The fear of public speaking is one of the most common anxieties among new and old students at any college campus. It’s the kind of fear that can cripple a person, making them weak in the knees and anxious about the slightest thing going wrong.

In order to combat this fear, Grand Valley State University has an up-and-running speech lab dedicated to helping those who are looking to improve their public speaking skills, and it’s available to anyone for free.

Since the inception of GVSU’s Speech Lab last year, the growth in both employment and interested students has grown exponentially. One such new hire is Associate Director Carl Brown.

As associate director of the Speech Lab, Brown is tasked, among other things, to get the word out to students about the available facility. He said the growth of the recently founded lab has “crushed the record for the amount of appointments since this time last year.”

“Just this week we had some days alone with up to 15 appointments,” Brown said. “At this point in the semester last year, we maybe only had four to five appointments in total. Our goal is to continue to grow.”

While the speech lab is run by people such as Carl Brown, a lot of the hands-on work is done on a student-to-student basis. Brown says he likes to think that much of the growth of the lab can be contributed to the students working there.

“The growth of the speech lab can be contributed to the people who work here because they know the students on campus,” he said. “They’re getting the word out that we’re here to help.

“It’s also because we’ve been in existence for a full year now. People are hearing good things about us, and professors are now suggesting their students come here for help.”

GVSU student Ari Zucker is one of these Speech Lab employees. As a lab employee, Zucker works to help students attain not only a better grade but an increased amount of confidence.

“It’s a really welcoming environment there,” Zucker said. “We work there as speech consultants, but we still struggle with speech anxiety and the speech writing process. When a student comes in we like to establish that commonality with them.”

The staff at the Speech Lab also takes great pride in offering a personalized tutoring experience for different students.

“We try to be structured in the speech development process,” Brown said. “We want to customize our advice because everyone is different. The topics are different, the requirements are different, so we have to be flexible. We have to adapt enough to serve everyone that comes in.”

Brown also has advice for those who are too afraid to ask for help from the Speech Lab.

“Nervous is normal,” Brown said. “If you’re thinking you can’t do this, you can. Coming to a place like a Speech Lab is a great first step. The people here are on your level, who have struggled with speech anxiety and are here to train you with your problems.”

Students do not need to be finished writing their speeches or even know what they’re going to talk about before going to the Speech Lab.

“The Grand Valley Speech Lab is dedicated to helping all students with any oral presentation at any point in the presentation creation or delivery process,” Brown said.

For more information, visit www.gvsu.edu/speechlab or stop in the office. The Speech Lab is located in Lake Michigan Hall in Room 154.