During the fall semester of 2020, I had the opportunity to complete my second honors experience through UC’s University Honors Program as an honors retreat leader. While this experience ended up looking completely different than what I originally pictured, it has been an impactful part of my UC experience and allowed me to work toward giving back to the UHP by creating valuable experiences for others.

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Originally, when I signed up to be an honors retreat leader, I imagined going back to Camp Kern with a large group of other leaders and first-year UHP students. I looked forward to introducing new students to the UHP, growing as a leader alongside fellow UHP students, and enjoying some smores by a campfire. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, turned this plan upside down. Rather than a single, action-packed weekend, the honors retreat would instead take the form of a few meetings throughout the fall semester with a small group of freshmen UHP students. While this new format looked totally different than what I had signed up for, the circumstances increased the need to foster a welcoming community for incoming UHP students. I was happy to still serve as an honors retreat leader.

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Since the honors retreat was conducted remotely, rather than in-person, some unique challenges appeared. At the traditional retreat at Camp Kern, all students present have at least some amount of basic interest in the event since they took the initiative to sign up in the first place. Participating in remote meetings, however, takes a lot less of an investment and is just as easy to skip out on entirely. For this reason, it was important to encourage participation with my small group. At the first two meetings, I was lucky enough to have about ten students present, whereas some of my fellow retreat leaders had only a few or in some cases none. Having so many students present made our meeting feel more legitimate and closer to what an in-person retreat would have been like. At the same time, traditional ice-breaker activities like “two truths and a lie” were less than effective and very few students willingly answered questions or asked their own. When discussing the opportunities that UHP presents to freshman students, the disconnect with my small group was evident. At our third and final meeting, however, I had only three students attend. Rather than a large group where students were less willing to participate, a small group actually created a more intimate conversation and allowed the students to open up about their experiences and communicate with each other as well as with only myself. At this final meeting, I felt as though I succeeded in supporting a welcoming community for my small group of new UHP students, albeit only a few of them.

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Being an honors retreat leader during the COVID-19 pandemic was a unique experience. While the retreat looked completely different than originally conceived, the driving idea behind it remained the same: to support and grow the UHP community for incoming students. Despite the challenges, I believe that the retreat succeeded in this goal. I was happy to be a leader for such a unique retreat and look forward to attending honors retreats in the future; online or in-person.

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I selected the t-shirt design below to exemplify my experience because it represents how the honors experience succeeded during the pandemic. While t-shirts were never printed, and the retreat leaders and participants never met in person, the UHP community remains strong and supportive for its members.

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