Just inside the front door at Andrew High School in Tinley Park stands a massive geography lesson.
Painted on the wall of the school’s main corridor are the continents, floating on blue seas.
Student artists spent the last Pulaski Day weekend creating the stylized map and the legend above it, which reads “Project Diversity: United We Stand.” Each letter’s design represents the flag of a different nation.
Students chose the theme, “United We Stand,” in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to James Gay, Andrew’s associate principal.
“Our goal last year was to open up everybody’s minds and hearts,” Gay said. “This year’s is to move from tolerance to acceptance.”
Gay helped the students set up Project Diversity, a club that seeks to bridge cultural gaps and increase ethnic awareness in a largely homogeneous student population.
Sixty students worked on the mural, which originally was accessorized with posters and flags on each side. The posters and the flags came down after a month, but the map remains.
“It’s one of the highlights of the school,” said junior Jawad “Mike” Ali, one of the leaders of Project Diversity.
“Once it went up, people said, `Please don’t take it down.'”
Reaping a response
Project Diversity has been effective, according to junior Angelica Beltran, another leader.
“It’s just that everyone is so united. We’re bringing everybody together. You can’t miss it. Everybody comes through here.”
Said Ali: “We live in a predominantly Caucasian community, but as a whole, we’re all Americans. We want to help people understand that we’re not just living in a society to tolerate people, but to accept them.”
“We’ve had a great response,” said Gay, who as associate principal is in charge of curriculum and instruction and student leadership and activities.
Ali’s post-Sept. 11 experience shows how well the lesson is taking root. Ali’s fellow students didn’t react negatively to his Middle Eastern ancestry.
“I haven’t had any problems,” he said. “They’ve been respectful.”
At first glance, Andrew High School might not seem a likely forum for the discussion of diversity issues.
Of the school’s 2,400 students, more than 94 percent are Caucasian, 2.7 percent are Hispanic, 2.3 percent claim Asian or Pacific Islander roots, and less than 1 percent are African-American.
Andrew’s suburban campus was definitely a change for Gay, who spent 16 years at De La Salle High School on Chicago’s South Side.
Ethnic diversity wasn’t a novelty at De La Salle, where Gay served as principal for 10 years before moving to Andrew in 2000.
“We lived it,” Gay said.
But the need for people to understand and accept each other doesn’t dissolve at the city’s borders.
“The fact that we’re 94 percent Caucasian here doesn’t mean we don’t deal with the same issues,” Gay said.
Kinds of diversity
Diversity exists within the broader ethnic categories, such as Europeans, Middle Easterners, Latin Americans and Asians, he noted.
Then there are the style and interest differences among high school students themselves, he said.
At least 100 students “helped out with at least one thing” for Project Diversity’s events, Ali said.
Project Diversity was set up with help from the National Conference for Community and Justice, Gay said. The organization encourages schools to sponsor projects emphasizing cross-cultural understanding.
“Project Diversity is basically an outbirth of NCCJ,” he said.
Students have embraced the idea wholeheartedly, he said, noting that Project Diversity’s activities “are basically student driven. It’s been just a wonder and a joy to see the kids respond.”
An ethnic fashion show, one of the group’s first events, surprised organizers by drawing an audience of 450.
“We only set up 50 chairs,” Gay said. “We thought there would be more models than audience.”
But Project Diversity leaders were ambitious from the beginning, he said.
When the group kicked off its activities last year, they asked U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. to be their keynote speaker, an invitation he accepted.
“They wrote him a letter. They have no fear,” he said.
This year, the group hosted a forum called “Snack and Learn” with Jerry Pope of Illinois Wesleyan University, who discussed first impressions and stereotypes.
A “Sweets Week,” during which Project Diversity sold ethnic goodies at lunchtime, illustrated the need to overcome suspicion of the unknown, Beltran said.
Some students would look at an unfamiliar treat and say “Eeeuw! What is this?” Then they’d take a few bites and decide the dessert was pretty tasty, she said.
The group also hosted a Diversity Fair in March, Gay said.
“We turned the gym into an Epcot Center” like at Disney World, with areas stocked with information about and objects from Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, the Middle East, North America, South America and western Asia.
Students visiting the fair received passports stamped for each region visited.
An ethnic show-and-tell
An ethnic dance recital–featuring everything from an Irish jig to a Middle Eastern wedding dance–got a standing ovation, Gay said. “Everyone was in full ethnic garb,” he said.
Some of the dancers had costumes of their own, while others borrowed the attire from relatives and friends.
“It was all like phone tag,” Beltran explained.
The recital and the message are moving beyond the high school campus, too, with a recent performance at nearby McAuliffe Elementary School.
Gay, 41, lives in Naperville with his wife, Rene, and three children, Morgan, 12, Bryce, 10, and Keegan, 5.
He’s a native South Sider who graduated from St. Laurence High School, where his history teachers inspired him to aim for a teaching career.
“I think most teachers can pick out [the teacher] who made a difference,” he said. “When I was in high school, I saw their love for history, for sharing their knowledge. I’ve never looked back. It’s a calling.”
So he earned a bachelor’s degree in history at Northern Illinois University and his master’s in educational administration at Northeastern Illinois University. He received a doctorate in educational leadership and policy studies at Loyola University.
He briefly considered doing historical research, he said, “but I’m not the kind of guy to sit by myself in a room.”
“History is my love, and I love the concept of teaching the different cultures,” said Gay, who taught history and coached football and track at De La Salle before becoming principal there.
“Education will eradicate fear.”
Even his favorite periods of history, the American Revolution and early 20th Century Russia, involve cultural change.
A new role for Gay
Gay will bring his commitment to Project Diversity to his new job as Andrew High School’s next principal. His appointment as successor to current Principal Mike Monaco, who is retiring, begins July 1.
After he was named as Monaco’s successor at the May 6 school board meeting, the first thing students wanted to know was whether he would continue to work with Project Diversity, he said.
His answer is yes.
“I’m really excited about [the future],” Gay said.
“My attachment to the kids and the staff is real tight, and I’m excited to continue working with them.”
James M. Gay
Occupation: Associate principal, Andrew High School, Tinley Park
Age: 41
Outstanding project: Working with students to set up Project Diversity, a student group now in its second year of bridging cultural gaps, increasing ethnic awareness and encouraging acceptance at the high school.
Project Diversity goals: “Our goal last year was to open up everybody’s minds and hearts. This year’s is to move from tolerance to acceptance.”
Family: Lives in Naperville with his wife, Rene, and their two daughters Morgan, 12 and Keegan, 5, and their son, Bryce, 10.
Education: St. Laurence High School, Northern Illinois University, Northeastern Illinois University, Loyola University
Reason for teaching: “History is my love, and I love the concept of teaching the different cultures.”
