At Noble and Greenough, dedication to diversity runs from the top down

Arielle Greenleaf

Diversity is at the forefront of the mission of Noble and Greenough School.

An independent, co-educational day and five-day boarding school for grades seven through 12 in Dedham, Mass., Nobles is dedicated to opening its doors to faculty and students from all socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, and offers several programs of support and camaraderie to these students.

Former Nobles student and current assistant dean of students Roberta Phillips (class of ’97) runs the Bridges program for Nobles. Phillips remembers starting at Nobles longing for the familiarity of her public school days — missing everything from the yellow school bus that picked her up each morning to the ease of classes and comfort of old friends.

She remembers her first day at Nobles, arriving for assembly, looking around and realizing that the majority of students didn’t look like her; there were few students or faculty of color in the room. Phillips spent the next few years trying to conjure up the ease of earlier academic years, to find her place in a school that seemed so different, and to find support and friendship from people with similar experiences and backgrounds.

When Phillips returned to work at Nobles in 2003, she made it her mission to help make the transition smooth for students of color. Although the school’s level of diversity has changed significantly over the last decade, she knows how difficult the transition can be.

With this in mind, Phillips helped institute Bridges, a program for new students and families of color that helps to provide insight into both the challenges and resources that await each student of color at Nobles.

At Bridges, new students are paired with a “big sibling,” an older student that can share common experiences with them and help mentor them through the initial transition. An extension of the Bridges program called Transitions meets on a monthly basis as an additional support system that lasts through each student’s career at Nobles.

Another diversity initiative has just begun at Nobles as well. Veteran diversity advocate Connie Yépez has joined the faculty as director of the new Achieve Program.

Set to begin in the summer of 2008, Achieve is dedicated to academic immersion for roughly 70 public middle school students from Boston Public Schools in neighborhoods like Roxbury, Mission Hill and Jamaica Plain. Achieve will be geared to attract students from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds who are likely to be first-generation college students.

“My desire is to have it be really high-level academics, but I understand that middle school students have a limited attention span,” said Yépez. “We want them to be well-rounded and get involved in arts and athletics as well.”

Similar to the Upward Bound high school program that has operated at Nobles for the past 17 years, Achieve will run for six weeks during the summer and mirror a typical day at Nobles. Students will take math, science, language arts and literacy courses with Nobles faculty and will also participate in community service, visual and performing arts, and athletics.

Yépez brings to Nobles nearly a decade of experience directing similar programs. In 1999, she started in Boston at A Better Chance (ABC), whose mission is “to transform talented students of color into successful leaders.” Starting as a program manager, she quickly became a senior program manager before ascending to the post of assistant director of field operations, helping to recruit, organize and guide students who showed potential for academic achievement.

In 2001, Yépez became co-director of the New England Citybridge program, based at Concord Academy. Citybridge aimed to take middle school students from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds and prepare them for an academically rigorous high school environment. In addition, Citybridge sought to help students explore careers in teaching or public service. Similar to Achieve, Citybridge recruited students from Boston and Cambridge public schools who were deemed of college-bound caliber. In 2003, Yépez became the program’s executive director, guiding and directing Citybridge in all aspects.

Yépez hopes to reproduce that program’s success with the new Achieve initiative at Nobles.

“We want to give these students a boost to help them get where they need to be academically,” said Yépez.
To learn more about Noble and Greenough School, please visit www.nobles.edu.