Letter from a Former USM Faculty Member
Brett Lipshutz, Former Faculty
As the person who got the affinity groups going at USM, I am very interested in your story. I am no longer there; I left after many run ins about identity. But I wrote this letter that was shared with the new head by a former teacher who left for similar reasons. I am not Black, so my story is not leant to deflect or turn away from the issues you bring up. I do think however that there are concepts in my letter that have bearing on your case.
August 2019
Dear USM,
NOTE: I write this letter as someone who grew up as a child on welfare, a Jew and a queer man. This is my experience as filtered through my unique identity. I am sure that others have had similar struggles.
When I came here as a freshman, only 11 short years ago, I was unprepared for the things I would learn as I swam upstream against a current that meant to do what nature intended, but ended up having unintended consequences on some of its fish, thrusting them out and making them feel as if they could not breathe.
For those of us who live every day thinking about who we are and how we fit in to those around us, it can be very overwhelming to also try and be a productive member of a group that holds itself up as a community of people who care about each other. Energy is wasted trying to figure out how to be happy in a place where one’s point of view is not necessarily seen as appropriate or valid. This institution has, working under one long, contiguous roof, many different types of people who bring with them many different philosophies of education, methodologies of teaching, and styles of leadership; this very fact can sometimes escape us. Less obvious, still, are the different cultural norms and assumptions that underlie the philosophies, methodologies and styles of leadership. These cultural norms and mores help us to decide what is right and what is wrong; but they can also hinder us from evolving, since it is very difficult to question what we believe in our heart of hearts to be the absolute way to do something. The fact that we are able to turn out such amazing young thinkers, scholars, athletes and artists with such a variety of teachers and administrators is a testament to both the kids and the adults involved.
I am writing this letter not to criticize in the pejorative sense of the word, but to lend a critical lens in order to make better what is already a good institution. The bettering I am referring to is not academic, but social and developmental in the true senses of the words.
From a personal standpoint, I grew immensely from teaching at USM; not only as a teacher, but as a student. The things I learned from the amazing guest speakers, the conversations with my unbelievably smart, professional colleagues and my even more amazing students, the hardships I faced and tried to resolve, the fights I chose to fight, all of these have added invaluable insight into my view of teaching and more importantly, life.
On the day of my interview, in 2009, as I was taking in this strange, luxurious institution in all of its tradition and glory, Rosie Lyons - Head of the Upper School- and I were walking down the greyscale, carpeted hallway on the first floor where now the Innovation Center stands in all of its splendor; I asked her how the school was supporting LGBTQ kids. In very Rosie fashion, her response was a curt, “Well, that has to come from them.” From this very brief interaction, I extrapolated that the subject was a non issue because it wasn’t to be brought up. Later, when I became more emboldened to really be myself, I would come to understand that the ask (as a wise Rishi Raghunathan called it) for equity and protection was not easy at this place.
I am a Queer man and I identify as cis-male; while employed at USM, I often felt marginalized due to what, through my lens, would amount to a very mainstream and binary presentation of gender among the faculty and staff. The men seemed to talk about sports and the women often talked about their children. Of course people talked about other things… but there was still this air that hung above these gender groups.
I recall having a conversation about free lunch table days - the days we could sit with other colleagues instead of the students- and observing out loud that they were coincidentally (maybe?) segregated by gender; I said to a colleague that I felt like I was in between men and women. That was met with a sympathetic nod by even the most open minded person and then the “oh, wow I guess I never noticed,” or “what’s wrong with guys sitting with guys and women sitting with women?” What was wrong with that? Nothing so apparent as all that; but I can’t count how many times I wanted to sit with the men, just to feel like I belonged to my gender identity group, yet sat with the women because I lacked a bond with those particular men. Yet, sitting with the women, I also did not feel at home. What was inherently wrong in that scenario was the complete exclusion of those whose gender identity or expression doesn’t conform to the norm of the institution. What was wrong was that I was feeling alienated and not listened to. What was wrong was that there was no empathy for how I felt because no one had felt it.
