DEIG In! Your Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Global Education Newsletter -- DECEMBER 2023

In October, the Buddhist monk Venerable Tenzin Yignyen visited BB&N for a week to create a sand mandala in the Upper School Art Gallery and to share his knowledge and artistic practice with our community. In recent years Tenzin, who hails from Tibet, has visited over two hundred schools across the United States, and he also served as a long-term Visiting Professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. Tenzin’s visit was organized by Upper School art teacher and Director of the Gallery and Petropoulos Art Scholar Program Nicole Stone, with support from faculty and staff. Stone hoped to contribute to BB&N’s mission of providing a global education to students and building deeper cultural understanding, while making the exhibit as inclusive and accessible as possible. Over the course of the week, over 450 students and many other individuals from across all three campuses gathered in the gallery to observe Tenzin’s meticulous work on the mandala and learn from his presentations. They had the opportunity to interact and engage with the monk in a variety of settings: meetings with classes, open meditation sessions, and an evening community-wide reception with food graciously sponsored by the South Asian Parents Alliance.

Stone shared that “the experience of trying to collaborate with as many different community members as possible was really powerful. Tenzin’s visit brought us all together and, for many of us, made us think differently about things we thought we already knew.” On the last day of his visit, Tenzin dismantled the mandala per Buddhist tradition to symbolize the impermanence of life. Students helped the artist collect the sand in a vase so that he could return it to nature. Finn Konary, a student in the Petropoulos program, reflected: “I saw the dedication, beauty, and precision that went into the piece, and I found it very visually appealing. I thought about how it would be taken down at the end and how art can teach life lessons.” Tenzin’s visit to BB&N exemplified his wisdom: “Live well… be kind… do something that makes you happy.”

You can read more about Tenzin’s visit to BB&N in this article by Hannah Garcia.

Independent School League Changemakers Conference

On November 6, five BB&N student-athletes attended the second annual Independent School League Changemakers Conference held at Nobles and Greenough School. The conference provided a space for students to discuss questions of diversity, equity, and inclusion within athletics. Below, two attendees reflect on their experience at the conference in response to three questions:

1. What was your favorite part of the conference?
2. What was something interesting or important that you learned?
3. In your opinion, what is the connection between DEI and student athletics?

Anochie Azuakolam

1. My favorite part was being able to openly talk about your ISL experiences as a person of color.
2. I learned about leadership and what leadership is as a young Black athlete.
3. For me, the connection is being a captain of the football team. Being one of the only Black people on the football team, it's a different experience. It's like an opening experience for me to just be on the team.

Sabina Kaba

1. My favorite part of the conference was learning about how important it is to leave behind something that impacts your teammates.
2. The importance of being a Black athlete at an ISL school.
3. For me the connection is that representation matters.

Highlights