A man in black jeans, a black sweater, and white and black sneakers crouches on the auditorium stage. With a microphone in hand, award-winning actor and author Hill Harper rises and enthusiastically skips across the stage; with his arm around students in the audience, he smiles and loudly proclaims how we are all “active architects of our own life.”

On Friday, November 1, Harper presented during Morning Ex in addition to being the keynote speaker at the Young Men of Color Symposium on November 2. During Harper’s presentation, he explained the steps to becoming “active architects of our own life.”

“The main goal is fundamentally that they are in control of their life, and no matter how young or how old they are, it’s their life, they have agency, they have power,” Harper said. “Often times young people are told that they don’t have agency, which boggles my mind, and that’s why I think there’s a lot of frustration in education. Because they are not even told why they’re studying.”

Junior and Men of Color Heritage Alliance (MOCHA) Head Angel Bustamante enjoyed Harper’s enthusiasm. “I thought the MX was great, and I liked the way he expressed his ideas,” Bustamante said.

Harper’s method for achieving this takes place in four steps, all compared to similar steps in the construction of a building. The first step is to create a blueprint of one’s goals in life. “Over the course of your life, you will continuously be making modifications to that blueprint or that plan,” Harper said. The second step is to build a foundation in education. “I think education fundamentally is that piece that is so important,” he said. The third step is the framework, making choices that align with one’s blueprint, and the last step is building a door. “Doors open up,” Harper said. “And we need to open ourselves up to new ideas and new information.”

During the Morning Ex, Harper pulled students from the audience up to the stage to answer questions as part of the presentation. One of these students was Junior Matthew Garchik, who was asked to explain the final step, building a door. While some students felt uncomfortable with the audience participation, Garchik disagreed. “I think people are greatly overreacting about his physical touching,” Garchik said. “I think that it was a really good experience to have people brought up on stage because I think it made everyone more excited and more engaged, and I know it held people’s attention more.”

Although Harper received a Juris Doctorate degree from Harvard Law School, “I have never practiced law a day in my life,” he said. “The only thing experience should do is allow you to modify your blueprint to make different sets of choices,” Harper said. “Every experience is valuable if I’m following my heart.”

In addition to presenting during Morning Ex, Harper spoke to the students in MOCHA. “I thought it was interesting because as a man of color he was saying how we as a society have been lied to and because minorities come from the worst parts of Chicago, we always have to prove ourselves to everyone,” Bustamante said. 

“Part of some of the stuff I talk about challenges some fundamental notions that they’ve been taught or heard, and I think it’s hard sometimes to even begin to think that way, because some of the stuff I’m saying is new for them, but it’s very liberating,” Harper said.