Students, faculty, and staff attended Mercersburg’s first Civic Engagement Conference on October 28, giving
the community a fresh breadth of perspective paramount for the 2024 election. 

The idea for the conference tied in with Mercersburg’s “overall program on civic engagement, which really has to do with trying to respond to the climate of uncivil communications and the lack of engagement in the greater society,” said Allison Stephens P ’11, ’13, history teacher and one of the faculty members spearheading civic engagement initiatives at Mercersburg. “It also seemed to be clear that in trying to prepare students for the election, we really wanted to give them some agency and information.”

The goal was not to influence student thought but to encourage students to ask questions and listen to understand. “Our student advisory board was instrumental in trying to create and ideate the conference model where we recognize that part of the experience students are having is that they don’t always feel comfortable talking about different issues, because they feel like they don’t know enough,” Stephens said. “So we wanted to start to create conversations by having guests come in to outline their work and invite students to ask questions or engage in discussion.”

Throughout the course of the day, more than 25 guest speakers connected with students through keynote addresses and small group discussions. The day started with a keynote address moderated by Head of School Quentin McDowell P ’25, ’27 about navigating freedom of speech on campus with guests Jill Klein P ’11 and John Jones III ’73. The conference concluded with a keynote about disinformation in the digital age with guest Alec Harris ’00. In between these addresses, students broke into small groups to attend sessions on topics ranging from political campaigns and the media to community policing to the role of the United States immigration system to what it means to advocate and lobby on Capitol Hill and more.

Mercersburg will continue to foster these conversations through the growth of the civic engagement initiative, including weaving the themes of identity, community membership, and understanding bias throughout the 9th-grade curriculum.