Dear CRR Alumni,

It’s been three weeks since Common Ground and I can just about say that I’ve caught up on all of the sleep I lost planning the retreat; but as always, it was completely worth it.  I want to give you a brief update on the retreat, but before I do that, I want to thank all of you who wrote us notes of encouragement beforehand.  I cannot tell you how much it meant to me, Ankit, Trevor, and Theresa (the directors) and to all of the facilitators to know that you were thinking of us.  It was so encouraging to be reminded of how important this work is and to know that we had the support of such an extraordinary group.  Your notes came at just the right time and I cannot even express how much I appreciated them.  As for the retreat, Common Ground 2007 was a huge success!  The four previous Common Grounds have all been at different sites and this year was no different.  We spent Fall Break at Camp Rockfish in Parkton, NC which was about an hour an a half from Duke.  (Of course, it took us and the facilitators about four hours to drive up there the night before, but that’s a whole other story!)  We had 54 participants and 14 facilitators in total and like always the group really bonded.  As for the activities, the Cultural Iceberg and the Gender Iceberg Activities went off without a hitch.  The one major change we made to the curriculum this year was that we added more time to discuss sexuality.  This went really well.  Chris Purcell, who is the Programming Director for the LGBT Center at Duke, gave a great presentation that sparked a lot of discussion among the participants.  As director, it was such an incredible experience to watch the participants grow over the course of the weekend.  It made all of the stress that went into the planning worth it.  I knew that we had succeeded in creating a tight-knit community when I heard that the participants had arranged to have dinner together on the night we got back from the retreat.  Literally, fifty participants met up on the West Campus Plaza. It was amazing to see how much they’d bonded and to see that the group would remain close even back on campus.   I hope this gives you a bit of a sense of the retreat.  It’s impossible to do justice to the power of the experience in a short letter.  I have no doubt that many of this year’s participants will stay involved with the Center for Race Relations and will become the future leaders of the organization.  I know they will do a fantastic job. 

I hop you are all doing well. Thanks again for all of the support!

Best,

Cammie Erickson

Co-Director, Common Ground 2007

Co-Presidents

Albert Osueke and Ben Adams

9/13/2007