February 23, 2012
From Feb. 17 to 19, over 150 students, faculty and staff attended the 2012 POSSE Plus Retreat at the Radisson Hotel in Utica. This year’s topic was “Born This Way? Gender and Sexuality in the 21st Century,” and participants discussed several topics including the ways in which morals, family upbringings and societal pressures influence people’s perceptions of gender identity and sexuality.
The POSSE Foundation recruits and identifies innovative student leaders from inner-city public schools across the nation that some colleges may traditionally overlook during the college admissions process, sending off groups of approximately 10 scholars to top-ranked schools across the nation as support systems, also known as POSSEs. Hamilton College’s involvement with POSSE stretches over a decade with POSSE Boston and more recently POSSE Miami, with its first POSSE entering with the Class of 2014.
The POSSE Plus Retreat (PPR) allows members of the POSSE community to extend an invitation to their peers and professors in an effort to promote genuine conversation regarding issues pertinent to themselves, the Hamilton community and the world as a whole, in addition to giving many who are unfamiliar with Posse’s goals and mission an inside view of the organization in a “safe space.”
For many people, including Sarah Pfund ’14, this year’s PPR was their first time truly experiencing POSSE.“I went into it not really knowing what I was getting myself into, but I couldn’t be happier with my experience,” said Pfund.
The PPR’s agenda included interactional activities such as the “macro lab” ice breaker, similar in style to speed dating, in order to encourage people to meet one another, as well as more serious activities, like the human barometer. This activity allowed individuals to gauge how they felt about issues including the role of women within the military, the necessity of the nuclear family and the use of religion as a means to question homosexuality.
Nonetheless, one particular exercise caused quite a commotion that prompted everyone to address a topic that many find too difficult to discuss. The fishbowl activity arranged individuals in a series of circles surrounding one main circle and the people within that circle talk about the assigned topic. When the participants discussed the intersections of race and gender, tensions ran high as people began to speak frankly and honestly about what concerns them.
“When given the opportunity to speak about a woman of color’s experiences at Hamilton in comparison to a white woman’s experiences, people can become more aware and able to grasp particular situations that people face,” said first-year POSSE scholar Jorett Joseph ’15.
At times, emotions ran high, but everyone maintained the safe space, even as conversations grew increasingly controversial.
“We were encouraged to challenge ideas, not people,” said Soffia Gunnarsdottir ’14, recounting her experience.
The purpose of the POSSE Plus Retreat is to provide individuals the occasion to share what they are genuinely thinking without fear of judgment or the confines of their usual environment.
Upon returning to the Hill, many POSSE members and their Pluses returned with a new outlook on some of their fellow Hamiltonians after spending the weekend away from campus.
“The best part of the weekend for me was the fact that I came out of it feeling like I had made connections with so many people. They weren’t connections I would have been able to make on campus; the connections were made based on a shared experience that I think is extremely difficult to describe to anyone who wasn’t at the retreat,” said Pfund. It does not take a weekend retreat, however, to engage in meaningful dialogue about issues relevant to the student body. The insightful conversations regarding race, class and gender should not stop simply because the weekend is over.
Hamilton, as a community, can continue to have those discussions always remembering to keep an open mind and safe space.