Stepping foot onto Riordan almost four years ago, I did not know what to expect. The transition from a single gender to a coed school was in its early days, and there was no precedent for such a change.
Despite the lack of precedent, Riordan has made massive strides towards gender equity since becoming coed–from the founding of a new women’s club to advocate for the female students of this school to the budding success of women’s sports.
Many leadership roles in extracurricularactivitieshave been filled by girls—from the leadership of The Crusader to Student Parliament and CORE Team.
From these leaders to the passionate female teachers at Riordan, there are role models within our community for female students to look up to. All of these are powerful steps towards supporting the female students of our community. Yet, there is still more that can be done to champion the cause of female students at Riordan.
It was bizarre at first; the gender ratio in many of my classes—particular STEM classes—was noticeably skewed. I sometimes felt intimidated being one of a few female students in certain classes and academic programs. Across the academic and athletic domains, we needed to do more to foster a stronger sense of sisterhood in our school community.
Within the framework of the engineering program, having a mentorship program for girls interested in pursuing STEM careers would help them as they plan out their future, whether in building confidence in their ability to thrive in a traditionally male dominated field or through the knowledge passed down from successful women who have come before them.
In the athletic sector, we should continue to strongly promote girls sports—whether through highlighting their successes in the broader community or supporting girls in establishing new sports teams, like flag football.
Likewise, there should be free access to period products in the girls’ restrooms, which would ease the burden on many female students to balance their health with academics.
We should also continue to highlight female success within the classroom—whether through educating students about women’s history or working more diverse female authors into the curriculum.
From more proactively highlighting the achievements of female scholars and athletes to supporting girls seeking to found programs within the school community, Riordan can continue its mission to educate and find strength—in brotherhood and sisterhood.
As our school graduates its first fully coed class, celebrating countless victories along the way, it has become apparent that the death of our old ways has blossomed into an ever stronger, ever wealthier diversity of experiences within our students and the art they’ve created.
