“Entertainment” Symposium

 The Stevenson Symposium is an annual tradition dating back more than 30 years in our school’s history that invites experts of their fields to present on their chosen topic. On Tuesday, March 31, 2026, Stevenson welcomed guest speakers, artists, and performers to present on topics related to entertainment. Although it was only one day, Symposium organizers Ms. Campbell and Ms. Bessette worked hard to keep the day entertaining but also educational. 

Boarding students, teachers, and some day students started Symposium on Monday evening, the day before the event, with a fire performance at Rosen stage.

After the performance, students were invited to participate in various dorm activities such as a movie night, an anime night, a foosball tournament, and more. 

Tuesday started with an opening ceremony at Keck Theater, which began with an amazing fight between Mr. Koshi and one of the guest speakers. This opening was followed by a performance of our own Hannah Goldsmith and later on Dr. Greene played the bass. Each student was given a schedule to follow days prior to the event where they could choose what activity to participate in. Without a doubt, line dancing was the most popular one and in Junior Amy Weng’s consideration “my favorite because everyone was having fun.” But there were a lot more activities beyond line dancing. Speakers ranging from Academy Award winners to magicians gave Stevenson community a special look at the world of art. With these various seminars, students could take into account more opportunities surrounding entertainment. 

Early in September of last year, the Symposium committee began their work. In that month, an announcement was made in assembly to invite any students to participate in the committee. After choosing the topic for the conferences, Mrs. Peterson made a list of alumni who worked in entertainment. From there, Ms. Bessette, Ms. Campbell, and Mrs. Peterson went through the list to decide who to email. Because of the topic, Ms. Campbell and Ms. Bessette had to meet with the presenters beforehand via Zoom to talk through all the different workshops and fun things. Once the list of presenters were confirmed, the student committee was in charge of communicating with their respective presenters and learning how to make connections. Ms. Campbell stated that the presenters “really like having that connection to the students and hearing what teenagers care about these days.” Although it was Ms. Campbell’s fourth year leading this event, this year’s Symposium was unique in having more interactive activities than any Symposium before.The overall success of the event came to her as a relief: “We put a lot of work into it, but you never know what’s going to happen.” 

After the Symposium ended Ms. Campbell and Ms. Bessette sent a Google form to get feedback from the community about the day. Every activity provided was at least mentioned once and overall the feedback was very positive. Stevenson students loved how interactive the Symposium was this year as many of the comments were asking for more activities related to dancing, rapping, or doing activities you would never usually do at school. Sophomore Yura Jeong had some mixed feelings, explaining that two of her three selected activities were “sitting and listening… that does not motivate us.” However, her opinion changed at the end of the day when she had line dancing. Yura said that “I had a lot of fun trying to learn new dances with her friends.”  The good feedback and the success of the day is already motivating the organizers: Ms. Campbell says she is already “getting ready for next year.”

 The Symposium overall gave students an opportunity to learn about entertainment in a different way. Instead of a normal day at school, they got the opportunity to learn what they wanted and in some cases what they were passionate about.