GSA Cornerstone Conversation

Hello everyone, thank you so much for joining us tonight. We are super excited to have you join us tonight for our Gender sexuality alliance at Lawrenceville. Discover Elville information session. So First things first. My name is Mrs. Ding and I work in the admissions office and just to put my mind at ease.

If you all could just put into the chat that you can hear us, that would make me way less anxious. So anyone willing and able to just throw it in the chat that you can hear me talking and I just explained it to the panelists that well on this. My husband always makes fun of me and says I use a Vanna White voice where I sound super duper fake. Oh wonderful. OK, you guys can hear us. And then my second super fun game while we wait for registrants to roll in is, can you guys put in the chat where you're from? I like to deem a winner.

In terms of who is calling in from the furthest so.

Anyone willing and able to throw in their location that would be fabulous PA neighbors over the river will take it.

Alrighty, OK, so everyone can hear us and we are ready to go so.

I'm going to Baltimore. Even better, I love it. So we tonight what we're going to do is I'm going to will start by doing some introduction, so I'll introduce myself then. Our panelists will go. They're going to talk about who they are, why they're here, why they picked Lawrenceville. Uhm, maybe they'll even throw in why you should pick Lawrenceville and so.

After we do our introductions, we're going to kind of get into what I call the meat of the entire session, and we're going to talk about GSA at Lawrenceville. We're going to talk about its history, what it's doing today, how it works with our greater school community, and what it means to all the folks here on the panel. So here is my official friendly reminder and plug that this info session is specific to GSA and what I can do here is I will just straight.

Up right from the start, put my email address right there in the chat, so if you have any questions not related to GSA, it perhaps about you know our squash coach, or taking English electives, or you know what is our fall musical for next year, throw those in an email, send them right away to me and I will figure out those answers. But tonight I really want to focus on our fabulous panelists here and the.

Work they do with GSA so.

Now that I've done that, we will move right along into the intros and I will go super fast and then hopefully you won't hear from much from me for the rest of the evening, but my name is Mrs Ding. If you have been attending any of the other, discover Elville info sessions, you've probably seen my face before. You've probably heard this intro for before, but for anyone that hasn't been here I am going to throw out some details of me right now, and so I work in the admissions office. I'm the director.

Associate director of admissions. But I'm the director of admissions communication, so that's how I get to be here in front of you all. Planning these online information sessions. I also do our social media so shameless plug. Please go follow at LL admission. It's a super fun account that I have way too much freedom to like. Post pictures of peoples, dogs and hopes that you'll like Lawrenceville that much better. In addition to that, I Coach, Field hockey and lacrosse, and I get to.

My favorite part is I get to be an assistant head of house in the Kirby House, which I think might get refuted here, but it is obviously the best house on campus. It's 10th and 11th grade girls, so I live here with my family. I have a 3 1/2 year old a 1 1/2 year old and a dog that's currently snoring right next to my computer, so hopefully she does that the whole time and there's no barking that happens, but I guess we're all pretty.

Used to dogs interrupting.

On line sessions, so that's me. Super happy you all are here and now I'm going to hand it over to Doctor Jacobs to start the intro of our panelists.

Thank you so much. So my name is Doctor Jacobs. This is my 13th year at Lawrenceville. I teach French here. I'm also the chair of the language department. I'm a head of house for McPherson, which is one of our fifth form girls houses and I am the faculty advisor to the GSA. I live here on campus with my husband and my 10 year old twins. I have boy girl, twins.

Uhm, and our cat and what else? I think that that's pretty good and I will pass it on to coach wise.

Hello I'm coach wise I'm I'm one of the strengthening coaches here. I'm also diversity coordinator in the Office of Multicultural Affairs.

I teach and design our personal development seminar, which is our health class for second form and third form students. I am the head of House of Upper House which is fifth form boys, so I get to live with.

With Phillips, who you hear from shortly.

And I live here with my wife and our soon to be 3 year old and our very large pit bull.

So I'm going to hand it over to it.

Thanks coach wise. I'm trying everything on this list. I hope I don't mess it up up so high. I'm wit I'm in the fifth form. Live in the upper house with the wonderful coach Wise. I also had the pleasure of doing strength and conditioning with her. She my body hurts so much all the time.

So much fun.

I came to Lawrenceville senior sophomore.

Not searching for a just say if we're being totally honest. I was searching for a science program. I don't know if you guys heard about the Ocean Scholars program, but that was my main draw to Lawrenceville, so I've been doing that after school. In addition to coach Wise is exercise routines and as far as club affiliation I and he's like whatever executive videographer for L10I. I also and the editor in Chief of Spectrum I.

Which I'm going to.

I think those are my two main roles.

Yeah.

God.

Where I'm gonna interrupt you one quick second and this was something I forgot to tell everyone, but there's something fabulous about Lawrenceville, and it's how we have essentially our own language. And so when we're talking about.

Oh my gosh, yeah, I'm so sorry.

Yes.

The forms that scholars are programs, all the things we have to remember that we need to follow it up with explaining what it is, and that's on me because I forgot to remind people.