Continuing to talk about gender: the dress code was something that always frustrated me; I often questioned how we could support all gender expression among students (and faculty for that matter) while enforcing a policy that boys and men must wear a tie- and who were we to decide who was a boy or a man? Living as my true self, it symbolized a stereotype and forced those who looked like or identified as cis-males to conform to a certain gender identity and presentation of that identity. My statement was met with a very defensive reaction that told me that I was a man, that was the tradition, that’s what men did, and there was to be no entertaining any other points of view. I don’t feel as if it’s a stretch to call this exclusive; inclusivity demands divergent thinking and policies that spring forth from this inclusion of other points of view.
One year, I decided to take on changing the name of the Sadie Hawkins Dance to something else; I pointed out that LGBTQ youth were excluded from it, as the dance’s rules state that a girl must ask the guy, in an apparent role reversal from the norm. This is the only dance whose very name and concept prescribes gender roles. I was met with the argument that it’s the only dance that allows girls to ask guys and that changing the name was not going to change the culture. When I brought this up to the LGTBQ students in my affinity group, they did not seem to realize that this affected them. The proof? My question about whether they would feel comfortable dancing with someone of the same sex or making it obvious that they had a same-sex date was met with a very insistent “no.” There was no level of realization that if we didn’t change the name of a dance and therefore the rules of the dance, there is a normalization that takes place that says that a couple who goes to the dance must be opposite sex. I was not going to let that happen.
I remember a conversation with an administrator in front of a new employee where I was introduced as someone who “has a lot of opinions.” Well, perhaps I have all of these opinions because it’s hard to be different, and sometimes you have to speak up to have your point heard.
I can recall asking about the preponderance of sports only to be told that that’s the way the school is. In fact, any time I bring up something I take issue with, the response is always that every school is like that. This may be true- although I know there are schools where the arts matter at least as much as sports, or where gay kids are the majority, or where restorative justice and dialogue is preferred to sweeping things under the rug. These ideas are not foreign, just minority. This does not mean, however, that USM cannot be that school.
I may admittedly have a minority or skewed perspective, but as someone who never knew what an independent school was before walking into these doors for my first visit, to me the very appellation “independent” should allow for being independent of the norm that is constantly held up as the status quo and which we feel obligated to imitate.
Inside the walls of USM is a population of very carefully selected, brilliant educators who care deeply for the institution in which they spend the majority of their time. Many of these perspicacious, thoughtful, creative people never have their ideas surface; ideas that could surely make the school more original and more unique in the crowds of independent schools. Instead, there is a feeling of intense competition to outperform and to covet whatever we have that makes us feel important. If we were to all go to therapy, I believe that our therapist would tell us that we are not sufficiently affirmed and therefore lacking self-esteem. As author Sebastien Junger writes in his book Tribe: “Humans don’t mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary. It’s time for that to end.”
As leadership is really what shapes the ethos of any institution, my recommendations are fairly simple and straightforward:
Take a look at those who are allowed to speak and act and those who are not.
Make sure that you are reaching those who are introverts, BIPOC, LGBTQ, those from a different social class, etc. who may not lead in a way that leaders here have led before; realize this can be good.
Look at the identities of people and make sure that many ways of thinking and seeing the world are represented.
Don’t limit your viewpoint to what you see as leadership in the traditional sense. Imagine new forms of it.
Collect data on the kinds of leaders who are chosen; then, choose leaders to allow for divergent thinking to happen so that there are checks and balances and so that new ideas surface in order to help us move forward and not back.
Choose to see the whole person and not the person you want to see.
Help the students to become the person they need to become to thrive, not the one their parents or the school thinks is right.
Allow them to express themselves outwardly and inwardly; then, affirm this. This is the only way that they will feel valued and heard.
I was the kid that felt weird and shunned and looked down upon not just because I was queer, not just because I was poor, not just because I was Jewish, not just because I was short, not just because I was into music and not into sports, not just because I was awkward, not just because I was smart, not just because I looked feminine, not just because I was slight, not just because I was anxious, not just because I lived in a house that was unstable, not just because I was creative… but because I was all of these things. The sum of our parts and how we experience life makes us unique. Don’t think this changes when you become an adult; it sometimes intensifies, so don’t assume that your colleague thinks like you.
Overall, make sure that all of the staff and faculty feel appreciated. The most productive and dedicated people are the ones that feel like what they do matters to the people they report to and to their colleagues.
This, along with continuing to work on creating opportunities for colleagues to be honest and dialogue with each other, as well as hiring more and more diverse candidates is my advice to USM.
You are already a good school; it’s time to become great.