Student Diversity Leadership Conference
The six Drew students who attended the Student Diversity Leadership Conference, hosted by the National Association of Independent Schools, present their experience and learnings during an all-school assembly.
The students started by sharing their experience as a whole before delving into key concepts and takeaways, which include:
Eight Core Identifiers
Though there are many other identifiers that make up individuals, at SDLC students explored eight core identifiers:
- Race and ethnicity
- Ability (mental, physical, emotional)
- Religion
- Gender
- Sexuality
- Age
- Family structure
- Socioeconomic status
"One activity that we did during the conference was called the Hydrogen Bond model," says Grace '19, "where we were tasked with understanding how much these different aspects inform our lives and how they’re interconnected. Drew, along with SDLC, has provided me spaces in which I feel I can be completely authentic and empowered, and for that, I’m extremely grateful."
Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is how we can understand our “bumps” or encounters with a situation that leave us feeling insecure about our identities. During the conference, cognitive dissonance was presented as a cycle:
The community norms during the conference that students want to weave further into Drew's culture:
Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is how we can understand our “bumps” or encounters with a situation that leave us feeling insecure about our identities. During the conference, cognitive dissonance was presented as a cycle:
- Contact/Encounter
- Cognitive dissonance
- Exploration/Questioning
- Immersion/ affirmation
- Ownership/Internalization
- Empowerment/Disempowerment
- Fear of Difference: Noticing a difference
- Stereotype: An oversimplified generalization of someone or a group of people. Even though some stereotypes have positive connotations in some cases, they generalize a broad group of people.
- Prejudice: A preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.
- Discrimination: Sometimes take the form of an attack over a group of people who hold less power. Leads to people being oppressed.
- Oppression: The minority later becomes oppressed as a way to gain power over them and in society in general that manifests in laws or smaller comments/actions.
- Internalized Oppression: “Buying into” the stereotype and weakening.
- A way to break the cycle → agree to disagree vs. agree to understand.
The community norms during the conference that students want to weave further into Drew's culture:
- Be fully present
- Speak from the “I” perspective
- Be self-responsible and self-challenging
- Listen, listen, and process
- Lean into discomfort
- Experiment with new behaviors in order to expand your range of response
- Take risks, make some mistakes, then move on
- Accept conflict and its resolution as a necessary catalyst for learning
- Be comfortable with silence
- Suspend judgment of yourself and others
- Be crisp, say what is core
- Treat the candidness of others as a gift, and honor confidentiality
- Step up, step back
"When having hard conversations to try and make change," the students said, "the way to do that is 25% sharing your story and your truth. 50% listening and getting to know the other person and where they are coming from. Really try and understand their thinking and their truth and make them feel heard. And then 25% of the conversation should be how you both can take your truths and collaborate in a way that is productive and helpful. This is a way to have a constructive conversation with someone that had differing views from you, or that has a different background from you."
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