No, no, it's totally OK. I forgot that you got. Yeah, you're totally right. So Hutch and scholars. I guess I'll rewind so the hutch and scholars is I said after school. I really should have said over the summer. So that's a program actually. It's sort of more of a collection of programs focused on the science is so you can apply for the Russian scholars program and your sophomore year. And it runs for the remainder of years at Lawrenceville. My specific program worked.

On genetic design at Stanford, although Rebecca can totally tell you more about the Jefferson Scholarship, so there are many opportunities to collaborate with different universities and pursue different fields within science. But that's Hutchins Ann.

Alton

What else did I mention that made no sense? There are probably a bunch of things. Fifth form, I'm a senior.

And as our video production group on campus. So if you've seen our videos on YouTube where basically the student News Group point a camera at everything that moves here and spectrum is an affiliate publication of the GSA. So we.

Every term will publish a magazine for students who can't necessarily engage or anybody honestly on campus who wants to read about queer issues on campus and in the world. So that's me. I think I've hit almost everything, and I'm sorry if I was a bit jarring for any of you guys who didn't get the lingo, but.

Thanks for coming.

Jamie, why don't you go next?

OK sounds good uhm. Hi my name is Jamie Nicholson. I am from Connecticut. I'm in the fifth form as well, so I'm a senior and I currently live in Reynolds and it is a bit loud here sometimes. So if you hear people in the background screeching, I promise they're not dying. They're just having fun.

But I used to live in Carter, which is, I think, the best house on campus. I'm a border and I entered Lawrenceville as a freshman. I actually really thought I wasn't going to choose Lawrenceville because my sister went here and I was like I need to be away from my family. And then I fell in love with it on revisit day. The people were probably the biggest draw for me. Everyone just seemed to love it here and everyone was really nice as well. So that's why I came here. Come my afternoon Cocurricular right now is.

Yoga. I've never done yoga before. I would consider myself to not be very flexible, so that's been an interesting journey for me. I'm also feeling a little bit sore, but probably not as much as what is it.

OK, and then club involvement. I am the President of hairy leg which is our theatre club on campus so I am the head of the musical I stage managed the musical this past year was the Addams Family. It was a ton of fun. I I am the senior vice president of the GSA and I run splash which is our school wide water gun fight I guess is the best way to describe it. I also do parent ads for.

Our yearbook so I get to see all the seniors baby pictures which is so much fun. I have so much.

Dirt on people and then I'm also a peer tutor. And then there are some other things that I'm sure I'm forgetting. Oh, I'm president of programming club. That's like I love programming. How could I forget that? Jesus? OK, sorry.

Awkward to Rebecca.

Hi everyone, I'm Rebecca chow. I'm in the fifth form which means I'm a senior. I'm from Newton MA, which is right next to Boston and I used to be in the Stevens House. I'm wearing my Steven sweatshirt right now that you can't see it. And now I'm in McPherson so Dr Jacobs is my head of house and also my advise there. I'm a border so if you hear people in the background, that's why they'll probably be people chatting in the hall at some point. And I entered Lawrenceville as a freshman. I just learn spill because.

My sister went here. She's two years older than me and my dad and my aunt also went here. So I grew up hearing everything about this school. Grew up hearing the Lawrenceville stories collection. If you haven't seen it or read it, they're amazing. They're really funny and I feel like they're kind of a heart of Lawrenceville. But I also got to hear directly from my sister more recent things, like just how people in the House interacted. She was in Stevens as well, so I got to hear beforehand all of the traditions that we have, like the maroon.

Ribbons that you get when you enter the house, or like our annual Easter egg hunt that is actually really difficult. My head of house hid Easter eggs in the pipes one time. So like pipes on the ceiling so they weren't in the pipes but they were perched on the pipes and we had to find them which was quite difficult but it was really fun and was a great house bonding experience. So everything about house was everything I loved about Lawrenceville and hearing it from my sister really convinced me that I wanted to come here in the afternoons. I do karate which is a lifetime.

Work, meaning it meets three times a week, and although we only meet three times a week, we get to do a lot of cool stuff. You can see my sword behind me once you reach a certain level, you get to learn weapons, which is really fun and this fall. We actually got to go to the tuxedo Nationals or the national championship, which was also really cool 'cause we've never gotten to do tournaments before this year and then for club involvement and leadership. So I'm the president of the GSA this year.

And I'm also the managing editor of Spectrum, the affiliated publication to the GSA. As Witt mentioned, I also work with Jamie and programming club. I'm just a branch leader, which means that I teach a particular branch of programming. I focus on mobile app development, and so I have a couple of my own clubs related to programming as well. I run the Technovation club, which is a competition club involving mobile app development and addressing problems in your community. So specifically using technology to improve.

Dear surrounding community and also the girls who code Club which supports women in STEM and learning the basics and branching out and growing more comfortable in a community that doesn't always invite women in so readily and last but not least. As we mentioned before, I am in the Hutchins program, which is the science research program. So I'm like what I did the Jefferson program, which meant that I was paired up individually with a lab at the Jefferson University Hospital and there I got to do a lot of computational.

Stuff because the scientists I was working with was just working with me. So he got to gear my project specifically to my interest. So instead of looking at genetics like a lot of other people did, I got to do some data analysis and the programming language are of 20 years of speeches from multiple medical societies. So that was a really cool experience.

