Michelle Jones

Change Agent, Concerned citizen, Educator/Teacher, Entrepreneur, Explorer, Idea generator

Michelle is one of a handful of people who has founded a college from scratch. She has a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior and Leadership from Claremont Graduate University and two Bachelor's degrees from Trinity University. She taught at multiple universities for almost two decades before starting a college - Wayfinding Academy - in 2016. She has been featured in The New York Times, The Oregonian, University Times, and The Chronicle of Higher Education and has been interviewed on CBS Sunday Morning and Oregon Public Broadcasting's Think Out Loud. In 2019 she delivered a TEDx talk on "How to do college better" that has been viewed more than 102,000 times. She currently teaches Purpose-Driven Leadership and Human Behavior in Organizations in the Masters in Organizational Leadership program at Western Oregon University. Michelle has also started multiple nonprofit and for profit businesses and is currently the co-founder of both Smith & Jones Innovation and Sonder Collaborative. She serves on the Board of Directors for several nonprofits, including Stumptown Scholars and Weird Portland United. She lived in a tiny house (85 square feet!) for 15 years until the summer of 2025 when she bought a house ten times that size (small, but not tiny). Her biggest hobby is walking and she takes several trips each year, usually focused on walking, including walking the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage 8 times with groups of students and friends. She is strongly in favor of sabbaticals for all.

The Wayfinding Creed: We believe there’s more than one way to do life. And one definition of success is not enough. Too often the choice posed is what college to pick. The real choice is what life to pick. We FIND the freedom to choose when we quiet the voices of others’ expectations. Learning emerges from curiosity. Education should stoke it, not cure it. We favor adventure and challenge over comfort and ease. W e s t r e t c h. We are humans to be cultivated, not objects to be sorted. We value students over edifice. And crafting by hand over assembling by line. College and community should be woven together. We will learn, we will teach, we will serve, we will explore...together. The line between the real world and school -- between life and work -- is imaginary. The future is uncertain. That’s good. Each person has distinct potential. Let’s not waste it. All people deserve the chance to grow without soul-crushing debt. Education is an investment that we share. Because education is our chance to make the world better. What you do with your life matters to more than just you. When we each live life on purpose, we all thrive.

Our higher education system in the United States is backwards. We could all thrive if we flipped it frontwards.

Higher Education, Leadership, Organizational Behavior, Team Building & Group Development

I attended TEDIndia in 2009 and made some great friends there from various parts of the world. I organized my first TEDx event in 2010 and got hooked on providing opportunities of a lifetime for students and community members to be part of something larger than they ever thought possible. We strive to use a collaborative, entrusting, democratic approach to planning events where each member of the team feels respected and empowered. This helps us get to an end product that each and every one of us feels ownership of and, as a result, the final product is better than it could have been with only one or two people planning it. We also make some great friends and build some incredible life skills along the way. I believe in TED's mission of ideas worth spreading and appreciate the opportunity TEDx provides to find local voices who have ideas worth spreading and help them spread them.

Travel planning. Spreadsheets. Stage management.