Catalyst Trip

Catalyst Trip: Dialogue and firsthand experience provide powerful learning opportunities

Wenwen Bai '10, Jingqiu Guan '11, and Claire Yancy '11
participated in last week's Catalyst Trip.
When you hear the word “retreat,” what comes to mind? How about a weekend of reflection with friends from your church, or even a tropical vacation? When sophomore Claire Yancy talks about her recent “retreat,” she is referring to the time she spent traveling with 18 other Saint Mary’s students during last week’s Catalyst Trip. The trip, sponsored by the Center for Women’s Intercultural Leadership (CWIL), takes place every year during Fall Break. Through this program, CWIL provides students with firsthand experiences of the week’s topic, along with time to reflect on what they’re learning. “The Catalyst Trip is such a powerful experience mainly because it brings together a group of Saint Mary’s women to discuss an extremely sensitive and vital subject in America,” says Yancy. This year, students traveled to Ohio and Kentucky, where they explored the topic “Race and White Privilege.”

The group headed first to Grailville, Ohio, then to downtown Cincinnati. There they toured a housing development run by a local community organization that serves the city’s homeless population. “This journey was powerful,” says Yancy, a communications studies major. “I finally realized the number of homeless individuals there really are, and how we might work to prevent homelessness in our own communities.” The students then visited the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, a place that, Yancy says, “stands out in my mind, and probably always will.” Their visit to the Center included a guided tour with Rev. Doug Ervin, a docent, and respected pastor, author, and speaker. The students’ travels made for a holistic cultural experience, blending these site visits with a dialogue on the issues.

By the time Yancy and her fellow students arrived at the Moye retreat center in Melbourne, Ky., they were prepared to discuss what they had experienced of race, power, and privilege on their trip. They also talked about how to bring this kind of understanding “to the masses,” as Yancy puts it. “The places we visited on this trip have such significance to the overall theme,” she says. “We discussed the difficulties encountered when attempting to take history and change it, to create a different mindset for future generations to work from.” Yancy says the whole experience really communicated to students that they can be catalysts for change. “It is through seeing our faults that we can improve the future for those who come after us.”