Fabulous, well thank you so much and thank you all for pivoting to remember to literally decode the Lawrenceville language that we all have become so accustomed to. So I hope that all of our attendees now feel that they are best friends with our our panelists here and so the first thing that we're going to.

Segue into talking about is Doctor Jacobs is going to give us a little bit of a history of GSA, and so he's going to start us off.

Alright, so this is my second year as the faculty advisor to GSA, so my history is not too long, but I did look up the history of GSA in the school newspaper, which you can access on the Stephen Archives on the website and it goes way back into the 1800s, so not the GSA. Though the GSA began in the 1999 to 2000 school year as the Gay Straight Alliance.

And changed its name to the gender and Sexuality Alliance in 2012, and it's really interesting some of the stuff that I read online. They talk about the first day of silence, which was, I believe, in the early 2000s and how big it was, or 50 students who participated. But there's lots of really cool things to read online, so I think it'll be more interesting to hear from the students about what GSA is doing now. But know that historically it has a pretty long.

History here at Lawrenceville. They've done a lot, but I can say with certainty that the board sitting before you has done a whole lot in the past few years that they should be really proud of. And that I'm very proud of and very excited about. So they will tell you all about it.

And I will pass it on to maybe I don't know for Becca, Jamie, wait, you want to talk about what GSA is doing now?

I can start off with some of the basics, so most of what we do on campus is our weekly meetings. We meet every Friday evening in the library and usually we get a good like 20-30 people. I'm not good at estimating numbers actually, so if someone wants to correct me, but a good chunk of people were pretty big for a club on campus and every single one of those meetings is educational. So we choose a different theme every week.

And we do a presentation on it, which is handled entirely by our Council. And then we presented there and we discuss it in small groups or large groups depending on the week and so really we exist as an educational space for anyone who wants to learn more about the queer community. But we also have a post club meeting space for anybody who wants to hang out, just.

Existing is safe space for queer kids for a while on campus. We officially run from 6:30 to 7:30, but a lot of times people will stay even later till eight or nine. So really, we're just there as both a safe space and an educational resource. What do you want to talk a little bit about spectrum?

Yeah, absolutely so as Rebecca described it. I think that's exactly how it described the GSA. We have sort of three goals. If I had to summarize, I would say first of all, education is hugely important to us, and that doesn't just extend to the people joining our meetings, but also the campus and part of that is accomplished through spectrum but also external programming.

Second goal I would say is exposure, which goes along with education, but it's slightly different in the sense that it's hugely important. I believe for people to first all understand that you know just because the grouping can exist in the abstract doesn't mean that they don't exist on this campus.

And the third and most important, I think Rebecca was alluding to this. It's just a space, and that's what the GSA is meant for me the most in my time here.

It's just a place to go on Friday nights, but it also obviously there. The GSA is kind of wherever the group is throughout the week.

But specifically, on Friday nights in the archives of Fun, it's just a great place to hang out and relax and learn something.

As far as my role within the GS organization as the editor in Chief of Spectrum, I'm responsible for overseeing the madness that is getting getting a magazine out. So Spectrum is a very new publication. We've only existed for two years now. Kyle and Tatum and Chelsea Manning last year.

Two amazing people founded spectrum.

Out of basically and a need to amplify queer voices beyond the space of 20 to 30 people that exists for an hour. Although it's more than an hour, let's be real and every Friday night so.

We write on all sorts of issues, both queer and allied on campus, as well as in the greater world. So we have opinions, news, creative arts, all sorts of different topics. We're not necessarily constrained to words. We have artists working with us as well. Rebecca is also a great artist. She illustrated our last issue, available. Shameless plug I. I'm pulling pulling a lot of mistakes, but spectrum l.com if you want to check out our last issue.

You can't, yeah. So just throwing that out there. If you do wanna read it sits out there, no pun intended and great. So definitely go check out spectrum. And if you're here, we take writers of all ages, experience levels and also affiliation with the peer community. So wherever you are, we willing to meet you there and we're so excited to have you, Lawrenceville.

And change anything you wanna add.

Yeah, a little bit so you know the main thing that we do. The thing that we do the most is those presentations, weekly meetings. But as the GSA on campus, you know we're one of the we're really important affinity group. And so we also exists to kind of push forward queer. You know, rights and you know, help the queer community out in Lawrenceville. So like for example, this spring Rebecca Eric, who's the other Vice president and I.

You know, pushed for the pride flag to be flown for the first time ever during the National Day of Silence, we organized a really fantastic Pride week that I unfortunately wasn't there where I was RL out, but I think it was really fun.

So yeah, a lot of what we do is also working with Coach wise and OMA to really help the campus be better and to help support the kids who need it.

So I'm going to hop in and talk a bit about my role in the office multicultural affairs, whereas Jamie referred to his OMA and my thinking is more on the systems end and we have amazing students. We have amazing faculty members who are visible and present and engaged, such as Doctor Jacobs.

But at the same time, we want to make sure that we're not just.

Helping things individually or allowing these incredible students to do the work, but we're looking at how do we support and develop not only our amazing students and our amazing faculty members, but institutional supports and how we? How do we look at our community from a global design standpoint and really look at?

LGBT plus rights and what do they look like on campus and what do they look like globally and how does that affect us as a community? And how do we best support our students, our faculty, and our programs in a very collaborative system that can actually help the best for every single lawrentian, regardless of how they identify?

