SDLC attendees travel to Atlanta, Ga. to discuss diversity.
While most Choate students were in the midst of the first full week back after Thanksgiving, a select group from Choate traveled to Atlanta, Georgia to discuss important issues about religion, socioeconomic status, race, and gender, along with other diversity identifiers.
Six students participated in the 2016 Student Diversity Leadership Conference (SDLC) and 19 faculty members participated in the People of Color Conference (PoCC), both sponsored by the National Association of Independent Schools, and held concurrently in Atlanta between December 8-10. The conferences are multicultural and multiracial gatherings of leaders from independent schools worldwide. The students chosen to go were Abigail Drummond ’18, Zara Harding ’18, Taylor John-Lewis ’19, Richard Lopez ’18, Julian Yau ’18, and Charlie Yockey ’19.
Faculty, including Ms. Isabel Aguirre-Kelly, Ms. Tiffany Kornegay, Mr. Mustafa Abdul-Rahim, Ms. Cathryn Stout, and Dr. Keith Hinderlie, attended PoCC, a separate conference that ran concurrently with SDLC.
Since the SDLC group got back to Choate, they’ve been meeting regularly – either weekly or biweekly – to talk about what their goals are at Choate, what they hope to change, and how they’re going to do those things.
According to Harding, “There have been a lot of discussions about what we can do at Choate.” She continued, “I can’t go too into detail about what we’re doing during the meetings, but just to give an idea, it’s really about planning. We’re looking at what are the issues, what are the things we need to fix, and then how we are going to fix those things. We look short term, medium term, and long term, from activities we can plan to certain rules we can try to change.”
Now in its 26th year, SDLC, according to its website, “Focuses on self-reflecting, forming allies, and building community.” At the conference, students spent time working in large group sessions with the rest of the attendees; in “family” groups of around 70 people; and “home” groups of seven or eight people. Trained adults and peer facilitators, many of whom are SDLC alumni, led the groups. The website notes, “Participants develop effective cross-cultural communication skills, better understand the nature and development of effective strategies for social justice, practice expression through the arts, and learn networking principles and strategies.”
Speaking to her experience at SDLC, Harding added, “It was life-changing. I know that sounds corny, but it really was. It was like Diversity Day on steroids, except that everyone wanted to participate in the conversations, and so the discussions that were generated were really, really effective and really deep. I think aside from that, the most incredible part of it was how close I felt to the people that I met after being around them for such a short period of time.”
Harding added, “Even though it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with diversity, my biggest take-away was the way that we form relationships with each other. At SDLC it was so easy to approach people. Here, if you don’t know a group of people you just write them off. Don’t assume something about someone because of how they look or what you’ve heard – just speak to them.”
Richard Lopez ’18 described his time at SDLC, “It was a phenomenal experience that allowed me to share my stories. We had an affinity group for Hispanics and Latinos around the United States, so I got to see a hundred kids from across the U.S. from private schools. We all got to share our experiences and our emotions as to what’s going on in the world. It was very emotional for me. I felt amazing afterwards, I was finally able to share my stories in a safe place where I wouldn’t be judged for what I said. I think that’s something we lack at Choate. If you say something at Choate it’s not a guarantee that it will remain in the circle; it’s kind of likely that it’ll spread, and you’ll get criticized for it.”
On why he wanted to go to SDLC, Lopez said, “I knew SDLC would give me the opportunity to share personal stories of my own that relate to who I am and who I identify as: A Hispanic or Latino within the United States. I wanted to talk about the issues that I’ve seen, not only at Choate, but also around my home and in the United States in general. And I wanted to hear about the experiences of others.”
Abigail Drummond ’18 commented, “I wanted to go to address problems here at Choate. It’s about much more than just racial problems; there are gender problems, sexuality problems, and socioeconomic problems. I wanted to get perspectives from other students around the US and see what they were doing.”
Drummond concluded, “One thing I got out of it is that ‘your voice is power,’ even as a student. You can use your voice to get your message across to make real, tangible change.”
