Our Wildwood, Volume 48

Exploring the Double

Edged Sword of Diversity Examining Connections

“This year is an opportunity to connect back with the emotions and feelings that we have experienced and will experience these next few years,” said Associate Head of School Christina Kyong. “Our students especially need the tools to ‘navigate’ from a time of uncertainty and fogginess to a time of certainty and clarity, and as the leaders, mentors, and adults in their lives, we all have an important role to play in facilitating this.”

Between DEIB and Global Citizenship

COULD PEOPLE’S DIFFERING PERCEPTIONS OF THE word “diversity” be the very thing that undermines collective efforts to advance it? That’s the question that diversity and inclusion expert Dr. Derrick Gay raised to Wildwood faculty and staff as part of his presentation, “The Intersection of DEIB and Global Citizenship.” A highly sought-after DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging) consultant, Dr. Gay’s work has been featured in the New York Times , The Washington Post , El Tiempo Latino , NPR, 60 Minutes , and others. He has also produced two TEDx Talks that explore the challenges around the word diversity and the nature of racial discourse. “How many people feel personally connected to the word ‘diversity’?” Dr. Gay asked Wildwood faculty and staff as they gathered for Intro Week, prior to the start of the 2022-2023 school year. When few attendees raised their hands, Dr. Gay’s reasoned this was because “diversity” has too often been misconstrued to refer to an identity—a “thing” that describes what someone is, rather than a goal to aspire to. “When defined this way, ‘diversity’ is something that one group of people inherently is, and another group inherently is not,” Dr. Gay continued. “The result is two

Dr. Marc Brackett with Associate Head of School Christina Kyong

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OWW WINTER 2023

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