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• Affinity Groups (for students, parents, and faculty/staff)

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  At St. Luke’s School, we think expansively about our community and recognize the power of our similarities to create meaningful connections. We also embrace the idea that our diversity--differences of all kinds, including ability, beliefs, culture, and experience--are also a strength of our community. As such, we endorse and support a number of different affinity groups for students and adults to celebrate diversity while fostering inclusion and belonging. In contrast to student-led clubs, affinity groups are formed to provide social-emotional support for people who might otherwise experience or feel like an “outsider” at St. Luke’s due to historical under-representation or a particular minority status at school. Affinity groups at SLS are free of judgment and encourage participants to connect, share experiences and resources, and identify success and challenges. 

  
  

  According to the National Association of Independent Schools: “As a learning base, affinity groups offer affirmation of identity, empowerment of the individual, and empowerment of the group within the learning community — all things worth fighting for.” By gathering periodically in affinity groups, people with a shared identity, can assess, reflect and process their lived experiences in an effort to build greater confidence and affirm one another. Participation in affinity groups encourages participants to embrace different parts of their identity and to feel a sense of group pride and positive self-worth. For under-represented community members, affinity spaces promote resilience in the face of microaggressions, social hypervisibility, and academic invisibility. For community members in the majority, identity exploration in affinity helps to build awareness and resilience in the face of critical feedback or challenging point of view. When affinity groups have the opportunity to come together, the goal is for all people to feel more visible and more valued in the community and bolster the school’s commitment to inclusion and belonging.