From Campus, here are some highlights and updates from the Stevenson Equity and Inclusion Office:
- Mid Autumn Festival. Our Asian American Pacific Islander affinity space, our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Student Council Team, and our International Student Affinity Space worked together to put on a lovely celebration for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Students represented their distinct cultures and how the celebration differs for the entire community. Students led everyone in lantern painting, practicing Chinese calligraphy, sampling a variety of homemade traditional Korean dishes, and origami folding. We even had a cohort of students make homemade mooncakes.
- Seeking Equity Through Educational Diversity (SEED). We are in our 3rd year of offering a year-long and in-depth professional development program for all faculty and staff. We launched this year with a brand new cohort representing our Pre K-12 student-facing community. Check out the SEED website to learn more about the program, and the benefits of engaging in year-long challenging work around identity, intersectionality, cultural responsiveness, and student-centered teaching.
- Increasing our international student support. We are in the process of finding students who identify as international to serve as leaders for an international student affinity space. This is a need on our campus as our affinity spaces sometimes don’t feel like the best fit for some of our international students. We are excited to create more robust mentorship, support, community building, and advocacy for this important segment of our student body.
- Roll out of a multifaceted full experience package. For our students on 85% and more financial aid, we have partnered with our Admissions team, to implement our data-backed support system for these students. We held student interviews last year and accumulated data that gave us a strong sense of what we were doing well and what needed to be provided to make sure our students have access to every part of the Stevenson experience.
- Continuation of our affinity space panels. We are in the inaugural year of our affinity student panels. We launched last January 2023 with our Black Student Union, and have subsequently heard from our Gender-Sexuality Alliance, our Asian American and Pacific Islander Affinity Space, and our Neurodivergent Student Union. We continue in this academic year with our Latinx Student Union, our Multi-Racial Student Union, our Jewish Student Union, and our feminist and female identified Student Union.
- Hispanic/Latin@ Heritage Month: Our Latinx Student Union has been highlighting key historical and contemporary figures that identify as Latin@ and sharing those biographies with the school. The World Language Department also helped us host a Hispanic Heritage Coffee House which included original poetry, dance, and a sing along with all Spanish speaking faculty members in attendance. They also designed and installed an ofrenda on Rosen stage, and are in the midst of organizing our third annual LSU sponsored dance featuring an all Spanish playlist and local treats from Latin@ owned restaurants and cafes.
- Mentorship of Affinity Space Leaders: The co-directors are meeting one on one with our newly crowned leadership teams to support them as they grow into their affinity leader positions. We are working on building a documented and mulit-faceted affinity space curriculum and the student leaders are looking forward to mentoring and working with our middle division students.
- Gearing up for the People of Color Conference and the Student Diversity Leadership Conference in St. Louis. We have met all together as a group and shared best practices on how to get the most of these powerful three days away. Students are asked to set an intention or focus and we will work with them as a cohort to bring their visions to fruition at Stevenson. We had many students apply for this coveted opportunity and ended up selecting a stellar group of students to attend: Michelle H. (BSU Leader) Jett J. (BSU Leader) Zahra K. (BSU Leader) Maya C. (LSU Leader) Twyla M. B. (MRSU Leader) and Lily L. (Atheneaum Leader)
Celebrating and honoring Indigenous’ Peoples Month. Our wonderful librarian, Heather Bagley-Rowe, is partnering with the office of equity and inclusion to create multifaceted displays that celebrate and educate on respective months. She has just pivoted from our Latin@ writers and artists display to a more precise focus on indigenous authors. Our LSU has taken the lead on educating the community on the importance of this month and what we can do individually to learn more about the crucial history of indigenous peoples land, the local history and current reality; moreover, inform ourselves about the land we reside on at Stevenson. As a community, we are learning more about the Ohlone Costanoan Esselen Nation. Next week, we will be participating in a webinar where we get to hear from Megan Red Shirt-Shaw (Oglala Lakota) who is a Native Educator, Writer, and Activist.
Learn more about our leaders in the Equity and Inclusion Office
