M-A’s new Intercultural Leadership Class has expanded the capacity of the highly sought-after M-A Leadership Program and created ambitious goals to increase cultural representation to reflect M-A’s diverse community. The class focuses on building inclusivity by planning and hosting cultural events and celebrations that represent M-A’s entire student population.
In recent weeks, the new class sold apples, honey, and challah at lunch in celebration of Rosh Hashanah. The very next day, they kicked off Latin American Heritage Month with a live performance, traditional food and drinks, and games in the G-wing.
Leadership teacher Karina Flores is excited to spearhead this new initiative. She said, “I hope to uplift a lot of the cultural events on campus and support clubs because clubs do a lot of hard work to promote our wide range of cultures.”
Intercultural Leadership also aims to increase representation in leadership classes. Flores said, “We wanted to ensure the class represents all of our school. Not only in students’ ethnic or social backgrounds, but also in their socio-economic status, grades, and gender, really making it as diverse as possible.”
Flores encourages the students in Intercultural Leadership to take advantage of the rare opportunity to help build a class from the ground up. However, there are also some inherent challenges in successfully establishing a new class and executing its mission. Junior Zoe Fong, a student in Intercultural Leadership, said, “It’s still a work in progress, and we’re changing the class every day, but it’s really cool to have so much input in its creation.”
Another student in the class, sophomore Samantha Ruiz, shared, “I joined this class because it’s very different from normal Leadership. I wanted to learn more about other people’s cultures and also share my culture as a Mexican-American.”
Intercultural Leadership will continue to partner with clubs to amplify their presence on campus. “We hope to continue expanding our program and bridge the leadership program with the clubs and larger M-A community. Please come out and support our events,” said Flores.
