Rich Diversity

BUA is, in several respects, ahead of our peer schools in terms of diversity. We have developed a reputation as a home for students on the LGBTQ spectrum and a place of deep inclusion for that population. No other school in our peer set can boast 58% students of color. The opportunity is to build on those advantages, with a particular emphasis on growing the population of students from traditionally underrepresented racial backgrounds; students from the City of Boston; and students who represent the first generation in their families to attend college. When we do, BUA will be an even stronger example of the false choice between diversity and excellence.

 

Objectives

  • Cultivating a community where students, parents, staffs, and faculty of all identities feel a deep sense of belonging
  • Growing our population of students from traditionally underrepresented racial groups, first-generation college students, and families from the City of Boston through focused outreach efforts at local schools outside the current feeder-school network and deeper partnerships with access organizations
  • Ensuring that there is a critical mass of students from key demographics reflecting the City of Boston and Greater Boston area
  • Fostering a diverse and culturally competent faculty and staff
  • Offering a curriculum in which our students see themselves reflected and prepares them for active citizenship in a diverse world
  • Creating opportunities for faculty and students to engage in social-justice-focused research, advocacy, and action

 

Progress in Action

  • Director of Equity and Inclusion: In the fall of 2021, BUA put in place its first Director of Equity & Inclusion, English teacher Dr. Monica Alvarez, to help drive the school’s efforts to build a community of deep belonging.
     
    student group photo
  • Affinity groups + event programming: BUA strives to be a place where every student is known, seen, and valued. Our commitment to inclusivity and affirmation is rooted in the belief that diversity alone is not enough. We must continue to extend open invitations—to listen, to grow, and to build a school culture that reflects not only who we are, but who we aspire to be.

    Sharing our cultures, traditions, and stories builds an inclusive and affirming community and reflects BUA’s deep and enduring commitment to belonging. Our identities are complex, multi-faceted, and central to who we are. When shared, they can bring us together.

    Recognition of BUA’s rich cultural tapestry has grown into annual, student-driven initiatives that honor a wide range of experiences and traditions. Affinity and alliance celebrations provide students, families, faculty, and staff opportunities to share aspects of their cultural, racial, religious, and personal identities with the wider school community. These moments not only highlight the diversity of our community, they also invite us to celebrate difference, reflect on shared values, and learn from one another.

    In the 2024-2025 school year:

    • The Middle Eastern and North African Student Association shared dates, figs and other treats to mark the start of Ramadan.
    • The Black Student Union hosted an evening “cookout” featuring personal testimonials by students and some excellent food.
    • The Jewish Students Organization organized a beautiful Tu Bishvat seder, an important moment for sharing and connection.
    • The East Asian Students Association sponsored a Lunar New Year celebration with a delicious buffet, games, and good cheer.
    • The Latin American Student Association hosted a school-wide breakfast.
    • The South Asian Students Association hosted a garba in honor of Navrati, featuring Indian dance and amazing food.
    • Our annual Be Together event celebrates the diversity of the BUA community, with food, dance, music, and storytelling representing more than three dozen countries and cultural heritages.
  • English/History curricular reform: BUA’s humanities program has been, since the school’s founding, one of our great strengths. Our mission highlights the promise that, at BUA, students will “read deeply”and “think critically.” Those ideas permeate the English and history classrooms, where students read challenging, rigorous texts that one would expect to see on a college syllabus. The curriculum has provided a vehicle for grappling with the big questions of the Western humanistic tradition, and will continue to do so.

    But there are limitations to this approach. It can give the misimpression that the Western tradition is the only or a superior source of wisdom. It may not provide opportunities for our increasingly diverse student body to see themselves reflected in the literature and history they study. And it may sacrifice knowledge that is essential to our students as they prepare to be citizens and leaders in a global world.

    In revising the English and history curricula over the past several years, those department faculty have preserved the richness of our traditions while injecting a global and diverse outlook.

    • English: In 9th-grade English, Self and Society: The Literary Canon in Conversation, students will still read mainstays of the literary canon, but also put those texts in conversation with rigorous, rich texts outside that tradition. They will read Homer’s Odyssey, for example, alongside Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon; Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice alongside Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West – exploring common themes around identity, the boundaries between self and community, and our understanding of heroism and virtue.

      In 10th-grade English, Global Citizens: The Evolution of English Literature, students will continue to engage with some of the great canonical works of British literature – Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales – while broadening the aperture to include post-colonial literature from the English-speaking world, like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies. Thematically, they will trace the evolution of literature in the English-speaking world and use that as a lens to explore what it means to live in an increasingly global world.

    • History: In 9th-grade history, now called “Power and Wisdom in the Ancient World,” students examine three essential questions – What is good government? What does an individual owe to society? And What does it mean to live a life with purpose? – through the lens of Classical Greece, the Fall of the Roman Republic, the Qin and Han Dynasties in China, and the Mauryan Empire in India. Some of the works students read are The Iliad, Plato’s Apology and Crito, selections from the Bible, Bhagavad Gita, and Confucius’s Analects.

      “Makings of the Modern World,” our 10th-grade history course, explores the liberal tradition and its critics, including conservatism, socialism, nationalism, and fascism, focusing on Western Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and China. Students read Locke’s Second Treatise on Government, Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Wiesel’s Night, Memmi’s Colonizer and Colonized, and Arendt’s Origin of Totalitarianism, among other texts. Eleventh-grade history still covers roughly the same content but expands the time frame into the 1990s.