"We prepare students to engage in the world that is and to help bring about a world that ought to be."
About
Our Mission
We strive to build a diverse school where students exercise their curiosity and imagination as they develop as scholars, artists and athletes.
Friends Seminary educates students from kindergarten through twelfth grade, adhering to the values of the Religious Society of Friends. We strive to build a diverse school where students exercise their curiosity and imagination as they develop as scholars, artists and athletes. In a community that cultivates the practices of keen observation, unhurried reflection, critical thinking, and coherent expression, we listen for the single voice as we seek unity. The disciplines of silence, study, and service provide the matrix for growth: silence opens us to change; study helps us to know the world; service challenges us to put our values into practice. At Friends Seminary, education is rooted in the Quaker belief in the Inner Light – that of God in every person. Guided by the testimonies of integrity, peace, equality, and simplicity, we prepare students to engage in the world that is and to help bring about a world that ought to be.
Adopted December 2015
Service Learning Mission
Service is integral to Friends Seminary’s educational mission, along with the disciplines of study and silence. Our Community Service Program strives to instill a sense of stewardship of school community and respect for responsibility to our urban neighborhood and beyond. By providing opportunities within the curriculum and in other relevant activities for students to witness and understand the needs of others, we hope to prepare them for a life that includes service. Our goal is to integrate knowledge and undertaking with compassion and social responsibility. Only through reflection and understanding the need to put our values into practice will students be able to grasp the importance of the gift of caring for each other, for all humanity, and for the natural world.
Adopted June 2004
Diversity & Inclusion Mission
The Society of Friends is founded in the belief that there is that of God in every person and that truth emerges as new voices are heard and incorporated in our understanding. We believe that the quality of the truths we know is enriched and deepened by welcoming people with diverse experiences of the world into our community.
We want to foster a community that addresses the challenge of valuing difference and making every individual feel welcome, supported, and safe: a community in which each person is asked to make the rigorous commitment to recognize the Light within every other, to hear that piece of truth each person brings to the continuing dialogue which is the foundation of our community. We want our daily interactions to demonstrate that maintaining respect and pursuing the hard work of understanding difference creates strength as we work to define and move toward common goals.
Our mission as an educational institution is to prepare our students to participate in an increasingly interdependent world and, by graduating an increasingly diverse group of students, to help build a more effective citizenry and representative leadership for the future. We seek to develop the skills and discipline necessary to communicate effectively and to learn from a rich variety of experiences and points of view. This work is central to valuing diversity, to the purpose of education and to the Quaker ideals of integrity, peace, equality and simplicity.
In a world in which people continue to suffer profound inequalities of opportunity, we dedicate ourselves to stretching what we have and are capable of: to working to become a community more representative of the city in which we live and to improving our ability to support a diverse student body. The gap between our ideals and the possible creates struggle to which we commit ourselves with energy and joy.
We want to foster a community that addresses the challenge of valuing difference and making every individual feel welcome, supported, and safe: a community in which each person is asked to make the rigorous commitment to recognize the Light within every other, to hear that piece of truth each person brings to the continuing dialogue which is the foundation of our community. We want our daily interactions to demonstrate that maintaining respect and pursuing the hard work of understanding difference creates strength as we work to define and move toward common goals.
Our mission as an educational institution is to prepare our students to participate in an increasingly interdependent world and, by graduating an increasingly diverse group of students, to help build a more effective citizenry and representative leadership for the future. We seek to develop the skills and discipline necessary to communicate effectively and to learn from a rich variety of experiences and points of view. This work is central to valuing diversity, to the purpose of education and to the Quaker ideals of integrity, peace, equality and simplicity.
In a world in which people continue to suffer profound inequalities of opportunity, we dedicate ourselves to stretching what we have and are capable of: to working to become a community more representative of the city in which we live and to improving our ability to support a diverse student body. The gap between our ideals and the possible creates struggle to which we commit ourselves with energy and joy.
Adopted October 2005
Global Education Mission
In keeping with our Quaker mission to “prepare students to engage in the world that is and to help bring about a world that ought to be,” a global education at Friends Seminary empowers students to lead intentional lives of meaning and impact in our complex, interconnected, and dynamic world. At Friends Seminary we guide students to engage in a culture of curiosity that encourages them to seek multiple perspectives and take courageous action for others. Through wide-ranging curricular offerings, as well as through varied co-curricular opportunities, community engagement, and purposeful local, national and international experiences, students grow the knowledge, essential skills and empathy necessary to understand and address shared global challenges.
Adopted February 2024
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.