And that's where my new role in Omaha is, and it's a pretty exciting place to be because it's really brand new and we have a new Dean this year of Diversity, Inclusion and Community engagement, which is Dean Brick House and I'm working with her as the first member of OMA who's focusing only on our LGBT population.

So taking all the amazing things that are happening individually and finding ways to support them from a more systematic way to ensure that every single one of our students can have the best experience possible here.

And it's not by default, or by coming up with the right people, or hanging out with the amazing students in the GSA, but actually it's by design.

And I'm pretty excited. I get to work with wit coming up on spectrum. And how can we use our resources to best support them and their initiatives while at the same time not forcing.

Or students in the GSA to come up with every single initiative?

Because they're doing a tremendous job at that, we want to make sure they can have everything they possibly need in which to do that. So that's kind of where my role comes in. From a more holistic standpoint is taking all the amazing things that Lawrenceville does, and finding a way to best focus them, funneling, support them, develop them, and let them run with it. And it's a really exciting place to be, and it's again, this is my second year in Houma, so it's fairly new coming off a kovid here, but at the same time we're moving in big ways, and it's a really, really good place.

Fabulous I love it.

One quick thing wet. Will you actually put the URL to the online? UM, put that in the chat so we can fully complete our shameless plug for things that we do here and then. The next thing that I would like our students to touch upon, obviously with the backup and support of Doctor Jacobs and Coach Wise is I want you to talk about the actual programs that you guys ran this past that you've done this year but also last year.

So kind of walk us through any you know you know pride week if you've got if you guys have done any LTS and explain what an LTA is. Any other events or things that you've held that have created not created but expanded that space you create on Friday night to greater events greater by I mean like population I guess like that people are able to attend.

Yeah, I can hop in so.

As more generally, I think, and as I have become to come to understand, because of the nature of the GSA and who's going to be involved and is able to be involved with the GSA, we really have to focus on curating diverse programming in the sense that.

We went to a cater to the fact that we need to be educating the entire Community and promoting visibility reaching people, but be also providing a safe space that's not so public that people don't feel comfortable coming and especially, you know everybody is in a different place. Obviously coming to Lawrenceville and for a lot of queer kids, myself included their first few years. Or maybe eating their entire time at Lawrenceville. Maybe people are coming fully comfortable who they are. I treated with all of you today.

Yeah, that's where you are, but if we're being real, it's not necessarily reality. Coming into high school so.

This senior stories.

Oh yes.

I'll start at the top with one of our most visible community programs, which was the coming out seminar. I believe it was part of Lt or maybe it wasn't explorations. Credit somebody senior stories. There we go, yes, so not going to lie. It was a little bit terrifying to speak at that. I think we had 100 people came and so it was. It was pretty intense moment for myself and a lot of my peers. But seeing the support.

That the community was able to show for that, and I, I guess, a panel of land or so seniors about their experiences coming out was pretty moving. Honestly. In addition to being terrifying. But that's just one example of something that we've put together. There are a lot more that I'll let my.

Pierce, add oh sorry.

Well, so wait, why don't you tell us why don't you?

What the actual senior stories was? Yeah, sorry.

The scene, yes.

Yeah, yeah, we just paint the scene where it was, tells what the purpose of event was like really? You were there.

I was there.

There are 10, so tell him exactly. You know, I know. It seems redundant and overkill, but they wanna know events that they might be attending in the future. So tell him that E.

Yeah, so this event was in the flex room of the G CAD brand new space I. I'm not sure what was going on. I think people needed explorations, credits or something, but the crowd was insane. So the the space did not necessarily catered. Many people showed up so.

Uhm, it was basically a fully packed room and a panel of people sitting on swiftly chairs. Again, we were expecting a small conversation which quickly spiraled. I won't say out of control, but it felt that way at the time and at which point any cats or school president moderated a conversation on the process of coming out?

It was it got very personal. I won't lie which.

I think it was obviously really tough for the people.

I want it wasn't on stage, but speaking, uhm?

But I hope my hope for the for the event was that it gave students that.

Physical proximity to the issue that might not have been possible otherwise. I think a lot of times as much as I believe in spectrum and the program that we put out, it can be very easy to dismiss these issues as sort of text on a screen or something that people don't see in connect to a face very easily so.

Just sitting up there and having a conversation that I would have with somebody in a private setting just in front of 100 people.

I was really.

Honestly, I opening up, I hope was that alright. I I'm not really sure how to specifically go into this, but it was great about.

What you're doing with I love what you're doing, great.

I.

Rebecca or Jimmy, would you like to go ahead? Go ahead.

I can talk a little bit about one of our biggest events that has now pretty much become an annual tradition for us, which is Pride Week. So because we, well, we do have school in June, but generally it is finals week when we are here in June. We don't want to put pride week over finals week, so instead we time it so that it lines up with the National Day of silence. So last spring the Pride Week was organized by me and Jamie and Eric are vice, our other vice president.

Is not here but that Pride Week was probably the biggest that we've had in the GSA's history. At least the biggest one that we've had while I've been on campus, and so we got to do a lot of cool things we got to decorate Irwin our dining hall with pride decorations, so we got these huge strings of pride, flags and lines. The ceilings and lined the staircases and put up little, many pride flags everywhere. So that was really fun. And we had a lot of student run events that week, so.

