominator is when someone gets up here and tells a story and there’s a personal connection, whether we’re interested in the topic or not, we become interested because we see someone sharing a part of themselves,” he said.
Russell always tells his students on the first day of class, “The key to effective public speaking in one sentence: what comes from the heart goes to the heart, the rest is just commentary.” The need for authenticity in public speaking is a philosophy that shapes not only what he teaches, but how he teaches it.
The speech classroom on the fifth floor of 245 Lexington is standard, with rolling chairs with attached desks and a lectern at the front of the room. But Russell doesn’t stand at the lectern during speeches. He sits off to the side with the rest of the class, quietly taking notes on each individual speech while his students take center stage. When someone says something funny in their speech, he’ll flash one of his signature expressions — a deadpan stare or a theatrical look of disbelief.
“Who is speaking tomorrow? Raise your hand high, proud, and with a smile,” he says at the end of every class, his voice rising with dramatic emphasis.
The class centers on student speeches, where Russell teaches the fundamentals of both informative and persuasive delivery. Some students deliver their speeches with confidence and finesse while others struggle through, their bodies shifting with discomfort, or blanking on their next words. Some have even broken down from the pressure.
When asked why he thinks people are so afraid of public speaking, Russell quoted Jerry Seinfeld’s famous joke that people fear public speaking more than death — which means that at a funeral, you’d rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy. “It’s social fear,” Russell said. “People feel that they’re being judged.”
So, how does someone who has spent 20 years watching students freeze under social pressure help them overcome it?
“It’s really an individual thing,” Russell said. “That’s why I’m looking and taking notes on each individual. For some people, as you’ve seen, eye contact is an issue, for some people, it’s totally not. I’m tailoring my notes to them — similar to what a director does with actors.”
After every speech, he comes up with a title for it, lets the class give feedback first and then offers his own notes. He points out unconscious habits, teaches students to eliminate filler words like “um” and “like” and discusses body language and eye contact, breaking down the overwhelming task of public speaking into manageable pieces.
When students approach him before class, confessing their anxiety about grades and graduate school applications, he tries to shift their perspective. “I get that you’re worried about getting a good grade, you wanna get into graduate school — I get it,” he tells them. “But guess what? You’re gonna get a better grade if you find a way to relax and have fun with it.”
After students finish speaking, Russell always asks if they were nervous. When they say yes, he responds with theatrical incredulity: “What are you so nervous about?” He’s trying to make them articulate their fear, to pin down exactly what it is about standing in front of people that scares them.
Russell believes that fear isn’t something to suppress, but something to use. “Stress and anxiety goes hand in hand with a Jewish joke,” he said.
“My father was a comedian,” Russell added. “When people ask me why I’m a comedian I tell them I’m just a nice Jewish boy going into my father’s business.”
Russell’s use of humor isn’t just personality — it’s pedagogical strategy. “If it’s true that stress and anxiety do inhibit one’s years, I think laughter is the remedy, not taking yourself too seriously,” he said.
When one student gave a speech about curly hair, he couldn’t resist making a joke about his own curls. When a student played with her clothing during her speech, he playfully mimicked her behavior, making the class laugh. Moments of levity like these ease the tension in the room.
“I believe that if you can use joy in an atmosphere, learning is more effective,” he said. “When I look back on the teachers that I’ve had, it was the ones who used joy and humor and simcha [joy] that I remember and have learned more from.”
After 20 years in the classroom, Russell has watched students’ speech topics shift dramatically. For example, Russell noted that in 2006, when Facebook was new, students had a completely different stance on social media. “Many of the topics were how revolutionary Facebook is, people were talking messianically, the whole world can be together and communicate with each other,” he said. “And now what do we hear often? Reduce your social media. Get off Facebook. Get off it. It’s harmful.”
But some things have remained constant over the years. “I think Jewish women in general have this confidence,” Russell said, reflecting on the differences between teaching at his alma mater Yale, where he’s taught for two years, and Stern. “We have a commonality and a familial feeling.”
When asked if teaching the same class for 20 years straight gets repetitive, he made a comparison to acting. “You look at an actor on Broadway and they have to do eight performances a week,” he said. “When I go on a Wednesday afternoon or Sunday afternoon — it didn’t seem like it was so repetitive, it seemed like it was the first time.” Russell believes that it only gets repetitive if you let it.
On the first day of class, Russell asks his students to raise their hand if they wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t a required class to graduate. The majority of the class raises their hands. “I get it. It’s a required class to graduate,” he said. “But by the end of the class, I think people are very happy that they took this class and they find that they can use what we’ve learned in this class not just to stand up in front of a group of people, but for interpersonal relationships, intrapersonal relationships and job interviews.”
Public speaking translates into many areas of a person’s life, even dating. “Everyone knows how important first impressions are. The first date typically is very decisive of whether you’re gonna go out on a second or third date,” Russell said. “There’s always an objective. Even when someone asks, ‘What time is it,’ even if it’s to make one feel like they have a friend — there’s always an objective in mind. How we do that is crucial.”
Russell aims to instill in his students skills that extend beyond the podium. He said, “It’s about making an impression on another person.”
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Reuven Russell