Students from 25 independent schools converged on Abington Friends School on October 29, once again turning the campus into a vibrant regional hub for diversity and inclusion work.

The Fifth Annual Mid Atlantic Regional Diversity (MARD) conference drew 268 students and 50 faculty members to the daylong workshop jointly sponsored by AFS and the Perkiomen School

Toni Graves Williamson, Assistant Head of School for Equity and Inclusion, said the most important aspect of the conference is that it is led entirely by students. The student organizers began meeting at the beginning of the school year to design the day of workshops, affinity groups and activities. More than 30 AFS students were involved, facilitating the discussions on thorny topics, including comebacks for racist relatives, beauty expectations, troubling relationships, feminism, non-traditional families and more.

Keynote speaker Rodney Glasgow set the tone for the day’s conversations by pointing out the danger in the divisive rhetoric roiling the country in the current presidential campaign and urging students to do their part to “make America good” for all.

“My question today is what are you going to do to make sure that love trumps hate?” he asked those gathered in the Muller Auditorium.

Rodney, who is chair of the Student Leadership Conference of the National Association of Independent Schools, serves as Head of the Middle School at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac, Md. He has been the keynote speaker at each of the MARD conferences since the program began in 2013.

On Saturday, Rodney talked about the struggle between dominance and equality down through American history. His authentic voice, relating insights from his own life as a gay, black man who presents in a gender fluid way, hit home with the students, who repeatedly snapped and clapped their approval.

He noted that although some of the students in the audience were too young to vote in the election, they could still “vote” in their schools. “You can vote with the conversations you are having with your peers… You can vote by holding people in your space accountable.”

The day of rich discussions culminated with a Meeting for Worship in Hallowell Gym, where students rose to their feet in support of the new friends they had made, sharing heart-warming stories about their lives and their experiences from the conference.