Unleashing Creativity: The 5th Annual Creative Connections Event
Last Friday, October 20th, 2023, our Juniors and Seniors, alongside 35 professionals, gathered for the 5th Annual Creative Connections event. In a series of seven 8-minute lightning round conversations, students presented their Impact Projects and received valuable feedback from local community experts. This event also provided an opportunity for students to expand their professional networks. The day proved to be fun and productive with students building upon their knowledge and connections.
Before getting started, there are some questions for you to ponder. Answering these questions beforehand will help you plan efficiently and intentionally.
How many people would you like your students to meet? Deciding this will be influenced by how long you’d like the conversations to be and how long your class period is.
To what extent should your guests’ expertise align with your students’ work? There is value to both. Expert guests can share their knowledge, on the other hand, guests with less familiarity require the student to synthesize and teach their knowledge.
With whom might you ally within your school to put on an event like this? It is a great way to engage alums and parents. Guests tend to leave feeling really positive about the experience and the school.
Ready to start? There are many moving pieces and stakeholders involved in making this event happen. Follow these steps to pull it off successfully.
Set a date and time. Do some back of the envelope math. In order to figure out the duration of the event, consider how long the conversations will be, how many guests you’d like students to meet with, and how many guests you anticipate there being.
Help students prepare with an assignment, such as making something like a pamphlet or preparing a pitch to say. Sessions are short, so student should be prepared to use their time wisely.
Create an outreach list and advertise the event, for your first time, make sure to advertise to friends of the school (such as parents and alums) who you know will be excited to engage. Create a hard close date for RSVPs so that you can cleanly move in to recruiting students to sign up without last minute guest additions.
Use a Google Form or other platform to gather short bios with your RSVPs. Encourage guests to include non-professional titles and interests. Often things like “single mom,” “Dodgers fan,” “expert home gardener” are the lines that draw students’ attention. See this year’s RSVP form. Close your form before going to the next step to avoid confusion.
Create a Sign Up Genius to allow students to read through bios and sign up for slots. We use Sign Up Genius because it allows students to share about their work when the sign up and it generates emails for guests and students in the lead up with their schedules. See our Sign Up Genius.
Instruct students to sign up. Distribute the bios, and where appropriate, advise particular students on which guests they should sign up with. Sometimes you know a guest better than their bio conveys and it’s helpful for students to know.
Communicate with your guests and give them an idea of what to expect and tips on how they can best support your students. See our tip sheet for guests.
Host the event and have fun! Remember to document, because it will make recruitment easier next time.
Follow up and thank your guests.
Thank you to a variety of colleagues who helped to recruit guests and produce the event: Eileen Lee (Director of Events and Community Engagement), Sarah Gossage (Alumni Coordinator & Advancement Associate), Kay Yamamoto (K-8 Admissions and Advancement Associate), Elena Phleger (Director of Advancement), and more.
We would like to thank the many current and former parents and local leaders who participated:
Brett Webster, Director of Media, Content & Communications
Carolina Huete-Lehman, Licensed psychotherapist, Marriage & Family Counselor
Carolyn Stirling, Director of Admissions
Dal Wolf, Executive Producer / creator
Dejenette Weiskotten, Account Manager/Bookkeeper in Entertainment Industry
Dorrie LaMarr, Marriage & Family Therapist
DuVon Davis, Commercial Banking Officer, DEI Supporter, Chicago sports fan, travel fanatic!
Dylan Ojeda, President of Development
Eileen Lee, Director of Events and Parent Engagement Sequoyah
Emily C. Dossett, MD, MTS, Reproductive Psychiatrist
Erin Acain, Systems Engineer
Forrest Friedow, Owner/Partner Financial Services
Gillian Calof, Climate and philanthropy professional; board member; environmental justice
Helga Eike, Unscripted Development executive & producer
Jasmine Kosovic, Post-producer in TV & Film, former indie film producer
Jason Rothenberg, Photographer
Joseph Chen & Nadia Lee, Founders, Kollectin
Kristin Trammell, Adapted PE specialist/ writer
Lexi Brown, Art Appraiser & Advisor
Mary Rohlich, Head of TV and Film
Matt Hutaff, Director of Communications
Monica Menez, Co-Director of Communications and Grad Student
Noah Cohill, Technology Support Specialist and Musician
Patrick Daughters, Director/Producer of Film, TV, Music Videos and Commercials
Paula Kessler, Senior Exhibition Curator and Media Producer, Agua Caliente Cultural Museum
Rachel Adler, Therapist in training, certified birth/postpartum doula and childbirth educator
Rebecca Hong, Head of School, Sequoyah School
Sadena Thevarajah, Managing Director and on the Board of PEARL (an international human rights non-profit)
Susan North, Mediator, parent educator
Swati Rao, Psychiatrist for under insured and uninsured patients
Tywanna Hil, Volunteer Coordinator
Victoria Gonzalez, AmeriCorps Volunteer Services Coordinator
Viktoriya Stinson, Executive Director of nonprofit and lawyer
Michael Barak, CFO at Sequoyah School
