Widening the Lens 2022

The Far Brook School Diversity Conference

WELCOME! We are excited to announce that the seventh annual Widening the Lens Far Brook School Diversity Conference, will be held on Saturday, November 12, 2022 at Far Brook! This year, our Widening the Lens conference topic is equity. On November 12 we will come together to examine how we deliver on this promise made so often in our diversity and mission statements, our job titles, slogans, and communications. How do we ensure access, remove barriers, and bring the promise of equity to fruition? And how do we measure progress towards these goals? This year’s conference title, Defining, Designing, and Delivering Equity in Independent Schools challenges us to assess, collaborate, and stretch to achieve these ideals we share.

Widening the Lens provides an opportunity for attendees to gain inspiration from industry experts, engage with colleagues and peers, and, importantly, to take action. We look forward to a day of authentic dialogue and collaboration as we work to become more inclusive, and to nurture informed, engaged, and empowered leaders of tomorrow.

Conference Structure

The unique structure of this conference follows the format of the Dalton School Diversity Conference (NYC), designed by Pollyanna Inc., a nonprofit devoted to increasing racial understanding. We invite schools to register a “pod” of individuals who will work together to advance the diversity and inclusion goals of their school. Each school pod consists of the Head of School, and two participants from each of seven constituencies:

  • Administrators
  • Alumni
  • Diversity Practitioners
  • Parents
  • Students
  • Teachers
  • Trustees

Powerful learning and growth happen when we bring together this cross-section of voices and perspectives that exist within our own communities, and when we share our challenges, experiences, and best practices with colleagues from peer schools.

Keynote Speaker – Paul Gorski

We are pleased to welcome Paul Gorski as our keynote speaker. Paul has been a leader in researching, writing, and teaching about equity at the university level and in the independent school community for many years. He is an equity and justice educator, consultant, writer, and, notably, the founder of the Equity Literacy Institute and EdChange. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to learn from his extensive experience and leadership on the topic of equity in education and know he will inspire robust and fruitful dialogue in our morning constituent breakout groups.

Paul has 25 years of experience helping educators, nonprofit workers, and others strengthen their equity efforts. He has worked with educators in 48 states and a dozen countries. He also is the research director of the Equity Literacy Institute, conducting and collaborating on research and other scholarship related to maximizing the transformative potential of equity efforts. Paul has published more than 70 articles and has written, co-written, or co-edited twelve books on various aspects of educational equity including Reaching and Teaching Students in Poverty: Strategies for Erasing the Opportunity Gap and Case Studies on Diversity and Social Justice Education (with Seema Pothini). Paul spent nine years on the board of directors of the National Association for Multicultural Education and five years on the board of the International Association for Intercultural Education. He earned a PhD in Educational Evaluation at the University of Virginia. He was a teacher educator at several universities for 15 years. He is also a father, a published poet, a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and the biggest fan of Buster, his cat.

 

THANK YOU


With deepest gratitude for our ongoing partnership, we thank:

  • Pollyanna, Inc. for creating the unique conference format and for continued guidance.

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