By David Williams
How do we help incoming graduate students connect with our fellowships and form meaningful friendships before the inevitable busyness of the school year sets in?
Many of us meet students who express an initial interest in GFM during New Student Outreach (NSO) but who disappear into the crowd once classes begin, assignments pile up, deadlines approach, and the myriad distractions begin to pull them in multiple directions. We often have only a brief window to help new students to drop anchor in our fellowships before they are swept away by the riptide of their first semester of grad school.
In the GFM New York-New Jersey Area, we have tried to address this the last two years by hosting a day-long retreat for incoming grad students in New York City. We decided to call the retreat Archē (Greek for “beginning”)—partly because we were holding the event as part of NSO at the beginning of the academic year and partly because our spring retreat is called Telos (Greek for “end” or “goal”).
Here’s a bit more about the focus of the event and other key logistics that may help you as you consider activities for NSO or other events throughout the academic year.
Event Vision and Purpose
The focus of the retreat was on helping incoming grad students to begin well, with a two-part purpose:
- To make a strong case for why graduate students should join a community of fellow grad students dedicated to God’s mission, spiritual formation, and the integration of faith and learning.
- To facilitate the formation of friendships between new grad students and existing members of our chapters within those first crucial weeks before students have social commitments or academic responsibilities
This year was the second time the GFM chapters at New York University, Columbia, and Rutgers have incorporated this early day-long retreat into our NSO strategy.
Programming and Location
Bobby Gross was the keynote speaker for this year’s event held on Saturday, September 17. He cast vision for the integration of faith, work, and all of life to our new grad students. Bobby’s talks centered on GFM’s four core ministry commitments and their theological underpinnings, making the case for why students should get involved.
During the event, we also held an Instagram scavenger hunt to help develop friendships and comraderie among the students. Mid-way through the day we sent the new graduate students to Central Park for the hunt. Dividing into teams by campus, students moved out together into this beautiful and world-famous park to make memories with each other, taking photos of teammates (their classmates) doing funny things and posting them on Instagram using their team’s assigned hashtags (check them out at #columbiaarche2016 and #nyuarche2016). Over the last two years we have seen many great friendships birthed during this scavenger hunt.
Our event was held at a church located midway between NYU and Columbia, with space that allowed us to incorporate team-building activities into our program. As a ministry partner, the host church generously allowed us to use their space rent-free. (Partner churches are often more than willing to host events like this at no charge!)
This year we were joined by 27 graduate students from NYU and Columbia, as well as 3 faculty guests and 2 major donors. Under Chelsea Whitfield’s thoughtful leadership, the day flowed seamlessly from event to event, and our donor guests were impressed by the caliber of both our programming and our students. While the student turnout was less than we had hoped for, our time together was rich, and at the end of the day most of the attending students responded to a call to consecrate their lives and their graduate work to God, and to get involved in a GFM small group on their campuses. One week later these students are already getting involved and inviting their friends to check out our fellowships, and for that we are grateful.
Growing the Event for the Future
While the event was a success, some challenges remain.
Student leadership is crucial. We have learned this year that to meet our attendance goals we need considerably more buy-in from our student leaders. We depend on them to promptly and proactively follow-up with and invite incoming students within the first two weeks of the semester. If our student leaders do not catch the vision of the day, they will not have the sense of urgency necessary to make this sort of invitation in a compelling and timely fashion. Next year we will devote more energy toward training, equipping, and inspiring student leaders to be proactive in pursuing and confident in inviting new students.
Building Chapter Momentum Through NSO
Archē has proven to be a useful tool for “closing the deal” with incoming graduate students—allowing them to experience GFM at the very outset of their graduate school careers and to commit to participating in a campus fellowship.
The retreat helps all of us to tie together the threads of our NSO efforts and creates momentum as our chapters launch out into the Fall semester. It is an effective strategy for reaching, bonding with, and inspiring new students, helping them to begin well.
To God be the glory!
