Every human possesses a unique inner light, and our lives and communities are richer when a diversity of lights are allowed to shine. As such, we work to make our environment one in which all feel ownership and are valued, and we teach our students to understand and treasure multiple perspectives.
Strategic Action Plan for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Moses Brown
As a Friends school, Moses Brown’s mission is “to inspire the inner promise of each student and instill the utmost care for learning, people and place.” We believe in the dignity, worth and potential of each child. And our goal is to equip each rising generation to seek truth, care for others and protect the planet we call home.
This powerful purpose has motivated the school for 236 years, and in each successive era the school has tried to live up to the demands of this vision through constant self-assessment and growth. In this spirit, we ask: how should Moses Brown, a Friends school, respond to the legacy of bias, prejudice and discrimination in America? What role will we play in the national movement for equity and justice?
This is not an abstract concept for us. Every year, despite Moses Brown’s best efforts, students report incidents of racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, and other forms of bias and insensitivity that mar their sense of belonging in our community. As a Friends school, we promise to honor each child’s Inner Light, celebrate differences, and provide an environment where all feel valued, respected and supported. And yet for some, these values seem aspirational at best.
Over the past year, the Board, Administrative Council, and I have met with many constituency groups at the school to talk about concrete steps we might take to make MB a more diverse, equitable and inclusive community for all. From these conversations, bolstered by abundant research, we have developed this strategic action plan — a guide to the most immediate steps our community will take to help make MB a place where every person finds belonging and has equitable access to learn and thrive.
In 2021, our school community finds itself at a critical moment as we assess our past, present and future through a lens of inclusion and equity. I look forward to working with the entire community to ensure that caring for people remains absolutely integral to our Quaker model of educational excellence.
Matt Glendinning
April 2021
The full plan is available here, with more detail and nuance, but at a top-level, here are the goals we are setting for ourselves.
1. Ensure that we have the necessary leadership and resources.
Hire a new Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and establish an Office of Community and Equity to guide our progress. For existing leadership, including the Board of Trustees, implement regular DEI training and evaluate how we make decisions and how we hire and promote.
2. Uphold the health, safety, and dignity of each person in the community.
Adopt a school-wide Community Code and communicate our values and policies regularly and publicly. Establish processes for reporting and responding to incidents of identity-based bias, discrimination, and racism, and develop policies governing the teaching of texts that include the N-word or other offensive slurs.
3. Ensure that our community includes a vital diversity of identities, voices, and perspectives.
Establish appropriate systems for monitoring the demographic makeup of our community, ensuring that the school reflects the diversity of its surrounding area in terms of race, gender and socio-economic status. Implement anti-bias measures in our hiring and admissions/financial aid processes, including training for staff participants.
4. Grow the cultural competency of our community.
Require all faculty, staff, and coaches to undertake formal DEI training every two years, and audit curriculum and pedagogy for DEI and multicultural content. Bolster programming for students and parents focused on identity, power, privilege, bias, and social inequality.
5. Ensure all members of our community have equitable opportunity to contribute and thrive.
Address barriers to belonging in all areas of campus life, including the physical environment, admissions, HR practices, and clubs and extra-curriculars. Audit the real (total) costs of attending MB, and help families in need defray ancillary costs.
6. Build systems for evaluating programs, communicating progress, and enhancing decision making.
Develop new ways to measure diversity, equity, and inclusion at Moses Brown, create tools to help leadership track these DEI metrics, and communicate progress regularly to the broader community.
To see Moses Brown’s current work, please click here.
Moses Brown School is pleased to announce that Luke Anderson will become MB’s new Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, joining the MB community in August.
In an extensive national search, Luke distinguished himself as a compassionate and expert leader with the strategic planning and interpersonal skills needed to lead DEI work across the school. In his full-day campus visit, Luke shared insights and made meaningful connections with students, parents and employees alike. All were impressed with his thoughtful, collaborative approach, his dynamic energy and his authentic way of drawing people into conversations about our core values and practices.
“These talents make Luke a perfect fit to lead in this role,” says Matt Glendinning, Head of School. As MB’s Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Luke will report directly to Matt and will be a member of MB’s senior leadership team, the Administrative Council. He will work closely with MB’s established team of divisional and all-school Diversity Clerks and with Moses Brown’s Director of Friends Education and Director of Global Education and Social Innovation.
“As Luke joins MB, we want to affirm that working to make MB an inclusive school remains the shared responsibility of the entire community,” says Matt. “While Luke certainly will shape and lead our efforts, this is and will always be community work, and we look forward to the robust participation of all constituents as we strive to make MB a fully equitable place where all students, families and employees can thrive.”
Luke comes to MB from the Gordon School, where he leads DEI initiatives and teaches middle school humanities. Formerly, Luke taught English at Blackstone Academy Charter School and served as an English teacher and department chair at the North Lawndale College Prep High School in Chicago. Prior to that, he was a program director in the Chicago office of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship. Luke has authored and presented impressive work on teaching about the Black experience in America and on inner city youth support, training and college preparation, among other topics. Luke graduated from Germantown Friends School before completing a BA in English at the University of Pennsylvania and an MA in School Leadership from Northeastern Illinois University.
Thank you to the search team who led this process for MB: Yulie Lee and Gara Field (Co-Clerks), Adolphe Coulibaly, Emilia Peña-Disla, Elizabeth Grumbach, Chandra Harris, OJ Martí, Diane Silvestri and Erik Wilker.
We look forward to welcoming Luke into our community this summer and to the critical community work that lies ahead.