We had a Spectrum Preview which was basically an issue of spectrum was going to come out in a couple of weeks so but we had a couple articles in already so we printed those and let people gather on the lawn in front of the girl storms and we just had a bunch of chairs out. We had hot chocolate, we had Taylor Swift blasting and everyone was just having fun reading some really good writing and discussing the articles and having a good time and reveling in the fact that we got to see it early. We also themed that week.

Cool meeting altered pride so we had anonymous submissions read aloud by members of the Student Council so that the whole school could hear a lot of the career experiences like experiences of queer students on campus, and so that was really powerful. Hearing those stories from people who are very close to the school, people whose faces you see every day because Sugo is part of everything on this campus. So that was a really powerful moment for us. But the biggest thing that week was that Friday was a national day.

Silence and that morning we got to raise the pride flag on campus for the first time ever. That was a huge moment and it was just a moment where you could see so many students coming out either in support or in celebration. And as soon as that flag was raised, that was the start of the day of silence and so that entire day was really meaningful to the whole queer community on campus and in organizing Pride Week we really found how much support we had on campus.

I'm sure Jamie can attest Dr. Jacobs as our faculty advisor was so so helpful in helping us get all the permissions that we needed. Like to decorate Irwin, we needed to get permission from different people to raise the pride flag. We definitely had to get, you know, approval from the administration so there was a lot that went into organizing the week, but we had so much support from all the faculty on campus and you know, Miss Cunningham, who works in the library, reached out to us and asked, hey, do you want to theme the library newsletter for this week so that it's all, you know?

Everything that you're seeing on campuses pride being this week. Miss Lovick, who runs explorations, which is basically you have to get two explorations credits per term which is just attending an event that could be like Buddhist meditation or music mindfulness in the Chapel on a Sunday. Something like that.

And she themed the explorations newsletter of that week. Two pride. So that was also really, really cool. That entire week was just such a cool experience because it's the biggest event that we do and we get to see just how many people on campus are in support of the community.

And Rebecca, I'll say that I think you downplayed just how amazing Irwin the dining center looked. You could not turn your head in that building and not see a rainbow somewhere, so it was it really looked amazing and I think part of what made that experience. I was there helping everybody set up. I think part of what made that so powerful for me was just the dining staff. Just how amazingly like happy they were that we were there decorating how supportive they were. And then same with when we raised the flag. I think that just seeing all the people that came.

Out that day it was really incredible.

Yeah, and then, UM, so we've also as the GSA.

We work a lot with you know how do we be a public group while also protecting the anonymity of some of our Members? So Rebecca, me with our other council members are really the faces of GSA. We, I guess, take credit for everything that goes on a little bit. But there are people behind the scenes who are really helping us out. But you know, to some extent we have to protect privacy. It's not always.

People don't always want to be seen as someone who goes to GSA meeting, so we really have to work on. You know, we do work on protecting that anonymity and making sure that the GSA is a gender sexuality, alliance, any gender, any sexuality. Anyone is welcome to come as long as they're willing to learn.

And then a couple other things. I wanted to talk about. We do drop Inns for the freshman at the beginning of the year. We did them this year so we just go to the freshman dorms. There's voice girl and Girl Boys dorm and a girl, storm Dawson Raymond and we just sat in the common room, talked to their prefects, talked to them, kind of introduce ourselves as like safe people on campus to go to. We told them where GSA meets every week and like how they could find us. And I think that was really successful and like kind of.

Getting our faces out there and making sure people felt comfortable and knew they had a spot on campus where they could really be themselves and and Speaking of like kind of being yourself. We also during Pride Week did a fundraiser for an organization called Pride and Less Prejudice, which I think is a really cool name. Basically they work on putting, you know queer children books into kindergarten classrooms or elementary school classrooms. So like just that one of the characters in the book has two moms and that's.

Totally normal and that really helps to normalize you know queerness at such a young age. And I think that's super super important. And as soon as we found out about it, we were like, Oh my gosh, we absolutely have to fundraise for them. So we spent three days selling little candy grams, which basically you write down someone's name in a little message, and then we give it to them at the end of the week, as like a little gift. And it was, I think, like $5 each.

A small gift, but it meant a lot and we also raised a good amount of money for that organization, which they were really happy about. So that was a really fun experience too. I also really want to applaud Rebecca for all the work she did that Pride week. You are an incredible woman and I adore you. Just wanted to say.

I love that because I don't know if any of you were joining us right at 7:30 we had a whole session on women of Lawrenceville and how sorry with Doctor Jacobs. But the recording will be up online and Miss Brown in my office. Did it with a couple of the faculty.

Female faculty here and it was just fabulous 'cause it really showed how Lawrenceville women are strong, powerful doers and we'd love a good doer. So we're wonderful. Any couple couple housekeeping things as we are on in the second half of the session here. So if anyone is starting to have some questions, I've been trying to put some clarifying things here in the chat, but if anyone has any clarifying questions, feel free to pop them in.

Just so you're aware, the question goes in and only the panel can see it. So normally what I do is if you ask a question and I just read the question, I don't say who it's from.

