g oo d i d e as by Megan Roth Photos courtesy of Maya Valcourt
A Budding Activist Student receives leadership award for equal opportunity advocacy One class and its open-ended research project inspired Dublin Jerome High School senior Maya Valcourt to make a big impact. While taking an International Baccalaureate class on global politics, Valcourt used the course’s research project to investigate affirmative action. Inspired by that work, she set out to spread awareness and eventually fundraised more than $1,000 for the American Association for Access, Equity and Diversity, one of the United States’ leading advocates for affirmative action and equal opportunity programs.
Beyond advocating for affirmative action, Valcourt’s other leadership roles include work as a camp counselor for Stratford Ecological Center.
Valcourt with the Emerging Leader Award she received for fundraising and raising awareness of affirmative action. 30 • February/March 2022
As a result, the AAAED honored Valcourt with its 2021 Emerging Leader Award. She joins past winners including Taylor Dumpson, American University’s first Black woman president of the student government, and Nicholas Hartlep, Ph.D., a professor at Berea College and author in the field of education studies. Valcourt developed an interest in affirmative action while taking the global politics class, in which students are able to conduct a research project on a topic of their choice. As a Haitian American, Valcourt says she’s always been interested in diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives but the IB class provided an opportunity to seek more concrete knowledge on the topic. “I didn’t know very much about (diversity, equity and inclusion), so I
started researching and I stumbled upon affirmative action,” she says. This piqued Valcourt’s interest and inspired her to conduct further research within the school to gauge what the student body’s understanding of affirmative action was. “I found that only half of kids knew what affirmative action was,” she says. “I saw this as an opportunity for me to educate them.” Valcourt conducted extensive independent research, including interviewing leaders of diversity-related programs at Ohio University and Ohio Wesleyan University. Using the information she gathered, Valcourt compiled a news segment that was broadcast on the school announcements. She also conducted a letter writing www.dublinlifemagazine.com
