Annual retreat builds leadership skills, advances cultural competency

salvetoday Posted On October 25, 2016
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The annual Multicultural Leadership Retreat, a weekend-long retreat that focuses on building the strengths of student leaders, will be held Nov. 18-20. The retreat is designed to teach students how to understand differing perspectives based on social identities of which they are not members.

Sponsored by the Office of Multicultural Programs and Retention, the retreat will be held at the Canonicus Camp and Conference Center in Exeter. Transportation, meals and snacks will be provided. An approved Navigator event, the retreat fulfills the “consciousness of self” and “congruence” portions of the social change model.

Participants will learn to confront/shift perceptions and learn perspectives of differing social identities. They will also develop an action plan to further their journey of understanding of social group identities.

The retreat will focus on several learning goals:

  • Students will receive information on social group identities and target/agent relationships.
  • Students will claim their identities. They will learn how to understand their identity from a societal perspective and how to understand the need to be open to learning about their own identity and those of others.
  • Students will engage in exercises that may challenge their current perceptions and/or understandings of people in differing social groups.
  • Students will learn to recognize the cues when privilege and oppression take place on both an individual and institutional level, and will explore ways in which they can challenge individual and institutional privilege and oppression.
  • Students will learn ways to further their understanding of social group identities, what their responsibilities are to society and how to be socially responsible.

The retreat is open to all undergraduate students. Applications are available in the Office of Multicultural Programs and Retention, located in the Walgreen Hall administrative wing. The application deadline is Monday, Oct. 31.