Karry Kim ‘25
Walking through the center, many returning students would have wondered what had happened to the senior study room. Replacing the round tables along the multiple chairs, a big office desk now sits in the middle with one round table left in the corner.
Long story short, this is the new C&E office! C&E stands for “community and equity” and this department serves to protect and promote its name in St. Mark’s. The C&E department supports the Pathways programs, such as the affinity groups and many other projects: developing an Antiracist Task Force and creating antiracist course curriculums.
Many of you are probably wondering why the C&E office was put in the center instead of the usual row of offices on the second floor of the dining hall. Although the C&E office exists to serve all students, I assume many students probably didn't even know that the C&E office was located there, since this office area is not the usual destination for students. This is the exact problem that the relocation of the C&E office intended to target. The Director of Community and Equity Affairs, Ms. Jones, explained that the main initiative of the C&E office this year is to more actively interact with the students and increase the accessibility of their services. Placing the new C&E office in the center is intended to increase the physical accessibility of the C&E faculty. The big windows allow students to look inside the office to see if the C&E faculties are inside whenever they feel the need to chat about their experiences with community and equity at St. Mark’s.
Aside from the relocation of its office, the theme for the C&E department this year is “back to basics”. This theme is intended to build the base community of St. Mark’s again, so that we can proceed on touching heavier topics in the future.
The C&E office will utilize an online platform for whole-school discussions. Topics for these discussions will start as light topics such as, “What’s better? Dogs or cats?”, and change weekly or biweekly. QR codes to this online platform will be posted all over campus, inviting all students to participate. This project will initiate discussions as a whole school and foster an environment where students and faculty recognize that different opinions can coexist at St. Mark’s. As well as online discussions, the department will host in-person community discussions in the center as well.
This year, St. Mark’s welcomes two new C&E faculty members, Ms. Jones, and Mr. DaSilva. Ms. Jones, whom she calls herself, “The Equity Person”, has previously worked in the health equity office at Hartford healthcare, where she interacted with young girls over a period of time, which led her to realize the immense effects that equity in education holds for the future of young adults. This realization led to her new job at St. Mark’s. Mr. DaSilva has previously worked as a History teacher for 20 years and worked in the office for international students in another boarding school. Mr. DaSilva hopes to apply skills he has gained from his various experiences serving in these roles to his new job at St. Mark’s.
Ms. Jones and Mr. DaSilva are looking forward to getting to know the St. Mark’s C&E system and to put together more ideas for whole school events. If anyone has any suggestions for these events, they can reach out to Mr. DaSilva or Ms. Jones to make them possible!
