Student Leaders Lead Workshop on Identity, Inclusion
Post-its dotted the Hahn Room as residents and affiliates of Dunbar Hall shared aspects of their identity with their peers. Across campus, post-its reflecting the diversity of the Academy’s student body filled hallways and common room walls.
On Wednesday, Oct. 30, students participated in a workshop on identity and inclusion, led by proctors and student listeners. These student leaders completed a similar activity with Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Dr. Stephanie Bramlett in their annual August training. To accommodate the activity, Advisory and F Format were replaced by the workshop.
Bramlett announced the activity in an email to the community. “Proctors and student listeners will lead an activity designed to help you think about the identities that are most salient to you, the diversity within your dorm community and the diversity within the broader … community,” her email read. “They have been working hard to adapt … and design it so that it will be meaningful to you—it is a student-led endeavor. I urge you to lean into the discussion, use your Harkness skills and learn from one another.”
In a separate email to proctors and student listeners, Bramlett outlined the goals of the activities and the role of student leaders. “Your job is to think about how to present community norms,” her email read. “Of course, if there is another activity about identity that your dorm team thinks would be better for your community please feel free to substitute.” Regardless of the activity, Bramlett urged students to engage with the twelve community norms.
Bramlett suggested to lead either an identity wheel or a saliency exercise. The saliency exercise involved students walking to post-it notes with various labels, choosing those most relevant to them. Students were asked to write their own identities under broad categorizations on post-it notes without their names, highlighting the diversity of the community. In addition, students moved to the area of identity that was either most significant to them or that society saw them as first.
Principal William Rawson outlined the administration’s goals for the workshop. “When I have participated in these kinds of activities, I have found them helpful in building self-awareness and understanding of others,” he said. “I hope students find the workshop helpful and worthwhile for the same reasons. I hope it helps build appreciation for how our differences in identity, background, experiences and perspectives enriches our community.”
Dean of Residential Life Carol Cahalane echoed his thoughts and hoped that the exercises would enrich the community’s understanding of diversity. “This will be an opportunity for all of us to reflect on our own identities and experiences and learn more about our communities,” she said. “It will only deepen our understanding of ourselves and each other.”
Senior and Main Street Proctor Johan Martinez reflected on the significance of the workshop's activities in regards to identity. “I have found that in order to have discussions about identity, we need to understand the different people in the discussion,” he said. “[The Office of Multicultural Affairs] do so much work to help Exeter, but they need help,” he said. “They cannot carry it for themselves.”
Senior and McConnell Hall proctor Chaitanya Vankireddy noted that the level of preparation affirmed the important purpose of the activities. “We were very prepared. We had to do the activity, talk about the activity, talk about it again, plan the activity, report our plans about the activity, have a pep talk about the activity and do the activity again,” she said. “I think the workshop is a step in the right direction, specifically for the intended goal of recognizing the overlap in identity at Exeter.”
Students noted that the workshop educated students on the experiences of others. “The central takeaways, for me, was that the same experience can affect everyone differently and that everyone obviously has different experiences because no one's the same,” lower and Lamont Hall affiliate Riley Valashinas said.
For Hayden Campbell, an upper in Dutch House, the workshop was another way to create a better community atmosphere. “It was interesting and helpful just to hear other people's opinions on what makes a good dorm environment and how they want to be treated,” she said. “I think we don't always have that opportunity to share.”
On the other hand, upper and Dow House resident William Vietor felt that the use of labels was counterintuitive. “I think that trying to define myself and understand others in a series of sticky notes is counterproductive to understanding people. People are more than their [demographics],” he said. “The societal labels that we were asked to define ourselves by impede us from actually understanding ourselves. I think they’re entirely prohibitive to an effective dialogue.”
Some students. however, felt that their identities were not adequately covered. “The activities didn’t really get to sexuality. A big part of me is my sexuality, and they didn’t even get to it,” prep and Ewald Hall affiliate Rupert Ramsay said. “I thought the workshop was very good, and it did cover many aspects [of identity] well, but I just feel like there are quite a few members of the LGBTQ+ community in my dorm who, like me, were personally disappointed.”
By and large, students felt that the activities were a constructive effort to better the community. “It’s good to recognize all the way people identify themselves. It creates a community where there is more acceptance and awareness. It lets people express themselves, makes them feel safe,” lower and Amen Hall resident Avery Hastings said. “It just makes this community a better space, a safer space.”
Still, many noted that this was only the beginning, not the end. “I’d probably want something to follow up, or at least a way to make sure that students really did get the meaning of it... Just because you do [the activity] one time doesn't ensure there's going to be this one hundred percent success rate,” Romero said. “Exeter has this wokeness, but, at times, it can be artificial because we believe that we're all so conscious about so many things that we don’t need to take this time out of our schedules to get educated. We need to understand that we don’t know everything.”