Diversity at ESA

Bishop:        Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

People:        I will, with God’s help.

These words come from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer and are part of the Confirmation Liturgy used when new members are received into the Church. Dr. Armond, our Cade campus Chaplain, used these words and the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi to frame our presentation in Chapel about what it means to be an Ally to someone who is different from us. The prayer is familiar to most of us:

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

Where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

To be understood as to understand; To be loved as to love;

For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and

it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

 

These two sets of phenomenal words offer us a guidepost as we work to create a diverse and inclusive school that honors and respects every individual. As we heard this week in Chapel, that doesn’t mean we have to agree with everyone on everything, but it does mean we have to treat each other as we would want to be treated.

ESA was founded on the premise of being a school that offers the very best education to all of Acadiana, regardless of race, creed, religion or income level. It is written into our charter that we “shall provide a program for and be sensitive to the needs of children from low-income families as requested by the donor of the school property as condition of the donation, in order that the gift serve a broader purpose than the legitimate education and guidance of the privileged, and include more concretely that specific Christian value of serving those less fortunate, as well.” Ms. Betty Smedes Jardine (whose family donated the land) put it rather bluntly when she said in a speech, “I was not interested in building a playground for spoiled rich kids.” Ever since the beginning of ESA, we have taken that charge seriously, and it is the reason we have such a robust financial aid program. It is also why the Tates-Tutwiler Endowment is such a powerful part of that equation. But there is another equally powerful reason why we pay so much attention to being a diverse and inclusive school. The following is the opening paragraph of an article written by Christopher Marblo, head of school at The Town School.

“The benefits of being a more diverse school — as opposed to a relatively monocultural school — have never been more apparent. As our world continues to ‘flatten’ and intercultural contact becomes the norm, as our own country becomes more diverse in a variety of ways with each passing year, and as cognitive and intellectual diversity are seen as precursors to excellent schools and institutions, it becomes untenable for school leaders to believe that there is educational excellence in schools with a narrow representation of adults and students. If schools truly want to meet the needs of their students, prepare them for the realities of the world, and teach them to be moral leaders of the future, then schools must become more diverse, more inclusive.”

These words were written in 2007, and they are more true today than they were then. People from the same background and experiences tend to have shared perspectives, which can make it difficult for them as a group to produce fresh ideas and solutions. The broader the range of people, the greater their innovation power. The fact that we are and strive to be a diverse school is one of our greatest strengths. To that end, there has been a Board level committee on Diversity at ESA for many years as well as active groups on campus promoting inclusiveness and an end to prejudice.

I also understand that diversity issues can sometimes be charged. Issues of race, identity, culture, class, and sexual orientation, among others, are all seen as both personal and political, and, hence, potentially contentious. We choose to be proactive on these issues rather than reactive and to have the sometimes difficult discussions around these issues. It not only fits with our charter, but our academic mission of fearlessly tackling difficult problems straight ahead and honestly. Sometimes people talk about ESA as being a “really liberal school.” In some ways, that makes me laugh. Independent schools are some of the most “conservative” institutions on earth in the truest and best sense of that word. We live by a code of honor and conserve the very best ideas about education while pushing our students to be thinkers. And I think that having a proactive stance on diversity is a conservative ideal that goes back quite a ways:  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your soul. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like unto it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”