Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

A group of students hanging out in the Simon Student Center at Mercersburg Academy.

Our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, which is comprised of faculty and students, exists to cultivate a safe community where everyone is emboldened to be their authentic selves.

In a world where social norms are evolving rapidly, how might we at Mercersburg improve our policies, practices, and programs to strengthen our community as it relates to diversity, equity, and inclusion?

A group of students posing for the camera in between classes.

The task force

First established in 2018, a task force began leading students, faculty, and staff in conversations and planning as it related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. This group was charged with exploring what Mercersburg has accomplished related to DEI, thinking about what DEI currently means at the school, and considering what it looks like for our school moving forward. While much work has been done to educate our community on diversity, equity, and inclusion, the work is ongoing, and we commit to building our DEI initiatives as a community.

Current Actions

From our foundational work with our task force, we created a DEI Committee made up of multiple subcommittees that will continue the work of the task force into the foreseeable future. Actions the school is currently taking include:

Tom Leslie ’66 Scholarship
Faculty and Staff Training

Tom Leslie ’66 Scholarship

During Family and Alumni Weekend in 2019, Mercersburg hosted its first Black student alumni reception to celebrate 55 years of Black student integration and 30 years of the Black Student Union; the weekend was supported by the school but coordinated and executed by our Black alumni, led by Tonya Rutherford ’90. At the event, our alumni suggested that we begin efforts to raise funds to establish a scholarship honoring Tom Leslie ’66, the school’s first Black graduate.

The inaugural recipient of the Tom Leslie ’66 Memorial Scholarship enrolled at the school in fall 2021. With ongoing support from our community, we will grow this scholarship fund to expand our commitment in the coming years. If you are interested in supporting this scholarship, please contact the Office of Advancement.

Faculty and Staff Training

The school’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee identified faculty and staff training as our highest priority. To that end, as the school entered into our accreditation process, we selected this as the singular focus of the Sustaining Excellence accreditation protocol, which prompts a school to identify a strategic initiative, conduct a research project on the implementation of the initiative, and present its findings to other schools.

Resources

Affinity Spaces

Affinity spaces on campus provide a community and group for students with shared identities to gather, celebrate, discuss, and support their identities. Led and supported by faculty members who sit on the Affinity Space Committee, which focuses on considering the structure and mission of the spaces, these spaces aim to affirm our students and currently include:

Black

Deafness and Hearing Loss

First-Generation/Low-Income (FGLI)

International

Latinx

LGBTQIA+

Neurodivergence