Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Rising to the Challenge

At Thacher, we believe the right path forward is a collaborative one, where people of diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives come together to envision and enact a community where all members can thrive and realize their full potential. 

We challenge ourselves—on both an individual and institutional level—to remain dedicated to the pursuit of equity and justice. The adults in our community lead by example to foster in our students the desire to be courageous, empathetic, and engaged citizens of the world. We are committed to growth, and we will never stop doing the work. 

List of 7 items.

  • 1. Implement anti-racist and anti-bias education and accountability at all levels of the institution.

    In order to better serve our mission, Thacher has engaged several experts to support anti-racist and anti-bias education. We have also reallocated internal resources to support, implement, and extend this work.

    - Anacapa Scholar Dr. Gaye Theresa Johnson worked with faculty and the History Department to develop enhanced antiracist teaching pedagogy and practice. Dr. Johnson also facilitated a monthly series of professional development training sessions, shared a model of culturally responsive pedagogy through her sophomore Latin American History course, and continues to make herself available to Thacher faculty who are working on culturally responsive pedagogy and practice.
     
    - Thacher worked with Equity Meets Design, experts in applying a design thinking methodology combined with equity literacy practice to solving problems of inequity, to answer the question, “How do we do equity at Thacher?”

    - Globally-renowned restorative justice practitioner Amikaeyla Gaston facilitated relationship-building exercises with students and faculty, co-facilitated an affinity group leadership retreat, and worked with the community during her time as an Anacapa Scholar in the winter of 2021-2022.
     
    - With a focus on the harms experienced by members of our community, we are following a structured process of listening, sharing across differences, and pursuing collective and individual accountability and action.
     
    - Affinity groups for parents have been created to provide support for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ families. (See details in the sidebar.)
     
    - In addition to our existing affinity groups, in 2020-2021 students created the Students with Disabilities Union.

    - The DEI office, in partnership with Thacher adult and student affinity and ally groups, has sponsored workshops for students: 
    The DEI office has sponsored talks by the following speakers:
    - The DEI office has hosted numerous Zoom conversations with various constituent groups, including: 
    • Listening sessions for alums-of-color
    • Allyship sessions for white alums
    • Parent-of-color calls
    - The School encourages and supports student and faculty attendance at conferences, including:
    - We have refocused our dorm programming to place more emphasis on DEI matters and to make increased use of experienced facilitators to help our students develop their equity literacy competencies.

    - The Program Committee of the Thacher Board of Trustees created its own DEI development and growth plan and worked with Dr. Derrick Gay to develop their DEI framework and practices and supporting them in their critical role as stewards of the School.

  • 2. Hire additional BIPOC faculty and increase their representation in leadership roles at Thacher.

    By adopting new approaches to recruiting exceptional, diverse talent, Thacher is making progress toward the goal of an administration, faculty, and staff that reflect the diversity of our students.
    • We have partnered with Strategenius and its founder, Orpheus Crutchfield, to collaborate in auditing all aspects of recruitment, hiring, support, and retention, with a focus on BIPOC candidates.
    • Between 2019 and 2021, 63 percent of our full-time faculty hires (10 out of 16) self-identified as people of color and/or LGBTQ+.
    • Strategenius led Thacher’s national search for a director of student life (dean of students).
    • Faculty professional development work has focused on reorienting our culture by engaging our anti-racist/anti-oppression work through a lens of cultural humility to better foster empathy and connections across differences.

  • 3. Hire a therapist of color who specializes in issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

    Thacher's first-ever Director of Counseling and Wellness, Dr. Kendrea Hart, will begin in the summer of 2023. 
    The School has also increased the breadth and the depth of the counselors we make available to students. Their backgrounds and areas of specialization now better reflect the diversity of our community.
    • In continuous support of our students and their well-being, we offer online counseling at no cost, both remotely and on campus.
    • These resources have also been made available to our faculty.

  • 4. Create a multicultural resource center on campus.

    In the fall of 2021, Thacher's Multicultural Center officially opened its doors to the community. This space is designed to serve as a space to foster understanding, respect, and solidarity across differences, to collaborate on curricular or co-curricular projects and endeavors, and to connect informally with each other. The space will also host meetings for affinity, ally, and other student organizations, as well as film screenings, dialogue sessions, and lectures centered on equity and inclusion.

  • 5. Engage an external DEI consultant to provide a full audit of our institutional policies and practices, as well as conduct a complete inventory of our curriculum.

