RE Log - Fall 2022

26 Ransom Everglades LOG FALL 2022 By Wendell Graham ’74 and Victoria Beatty ’00 It has been a year since we assumed our roles as Director of Inclusion and Community Engagement and DEI Consultant. Unquestionably, Ransom Everglades School is not yet where we want to be, but as John Newton once wrote, we are certainly not where we used to be. This has been a year of recovery and growth. As former members of the Anti-Racism Task Force, created during the incomparable summer of 2020, we used the task force’s recommendations to ground our endeavor. At the start of the school year, we had intentional discus- sions with administrators, faculty, trustees and students to identify our school’s immediate needs. The fall semester focused on recruitment and retention. In January’s Office of Inclusion and Community Engagement Report, we announced to the school’s board of trustees the expansion of RE feeder schools to attract more students of color in the local Miami communi- ty and the creation of the RE Teaching Fellowship program to assist in the recruit- ment of faculty of color. We established a student-monitoring and advising program to enable us to pro- vide immediate academic-support services to students in need. We initiated a free tutoring program for students receiving financial aid and established a Helping Hands Emergency Fund for students who need assistance in buying small items, such as textbooks. We hosted several “firsts,” such as the welcome reception for our Black families and a monthly get-to- gether for our faculty of color. We centered our work on addressing our community’s most immediate needs. The winter and spring were about transparency and community-building. We invited Jessica Lam to train our fac- ulty in LGBTQ+ issues. We worked with an RE data scientist to assess metrics of performance and inclusion of students of color. We commissioned Carney Sandoe to conduct a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats (SWOT) Analysis with the faculty and staff. We wrote an inclusion policy designed to provide a formal channel to quickly open an investigation if a member of our community has been the victim of any unfair act based on race, ethnic- ity, sexual orientation or some other protected status. Our community events were particularly notable. In conjunc- tion with the chair of the board of trustees, we hosted a recep- tion with the advancement office and the first alumni reception for Black RE alumni. We invited David Lawrence, former publisher of the Miami Herald and founder of the Children’s Trust, to speak to an all-school assembly; we worked with the Black Students Association to host Florida State Senator Shevrin Jones, who also spoke to students during a school From the Office of Inclusion and Community Engagement Looking Back to Propel Us Forward Victoria Beatty ’00 and Wendell Graham ’74 2022-23 RE Teaching Fellows Teagan Thompson and Kelley Frumer Brandon Jacobs presents SWOT analysis