Many upper school events are planned by student leadership groups such as the Upper School Council (USC), Student Activities Committee (SAC), and Student Intercultural Life Committee (SILC), but could more be achieved if the student leadership groups worked together? USC sophomore representative Shefali Meagher proposed that USC and SILC have a liaison(s) to make this a reality.

USC is an elected student leadership group that represents the upper school student body and their opinions. They also act as liaisons between students and faculty to better student welfare. SILC is a selected student group that promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion within the school community.

Without a liaison, Meagher thinks there is less communication or collaboration between USC and SILC. Last year, former USC co-president Maryeva Gonzalez was also a part of SILC. This resulted in frequent communication between the two groups as she acted as an unofficial liaison. It also led to collaboration on some events. For example, at the end of last year’s Speaker Day that USC organized, SILC was able to plan a short activity that students did with their advisory. The topic for the day was gender and sexual identity. Students made collages out of magazine cut-outs that represented their gender identity.

The job of the liaison(s) would be to attend and listen in on SILC or USC meetings and communicate what they heard at the meeting to the other group.

SAC sophomore representative and member of SILC Violet Pitcher is a liaison for her respective groups. She described that her job as a liaison is to attend SILC meetings and listen to what they have to say. “I’m kind of bringing things from the two and making connections,” Pitcher said. Pitcher is an example of how this liaison proposal could work. By being a liaison for SILC and collaborating with the Black Student Union (BSU), Pitcher heard what they had to say and returned to SAC to form a more inclusive and diverse set of songs for the Homecoming playlist.

Meagher believes that appointing a liaison could benefit both groups. “I was on SILC last year, I know what they’re going to be planning and [..] they want to do bigger events and stuff. So, I think that it would be really beneficial for USC to know about this and possibly help facilitate them as well,” Meagher said.

Pitcher agrees that USC and SILC should have a liaison. “It’s super important, especially for USC because they’re in charge of so much of student life,” Pitcher said.

The purpose of USC is to represent the student body. Meagher and Pitcher emphasize SILC’s specific aim to promote DEI. “That’s really important when we talk about student life because there are many people in the population and in our small community that don’t feel seen,” Pitcher said.

However, the push for communication should continue beyond USC and SILC. “I don’t think USC has a ton of communication with other groups. I think that’s something that we should start to work on,” Meagher said.

The proposal for a new liaison has been recently passed and is still in the early stages of being enacted. Meagher says the next step is to come up with all the liaison responsibilities and then appoint someone to the position.