Madison West High School students spent the day on April 9 hearing from speakers in the community on a range of topics as it held its annual Equity Symposium.
The Equity Symposium is a relatively new venture at West High School with different iterations until 2024. That year, quarterly one-off conversations changed into a half-day symposium with high regard from students, faculty and speakers. This year, the symposium was made into a full-day event where students took off from classes to attend a few of around 70 different sessions hosted in line with their interests from community members.
West High School continuously took feedback from students on what they wanted to see. Students wanted to see more of a ground-level, community-orientated symposium composed of speakers doing a large range of work in Madison. Topics ranged from public service, career interests, life guidance, medical bias, the history of political printmaking, dance, mental health and many others that students signed up for a couple weeks before the Equity Symposium.
“We’re doing this to reduce the opportunity gap that kids have to connect with the community and to learn about professions and fields that they are interested in that they might not have access to,” said Sarah Quinn, academic and career planning coordinator at Madison Metropolitan School District and organizer of the symposium.
“We want kids to feel connected to the speakers and their identities. So we make a really concerted effort to make sure that the identities of the speakers are representative of the students in our school.”
Students sat in for sessions like “Life Skills & Career Exploration” with Wisconsin stand-up comedian and Madison Black Chamber of Commerce business outreach coordinator Antoine McNeil.
(Photo by Omar Waheed)
McNeil started off his session with a joke. In a deadpan style, he told students that five of them would be selected to be in the Scared Straight program. Students felt nervous until a smile cracked on McNeil’s face and the tension left the room.
His session was on figuring out your life path and the necessary steps to take. He gauged students’ interest first by asking what they wanted to find a career in. Many students voiced their hopes to enter careers in engineering, medical and business. He was taken aback a bit by their sharper focus than his as a teenager. McNeil wanted to play basketball or rap but was happy to see the kids with a level of certainty of their future.
The larger point of his session with students was understanding your life path and how it translates into their future. He opted for anecdotal stories about his life to help students understand why their story and intentions matter.
McNeil was born in Milwaukee in the notable 53206 area that encompasses the city’s north side. He knew that education was his prime route to build a better life for himself so he sought it while balancing the strife that comes with being a father at 15-years-old. His background plays into the seven core principles in his session that he taught with understanding your history.
The seven principles are: Belief/purpose, education, physical health, mental health, financial wellbeing, social and political connections, and understanding your history.
“It’s important to try to talk to them about life, which has a lot of different variety and has a lot of different facets,” McNeil said. “I try to teach and motivate and encourage my kids, but sometimes they want to hear from somebody different. It’s important for me to try to get out there and try to inspire, encourage and give a different thought process.”
(Photo by Omar Waheed.)
State Rep. Renuka Mayadev, whose district encompasses West High School, hosted a session on exploring a career in public service. Her session aimed to answer questions on what a career as an elected official looked like and what paths her fellow state representatives took.
“I want to make sure that young people are excited about public service, work and running for office,” Mayadev said. “I think it’s really important for children to be able to see themselves in public office, in roles, leadership roles. I think there are young people out there today that are like, ‘Oh, Ranuka. She has a name like mine.’”
Students prodded through State Reps Francesca Hong, Duke Tucker, Tip McGuire and Barb Dittrich to show the varied paths — both traditional and not — others have taken into public service careers. Mayadev also delved into her own journey as a financial banker, lawyer and advocate for paternal policy.
Mayadev noted that students in her sessions are more astute about politics compared to her when she was their age.
“It’s really impressive, and I see that across my district, people are really engaged. You have to know your stuff. You can’t be a representative that’s mailing it in,” Mayadev said. “They have to be. They see our institutions collapsing. When I was a kid it all just ran. You didn’t have to think about it.”
She hopes to inspire more kids to become politically active and realize that there is no set path into a career in public service. Mayadev offered an open invitation for students to come to her office in the state capitol building to learn more about public service.