And we can operate with that. We do have two questions that were submitted during the during the registration period and I figured we could go over those a little bit. But I do feel like some of the things we've talked about tonight. I have already covered them up. Panelists. Do you have anything to add to anything that we've already spoken about before we head into those two questions?

Yeah, I just want to say I think Jamie made a really great point that we as the figure you know, figureheads of the GSA. It looks like an army of three, but that's not what this is at all.

And I I really wish that you guys or everybody who's joining tonight could just maybe sit on a zoom meeting or last year we had virtual zoom meetings for GSA and see what that's like. Because honestly what we do is not this sort of panel talking at people kind of thing, although I'm hoping you're able to glean something from this tonight.

The GSA is really about the people who are who are joining us, right? So know that there are more than three people are going to be part of this. It's a great way to make friends. It's a great way to find people who have similar interests and life experiences. So I just wanted to reaffirm that I think is a really good point. There's so many people that make everything we've talked about happen spectrum, for example, just what I work on is a massive team effort and a lot of that goes unrecognized.

I think and Jimmy is right, we do sort of get patted on the back a lot for things that other people are putting. Time, effort and visibility into so.

Just wanted to.

Kind of going off of that. I also wanted to mention, like I said, one of the reasons I came to Lawrenceville is the people. And that's still true today, like I would absolutely choose coming here and the experiences I've had a million times over. If I could do it again, and I think a lot of that has to do with the people and part of the reason. Pride Week was so successful and so much fun was because we got such a big response from the school community and we really always do kind of no matter what we're doing. You know, you talk to anyone on campus.

And like everyone supportive, everyone really wants to see the best. And once the school to do, you know it's best in supporting us. So it's been really wonderful. Like from the journey we've been on to organize Friedrich, which was an ordeal. We got a lot of support from faculty and students alike, which was really incredible.

Awesome. OK, so we've we've you've answered this question in many ways without answering it fully directly, and I definitely want to give you all the opportunity to add anything else that you might feel necessary to this question. But the question is, let me move my screen over. OK, how is the GSA supported by the squad? So obviously we've talked about the ways in which they've celebrated and supported, but anything else that you want to add to this in terms of.

How this group is supported by the school, your peers, faculty members, the administration.

I can step in to start out with this.

They talked about all the amazing things that GSA are doing, and all of these opt in events or times in which students can choose to engage with the personal development seminar I've actually written in curriculum in which every second and third former is being exposed to it, and it's not an opt in. It's part of the mandatory curriculum at Lawrenceville. So we have a section on gender. We have a section on sexuality. We've gone over LGBT history and milestones.

And that is for every single second and third former and New Jersey is actually one of the mandated states that must teach LGBT education at the high school level. And I wanted to take that and go over and above to ensure that every student is being exposed to it. I also took our sex education class and took out any gendered language and made it LGBT inclusive.

So I've taken a any type of.

Uhm?

Gender assumption or gender identity out of the equation so we can just talk about.

The actual science, without making assumptions about people, and I think that was a huge step to ensure that the work that these amazing students are doing on the optin end is being supported on the mandated curriculum and and that everything is matching up for where we want to see this institution go.

Students, anything to add Doctor Jacobs anything to add?

I mean I, I would say that I I hope the GSA would say that they feel supported by the school because I assume in my role I'm kind of representing the school in many ways, and so the GSA comes to me with lots of amazing ideas and I try my best to make sure that those ideas come to life. But they're really the ones pushing. I'm kind of working in the administrative role, making sure that it's OK to do some of these things.

The school, but but I I feel like no matter what they they want to accomplish, even if it's not necessarily easy right at right away, I think that the school works well with us and works well with you. And we get things done.

Yeah, I will say we talked a lot about all the wonderful fun events, but there are challenges obviously and what I appreciate it have appreciated. Most from the school in the form of support, mainly from coach Wise and Doctor Jacobs is the.

Willingness to get through the difficult odd, potentially sticky issues as well. One example then thinking of right now again just.

Homme was the inclusion of slurs in our last issue of Spectrum, which is obviously really tough issue right. On the one hand, we didn't want to suppress any queer voices or basically want the process of reclamation. That was true of what was happening, what's happening on campus. But we also understood that those that language is inflammatory and difficult and really hard for a school to condone putting out. I mean hateful language.

Is hateful and how it has roots in really rough places and can be around people so.

Being able to have candid conversations but also productive ones about those kinds of issues and eventually come to a place where.

Not only the administration was comfortable with what was coming out, but the students also felt as though, OK, we've been heard on this and maybe been able to find a middle ground. Or in our case, we actually were able to kind of end up where we wanted to enable it. Basically a freedom of speech.

For Affinity Group publications that support for massive, it's really easy to say great. Let's go put flags everywhere and do that. It's much tougher when there is something actually on the line, and I'm also thinking now about, you know funding for publications. That's something that's come up so.

All of that to say they're not just fair weather friends. There's a lot that goes on that is less than easy to deal with and the support on that end has been huge. So thank you guys. Anything else?

I would probably I'll just add as well. I think that the one of the nice things here is so the GSA. Like they said, you're kind of the face and and the students know who you are. They know who they can go to, but I think it's nice that the school has so many openly LGBT faculty as well, and a lot of us living in the house is living in the houses with our families. So there's just. There's a lot of visibility. Both the student level, but also at the faculty level.

