Feelings of Pride, Hope, and “Wow” at the People of Color Conference

Irony of A
3 min readDec 18, 2018

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by Michelle Palmer, Alumni Diversity Manager and Database Administrator at
Germantown Friends School

Germantown Friends School students at the People of Color Conference

The 31st Annual People of Color Conference (POCC) took place in Nashville, Tennessee from November 28- December 1, 2018. The theme was Equitable Schools and Inclusive Communities: Harmony, Discord and the Notes In Between.

It has been seven years since I attended POCC and was very excited when I realized how big this conference has grown. POCC runs in conjunction with the Student Diversity Leadership Conference (SLDC) now in its 25th year. This year 6,400 faculty, staff and students attended and it was the biggest conference in its history.

“Wow” is all I could say to myself. Look how far we have come in the Independent School arena. Over the next few days, “wow” became a recurring theme for me.

I was so impressed by the amazing lineup of speakers: Lisa Ling, Marian Wright-Edelman, Luz Santana, and Marc Lamont Hill to name a few. Each speaker was dynamic and had their own message about education, diversity and the future.

There were over 75 workshops in nine tracks offered in five days. There were so many choices that on any given day I could have attended 3 to 4 workshops per session. Wow, what a great problem to have — so many options.

Every day there was an opportunity for adult affinity groups to come together. This was one of my favorite aspects of this conference. Wow, the opportunity to be in a room of people of the same race/ethnicity and who deal with many of the same issues on a daily basis working in Independent Schools.

Michelle Palmer (second from right) with colleagues and friends at POCC

On the second day of the conference, I checked in with a couple of our students to see how their first day went and was surprised by the response. They were not impressed with their first day at SLDC . They felt as if they were so much further ahead in their diversity work at GFS than many of their peers at the conference. For many students, this was the first time that they had engaged in this work. Our kids were pros and I all I could think was “Wow - that’s amazing!”

My favorite workshop was on Peer-to-Peer Mentorship. As I am currently working on the Alumni/ Student mentorship project, it was great to hear about another potential partnership that could be beneficial to all students. I attended Rosetta Lee’s workshop Old School Diversity to 21st Century Cultural Competency. Rosetta is one of the best in the field of diversity and her discussions always draw a big crowd. Rosetta makes it very simple:

If we do not have diversity in the room, then we cannot foster creativity and innovation.

My final “wow” moment was when all the heads of school that are of Color took the stage. Since I attended this conference seven years ago, this number has doubled. I was so proud to see all the progress that has been made in independent schools around the country.

I left the conference invigorated, renewed, and ready to work harder on our diversity initiatives. The best part about POCC this year for me was realizing that our school, Germantown Friends School, is doing pretty good in its work to develop equitable schools and inclusive communities. We are not perfect and our journey continues, but I am proud that we are definitely a leader in this work.

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Irony of A
Irony of A

Written by Irony of A

Reflections on teaching + learning. Catalyst to inspire equality, integrity & community in ed. Send in your ideas! Curated by Germantown Friends School.

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