Creating Community for Everyone

Teacher of Mathematics Pankti Dalal and Associate Dean of Students Tarah Greenidge serve as co-chairs of the St. Paul’s School Faculty Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice Council. The eight-member council identifies initiatives that support equity and inclusion as a defining ethos for life and work at the School and partners with various School groups to enhance practices, policies and procedures that foster inclusivity and a sense of belonging for every member of the SPS community. Dalal and Greenidge recently sat down for a quick Q&A about the Council and its work. They also shared some thoughts about the impact that former Council co-chair Omar Brown — a teacher of Humanities who died unexpectedly in January — had on the Council and the SPS community as a whole.

 

The summer of 2020, following the murder of George Floyd, shined a new light on racial disparities everywhere, including at mostly white independent schools. In a meeting with Rector Kathy Giles and Vice Rector for Faculty Michael Spencer, who saw how important this [issue] was for the School, we decided we wanted to create some structure to help with the initiatives that we had identified in the School’s 2017 inclusivity and access report and assess the progress that had been made. When we were determining what our charge was at that time, we wanted to create community competency, so establishing a common language for communication about diversity, equity, inclusion, justice and belonging. We wanted as a council to sit and identify important themes of DEI in our daily lives at this school and beyond and do some sort of analysis of the lived experience of community members. We also wanted to continue to work alongside the administration and Dean of Students Office to provide advice, support and direction on school culture and community programming for students and faculty.

 

Pankti: I wanted to be more involved with expanding DEI efforts at our school. I had already been engaging in a lot of professional development around diversity, equity and inclusion, because that is a passion of mine that started with my own experience as a high school student. I went to a prep school in Western Massachusetts, and I was the only brown student in my class. That had an impact on how I learn and how I see myself, and as a teacher I see that for the students as well. These issues inform a lot of the way I interact with my students, and I wanted more training around how to love them the way they want to be loved.

 

Tarah: I just joined the School community last year, but this work has been part of my background for the past 20-something years. I started [my career] in admissions doing recruitment for students of color, working to increase those populations. [Now,] in student affairs, my role [involves] working with students of color who have been admitted and making sure the playing field is level. It’s always student-focused, and part of my excitement [in] joining the Faculty DEIJ Council was about not only helping adults create community and understanding for one another, but also figuring out a way to tie that work back over to [our] students.

 

In the Fall Term, we met as faculty of color just to share good food and have good conversation and music. There was almost no structure to the conversation; it was just a place for us to be and exist — an opportunity to take a deep breath in the go-go-go schedule we all experience here. Then, at the end of the Fall Term, we put on a series of [School-wide] faculty workshops focused on building and strengthening an inclusive SPS community. We’re now planning spring events for our faculty of color affinity group as well as faculty professional development workshops that we’ll be rolling out in partnership with [Director of Ohrstrom Library and Teacher of Humanities] Sarah Ludwig. We’re trying to collect ideas for workshops and resources to fully engage with pedagogical improvements around culturally responsive teaching.

 

We all live in one community, we are all part of one community, and making sure we see that thread throughout is important. So much of what we do is tied directly into the student experience — all the time, but especially when we’re in a pandemic and students are far away from home, and away from their parents. We want to make sure that it is a home; that’s part of the importance of the student perspective and student voice in everything that we’re doing — so that common understanding is there, and the students feel validated and heard and seen as well during their journey. In the fall, Omar was working closely with [Director of Counseling] Lisa Eberhart and [Vice Rector for School Life] Theresa Ferns ’84 to create teacher-specific tools around mental health — something he referred to as mental hygiene — to provide resources and frameworks to help classroom teachers and faculty engage with supporting student mental health. That was really important to Omar, along with the faculty of color affinity group, and so tied to his love for his students and making sure that they feel safe.

 

Pankti: We gathered to share a space and reflect on Omar early in 2022. It was well attended, because Omar touched almost everyone here in some way, even those who had only known him a short time. He was so good at connecting with people, always checking in and asking, “Are you okay?” Students and faculty and everyone. I’m now the person who, when it’s time to go to a meeting, I will give myself an extra five to 10 minutes to get there, just so I can breathe, walk, look around, just so it’s not always that fast pace — I definitely got that from him. Because if we don’t take that breath in for ourselves, then how does that play out the minute we’re in that next space — that classroom or that meeting? Students see everything you do, and everything you don’t do, as well … the not taking time for yourself, not checking in. It’s important to take that time, so that the work you do going forward is of good quality and not just thrown together. It’s important to think big picture. And I think Omar did that a lot.