On Friday, January 15, Marymount hosted one of the monthly Diversity Awareness Initiative for Students (DAIS) meetings. DAIS comprises students from New York City independent, public, and parochial schools who wish to discuss and improve human relations within the community and in society at large. Thirteen Marymount students attended the meeting, along with about fifty students from other schools, including Collegiate, Regis, Hackley, Dalton, Nightingale-Bamford, Xaverian, Saint Ann’s, Browning, Friends Seminary, and Horace Mann.
The topic of this month’s meeting was about socio-economic class: “You can pay for school, but you can’t buy class.” After some initial icebreakers, the meeting broke into small group discussions, followed by a full-group session. The students addressed such questions as: What determines socio-economic class? Why is a person’s socio-economic class attributed to their race? How does education play into the politics of socio-economic status? What does it take for someone to change their inherited social class? Does socio-economic class affect your faith?
The meeting, one of Marymount’s many Diversity Initiatives, provided a forum for our students to explore some difficult issues surrounding education and class, to confront the complexities and differing opinions inherent in discussing these issues in large groups, and to forge links with other students in New York City in their promotion of social justice.