    With the goals of intentionally and actively identifying and uprooting biases and opposing racism and other forms of oppression, the School partnered with Equity Meets Design to ensure that our policies, practices, courses, and co-curricular programming are equitable, inclusive, and reflect the diversity of the lived experience of our student body. 
    • Equity Meets Design worked with the NAIS Assessment of Inclusivity and Multiculturalism (AIM) survey in addition to other assessment tools in guiding our curriculum redesign process.
    • Math and Science departments spent the summer of 2020 redesigning their curriculum through DEI lenses. English has been redesigning its curriculum for the past three years. This article covers some of the curricular changes.
    • Our student Unity Council consists of representatives from each affinity and ally group. UC focuses on coalition building, fostering equity and inclusion, and taking leadership in the design and planning of heritage months and other events.

  • 6. Assemble a DEI Task Force to guide our ongoing work and to hold the School accountable.

    The School has administered the Assessment of Inclusivity and Multiculturalism (AIM) survey. Based on its results, representatives of all School constituencies will work in close partnership to develop the School’s long-term DEI strategy.

  • 7. Never stop doing the work.

    We recognize that the work of manifesting our values throughout School life is constant and continual work; the administration, board, faculty, and staff are committed to this perpetual project.

Affinity, Alliance, and Interest Groups

As in so many areas of Thacher life, the School works to provide students with tools and opportunities to become empathetic and courageous leaders and inclusive community members. In this way, our students, the organizations they run, and the adults who support them play an important role in our diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, and we offer a variety of options for engagement in this work. (The descriptions that follow are based on each group’s mission statement.)

List of 12 items.

  • Black Student Union (BSU)

    BSU offers a safe space for all of Thacher's Black students, where they may discuss racial issues, globally and within Thacher. It also offers a casual place for members to get to know each other and hang out.

  • First in Family

    This group provides a space for students who are totally new to the boarding school world to talk about their experiences and hear from older students about how to find success at Thacher.

  • Jewish Student Union

    JSU provides a space to support Jewish students on campus and offer activities open to the community to learn about the Jewish faith.

  • Latinos Unidos (LU)

    Latinos Unidos is an organization that works to create a comfortable space for Latinos of all backgrounds as well as to educate the Thacher community by celebrating and affirming Latino culture.

  • Multi-ethnic Student Association (MESA)

    MESA provides a space of community for students of multi-ethnic, multi-racial, or multi-cultural backgrounds so that they may be able to celebrate and engage with all aspects of their beautiful coexisting identities.

  • Spectrum (LGBTQ+)

    Spectrum operates at two levels. A confidential group provides support, solidarity, and a safe space for those student who identify as LGBTQ. "Spectrum for all" exists to educate the community and create opportunities for allies to stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ community.

  • Student Disability Union (SDU)

    SDU educates and advocates for those with disabilities at Thacher and the greater world. Members also hold confidential meetings for mutual support.

  • Thacher Asian Student Society (TASS)

    TASS aims to create a safe, inclusive space for the wide range of identities under the terms Asian and Asian American to celebrate Asian and Asian American cultures, discuss current issues, foster allyship with other affinity groups, and educate the Thacher community.

  • The Association of White Anti-Racist Educators (AWARE)

    This is a group for white faculty and staff who are interested in educating themselves and taking action as allies in the effort to understand and dismantle racism.

  • Unity Council

    The Thacher Unity Council consists of student reps from all our affinity and ally groups working together to highlight the intersections of our identities and to model allyship across difference. 

  • White Students Against Racism

    This is a group for white students who are interested in educating themselves and taking action as allies in the effort to understand and disrupt systemic racism.

  • Parent Affinity Groups

    Asian Parent Affinity Group
    Black Parent Affinity Group
    Latinx Parent Affinity Group
    Jewish Parent Affinity Group
Thacher’s mission calls us to practice the art of living for the greatest good. To do so we must learn to listen deeply, to hear what our community—what our world—is asking of us, and to take action. That is the work in front of us.

List of 2 members.

  • Photo of Sepideah Mohsenian-Rahman

    Sepideah Mohsenian-Rahman 

    Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; Counselor
    Bio
  • Photo of Christian Garris

    Christian Garris 

    Associate Director of Admission, Associate Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
    Bio

DEI News

A college preparatory, coed boarding school for grades 9-12
The Thacher School
5025 Thacher Road
Ojai, California, 93023

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