Following the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd and the subsequent protests and calls for social justice around our country, Father Dunnan sent several emails to the Saint James community condemning the acts and standing by our students, alumni, and families of color. 

The School also responded to a Change.org petition that was signed by ten of our young alumni regarding equity and equality on campus which challenged Saint James to take a hard look at how issues of race, gender, and socioeconomic status play a role in our community. An Instagram account was also started as a means to share hurtful stories, and we are listening and learning from those experiences, and we apologize for pain and injustice experienced on our campus.

To begin the work of addressing diversity, equity, and equality on campus, three committees have been formed:

Faculty & Administrative Committee: Marc Batson, the Assistant Headmaster, has formed a faculty and administrative committee to review our diversity policies and curriculum internally. 

Student Committee: Steve Lachut, the Dean of Students, is in the process of forming a student committee to advise him once students return to campus.

Alumni Committee: Melanie Regan, the Assistant Director of Fine Arts who is also an alumna of the class of 2000, is leading a committee of diversity alumni, to share thoughts and experiences, provide recommendations, and converse with the faculty committee. 

They will all be reporting to the wider community as their work progresses. They were asked to review four areas: 

Regathering:  How can we best regather as a school in the fall acknowledging what has happened during our absence and making sure that we treat each other with mutual respect, deeper empathy, and greater understanding?  This will take advantage of the changes in our schedule caused by our need to gather in smaller groups and with more time on campus.

Student Support: How can we develop our Student Life Office and  Programs to encourage mutually supportive conversations and interactions between students and between students and faculty, and how can we better provide the adult and peer support our students need to seek help when they are feeling excluded, demeaned, humiliated, or attacked?

Policies:  How can our counseling and disciplinary policies better enforce our expectations for polite and mutually respectful behavior between students, between students and faculty, and between our students and members of the outside community?

Curriculum:  How can our curriculum, both academic and extracurricular, better provide for diverse voices and perspectives, enhancing the overall education of our students?

Updates from the faculty and administrative committee include instruction from Mr. Batson to department chairs to review their curriculum and the addition of an interpersonal conduct policy to the student handbook.  Mr. Batson is also working on a diversity statement, which will be submitted to the Board for approval in October. 

An anti-racism/diversity workshop, which includes three 3-hour sessions, has also been added to the schedule when the faculty return for meetings prior to the start of school.  The workshop will be led by The Rev. Christine L. McCloud, Canon for Mission with the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland. 

The alumni committee had its first official meeting on July 15 and Mrs. Regan also had many individual conversations as well as several Zoom calls with the petition panel prior to that meeting.
In addition to Mrs. Regan ’00, the alumni committee consists of: Jordan Walendom ’19, Aimée Mehala ’18, Kofi Agyeman ’17, Leanne Ludwick ’16, Winnie Chang ’15, Grace Fulton ’15, Nicole Jenkinson ’14, Ayoi Yang ’14, Akin Walker ’06, Julian Smith ’06, Lara Ninnes ’99, Sarah Gaba ’99, Tammy (Hall) Martinez ’98, Dan King ’98, and Jason Ottley ’98. 

The committee is still a work in progress as members of our community reach out to us or as we identify and contact others who we feel would be an asset in this process. Mrs. Regan would like for the committee to meet several more times this summer and then present to the faculty committee at the end of August. 

The ultimate goal in this work is to reflect and embrace the opportunity to improve our School while still maintaining our commitment to the School’s enduring mission of building leaders for good in the world.