Student Experience

Clubs and Organizations

Overview

At Spence, clubs and organizations serve as a laboratory for students. They experiment with their interests, collaborate with one another and faculty to imagine and implement their ideas, growing their leadership skills in an encouraging and supportive environment.
Both in Middle School and Upper School groupings, Spence students dedicate time to focus on everything from creative expression and social activism to student government and STEAM–with more topics popping up each year based on current interests.
“At Spence, when students have a passion, they assemble a club and bring a very well-thought-out presentation to the Student Council and pitch it.” 

—LAUREN

92 Middle School and Upper School Clubs and Organizations

69 Student-Created Clubs
10 Student Affinity/Identity Groups
67 US Clubs, All are Student-Run

Clubs

List of 2 items.

  • Middle School Clubs

    • Athletic Association 
    • Choir
    • Clara’s Committee
    • Dance 
    • Debate Club
    • Ethics Club
    • Filmmaking Club
    • FIRST LEGO League Club
    • Identities Project 
    • Jewish Culture Club 
    • Literary Magazine
    • Math Olympiad 
    • Math Team
    • Meditation 
    • MS Newspaper
    • Musical Theater Club
    • Pop-Up Clubs
    • Social Justice
    • Students of Color Affinity 
    • Sustainability Club
    • Wellness Club

  • Upper School Clubs

    • Afro-Latina Alliance at Spence (ALAS)
    • American Sign Language (ASL) Club
    • Art History Club
    • Asian Affinity
    • Books of Our Kind (BOOK)
    • Banana Splits
    • Booster
    • Boutique Club
    • Caring for Kids with Cancer
    • Change Through Sports
    • Chess Club
    • Choreography Club
    • Civics Club
    • Classics Club
    • Community Service
    • Computing Team
    • Crafts Club
    • Debate 
    • Developing Nation Community Service Club
    • EconomX
    • Equity Council
    • eVoice
    • Film Club
    • FinTech Club
    • Girl Up
    • Grassroots
    • Gender Sexuality Alliance (GSA)
    • Highlighting the Hidden
    • Homework Helpers
    • Jewish Culture Club (JCC)
    • Junior State of America (JSA)
    • Let's Erase the Stigma (LETS)
    • Little Sisters of the Assumption (LSA)
    • Math Team
    • Middle Eastern, Northern African, and Muslim Affinity (MENA)
    • Microfinance
    • Mock Trial
    • Model Congress
    • Model UN
    • Multiracial Affinity
    • Neurodiversity Alliance
    • New Tunes
    • Peer Tutors
    • PERIOD.
    • Red Door
    • Robotics Team
    • Science Team
    • SCRAWL (Spence Creatives', Readers', Artists', and Writers' League)
    • SEED (Students for Ethical Environmental Difference)
    • Sketch Comedy Club
    • SMAC (Spence’s Multicultural Awareness Coalition)
    • Spence Business Club
    • Spence Business Organization
    • Spence Women in Agriculture and Gardening Club (SWAG)
    • SpenceHacks
    • Stock Market Club
    • Student Council
    • Sustainability through Fashion
    • SWAN (Spence Women's Action Network)
    • SWIM (Spence Women in Motorsport)
    • The Nucleus
    • The Voice
    • Triple Trio
    • Walking Club
    • Women in Computer Science
    • Yearbook
    • Young Sages (DOROT)

Student-Run Publications: 4

  • The Voice: The Voice is the official student newspaper of the Spence School. It exists to serve as a conduit of communication within the Spence School community, and to celebrate the talents, accomplishments and initiatives of the School, its students and faculty members. We hope to promote the School’s spirit in insightful dialogues that inspire and involve readers.
  • eVoice: The eVoice is Spence’s online newspaper and digital content hub. It aims to take advantage of the freedom offered by its online format to include a range of content and media. Covering myriad topics—from essays to photographs to vlogs, TV to politics to opinion—we are dedicated to student voices and expression.
  • The Nucleus: The Nucleus is Spence's award-winning scientific magazine dedicated to covering current science events both within and outside the Red Doors. The Nucleus magazine received a first-place award from the American Scholastic Press Association two years in a row. 
  • SCRAWL: We are SCRAWL: Spence Creatives', Readers', Artists', and Writers' League. Every few months, we publish themed issues of our literary magazine. 

Powered By Girls

G.E.T.S. (Girl’s Empowerment Through STEM)
GETS strives to empower Middle School students who want to engage in the scientific world beyond the Middle School science curriculum through mentorship with Upper School students who are also passionate about STEM.
“I’ve learned—and I think Spence has really taught me this—to be confident in STEM and as a woman leader in research.”
 
–SARAH
Number of Affinity Groups: 8 
  • Afro-Latina Alliance at Spence (ALAS)
  • Asian Affinity
  • Banana Splits
  • Gender Sexuality Alliance (GSA)
  • Jewish Culture Club (JCC)
  • Middle Eastern, Northern African, and Muslim Students (MENA)
  • Multiracial Affinity
  • Neurodiversity Alliance

So Many Ways to be You

Affinity groups are places of voice and support that honor student identity and nurture a sense of belonging across the Spence sisterhood, and serve as an engine for raising awareness throughout the community and beyond the Red Doors.
 
The Afro-Latina Alliance at Spence (ALAS), is an affinity group for Black, African-American, and Latinx students. As one of the longest-running clubs at Spence, ALAS was founded in 1989 and recognizes the ongoing challenges of creating a school community dedicated to being anti-racist and an equitable and just environment. Weekly meetings allow ALAS members and faculty advisors of ALAS to help students direct conversations, plan events and create open forums for the entire Spence community to engage in meaningful dialogue around diversity issues.

Not for school but for life we learn

In a powerful partnership, the Upper School Student Council and Upper School Student Equity Council took on the task to develop guidelines for civil discourse at Spence. Recognizing that partisan conflict is making respectful conversations harder in our public culture, these student leaders wanted to find language that could help our community have productive and respectful dialogue. They gathered input from students in the Lower School, Middle School and Upper School, as well as from faculty and staff, to produce Talk it Out, ratified by the Equity Committee of the Board and the Head of School.
“And at Spence, I got to start my comedy club, and I've gotten to meet so many people. There's not one person who doesn't have something to contribute. Spence asks their students to be brave and to step outside of what they know and expand on it, or do something entirely new.”

—KASEY

Middle & Upper School

22 East 91st Street
New York, NY 10128

Lower School

56 East 93rd Street
New York, NY 10128

Athletic & Educational Facility

412 East 90th Street
New York, NY 10128
A K-12 independent school in New York City, The Spence School prepares a diverse community of girls and young women for the demands of academic excellence and responsible citizenship.

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