by Tobias Cen
This semester, Career Services hosted a panel on Careers in Independent schools, featuring TriCo alumni. One topic that came up during the discussion was the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion in independent schools, in the role educators hold to promote and foster environments that are inclusive and diverse at the schools they work. Two alumni, Marissa and Kelly, highlighted their specific experiences in bringing diversity to the forefront. At Westtown School they focus on Equity, Justice and Belonging.
Marissa, who has worked at the Westtown school for 11 years, discussed how diversity, equity and inclusion shaped her arrival and contribution to the school. “Equity and inclusion work was really important to me” in her early teaching career, and was something “that I wanted to do more of in schools just from my experience being a teacher.” When the position of Dean of Diversity was open as a full-time administrative position at Westtown, Marissa jumped at the opportunity, and spent her first six years as the school’s first dean of diversity and inclusion. Similarly, Kelly’s trajectory into equity work originated from capitalizing on a new opportunity. “I saw a need for DEI work; there was just nothing going on” at the elementary school she’d sent her son to, “the only brown child in [his] class.” As a response, she created a group aimed at “bringing more DEI into the space” called Family Alliance for Respect and Equity, a program that is now 11 years strong.
Marissa and Kelly paved the way for DEI discussions at their respective independent schools, building a framework for DEI initiatives to take hold from. “When I started in independent schools, there really weren’t many named people leading equity inclusion work at schools. It was kind of hit or miss,” Marissa explained. “If there was an administrator who knew a lot about it or cared, maybe there were some initiatives. But if there weren’t, it was mostly like crisis management. And when things went wrong, then it was like trying to pull people together to try to manage things.” So when she came to Westtown for the position of Dean of Diversity and Inclusion, “it was really exciting because it was more about institutionally leading that work. And so that means hiring practices and bias and training faculty and staff in an ongoing way, and looking at curriculum and looking at our admissions processes and all different ways equity inclusion exists in all the systems that we participate in and making sure that we’re aligning that with our values as a school, creating goals, creating a plan to do that work throughout and have it infused in everything that we do.”
One of the challenges in doing DEI work has been working with families especially in a place of privilege. “I would just say sometimes when you’re dealing with families that have a more limited willingness to be more open to a variety of perspectives, and that can make the work really, really difficult. I think you’re going to find that a lot at all schools, but you’re definitely going to find the privilege aspect of like, ‘I don’t even have to listen to you because I pay, I’m full pay here. So like, don’t talk to me about that.’ And you’re like, ‘okay, you might be full pay, but you still go here.’ We do have values to which we, you know, want people to kind of subscribe. So I hope you get on board. And I do think we’ve done a really good job in ensuring that our families are getting from the door through admissions, like through the tours and like what they see. If you come here, you kind of know what you’re getting into. You can’t miss it.”
Looking forward, Kelley and Marissa share the hopeful sentiment that their Equity Justice and Belonging work is more ingrained in the fabric of independent schools than ever before. “It was harder to fail because it was built into the fabric of the school. And that made me feel great to go back to the classroom and teach basically equity and justice in the classroom because I knew then it would be supported by the institution and that my colleagues would understand that and support it and the school would. It would just be a part of what you do and what you did.
But that took time. It’s also changing in many other independent schools and how they’re viewing that work. So, yeah, it’s grown so much in the years that I’ve been teaching, which is so exciting and amazing.”
Panelists from Westtown School:
~Louisa Egan Brad, Swarthmore, Dean of Equity Justice and Belonging
~Marissa Colston Swarthmore, Upper School History/Clerk of Upper School Faculty
~Jack McManus Swarthmore, Middle School Theater
~Liz Penland Bryn Mawr, Upper School Dean of Students
~Tejan Walcott Haverford, Director of Auxiliary Programs
~Kelly Yiadom Swarthmore, Lower/Middle School Director of Equity, Justice, & Belonging
