Cornerstones Living and Learning Community’s The EDGE Retreat

by Bryan Dombrowski

Cornerstones Living and Learning Community’s The EDGE Retreat
Cornerstones students participate in team building activities at the EDGE retreat.

On August 24, 2013, 50 students from the Cornerstones Living and Learning Community (LLC) attended a retreat at George Mason University's The EDGE, an outdoor challenge course facility located on Mason’s Prince William Campus in Manassas, Virginia. The day’s activities focused on team building exercises that encouraged students to discover new strengths while combining strengths to achieve a challenging goal.

The EDGE retreat is a yearly tradition within the Cornerstones LLC to help students learn communication, trust, and teamwork skills to help to prepare them for the challenges of the coming semester.

“Afterwards we discussed what kind of challenges we overcame and how can that success be incorporated into our floor,” said NCC Cornerstone Student Services Coordinator Misty Krell.

Broken up into several small groups, students worked through various physical and mental challenges to achieve the retreat’s goals: begin to get to know each other and build community, discuss goals for living together in the LLC, explore ways to work through conflict/challenges, work with others whose opinions or background differ from their own, and relate learning on the ropes course back to classes/college as a whole.

Some students shared their remarks about the retreat:

“It was an overall wonderful experience. I feel like my group became closer as the day went on…[this] helped me see other LLC students’ perspectives.”

“It was a lot of fun and pushed me to expect more of myself.”

“This allowed me to broaden my perspectives on college.”

View Photos from the EDGE Retreat