Appalachian Interchange Retreat
The Offices of Community-Engaged Leadership and Intercultural Student Affairs are excited to announce the Appalachian Interchange Retreat: an immersive 3 day off-campus event that blends content education about structural inequality, small group dialogue, relationship building activities, and action planning to create an empowering educational experience for students.
Staff moderators from many areas across the division have been training all summer to deliver this great experience for our students. Thank you to this year's moderators who represent University Housing, UREC, the Counseling Center, Career Development, Campus Activities, CEL, & ISA.
The Appalachian Interchange Retreat provides opportunities for students to:
- Build meaningful relationships across lines of difference
- Develop skills for engaging in dialogue with diverse groups of peers about difficult topics
- Learn, and gain practice applying, the Sustained Dialogue® process, a five-stage dialogue to action process that can be used to help improve group and community relationships, resolve intergroup conflicts, and design meaningful community change
- Increase their knowledge of systems of oppression operating in the US and develop strategies to address those systems of oppression
- Increase their individual and collective capacity for action on complex public problems facing our campus and community
This year the Appalachian Interchange Retreat will take place Friday, September 30 - Sunday, October 2 at the Blowing Rock Conference Center. Transportation, lodging, a retreat t-shirt, and meals will all be provided at no cost!
Student who wish to apply should fill out the Appalachian Interchange Application form!
Reach out to the retreat organizers, Cori Ferguson (fergusonce@appstate.edu) or Summer Wisdom (wisdomss@appstate.edu) in the Office of Community-Engaged Leadership with any questions.