Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging
Michelle Garrity ’04 A Story of Belonging
Michelle Garrity '04 and Jill Ingram '04 met in 7th grade at PD and have been friends nearly 25 years. They are currently faculty in the Middle School Math Department. By Jana Dorsey
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hat is belonging? Belonging is a feeling. Belonging is home. Belonging is feeling safe – whatever that definition of safety looks like on a personal level. Safe to dream, live, fail, exist, restart, refresh, learn, and grow. In a world fixated on metrics, how do we measure belonging? Belonging to me is anecdotal. It is qualitative rather than quantitative; with storytelling as the throughline.
team founded in 2001 as the Office of Multicultural Affairs has most recently added “belonging” to our moniker in 2020. With several variations and possibilities for naming the work, “Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging” acknowledges where we started, measures where we are, and envisions where we aspire to go as a community.
Michelle Garrity and Jill Ingram when they were PD students in the early 2000s.
As documented at a recent Southern Association of Independent Schools conference by Brandon Jacobs of Carney Sandoe & Associates, “belonging” is a common word used to describe diversity, equity, and inclusion work across industries. At Providence Day, the
Left: When meeting up for a photo opportunity in fall 2022, Jill Ingram and Michelle Garrity decided to sit in the very same seats in the Dickson-Hemby Technology Center classroom where they sat when they first met as 7th graders. Photo by Mike McCarn.
While “belonging” may be a recent addition, the essence of the word — the tangible feeling, the genuineness of it — served as a significant foundational moment for the 25+ year friendship between class of 2004 alumni and current faculty members Michelle Garrity and Jillian Ingram. In 1998, Ingram arrived at Providence Day School as a new 7th grader. On her first day at her new school, she distinctly remembers
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