February is a big month at school. It signals the start of the second semester and the start of what we expect will be a lively conversation about how we address and embrace differences at Milton Academy. I hope you will be able join us next Tuesday night at the Fitzgibbons Convocation Center for a symposium of scholars from M.I.T., who will discuss race from their academic perspectives (history, anthropology, biology, political science, urban studies and planning). The event is required for Upper School students and faculty, and you are welcome and encouraged to join us.

To prepare, Upper School students have viewed and discussed the film series Race, the Power of an Illusion, funded by the Ford Foundation and PBS’s Diversity Fund. Our visiting scholars will include their reactions to the film as part of their discussion. If you would like to see the film, you may do so on either Wednesday, January 28 or Tuesday, February 3 at 4:30 p.m.; both showings will be in Greeley Auditorium, in the basement of the science center. Details are posted online, and you should have received last week a printed invitation to the event. Give us a call if you have questions or need additional information. If distance or schedule prohibits your participation, I encourage you to talk with your child about the film and the discussion.
This panel discussion is part of a larger and ongoing effort to work with our students and faculty on questions of difference and on what it means to live our mission as it guides us to embrace diversity.

This work is never done. The problems and opportunities of difference at Milton and in our society are not new. We must be constantly attentive to the questions we raise in these discussions; difference always causes a rub, and that rub can challenge and change and enliven and connect us, or it can come between us as an obstacle, an impediment to connecting. Connecting takes work, and it is the right work for us to undertake.

At Milton, we embrace diversity, and we believe that our differences are positive and connect us rather than separate us.

A partial list of our work in this area in the last year includes:
Lani Guinier spoke with our faculty last spring, about people of color in independent schools as a kind of “coal miner’s canary,” the health of which tells us important things about the health of the environment for everyone, not just for the canary.

Students led an open forum discussion about race at Milton.

Community Relations assemblies have focused on the biological and social implications of race, as discussed in the film I mentioned above.

Cultural Sharing exercises were part of orientation for all new Upper School students.
Faculty Professional Day discussions last year focused on respect and socio-economic differences, and this year on gender differences.

Last year we engaged in a lengthy and thoughtful discussion of religion and ethics and the future of the chapel program at Milton. The culmination of that discussion was the decision to hire an Interfaith Chaplain for the Academy, and we are pleased to be joined this year by Ed Snow, who takes on that role and will lead us in a larger exploration of the impact of religious attitudes and differences on our experience at Milton and in the world.

The Class of 1952 has endowed a lecture series on religious pluralism, which last year brought us Jim Carroll to talk about reconciliation between Jews and Catholics, and this year brought us Rabbi Rolando Matalon to talk about the dangers of religious triumphalism - that notion that “my way is the Right Way, and that means your way is the Wrong Way and must be eradicated” - and the positive possibilities of religious pluralism and interfaith connection. James Carroll put the impulse to triumph over others in terms you may recognize from Saturday Night Live: “I’m Chevy Chase and you’re not.” That is, I define myself in the positive and you in the negative. He exhorted us to think beyond those narrow definitions.

Sadly, we have had to respond and will continue to have to respond in assembly and in discussion to incidents that are insensitive, whether racist, anti-Semitic, sexist, or homophobic. We will affirm, consistently and clearly, that that kind of behavior does not belong at Milton, and we will support students and faculty who are wronged by it. The conversations that have followed these incidents in the past have been encouraging.

We’ve enjoyed a tremendous series of assemblies and chapel programs led by student affinity groups like Onyx, the Latino Association, the Asian Society, GASP (Gay and Straight People). Two weeks ago, Onyx led an extraordinary Sunday night Chapel program for boarding students. We look forward to a Jewish Student Union assembly in February.

In just the last month of school, we have been privileged to hear talks by Zadie Smith (Bingham reader), Anchee Min (Hong Kong speaker) and Ambassador Charles Stith (Martin Luther King lecturer). And last week we hosted musicians from the Music Academy of Gauteng in South Africa, whose music and spirit had a powerful impact on our community.

All of this is good work, and we embrace the unfinished work ahead, the ongoing challenge of fulfilling our highest ideals.