2006 Student Diversity Leadership/People of Color Conference

The People of Color/Student Diversity Leadership Conference is an annual gathering sponsored by the National Association of Independent Schools. In early December 2006, over three thousand attendees from private schools all over the country met in Seattle the week after Thanksgiving to “nourish ourselves for the swim upstream” (the adult conference’s theme). For both students and adults, the conference has multiple goals—to educate, the support, to inspire, to reenergize, and to enhance understanding of what NAIS refers to as “the Big 8” of diversity: race, ethnicity, economic class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ability and age. NAIS allows up to six students per high school and an unlimited number of faculty and staff to attend the conference. This year, CPS sent our largest ever delegation—one sophomore (Awot Ghirmai), five juniors (Tia Ford, Amita Ganti, Josh Jubilirer, Enjie Romero-Garcia, and Lea Siegel), and five adults (Director of College Counseling Martin Bonilla, Assistant Dean of Students Max Delgado; School Secretary Vanessa Ortega, Diversity Coordinator Tigress Osborn, and Dean of Instructional Technology Roger Wise).

Our activities kicked off with a keynote address from renowned Native American author Sherman Alexie, who used an account of a recent fender bender to illustrate the realities of life for “those of us from the darker end of the crayon box.” Following his address, the conference split into two tracks. For adult, there was a series of workshops, speeches and affinity group meetings for the adults. Adult workshop topics ranged from supporting multicultural students to battling negative media images of women to expanding leadership opportunities for administrators of color

For students, there was an intense schedule of student activities designed to give students opportunities to examine personal identity issues as well as discuss and strategize for solutions to diversity and inclusiveness issues at their high schools. For example, all students participated in The Line, an activity which examines privilege in education and careers. Students line up across the room across from a wall in the distance that represents the perfect school or job opportunity. They are asked to step forward or backward based on advantages or disadvantages that occur in society (for example, step forward if you come from a household in which one or more adult has a college degree, or step backward if you ever had a family member discourage you from thinking about college because of your gender). Eventually, students are asked to race toward the wall. Of course, those students who had the most advantages make it to the wall first. This and similar activities are designed to give students new ways to think about Big 8 issues.

After two days of workshops and activities, students and adults reunited for sessions in which the students lead the adults through some of the exercises in which they participated. Following this reunion, everyone attended the closing ceremonies, which featured Ernesto Zedilla, former President of Mexico, who discussed the United States as an immigrant country..

Upon return to CPS, students made presentations about their experience at our Pride in Diversity club and at the Parent Diversity Committee. Adults also made a presentation for our colleagues to share what we learned in our workshop sessions. A “podcast” (a recorded interview available for listening online) is in the works in order to share our delegation’s impressions of the conference with those who were unable to attend these meeting, so please keep an eye on the CPS website for that. For more information about the conference speakers and workshops, visit the official PoCC website: http://www.nais.org/pocc/ .