Student Diversity Council:
Decentralized leadership and a mandate for A‘ ctions Not Words’ I
t is the first Student Diversity Council (SDC) meeting of February, and Avalon Dela Rosa ’22 calls the session to order. Today’s agenda is packed. The plan is to discuss the virtual Black History Month assembly the group hosted online during the advisory period just an hour before. Avalon, who shares the title of SDC Co-Head with Frances Burton ’21, gets quickly to the subject at hand. “We’re just going to debrief about how the assembly went and you can share something that went well or something to work on for next time,” she says, in a relaxed tone. “We have a lot of people today, so I was thinking about doing a round robin.” And it’s true—there are a lot of faces in Zoom windows—38 of them. This is easily triple the size of last year’s membership, and includes students from all grade levels. The blossoming of the group this fall seems only natural to SDC member Piper West ’22, who explains, “Kids seemed to be moved by the surge of protests this past summer, and I am glad that they decided to channel that passion into making a difference by joining Diversity Council.” Caroline Squire ’23 offers the first feedback about today’s presentation, titled “Black Family: Representation, Identity and Diversity.” “I think the assembly went really well,” Caroline says. She notes that sometimes students are too tired or too shy to speak up during advisory periods—but not
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today. “I think this advisory was really engaging,” she says. Lily Salazar ’23 chimes in: “I also agree that we did have a good dialogue talking about our different experiences.” Although everyone yearns for inperson events again, Piper notes there are some benefits in delivering their assembly remotely in small groups. “Advisory group presentations definitely give more room for discussion, and it provides a level of intimacy that is lost in in-person assemblies,” she says. And with that intimacy, Piper hopes there might be a better sense of personal awareness too, saying, “I just hope that people left advisory that day having a better understanding of Black History Month and will hopefully take what they learned past February 28th.” A couple of council members who had less active conversations in their advisory groups ask their fellow SDC representatives for tips. But, all in all, everyone is pleased with the day’s presentation. And Avalon and Frances make sure to affirm the strong content included in the assembly—the videos on Black history from a kid’s perspective, Black fashion pioneers, and colorism between POC (people of color) were especially thought-provoking. Without exception, the SDC members praise Piper and Lola Falese ’22 for putting this assembly together so well. Lola enjoys hearing this. “Since I am Black, this assembly was personal
to me,” she says, adding, “I wanted to embrace Black history and show Mayfield how astonishing it is.” Lola is pleased that the work she and Piper put in has been sparking useful conversations. “Getting feedback about how many [advisory groups] loved their discussions and shared their thoughts made me extremely happy and reminded me why I joined Diversity Council, which was to help the Mayfield community understand one another and embrace diversity.” After the assembly debrief, everyone goes into their subcommittee breakout room to start tackling all the items on their ambitious agenda for this week’s meeting. The newsletter team will prepare the text for Black History Month to be included in the all-school bulletin; the arts group will design a flyer to invite all students to the upcoming Black History discussion; the publicity committee will produce Flipgrid videos honoring Black public figures; the social media group will create Instagram posts for Black History Month, and the clubs committee will explore which other Mayfield clubs might want to partner with the SDC this month. Avalon reminds everyone that Chinese/ Lunar New Year is coming up soon, and suggests potentially reaching out to the Mandarin classes as well. The leadership may be decentralized, but the efficiency of what this group accomplishes in a single hour is remarkable.
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