> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Veteran broadcaster brings live interview series to the Santa Monica College quad - URL: https://www.smdp.com/veteran-broadcaster-brings-live-interview-series-to-the-santa-monica-college-quad/ - Published: 2026-10-08T16:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-08T15:59:59.000Z - Author: Maaz Alin - Tags: Education, Santa Monica College John Kerwin has built a broadcast career interviewing famous names. Now, he is turning his microphone toward a different kind of guest: his fellow students at Santa Monica College. Kerwin, a longtime Santa Monica resident enrolled at [SMC](https://www.smdp.com/santa-monica-college-to-open-applications-for-cloud-computing-bachelors-degree/) as a Media Production student, will launch “Kerwin at SMC: Live on the Quad” from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 20\. The live outdoor interview series will place two armchairs and broadcast gear directly on the campus grass for unscripted, real-time conversations with Gen Z students. “It boils down to real human connection,” Kerwin said. “We live in an era dominated by screens and digital distraction, so taking the production onto the main quad brings us face-to-face.” Kerwin is the author of “Talk Big: How to Interview Celebrities and Make Them Love You,” a book on the craft of interviewing. He has interviewed national figures ranging from Olivia Rodrigo to Steve Wozniak and Dick Cavett, and he has been featured in the Los Angeles Times and LA Weekly. This time, he said, most of the people in the opposite chair will be new to the experience. “I’m naturally curious, and my job as a host is simply to listen,” Kerwin said. “Throughout my broadcast career, I’ve interviewed celebrities who had been questioned a million times, but for almost all of these students, it’s their very first time being interviewed. That raw, unscripted vulnerability in an open-air setting is extraordinarily powerful to watch unfold live.” According to Kerwin, the set will be surrounded by live campus music, dance, theater and art. Being decades older than his classmates, Kerwin said, has turned out better than he expected. “To be honest, I’ve been pleasantly shocked by how accepting and open they’ve been,” he said. “When I was 18, if a 61-year-old walked into my college classroom, back then it would have been like something straight out of ‘Back to School’ with Rodney Dangerfield. But today’s Gen Z students at SMC have been remarkably kind.” He credits that reception to not putting on an act. “I don’t try to dress like them, use their slang or pretend to be something I’m not,” Kerwin said. “I just show up as myself and respect them as peers. Because I don’t try to fake it, a genuine mutual respect naturally forms.” For Kerwin, it is also a hometown project. His first television show was taped in Santa Monica, he said, not far from the Civic Auditorium, where the Academy Awards were held in the 1960s. He now lives within walking distance of the campus. “It feels completely right,” he said. “I have immense affection for Santa Monica — it’s an absolute jewel of a city with an incredible history.” Returning as a student, he said, connects him directly to the college’s legacy. “Look at [SMC alumni](https://www.smc.edu/community/alumni/network-info.php?ref=smdp.com) like James Dean, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ryan Seacrest,” Kerwin said. “By the way, you rarely hear those three names in the same sentence, but it shows the extraordinary talent that has passed through these halls.” “Being able to bring my broadcast background here and give back to the campus community as a current student is a true full-circle moment,” he added. Kerwin sees the smartphone as the latest in a long line of technologies that older generations have worried about. “When I was growing up, the prevailing warning was that television was going to rot your brain; for my father’s generation, people worried that listening to the radio too much was the threat,” he said. “Now it’s just a smaller screen in everyone’s hand.” He said he hopes people who watch the live conversations walk away with “a real sense of community.” “Watching these unscripted conversations happen live on the quad shows us that we’re all in this together,” he said. “Whether we’re navigating new technology, the future, relationships or career uncertainties, Gen Z and older generations are far less different than we think.” “My hope is that a student, a community member or a viewer watching the interview sees a segment and thinks, ‘Hey, I’m going through that exact same thing,’” Kerwin said.