CGS students share true emotions towards annual Diversity Summit

By Kenya Sei ‘20  

The Diversity Summit is an annual conference that takes place here at Catlin Gabel School (CGS). At this conference, CGS hosts around 150 students from other schools in addition to their current student bodies to alk about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The summit usually includes keynote speakers, workshops, affinity groups, and performances. I wanted to look further into what students think of the summit, and more importantly what critiques they have of it. As Inclusivity Coordinator for the 2019- 2020 school year and someone who has helped plan Diversity Summits in the past, I have noticed both excitement and reluctance from the student body for the conference. In order to find some student critiques of the Diversity Summit, I decided to interview some seniors about their past experience with the conference and what they think are some of its positive and negative features. I also looked at survey feedback from Diversity Summits in the past.

Kean Spencer

Kean Spencer is a senior at CGS. Over his career at CGS, Spencer has attended six Diversity Summits, and has even led a workshop. 

Spencer described the Diversity Summit as “basically a combination of student-led workshops and faculty-led workshops to explore areas that may seem uncomfortable for the majority.”

Like many students, Spencer had both praise and constructive criticism for the Diversity Summit. 

Spencer noted that while the Diversity Summit is “very student-led and student driven,” it also seemed “forced, rushed, and kind of skippable.”

Spencer shared that the broad focus of the day made it difficult to go into much depth in any one topic. “The nature of concentrating so many concepts into one day makes it hard to actually get a grasp of what you are discussing, as opposed to a class which is spread out.”

Spencer is not the only student who has felt this way. Every year after the Diversity Summit, the student-planning group sends out a survey to gain feedback for the next year's group to learn from. 

In response to the 2017 Diversity Summit, one student voiced a suggestion similar to Spencer’s and suggested that the planning team “ get more organized because nobody seemed to know what they were doing.”

On a contrary note, Spencer also mentioned some good parts amidst the Diversity Summit, specifically the workshops. 

Spencer was especially pleased with the opportunity that the Diversity Summit offered to engage in deep and meaningful conversation.

“At Catlin we throw around terms like ‘We need to have a dialogue about this,’ or ‘We need to talk about this,’” said Spencer. “But in my workshop, we actually had a legitimate dialogue, where people were passionate about it, and where we went up against people with opposing points of view.”

Li Lambert

Li Lambert is another senior at CGS who has attended all three Diversity Summits of his high school career. 

Unlike Spencer, Lambert has had a different experience with the annual Diversity Summit. 

Lambert shared his initial impressions about the Diversity Summit. 

“Honestly is not that important of a day to me,” he said. “I feel like it is another day in my calendar where I go ‘Hey, I don’t have to do homework today, but I have to go to school and sit through something I don’t really care about.’” 

Lambert explained that while interesting things may happen at the Diversity Summit, his personal experience has been a bit bland. 

“It’s not like interesting things don’t happen at the Diversity Summit, it's just that I feel like with the workshops that I myself have attended, I haven’t really gotten much out of it,” said Lambert.

Lambert is not alone in this observation. In the past, students have also shared complaints about workshops. In the 2017 survey, one student wrote, “In 2 out of 3 of my workshops, the leaders were not prepared enough or researched enough to lead an effective workshop.” Another said, “There should be a faculty leader for each workshop who would screen it before it runs to ensure that it is actually a successful workshop and has a goal.” 

From the looks of it, it appears that workshop selection has been an issue for some students over the past years. 

Lambert shared his perspective on the workshop selection process.

“While we do rank the summit workshops we want, you don’t always get your top picks,” he said.

However, Lambert does not blame the process for these mishaps. He later went on to say that he “totally understands where the organizing team is coming from. There is a pretty transparent form that shows people what workshops there are, who is leading them, and what they will be about.” 

Students in Cabell Theatre. Photo By Hannah Lee

From the interviews that were conducted as well as the survey responses from past years, it was made evident to me that some of the main concerns regarding the Diversity Summit include the organization, content, and depth of the workshops. This information is important to note for me as the Inclusivity Coordinator, especially because I can pass it on to the Inclusivity Coordinators to come. It is also important to know that, while representative of some of the trends expressed by the student body, these are only two stories of the 350+ students in the Upper School, all of whom have differing opinions on the Diversity Summit. 

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