Legal Diversity Pipeline program

During the month of November, Independence High School students participated in the Corporate Legal Diversity Pipeline Program. This award winning national program was designed by Street Law, Inc., a non-profit that has been providing civic education programming for 50 years (www.streetlaw.org).

The Corporate Legal Diversity Pipeline Program seeks to encourage students of color and those from other underrepresented groups to continue their education and pursue careers in the legal profession by partnering volunteers from corporate legal departments with students in nearby high schools. The volunteer legal department staff serves as resources, mentors, teachers, and role models for the students. The program currently includes more than five dozen companies and several chapters of the Association of Corporate Counsel at sites across the country. The program at Independence was delivered by the legal department at Honeywell, Inc. and the law firm of Alston & Bird LLP.

The corporate legal volunteers worked with students from our CTE Business classes. Volunteer attorneys visited the school twice to teach students about contract and patent law. The program culminated with a field trip to the Honeywell Corporate Headquarters for a Legal Careers Conference. During the Conference, students participated in interactive legal simulations and career exploration activities.

Legal Pipeline Program 2021

Lights! Camera! Action!

The Global Studies Program was excited to partner with the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections and the League of Women Voters to film informational videos that will be shown to new voters. Indy Theater students Olivia Hartis and K Zapata filmed videos on important voting-related topics such as registering to vote, options for college students who want to vote, and political districts. They also conducted an interview with Mecklenburg County Board of Elections Director Michael Dickerson. These videos will be shown to young adults and new citizens to help explain voting procedures. We were THRILLED to run into former Independence student Juan Cuartes, who is now an Election Specialist with the Board of Elections!

Partnership with Journalism Class

The Global Studies Program partnered with Ms. Marie Matthews' journalism students to attend the Echo Foundation Student Dialogue featuring New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristoff, a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

Virtual Field Trip

Levine Museum of the New South

The World Humanities students took a virtual field trip to the Levine Museum of the New South on Nov. 10 to explore the exhibit "Brooklyn: Once a City Within a City."

Echo Foundation student dialogue

A group of AIS Juniors and Seniors participated in the Echo Foundation Student Dialogue Feb. 26 at Hough High School. This year's speaker was Dr. Denis Mukwege of the Democratic Republic of Congo, who was the 2018 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.