Instead of going to Miami or Mexico this upcoming spring break, a select group of first-year and second-year students will go on a five-day retreat to Highlands, N.C. The trip, dubbed “Emory Advance,” will offer students a chance to connect with peers and explore their identities and the futures they hope to shape for themselves.
The Emory Purpose Project and Unlikely Collaborators, a nonprofit that helps people resolve internal conflicts, organized the retreat. Emory University founded the Purpose Project in 2023 as part of the Student Flourishing Initiative, which seeks to create a unique, purposeful college experience for each student by helping them lead a “fulfilling and meaningful life.” Unlikely Collaborators recognized a shared mission with Emory University after learning of the Purpose Project and proposed a grant to fund the majority of Emory Advance, according to Purpose Project Executive Director Ira Bedzow (14G).
Emory hopes to promote the mission of the Purpose Project through experiences and programs in which students discover and implement the goals they find meaningful. To be eligible to participate in Emory Advance, students must complete a form detailing why they feel the retreat would be a good fit for them and how they can give back to the Emory Advance community, according to Purpose Project Senior Program Coordinator Angela Sudu.
Applicants will be entered into a lottery, and 20 to 25 students will be selected for participation by Feb. 24. Selected students will travel to The Mountain Retreat & Learning Center in North Carolina for the retreat.
Each day, students will participate in two “purpose activities” that will support their personal growth, according to Bedzow. These lessons will encourage students to reframe what they see and want as well as use the art of storytelling to articulate their values.
One of these activities invites students to enter a room filled with knick knacks, where they can select items they find meaningful and share the reasoning behind their choices, according to Bedzow.
“It’s just a really good way of ice breaking,” Bedzow said. “Both other people are getting to know you, but also, you’re thinking about what are the objects you have in your life and why you hold on to them.”
Bedzow added that students will also have free time to partake in a variety of recreational activities, such as hiking, bonfires and karaoke.
Last semester, Brielle Natenzon (22Ox, 25C) took Bedzow’s “Fundamentals Moral Leadership” class, which follows a curriculum that teaches similar values as the Purpose Project. She explained that the Purpose Project’s events, such as their series “Tough Topics, Free Food and Civil Conversation,” will allow students to “engage with the community” and discover new interests. Natenzon added that the Purpose Project will help unburden students from some of the stresses of college.
“Coming to college is very stressful,” Natenzon said. “There’s a lot that you have to think about. The fact [that] there’s a team and this whole project — there’s people already worrying about this for you pretty much … It just goes to show that Emory cares about their students.”
Sam Chao (26C) has worked with the Purpose Project, inviting members of the team to discuss their ideas with his own club, TableTalk. He reiterated that experiences like Emory Advance will help students step back from focusing solely on academics.
“It’s connecting the things that people care about,” Chao said. “Their studies but also things in life that also matter outside of the workplace, outside school.”
Chao added that the retreat is a “great opportunity” for students to “get away from the busyness that comes with being a college student.”
As Emory Advance approaches, the Purpose Project team is hopeful that the retreat will offer students a chance to take time away from their academic and professional lives to reflect on their personal lives instead.
“We thought that one of the exciting ways we can do that is through a transformational experience, where people go away for a number of days, get out of their old habits, get out of their comfortable environments and really build community together to explore not only themselves individually but explore what it means to live purposefully,” Bedzow said.
