community events
There is always something going on in The Seattle School community, whether it be academic, spiritual enrichment, or simply time to play. Anamchara hosts neighborhood dinners, Sacred Space facilitates a vespers service twice a year. Student Council creates conversations between students and faculty through Academic Forums as well as Community Conversations, and Mosaic works to form events that make The Seattle School community a family community. The Seattle School not only hosts conferences here and around the country, but also seminars, lectures, and CEU events that are open to the community and often the public.
View the Community Life Calendar
community rhythms
There are also events that shape our time together, becoming community rhythms. These community rhythms mark the beginning, middle, and end of each year, and seek to create seasons where The Seattle School community can participate in and celebrate each other’s lives and the life of our communion with God.
Beginning
Orientation & (RE)Orientation
During the first week of class The Seattle School invites new and returning students to orient themselves to what the upcoming year will entail. For new students, this is a concentrated, two-day event intended to introduce the academic, social, and spiritual life of The Seattle School community. Returning students join this event for one morning to engage in discussion about their place and progress within each degree program, portfolio development, and to envision the upcoming year of academic learning.
Community Weekend: Fall Forward & Convocation
The Seattle School Community Weekend takes place the first weekend after the start of the Fall Term and is an important time for The Seattle School as we set aside time before God and with each other to transition into a new year, rest and reconnect with old friends, and welcome a new class into our community. The weekend culminates with Convocation at St. Mark's Cathedral, where we officially invite the incoming class into our community and enter the new academic year together by joining in a liturgy of dedication and the celebration of Holy Communion. Afterwards we share food and fellowship as a new community with a community picnic at Volunteer Park.
Middle
Christmas Party
The Christmas Party marks the end of the first trimester and is a time we gather as a community to celebrate Immanuel, “God with us." It is a time to take a break from the intensity and routine of graduate school to eat good food, to dance, and to play. In this season we also join together to look outside of The Seattle School toward the broader community through the Christmas Party's Silent Auction, offering art and crafts made by the community, the proceeds going outside our walls.
The Artist Residency
For seven days each December, ten artists from The Seattle School have 24-hour access to the 3rd floor of the building to create, explore, dialog, and collaborate with one another in their artistic endeavors. The rhythm of each day is up to the artists to structure for themselves. Every evening, artists come together around the table for dinner and fellowship with one another and the evening's host, providing a rich time for conversation and rest during the creative process. In the spring following the residency, artists display their work in the 2nd floor gallery and have the opportunity to share their process with the community through a gallery show in late March.
(S)Ending: Upcoming Graduates (S)ending Retreat
Early in the Spring trimester, The Seattle School hosts a retreat for all upcoming graduates that begins the process of orienting them to life post-graduate school. During this time, graduates have the opportunity to interact with each other, those specifically in their degree program and the faculty therein, and participate in a variety of practical workshops as they anticipate the coming endings and new beginnings, including ever present and pressing job-search.
Ending
Spring Banquet
The Spring Banquet is a community-wide celebration of the story of the past year as we move into the Summer Term. We gather for a meal, celebrate the year’s La Danse Award recipients, dance, and enjoy being together one last time as a community before the summer term and break.
(S)Ending: Upcoming Graduates' Breakfast
This is a celebration breakfast marking the final formal opportunity to gather with other upcoming graduates, faculty, and staff in a time of sharing food, memories, and words of gratitude and hope as we bring closure to our time together at The Seattle School.
(S)Ending: Upcoming Graduates' Open House
This event is designed for friends and family of graduates to come tour the school and meet some of the staff and faculty that have helped graduates along their journeys at The Seattle School.
Commencement
The concluding bookend to Convocation. It is here that we send another Seattle School class out to embody their mandate of blessing to the world.