Our Story
We are the Storytelling Institute at South Mountain Community College located in Phoenix, Arizona. |
Get ready to tap your imagining mind, discover your voice, and find your personal style. The changing communications landscape for professionals requires a new skill – storytelling. If you make presentations, teach, interact with customers, or are in the job market, applying the elements of story will bring you closer to your audience.
Using stories makes your messages memorable, gives your audience something to relate to, and captures their attention, motivating and inspiring them in new ways. Great storytellers are great communicators and effective leaders. |
Trainers
Liz Warren
South Mountain Community College Storytelling Institute Director
Liz Warren, a fourth-generation Arizonan, is the director and one of the founders of the South Mountain Community College Storytelling Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. The Institute received the Maricopa Community Colleges 2016 Diversity Award, and the 2014 New Times Best of Phoenix award for “Best Place to Learn to Tell Tales.” Her textbook, The Oral Tradition Today: An Introduction to the Art of Storytelling is used at colleges around the nation. Her recorded version of The Story of the Grail received a Parents’ Choice Recommended Award and a Storytelling World Award. She serves as storytelling coach for Gannett’s nationwide Storytellers Project. In July 2014 she received the Oracle Award for Service and Leadership from the National Storytelling Network. In September 2014 she was named to the New Times list of 100 Creatives in Phoenix. She spends most summers in Ireland teaching for Mesa Community College’s Study Abroad Ireland program. The Arizona Humanities Council awarded her the Dan Schilling Award as the 2018 Humanities Public Scholar. The American Association of Community Colleges awarded her the Dale Parnell Distinguished Faculty Award in 2019.
Be sure to check out her blog here.
South Mountain Community College Storytelling Institute Director
Liz Warren, a fourth-generation Arizonan, is the director and one of the founders of the South Mountain Community College Storytelling Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. The Institute received the Maricopa Community Colleges 2016 Diversity Award, and the 2014 New Times Best of Phoenix award for “Best Place to Learn to Tell Tales.” Her textbook, The Oral Tradition Today: An Introduction to the Art of Storytelling is used at colleges around the nation. Her recorded version of The Story of the Grail received a Parents’ Choice Recommended Award and a Storytelling World Award. She serves as storytelling coach for Gannett’s nationwide Storytellers Project. In July 2014 she received the Oracle Award for Service and Leadership from the National Storytelling Network. In September 2014 she was named to the New Times list of 100 Creatives in Phoenix. She spends most summers in Ireland teaching for Mesa Community College’s Study Abroad Ireland program. The Arizona Humanities Council awarded her the Dan Schilling Award as the 2018 Humanities Public Scholar. The American Association of Community Colleges awarded her the Dale Parnell Distinguished Faculty Award in 2019.
Be sure to check out her blog here.
Marilyn Torres
South Mountain Community College Storytelling Faculty
Marilyn Torres, the West Winds Storyteller is the an ordained West African traditional storyteller of over 30 years and received two chieftaincies on August 3, 1984 in the Village of Imota West Africa, Nigeria as a descendent of the "children of slavery from the island of Puerto Rico." Marilyn was given a naming ceremony and renamed “Omifunke” in honor of her return to her ancestral land of Africa. Marilyn was born in New York State and raised on both the island of Puerto Rico and New York City. Marilyn moved to the Northwest region of the United States in 1995 and migrated to the Southwest in 2000. Marilyn is a multilingual storyteller, educator, artist and human development trainer. Marilyn is dedicated to incorporating storytelling into all forms of academic achievement, literacy and college bound leadership among youth. Marilyn leads seminars on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey blending the world of traditional stories into literary form and academic achievement. She facilitates an afterschool College Bound Youth Storytelling Program for the Storytelling Institute and is collaborating on a project called IYAS – an International Youth Ambassadors Storytelling initiative that began in the summer of 2011. Marilyn is the new Arizona State Liaison Representative for the National Storytelling Network and will soon host an online radio music, storytelling and spoken word show called, Women’s Ways of knowing, singing, and telling on RadioPhoenix.org.
Travis May
South Mountain Community College Storytelling and Workforce Faculty
Travis has been a part of South Mountain Community College for over 20 years and is the third faculty member in the Storytelling Institute. His specific focus is on storytelling for workforce development. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Arizona State University, Masters of Education in Educational Leadership from Northern Arizona University and a Doctor of Education in Organizational Leadership and Development from Grand Canyon University.
Travis really enjoys being a storytelling professor and feels storytelling is more than just telling stories, it is a way to express ideas, passions and connecting with people. He enjoys incorporating storytelling to engage learners in cultural and community awareness. Travis has led the Institute’s connection with ASU’s Changemaker initiative, and in creating faculty development coursework in storytelling for the college and the Maricopa Community College District. He has created and design online teaching models for various external organizations and is currently curating the “I’m Telling” podcast for the Institute.
South Mountain Community College Storytelling and Workforce Faculty
Travis has been a part of South Mountain Community College for over 20 years and is the third faculty member in the Storytelling Institute. His specific focus is on storytelling for workforce development. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Arizona State University, Masters of Education in Educational Leadership from Northern Arizona University and a Doctor of Education in Organizational Leadership and Development from Grand Canyon University.
Travis really enjoys being a storytelling professor and feels storytelling is more than just telling stories, it is a way to express ideas, passions and connecting with people. He enjoys incorporating storytelling to engage learners in cultural and community awareness. Travis has led the Institute’s connection with ASU’s Changemaker initiative, and in creating faculty development coursework in storytelling for the college and the Maricopa Community College District. He has created and design online teaching models for various external organizations and is currently curating the “I’m Telling” podcast for the Institute.