As we begin our second semester Bear Breaks Exec Board has a few goals in mind. Here are updates from each of the Exec Board members!

Sarah Harp  – Director of Membership and Education

This semester Sarah is focused on gaining recognition for Bear Breaks. She is working on applications for STAR Awards and SOFAC funding. STAR stands for Student Talent and Recognition and has categories geared toward faculty, staff, students, and student organizations. This award ceremony has been going on since 1996 and Bear Breaks won the Award for Distinguished Merit last year (2017). SOFAC stands for Student Organization Funding Allocation Council. This council provides student organizations with allocated funds to use toward events and trips. We apply each year for funds to use on our spring break trips. Sarah is also excited to go on the spring break trip to Chicago. She has previously been to Atlanta and Dallas. Another goal for Sarah is to create smoother transitions between our Exec Board and the new members of Exec Board.

Liz Wyman – Director of Community Outreach

This semester Liz is focused on creating new weekend experiences for students. She is hoping to develop a trip focused on health and wellness and a trip focused on conservation. Liz has been hard at work developing new content for our website. Hopefully, this will be shared before our trips go out in March. Liz is focused on developing smooth transitions for participants to Trip Leaders and Trip Leaders to Exec Board members. She is also hoping to create a super cool promotional video from our spring break trips this year.

Aidan Williams – Director of Retreat, Reflection and Orientation

Aidan is focusing on creating stronger year to year transitions between Trip Leaders and Exec Board. His big event this semester is Coffee and Change. Coffee and Change is Bear Breaks’ trip-wide reorientation. Reorientation is the process of participants and Trip Leaders bringing what they’ve learned on spring break back to Springfield. This is a way for all of our trip participants to come back together and share what they learned on spring break with other students at the university. It is also a way to create ties from their trips’ focuses to the Springfield community. This can mean introducing them to new community partners and giving them the opportunity to learn more about these issues in Springfield.

This semester is going to be exciting! Stay tuned to hear from Trip Leaders and participants as we get closer to spring break!