Yeah, and then I'm kind of going back to what we were saying. You know, we do have a lot of very ambitious ideas as the GSA that aren't always possible, but I do always feel really heard when we want to do something like Doctor Jacobs really does try even when it's like Oh my God, we cannot do this like and coach wise has you know talked us through all the things that we've tried to do and all the you know things we've tried to accomplish and even if they don't eventually get it done, you know like?

We kind of put it on the docket for next year and we're like we're going to continue pushing this, and the faculty are like, oh, we're going to continue pushing this like this is going to get done like don't worry. So I really appreciate being heard by the administration, even if it isn't always, you know, something immediately gets done. I know that there are people who are looking out for us. Also GSA, which is really nice.

Fabulous OK thank you guys for adding those points. I do appreciate it and I do kind of feel and I had. I've had multiple email exchanges and conversations with Doctor Jacobs and Coach Wise this fall about a question that does come up UM.

In regards to the GSA and we got one here, which I'm glad we did so in a school with a long tradition of boys and girls houses, we are curious to hear how the administration supports a student who identifies as non binary and Doctor Jacobs and Coach wise I give you I.

Please answer the question.

Who wants a coach? Why do you want to go first? Or would you like me to go?

I'll start and I'll let you.

Clean it up.

Full disclosure Lawrenceville is anything. It's not always perfect.

But I do think we care enough.

To get to a point where we're doing the best for every single individual student as well as the student body as a whole, and that is part of the universal design and the systems that were currently working on Alma. And I would love to say we have this brilliant, amazing, perfect answer to give you.

But the answer is we're going to care enough to get it right, and we're going to care enough to get it right for you if you're that student who's thinking about coming here.

And I don't know exactly what that answer looks like, but we're gonna figure it out.

And that's not always the best thing to say, but at the same time we have things in place that we're moving forward on, whether that's how to be more gender inclusive in our athletics program, which is coming down the pipeline and how to be more gender inclusive in our housing and what I can say, is that historically and traditionally, our institution has worked with.

Every single student and their families who.

Identifies.

In a way in which would have that conversation for housing and we want to ensure that we're getting it right for that student in their situations. And I wish we had a brilliant institutional policy to give you.

But what I can say is that we care. We want to get it right for you and we will work to get it right for you.

Holly, I'm glad I let you go first, 'cause I think that was a great answer to the question. I think you know, ideally by the time you all the perspective students graduate Lawrenceville. My hope is that we will have some sort of gender neutral housing because it's something we've talked a lot about. I know senior staff is talking about it, and so I can't promise it, but I know it's something that the school is discussing and I think it would be important for us to have because we we do. We're very entrenched in this.

Binary of boys and girls. We've had, you know, so I, this is my eighth year living in McPherson, which I said before was a fifth form so senior girls house and we have had two transgender kids since I've lived here and like coach twice as we kind of we worked with them. We work with their families to see where they wanted to live. If they wanted to live here. If they wanted to live in upper, which is the boys house but.

As of now, it's still you we they kind of have to decide do they want to be in a girl's house or they want to be in a boy's house. So eventually the hope is that they won't have to make that decision and there will be gender neutral housing. But we're not there quite yet.

Uhm?

Well, we are coming up to about 9:30, which is when they pulled the plug on this on this session. But one thing, one final question, I have 4.

Actually, all of the panelists is, you know.

Doctor Jacobsen coach Wise Cater list to yourselves, but for Rebecca, Jamie and Wit, I want you to think back to either four or three years ago when you were applying to Lawrenceville. And this should feel that should resonate a little bit simply 'cause you've all been filling out college apps. But what are some things you wish you knew?

Then that you know now we're what we're saying. What are some things you wish you could tell your younger self about your Lawrenceville journey. Come just from your experience and from your understanding of this place.

And so whoever would like to go first, please hop on in. I know that I just plopped a really heavy and possibly emotionally question on you, but go for it.

Uhm, I will start. I don't have a lot of this button so I might just be like talking randomly.

I would probably I tell myself it's a hard school. It is hard to go to boarding school at 14 and you know, kind of not fend for yourself, but really be able to support yourself well. But I'd also tell myself I would probably meet the best people I've ever met at this school. I would, you know, fall in love with so many of my friends and I would find so much support in them and in myself that I really thought I wouldn't be able to.

Uhm, and then kind of more on the GSA side of things. I would probably tell myself that it is OK to be confused about my sexuality. I thought I was a really strong ally for many years. Turns out I'm not a man.

And like that was a confusing time for me, and I'd probably just give myself a big hug and be like.

Yeah.

Feel whatever you feel, it's all OK. You're gonna be loved. Either way, you're gonna love yourself either way.

Also, I have a fun time here. It's a good school. I'm glad I chose it.

That wasn't rambling, Jamie. It was perfect.

We'll all ramble then, if Jamie won't do it.

Uhm yeah. Honestly I I'm not sure if I would recognize my my sophomore self if I had to sit down for a conversation with it. Not just because I look completely differently but.

Yeah, it's just a contest.

I had some serious baby face going on, but uhm.

