PULSE at U.Va., an organization focused on fostering open dialogue, held a retreat over fall break at Camp Albemarle.
The retreat brought together 55 participants with 10 moderators for open conversations about race, gender, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation and mental health.
Spearheading the retreat were third-year College student Lital Firestone and third-year Commerce student Santiago Naranjo — both co-chairs of PULSE at U.Va.
In July 2014, six University students attended the PULSE Institute, a college retreat sponsored by the Sustained Dialogue Campus Network, a program dedicated addressing conflict-ridden relationships.
The retreat was held at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa. Firestone, who once worked as a Sustained Dialogue intern, decided to bring the program closer to home.
PULSE at U.Va. received a Jefferson Trust Grant of almost $19,000 and hosted its first retreat last winter. The program has been met with support by the University.
The most retreat aimed to facilitate meaningful conversation, broaden perspectives and build relationships between students, Naranjo said.
“I think the goal of the event … was to expose people to various issues of identity and social issues,” he said.
The group was both exposed to differing opinions and viewpoints and had the opportunity to explore themselves, Firestone said.
“We really want to give students the opportunity to search within themselves [and explore] their own identities,” she said. “I was really moved by a lot of the stories I heard. People were really vulnerable in the group.”
One of Firestone’s biggest goals was to create empathetic leaders, she said.
This retreat was only the organization’s second, and Naranjo said it was successful. A post-retreat evaluation revealed that 100 percent of participants felt changed by what they learned.
“Overall, the feedback that we've gotten has been so resoundingly positive,” Naranjo said.
There will now be a PULSE at U.Va. retreat once every semester, and participants may be nominated to attend by resident assistants as well as many multi-cultural organizations.
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