Student summits have been a staple of Niles West cultural clubs for the past few years, with the first Black Student Summit debuting in 2021 and the first Middle Eastern and North African [MENA] Student Summit following in 2023. This year, the summits have been canceled and replaced by a whole school Unity Summit on May 1, 2024, celebrating the whole school coming together.
According to an email sent out by Chief Equity Officer, Dr. La Wanna Wells, the celebration will have two assemblies, which will include a keynote speaker, different performances and other educational opportunities.
“The whole point of the summit is anti-bias education with various speakers. These speakers will demonstrate our themes of awareness, empathy and solidarity. We’ve got some great experience with our previous summits and we’ve been combining feedback with student groups and parents and it came down to maintaining the great things that are happening in summits but opening it up to the wider school community,” Wells said.
Initially, it was called the Cultural and Identity Summit and included clubs like Gay-Straight Alliance and religious clubs. The Equity Department took community feedback, changed the name and removed specific club participation or affiliation. It was also going to be a full-day event but has now been changed to just an assembly and some after-school affinity spaces.
“If you remember, in January, it was called the Culture and Identity Summit. It’s been updated since then from feedback from the community and now it’s the Unity Summit because it’s uniting all of us,” Wells said.
While some saw this as an opportunity to expand summits, others believe that it’s erasing affinity spaces.
“I see the cancellation of these summits as a safe space being taken away from students. They’re a great way to celebrate cultures at West and were fun for everyone, not just MENA students,” MENA Vice President Muhamed Alali said. “There’s no way it’s going to be able to replace the impact the summits had.”
Sophomore and BSU member Lydie Boussoukou agreed, claiming it missed the point of the original summits.
“For the Black Teen Summit last year, we went over to North all together and it was fun interacting with people over there. I don’t think it will be as great as the previous summits because as Black people who aren’t always welcomed because of our race, we need that form of community and intimacy that we get through summits,” Boussoukou said. “I think that’s the whole point. We had this one thing for this one group because we need those days to ourselves. We don’t always need to include everybody all of the time.”
Even though the Black Teen Summit and MENA Summit may be coming to an end, some people, including Niles West B.S.U sponsor Elizabeth Brent, are excited to see how the new Unity Summit goes.
“I hope this [summit] will be as beneficial as the summits and am looking forward to it. I know that the expectation is that [it] is filled with more of a unity focus, but students are nervous about that because they’re used to having the full day to be with their peers,” Brent said. “We’re hoping that they can still have as positive of an experience as they did at the original summits.”
