This summer, the Kent campus hosted the second KentPresents, in which 87 presenters and 350 guests assembled to discuss a wide range of topics in art, politics, science, literature, and technology, all revolving around the overarching theme of “what comes next.”

KentPresents officially started in the summer of 2015, after Mr. and Mrs. Rosen, who had a weekend house in Kent, came up with the idea for the festival the year before. “I was in China when they first sent me an email, and they said they had decided to have an idea festival,” explained Father Schell. “I wrote back and said, ‘The campus is yours!’ ”

According to Father Schell, Mr. and Mrs. Rosen have an “incredible reach intellectually and socially around the world.” Among other accomplishments, Mr. Rosen is the Chairman of the Board at Caltech and the former chairman of Compaq, which produced the first-ever laptop computer.

Over the three-day period beginning on August 18, forty-three sessions were held in Dickinson and Mattison Auditoriums and the recital hall. The presentations took the form of interviews, conversations, panel discussions and Oxford-style debates. Many of them addressed important current issues such as China, the presidential elections, the art world, women’s issues and racial relations. The festival provided an important opportunity for highly accomplished people from a wide range of fields to congregate, spread their ideas, and expand one another’s horizons.

Aside from attending talks, visitors were given the opportunity to visit galleries in town, go kayaking, take hikes, and dine at some of the best restaurants in Litchfield County. Campus facilities were also open to the guests. Every day, visitors had lunch in the dining hall, and a barbecue was held out on the green the second night.

A volunteer group of about fifty people kept the campus orderly and helped guests navigate their way between presentations. Among them were Kent alumni Abbie Bouldin ’15, Ryan Nadire ’15, and Liam Nadire ’15. Dr. Bouldin helped with the technology and sound, and many Kent parents volunteered as well. Mr. Houston, Mr. Hunt, Ms. Thomsen and Dr. Nadire attended as guests.

The astounding list of speakers is a great tribute to Mr. and Mrs. Rosen’s yearlong preparation for the festival. Among their speakers were Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners and recipients of the National Book Award, Tony Award winners, MacArthur Fellows, and more. Two Kent alumni, Richard Dearlove and Alex Taylor, both members of the class of ’63, were presenters, a great testament to the Kent’s education. Dearlove was the former chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service and Taylor is the senior editor-at-large of Fortune magazine.

“KentPresents is gaining momentum and now has the potential to be the preeminent ideas festival in America,” said Father Schell. He believes “it is a great honor for the School to be associated with it and support it.”

As students of Kent, we may not all have Pulitzer prizes just yet, but we too have the potential to start a conversation.