By Ingrid Yeung ‘23
As expressed in St. Mark’s diversity statement, our school strives to reflect the increasingly diverse world by providing students with an exceptional education in a community of students, faculty, and staff representing different racial, ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds. St. Mark’s seeks to promote awareness around cultural differences and encourage students and faculty to celebrate diversity and their experiences. Through Community and Equity affairs, St. Mark’s strives to build a community where students can have safe spaces to have honest conversations and where everyone works together to help the school move closer to being an antiracist school. In the 2021-22 school year, St. mark’s C&E efforts have included developing an Antiracist Strategic Planning Task Force, providing antiracism training to faculty, and continuing support to the Pathways program. As we move closer to the end of the year, St. Mark’s has two new initiatives for next year intended specifically for diversifying the faculty population: the new Associate Dean of Faculty for Equity and Inclusion and the Penn Fellows Program.
The new Associate Dean of Faculty for Equity and Inclusion position is created to “support the work of the Assistant Head of School/Dean of Faculty in recruiting, hiring, and retaining a diverse and talented faculty” (Job Description). In previous years, St. Mark’s C&E work has focused mainly on student life, but with this new administrative position, the school can further support our BIPOC faculty to thrive at St. Mark’s as it works to intentionally diversify the faculty. Working closely with other Deans, the Associate Dean will identify and establish practice standards of inclusion for adults at St.Mark’s while providing professional development for faculty. This position aims to approach the process of recruiting faculty and training through an antiracist lens. With the ambitious goal of diversifying the faculty population and supporting BIPOC faculty comes numerous responsibilities. The Associate Dean is expected to facilitate faculty and staff C&E professional development through the promotion of on-campus and off-campus professional development in areas of C&E and respond to Bias Incident Reports involving faculty. Continuing the current C&E initiatives and programs, the Associate Dean will also assist the evolution of St. Mark’s educational programs through collaboration with other Deans and faculty, actively providing resources to BIPOC faculty. With this new position specifically dedicated to furthering the equity work at St. Mark’s for faculty and staff, the school strives to truly embody its diversity statements and antiracism initiatives.
In addition to the new administrative role, the initiation of the Penn Fellows program also seeks to bring new perspectives to our faculty body. The Penn Fellows program is an Independent School Teaching Residency master’s program that allows early career teachers to teach while receiving their master’s degrees. It is a combination of on-site sessions and online classes that facilitate the students’ future careers as educators. During the two years of residency, the Penn Fellows will teach at a reduced load while continuing their school requirements. The Fellows can also get involved with the school’s residential life program, extracurricular activities, advising, and coaching. This program is geared towards novice teachers with less than two years of experience who are interested in the independent school context. Being a partner boarding school in this program, St. Mark’s will welcome two Penn Fellows in the next academic year. Recently, several potential candidates have already visited campus and got to learn more about St. Mark’s. Our school also set up Student Panel and mock teaching sessions to help both St. Mark’s and the candidate decide whether it is a good fit for both. Next year, having this program will allow St. Mark’s to diversify the faculty on campus further. It also provides a platform for students interested in becoming teachers in independent schools.
As St. Mark’s launched the new initiatives dedicated to promoting C&E work among the faculty and staff population, it is also pushing the school into a new phase of equity affairs. By paying more attention to supporting the BIPOC faculty and hiring more faculty of color, St. Mark’s creates a more inclusive environment for students, faculty, and staff. There have been many situations this year where tough conversations needed to be held, and some students stills struggle to find a safe space to share their experiences and opinions. With the new Associate Dean of Faculty for Equity and Inclusion, the school will create a safer environment for students through additional equity training for teachers and increasing faculty diversity to match the already highly diverse student population. St. Mark’s is gradually becoming an antiracist school.