Concord Academy’s Community and Equity Office works in support of the school’s mission of striving for equity, honoring each individual, and cultivating empathy, integrity, and responsibility to build a more just and sustainable future.

 

CA’s appreciation of the vibrant array of individuals and the variety of cultures that contribute to life on campus is rooted in the knowledge that diversity doesn’t arise from one sector of the population. Rather, diversity at CA is a picture of the whole, a reflection of the complexity and richness that result when students and adults come together, carrying stories of their individual origins, cultures, and backgrounds, and testing out their own unique identities through the contrasts and commonalities that they recognize between themselves and the larger school community.

Imani Perry ’90, a professor at Princeton’s Center for African American Studies, speaking with CA students.

“The pursuit of prioritizing diversity as central to the core of any institution evolves around honoring human perspective, lived experiences, and expectations. The most important of those perspectives is that of our students.”

– Grant Hightower P’26,
Assistant Head for Student Life

Our Work

During the academic year, the Community and Equity (C&E) team plans a series of monthly programs that take place during the school day and involve the entire school community in presentations and discussions. These events and conversations bring students, faculty, and staff together to examine identity, build community, challenge inequity, and support social justice activism.

The C&E team seeks to bolster the efforts of CA’s Admissions Office, as well as the dean of faculty, to reach out to groups underrepresented within the school’s student and adult populations, and to communicate to prospective members of the school community the high value CA places on multiculturalism.

The Community and Equity team provides support to the school’s many affinity groups, cultural clubs, and social justice organizations, which gather weekly to nurture students and adults, provide comfortable settings for exploring a shared culture, and educate the larger community about political causes.

Concord Academy students in an MLK Day student-led workshop.

The C&E team engages faculty and staff in exploring the roles they play in building an inclusive and equitable learning setting for CA students and in presenting a multicultural curriculum.

 

The Community and Equity Team

The Community and Equity team at CA brings together several classroom teachers, each of whom draws inspiration and understanding from the energy of the school’s dynamic academic environment and from committed teacher, student, and collegial relationships within the school. The team works in close cooperation with the dean of students and community life and with two students elected by their peers to serve as co-heads of diversity. Soliciting broad input and involvement, the C&E team collaborates with the larger school community to shepherd and advance CA’s diversity ideals.

Alex Holmes

Co-Director of Community and Equity

Vicky Orozco

Co-Director of Community and Equity

Topi Dasgupta P’22 ’25

Co-Lead of the C&E Cohort Program

Courtney Fields-Thomas

C&E Team Member