Students

Student Groups and Student Leadership

Culture and community at The Seattle School are co-created. As we train to be healers and rebuilders, serving God and neighbor through transforming relationships, we are living and learning in a broken, fragmented world, during a time of profound reckonings and rapid cultural change. Within our learning community, we wrestle with the challenges that exist in the world around us- issues around power and privilege and understanding the impact that trauma has on our individual and collective bodies. Each of us is profoundly and uniquely shaped by the contexts in which we serve. The Seattle School seeks to cultivate a training ground in which students can explore their unique gifts and calling in community with one another.

We believe that the best way for students to learn the art of leadership is not merely through the obtaining and executing of good information and technique but through embodiment – entering into the wild drama and dance of pursuing life with one another on behalf of others. Students bring to the school a richness of ability and desire. Embracing the fullness of who they are, students are invited to participate and create on behalf of The Seattle School community. Student life at The Seattle School is a living collage, reflecting the vision, interests, passions, and personalities of the students here.

Student Groups

Student groups are peer-facilitated communities designed to connect and resource students in relation to their shared interests or identity. Current students can find out more about Student Groups and get connected in Populi under the “Groups” tab, in the “Student Resources Hub.”

Underrepresented student groups are spaces wherein students gather with others who share similar experiences and perspectives related to their underrepresented culture and/or identity. It can be costly and exhausting to engage in contexts where one is underrepresented. Students from underrepresented groups tend to experience layered challenges of undergoing formation in the midst of peers and professors who do not share the same experiences as them. At times students with underrepresented cultures or identities’ find that their experiences, identities, and values are not directly acknowledged or addressed in the classroom.

Student group gatherings offer space for processing, conversation and deepening connections. These groups expand students’ network of support, help students to grow their capacity to learn and thrive in relation to their culture or identity, and provide resources that broaden conversations and equip students to engage in their learning spaces and future professional contexts.

What do we mean by underrepresentation?

Underrepresentation is not defined solely by demographic statistics but also takes into consideration the values, experiences, and narratives of cultural groups represented in curricular and co-curricular content. Underrepresented student resources at The Seattle School focus around three categories:

  1. Race/Ethnicity
  2. Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity
  3. Ability / Neurodiversity / Living with chronic Pain

Interest-based student groups allow students to cultivate connections based on shared areas of interest. These groups ebb and flow depending on student desire and capacity.

Examples of interest-based student groups that are active now or have existed in the past:

Sage – gathering students who are returning to school later in life, after a long time away, often while caring for their families or aging parents.

Artists’ Council – students who identify as creatives gathering to share resources, to make art together, etc.

Alumni Networking

Alumni serve as a primary resource for students preparing to become practitioners at The Seattle School. Through our Alumni network, including Alumni Chapters in many parts of the US, students can connect with an Alumni within their respective degree program and desired vocational practice. As Alumni of The Seattle School, these relationships with practitioners offer context and connection between the formational experiences of graduate education and practice. The Student & Academic Services team facilitates connections for underrepresented students with alumni who understand the lived experience of being underrepresented in their field and can offer support to students seeking additional resources and points of connection.

Student Leadership

Student Leadership is a team of students who volunteer to serve the student body as a whole, and meet on a weekly basis towards that end. We cultivate student engagement in our learning community by facilitating collaboration, conversation, and mutuality among students, staff, and faculty. We practice active listening, turning towards one another, and cultivating trust and belonging in all our shared spaces. We host seasonal gatherings, ad hoc conversations, and annual community wide events.

Student Leadership seeks to recruit a diverse team that represents and intersects with as much of the student body as possible. Anyone interested in joining can do so at two points in the year: in August, and in January. The initial term of commitment is one academic year from the month during which one has started. For more information or conversation with a member of student leadership, email studentleadership@theseattleschool.edu.

History of Student Leadership at The Seattle School

The Seattle School was founded by dreamers gathered around kitchen tables and in living rooms, envisioning new training and education at the intersection of text, soul, and culture, integrating the disciplines of theology and psychology. In the fall of 2002, in order to more fully embody its mission, The Seattle School’s leadership made a commitment to incorporate students into the leadership fabric of the institution. This was a choice to ensure that the larger institution was always connected to the face and voice of its students.

There was a season soon after the school’s founding when the stresses of launching had caused core relationships to fracture. Controversies were rampant, and it seemed that the school might not survive. Frustrations were high and trust was thin among instructors, staff, and students.

Meanwhile, a holy curiosity stirred, and prophetic voices began asking what it would mean to actually live the kind of reconciliation and healing that we were here to study and learn. In that time, the faculty and student leadership teams turned towards one another for conversation. They began by asking forgiveness for the ways that they had lost faith in one another. They carved out space to see each other’s faces and hear about each other’s experiences. They met for a series of meals and conversation, rebuilding an imagination for the learning community that they would create together.

In the decades since these early days, Student Leadership has sought to embody this legacy of “turning towards.” In today’s learning environment, we live this legacy in working with staff and faculty to (re)build trust and belonging. We tend to our relationships and community rhythms, and to the systems and structures that support us as we engage the challenge of learning in online and hybrid classrooms.

The Birth of Student Leadership Realms

The original student leadership team at The Seattle School was called Student Council. Its values were encapsulated in the acronym FACE:

  • Faculty + student relationships
  • Academic excellence
  • Culture
  • Embodiment

The Student Council team birthed many iterations across the years. At times, additional “realms” have formed around a particular purpose or domain.

  • Sacred Space was a realm that allowed students in all degree programs to explore their spiritual practices together. They fostered opportunities to rest, wrestle, and play in relationship with God, ourselves, and each other. Sacred space engaged the liturgical seasons, stewarded the chapel space, and hosted seasonal vespers services.
  • Anamchara, meaning “soul friend” in Irish, was born with the mission to connect returning students with incoming students. When the school’s campus moved from the office complex in Bothel to 2501 Elliott Ave in Belltown, Anamchara’s work shifted to connecting students in their neighborhoods and in the Commons on campus through Community Dinners, game nights, and other forms of play.
  • Mosaic was a realm formed by spouses/partners of students to facilitate community and support for spouses/partners and families of students.
  • Student Council continued to be a realm focused on the values in the FACE acronym: Faculty and student relationships, Academic Excellence, Culture, and Embodiment.

In recent years, Student Leadership has consolidated into one team that meets weekly by Zoom and in person when possible to steward the enduring values and legacies of previous iterations and realms.

The pandemic of 2020 was a time of disruption and a reckoning on many levels that impacted our learning community’s structures and rhythms. The Seattle School faculty, staff, and students navigated the unprecedented shift to online learning in 2020, and then a transition into hybrid learning in 2021 as we launched our new low-residency modality. As we continue to train towards professional landscapes that are rapidly and relentlessly changing, students, staff, and faculty have continued the work of recovering from the fragmentation of the pandemic within our relationships with one another.

Within our evolving context, Student Leadership has been discerning and re-imagining how to engage our mission in order to help (re)build trust, both among students and with their instructors. We have been learning what it takes in this cultural moment to cultivate a collective sense of belonging amidst our layered and complex relational landscape. We seek to partner with staff and faculty in stewarding tools, rhythms and structures that can support and offer containment for our relationships and our learning amidst the emerging realities in our contexts and professions.