"We prepare students to engage in the world that is and to help bring about a world that ought to be."
Friends Announces 2018-2019 Theme
The Center for Peace, Equity and Justice at Friends Seminary is pleased to announce the academic theme for the 2018-2019 school year: American Landscape: Explore, Engage, Transform. Myriad problems threaten to overwhelm our country precisely at the moment it has become unimaginable that American politics as we know it will deliver the needed responses. The plainest truth is that conditions of life in America have deteriorated across a broad front, posing a daunting array of challenges to the well-being of our people and planet––from mass incarceration, gun violence, and systemic poverty, to environmental degradation and the mismanagement of our planet’s natural resources. Broken systems and flawed practices have stoked racial tensions, thwarted educational equity, and compromised the rights of citizens to shelter and sustenance.
Through annual large-scale programs, like Peace Week and the all-school Day of Service, as well as division-specific ones, such as the Upper School Day of Concern and community periods in Lower and Middle Schools, we will examine these issues from multiple perspectives and meet with thought leaders who are seeking solutions to challenges faced by our nation. The approach will focus on hope for a better tomorrow—one that fosters a concern for people, place, and planet. Faculty are encouraged to partner with CPEJ staff to explore curricular and co-curricular connections to this theme. As it explores both challenges and solutions, the community will be invited to consider what guidance Quaker testimonies and practices may offer us on this journey.
Friends Seminary actively promotes diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism in all its programs and operations, including admissions, financial aid, hiring, and all facets of the educational experience. To form a community which strives to reflect the world’s diversity, we do not discriminate on the basis of race or color, religion, nationality, ethnicity, economic background, physical ability, sex, gender identity or expression, or sexual orientation. Friends Seminary is an equal opportunity employer.
Friends Seminary — the oldest continuously operated, coeducational school in NYC — serves college-bound day students in Kindergarten-Grade 12.