But also I mean just as a person. Obviously on the whole sexual identity thing, it's been a bit of a journey and Jamie mentioned this idea of.

Fending for yourself and I do think there's a really tough double edged sword. You have a lot of support here, but.

I do think that getting some space from what I would call my old life, if you will come from the same friends I'd had since I was.

One and the same teachers and community being able to.

Start fresh almost and say OK. These are people who I they don't know me. I can be whoever I want now it there's a lot of value in that and honestly I would tell my advice would be to take full advantage of that opportunity.

I can confidently say I came to Lawrenceville and became a much, much better person. A much happier person.

And I owe a lot of that to my friends. I have a lot of that to support in the Community. I didn't wasn't hearing about any of these issues in my old school.

But not to not to pull the Kanye speech. But honestly, a lot of it like to myself and like it's it's a tough thing to recognize. But I know, I know it's so funny, but I'm serious like it's something that you will go through and it's an amazing feeling to be proud of yourself on an issue like this. To say like, yeah, like I I went to boarding school, I was away from my family and I came out. I'm like, well, you know it's it's crazy thing and momentous and life changing but exciting so I know it can feel.

I don't know where you guys are, where you all are in the audience right now, but.

You're potentially coming up on it really amazing couple of years here for yourself and one in which, by the end of those couple of years you might not recognize yourself for the better.

That was definitely rambling, but I'll pass under it because she's better spoken, so I think this.

Fabulous wet and dekaney reference, so can't beat it.

OK, a little nervous about the whole better stroking thing 'cause I'm not so sure about that, but I would definitely say that Lawrenceville has pushed me so much more than I expected it to. I thought I knew.

Exactly how Lawrenceville is going to be from hearing about it growing up all the time, but I really did not anticipate all the things that would happen once I was here. I definitely did not think that at the end of my freshman year I'd be standing up on stage in front of the entire school in the final round of the speech competition coming out on stage in front of the entire student body. But that happened, and it's a moment I'm really proud of. And it's a moment that Lawrenceville gave me the opportunity to have.

I feel like beyond just like personal growth and bravery, like I've definitely been pushed to grow different skill sets as well, like this past term I was illustrating the entire issue #3 for spectrum, which was insane. I've never illustrated for a publication before in my life, but I really proud of how it turned out. Again, you should go look at it because.

It's amazing the writing is amazing and it was a really fun thing to work on.

But I would say like, as Jamie said, Lawrenceville gets hard. It like all the ways that it pushes you. You might not appreciate in the moment, but looking back on everything that has happened, yes, I was terrified stepping on stage, but stepping off stage, looking back at it now I'm so happy that it happened and I would say in every single way. I'm proud of everything that has happened during my time here.

And.

I don't know if there's any other way to put it.

Fabulous thank you Rebecca. Doctor Jacobs, her coach, wise anything that I guess we could say that you've learned in your time here or I tell you can talk about your growth as well. Just whatever you feel.

Honestly, I think Lawrenceville for me and Full disclosure I came. I was like I'm gonna stay for a year or go off, get my PhD at some place and go back to college coaching, which is what I was doing for eight years prior to coming here. I've been here for 11 years now and Lawrenceville is the place I want to raise my family. And these students are the people I want my family and my kids around. I mean, it's an incredible group of students. It's an incredible community and the people are.

Just amazing and you can't beat that.

Yeah I will. I will second that.

Yeah, so I don't. I don't want to name drop, but I was teaching at Princeton before coming here and I absolutely love teaching here. I really do. I think there's an amazing place to teach. I think our students are incredible. I love working with the GSA. They they help push me as well and sometimes when I'm ready to just give up, they really pushed me and we get in there and we get things done.

And I'll say as well, you know, looking back at my own high school experience so it was like a few years ago, but I would have been so lucky to have had students like this as my peers. I think that they're just incredible and.

I you know I, I couldn't imagine working with a better group.

Fabulous well guys.

Uhm panelists. Tonight all of you are amazing people. Super super glad that you were here tonight on this panel are attendees are. I'll speak for them. They are better off because they got to hear from you and hear about your experiences and and the great work that you guys are doing here. So I really appreciate it. Again, all of you. My email address is right there in the chat so if you haven't if you have a question that you would like me to forward along to any of the five.

Panelists send it to me and then I will get it along to them. And in addition, a quick shameless plug this coming Wednesday is our last two sessions in our Discover LVL series. So 7:30 we're going to talk about experiential learning and then 8:30. We're going to talk about G CAD, which is our new Center for art and design, so some super fabulous stuff going on there.

Also, we are almost one month away from that fabulous January 15th application and scholarship aid deadline. So you've got about a month. I'm super excited to curl up in a cave of reading and get to read all of your applications so.

I really enjoyed tonight. I hope you all did too and a huge huge huge thank you to our panelists for their words tonight, but also the fabulous things they're doing on campus for our entire community. So big big round of applause from me for all of our panelists. Thank you all so very much. I'm getting lots and lots of things coming through. UM, coming through here and I know you all think that you just take the credit.

But tonight this credit is is all yours, so thank you for sharing your stories and I will see you all around. But for the rest of our the people here attending thank you and please reach out with any questions. OK alright attendees. Panelists have a great evening and go big red.