2017-18 WLP Annual Report

TAMPA – An hour before she would rivet the sellout crowd at the 13th annual USF Women in
Leadership & Philanthropy Fall Symposium, bestselling author and keynote speaker Jeannette
Walls sat inside a small room and offered a few words of support to a visitor who had stopped
by. WLP Scholar Shari Zamani had just done a final run-through of the speech she would
deliver to a luncheon of a thousand-plus attendees – the event’s largest crowd ever – and
she wanted some advice.
“Don’t look at the crowd – that can be intimidating,” Walls counseled the USF senior with a smile.
“Just focus on a single person in the room and talk right to them.”
In retrospect, Walls’ advice of making a personal connection was particularly fitting, given that
both women soon did precisely that with their uplifting, humorous and insightful speeches at the
Oct. 19 gathering – connecting directly with the audience by relating their unique life experiences
linked by one shared element: hope in the face of hardship.
Considering that WLP has delivered hope in abundance to hundreds of USF students through
invaluable scholarship opportunities – millions of dollars of support over 13 years – there couldn’t
have been a better sentiment to underscore. And that message carried extra meaning coming
at the final WLP Fall Symposium for USF System President and WLP co-founder Judy Genshaft,
PhD, who will be retiring in July after 19 years at the university’s helm.
Walls’ tale emerged poignantly and with her trademark wit in details from her acclaimed New
York Times best-selling memoir, The Glass Castle. She recounted her life growing up in extreme
poverty and “running from her past” and the shame of her parents’ eventual homelessness on the
streets of New York City, as she built a life as a national television reporter.