New Initiatives

The Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) will be piloting our “For All” initiative that will anchor our DEI efforts in the 2020-21 school year. The purpose of this initiative is to invite community members of St. Joseph’s Preparatory School to investigate their understanding of what it means to be “with and for others” and ask us to reimagine this phrase in our efforts to become “with and for all.”
Student Facing Programming

Men For All Advisory Meetings
Our Men For All Advisory Series will ask students to engage a faith-based diversity, equity, and inclusion seminars examining issues of bias, power, privilege, and oppression across several identifying categories. Sessions will be co-moderated by students and teachers alike and take place in person or in a virtual format to accommodate the various options that COVID-19 may pose. In our pilot year, we will be executing a hybrid program that utilizes affinity groups within a larger integrated group of students and faculty. This will ensure that each student is being exposed to the same educational resources and context within each discussion, while also providing space for smaller reflection for people of similar identities. “For All’s” scope and sequence will be guided by the recent events concerning police brutality and the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Auberry, and Rayshard Brooks and multiple others since the start of this pandemic and prior to it. Subsequent discussions and initiatives will also be guided by the data from the 2019-2020 DEI end of year report. This series will take place once a month and will be led by members of our “For All” student committee. Each advisory discussion will be scaled developmentally by grade level, to ensure our young men are finding their own voice, vocabulary, and journey towards allyship.

For All

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Professional Development Series

Taking a similar approach as our student-facing initiative, the “For All DEI Professional Development Series” will welcome staff members to engage in programming centering around issues of bias, power, privilege, and oppression and analyze how these concepts manifest in society and within the Prep. In our first year, we will engage in a series of 5-9 sessions focused on examining racism on the institutional, interpersonal, and internalized levels. In subsequent years our sessions will cover additional topics concerning diversity, equity, and inclusion, using an intersectional lens that allows for a more comprehensive dialogue to discuss the interconnectedness of all forms of oppression. Our series will be guided by scholarly texts, scripture, media resources, and guest speakers. A DEI council will be formed over the summer to ensure that multiple voices from our community are guiding our programming. The mandate for this series will be guided by the administration, but it is strongly recommended that 100% of our employees engage in this work in order to ensure we are shifting culture for the better of all our students and staff. When reading “The Profile of an Ignatian Employee” several of the standards across three specific categories speak to the need of making this work mandatory.

Open to Growth
  • I am flexible and open to other points of view and recognize how much I can learn from listening to peers and significant others
  • I can recognize my own biases limitations and thinking patterns.
  • I seek new experiences, even when those that involve some risk or the possibility of failure.
Religious
  • I work to sustain my Christian conscience, evaluating moral choices, and reasoning through moral issues with increasing clarity.
  • I recognize that sin affects the entire human community.
Loving
  • I work against personal prejudices and stereotypes; am open to and able to communicate with others, especially persons of another race, gender, religion, nationality, socio-economic backgrounds, or sexual orientation.
  • I model appropriate respect and attitude to colleagues of the opposite gender.
  • I make the effort to understand and be empathetic with others.
  • I have an appreciation of and defend the value of human life.
Committed to Doing Justice
  • I am growing in awareness of my own selfish attitudes and tendencies which lead one to treat others unjustly and I am consciously seeking to be more understanding, accepting, and generous with others.
  • I understand that the Christian faith implies a commitment to a just society.
  • I am aware of the global nature of many social problems such as human rights, population, displacement, resource distribution. war/terrorism, etc., and their impact on human communities.
  • I work to understand the structural roots of injustice in social institutions, attitudes, and customs.
  • I am gaining, through experiences of and reflection on Christian service, an understanding of solidarity with marginalized members of society.
  • I am able to develop, from reflection on experiences with the marginalized, a sense of compassion, and an understanding of those social changes which will assist all in attaining their basic human rights.
  • I understand the justice implications inherent in Christ’s commandment to love one another.
  • I work to understand the complexity of social issues and the need for critical reading of diverse sources of information about them.
Our commitment to becoming an inclusive community for all stakeholders will fall short if we do not live up to these tenets. We cannot promote ourselves as an institution dedicated to social justice and serving others if our community members do not understand the importance of engaging in this work.

Alumni for Allyship Initiative

Alumni for Allyship will be a diversity speaker series that invites white alumni of the SJP community to take a proactive approach in their efforts to become allies for social justice issues. Guided by the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and with the support of white alumni and alumni of color, Alumni for Allyship will be an avenue for white alumni to engage in social justice work in a safe environment. This series will include volunteer-based social justice advocates who are alumni of the Prep or who work in Philadelphia. A similar council will be formed over the summer to curate the curriculum of the series.

For All-Parent Initiative

Finally, our Parents for Solidarity Initiative will be a space where parents of the Prep can come once a month to engage in a dialogue that is aligned with our “For All” student initiatives. Parents will be exposed to similar resources and conversations as our young men and voluntarily come to improve their fluency in issues of diversity equity and inclusion. While this will be an optional space, we encourage all of our families to engage in this programming so that we may support our young men in this dialogue on all fronts.

Additional Projects and Proposals
In collaboration with various departments the Director will continue to support St. Joseph’s Prep’s hiring efforts. Additionally, the director will support student programming to establish an inclusive culture for all stakeholders; including service trips, Kairos, athletic culture development, and curricular resources when invited. It is advised that the Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion increase participation in Leadership Team meetings with the Principal and President to ensure a DEI lens is applied to all Prep programming.
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