The weekend started mid-afternoon Friday September 19th, departing from the Performing Arts Center parking lot with 74 freshmen comfortably tight into two school buses. “We have more than we usually do,” Director of Leadership and Experiential Learning and Retreat Coordinator Doug Baer said.
The drive to Camp Allegheny from Frostburg takes about an hour, filled with long winding roads and cow sightings. Camp Allegheny is a Christian camp located in Stoystown, Pennsylvania. The camp has been active since 1949 and has been owned by Lorie and Dennis Tawney for nine years. Throughout the camp, the students were entertained by interesting pets. “We really share the place with our 5 chickens,” Lorie joked.
“We love working with Lorie and Dennis,” Doug says of the couple. “They are so thorough and they honestly want our feedback,” he said. “Last year they called on the Monday after we left and asked us what we meant by something we put in our evaluation,” Lang explained. “They actually read them which makes us feel so confident to always go back to them,” she added.
The retreat started off quickly. The students had 30 minutes to get their stuff situated in the cabins followed immediately by an ice-breaker. Baer had them play a game to get them relaxed before being moved into their small groups. The small groups were assigned numbers 1-8, including 9 or 10 students, plus one facilitator and one President’s Leadership Circle member.
The facilitators was composed of eight faculty members including Dr. Terri Massie-Burrell, the current Assistant Provost for Student Success and Retention, and Chemistry Department Chair Dr. Mary Mumper.
Baer said that the most interesting student-facilitator interaction is the casual relationship of Dr. Thomas Bowling, Vice President of Student and Educational Services, or as the students refer to him: Tom. Baer said, “I was watching them once and he was joking around and they were laughing and I heard one of them say something like, ‘Nice Tom!’ and I thought they really have no idea how important he is and he absolutely loves it.”
After group activity, they headed to dinner, served by Camp Allegheny staff. After the meal, Baer and Lang’s first task is to get the group to open up to being vulnerable. Facilitators Robert Cooper and Robert Weber lead the activity called “Privilege Walk,” an activity designed to illustrate the adversity that people may face and how different lifestyles may be. After asking a variety of questions that resulted in a respectable spread of experiences among the students, Cooper asked the group how they felt about what they saw. Some expressed their discomfort but more than that shared the pride they felt about how far they had come from the tough spots that they had been in. One young woman said, “I feel so proud of myself for getting to college even though my mom said that I couldn’t.”
Day two was packed full of team-building and communication enhancing activities. The beginning was similar to the start of the retreat with energizers and ice-breakers. The first real challenge was to make a three-step Rube Goldberg machine, their mission: to crack eggs.
Next, they headed outside for a circuit of exercises. The students spent some of their day blindfolded while trying to make a shape with a rope and later scaling a nine-foot-wall, all of the challenges requiring trust and focus. After each activity, eight 30 minute sessions total, the group would reconvene for 5 minutes to discuss what happened and what could help in the real-life application.After dinner, the students enjoyed free-time until the optional bonfire, complete with S’mores and scary stories.
The next morning arrived quickly in a startling fashion with 7:30 wake-up, group pictures, and breakfast, followed by the goodbye activities where the groups showed their appreciation and admiration to one another and the facilitators with nice notes known as “warm-fuzzies.”
As the weekend came to a close and the students had been loaded to return to FSU to watch football and sleep, the facilitators met one last time to discuss the weekend. Bowling said, “This was by the far the best one yet.” Baer noted, “You say that every year.” “I mean it every year,” Bowling said.
