Last weekend Mount Holyoke Posse held its second annual spring retreat. This year’s focus was “Born This Way: Gender and Sexuality.”
The two day retreat took place at the Becket-Chimney Corners YMNA Conference Center in Becket, Massachusetts, and involved all participants in discussions and activities on popular themes and issues regarding the topic.
The Posse Foundation is an organization that recruits and trains students from public schools to form multicultural teams called Posses. These teams undergo a rigorous eight month pre-collegiate course that prepares them for enrollment in prestigious universities nationwide, including Mount Holyoke College, Hamilton College and the University of Pennsylvania. Posse Foundation began partnering with Mount Holyoke in 2010.
Every spring, Posse scholars from across the nation gather to discuss issues of common interest over a weekend. Fellow students, faculty and staff members are then invited by the Posse scholars to the retreat.
Participants at the retreat discussed how gender and sexuality constantly affect a student’s college experience and identity.
Conversations, dialogues and acitivites ranged from delving into the boundaries of perceived masculinity amd femininity along the gender spectrum, and trans* experiences to an activity where participants had to pose as statues representing their experiences regarding words such as “target” and “ally.”
“This year’s Posse Plus Retreat (PPR) topic posed a number of challenges while preparing to customize the workshops and scope to be most beneficial for Mount Holyoke,” said Gabriel Gaskin, the Miami Trainer for Posse, emphasizing the customized nature of these retreats.
While some were attending the Posse Retreat for the first time, including CAUSE Director Alan Bloomgarden, others were repeat attendees.
Bloomgarden had not attended last year’s retreat but was grateful for this experience.
“The value of the weekend was the intensive interaction with both the Posse students and their ‘plus’ colleagues among the students, staff and faculty of Mount Holyoke as a learning community,” he said.
For Stephanie Maitre ’15, a Posse Miami scholar, the retreat was particularly special.
“As a first year Posse scholar, I didn’t know what to expect. But after this weekend, I am more than blessed to have had the opportunity to laugh, cry, dialogue and learn from and with my Posse family and my MHC family,” she said.
“This weekend is one I will never forget and I hope that those who attended will never forget it either,” she added.
As a first-year, Maitre is a member of Posse Miami 2. Mount Holyoke currently has two Posses, Posse 1 and Posse 2, made up of sophomores and first-years, respectively.
For scholars and staff members who had attended the previous Posse Retreat as well, the experiences were insightful.
According to Clarity Guerra, videographer and editor at the Communications Office, the retreats are a great way to develop relationships with students, which helps with her work in the college.
“I also enjoy the topics and hearing what current students have to say about gender and sexuality, race and class,” she added.
Next year Mount Holyoke College will welcome ten first year students from Miami as part of the third Posse cohort, or Posse 3.
Aldo Santiago, the College’s physical coordinator and long-time tennis coach, has been appointed the mentor for Posse 3.
Coordinator of Multicultural Affairs and the Associate Dean of the College and Students Tanya Williams is the mentor for Posse 1 and Dean of First-year Studies and Lecturer in English Leah Glasser is the mentor of Posse 2.
Posse scholars from all three years will work to plan the spring 2013 Posse Plus Retreat.
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- Put your gender in, put your gender out…
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- Trans U lectures on gender identity and social prejudice
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