November 10, 2002

An Open Letter to Inward Bound Attendees

Thanks so much to everyone who participated in the groundbreaking experience that was Inward Bound. We are grateful to everyone for being willing to explore with us something that was totally new, and for providing us with so much valuable feedback. We have learned an incredible amount from both the overwhelming positive feedback and the negative (occasionally vehement) feedback. We have poured through thousands of survey questions, watched hours of video footage and interviews, and received scores of emails from students and educators alike. We are also following up personally with every educator who attended Inward Bound, as we strive to make sure that this experience was as valuable and transformational for us as it was for so many attendees.

Because you helped make Inward Bound what it was by attending and providing your valuable feedback, we wanted to share with you some of what we've learned and invite you to continue the dialogue as time goes on. Our observations below represent just the tip of the iceberg as we continue to learn from this experience in the days, months, and years to come.

So what did Ed, myself, the planning committee, and the rest of the SKS, learn from this experience, our first attempt at something on the scale of Inward Bound?

First of all, we have learned that there are many, many students out there who are hungry to tackle spiritual questions and live lives of authenticity and truth. They are often searching for ways to connect with other students, educators, and mentors in a deeper way than their academic classes or their standard social settings may provide. Many are interested in exploring other faith traditions and/or in pushing the boundaries of their own. Many do not feel comfortable within a particular tradition but are still looking for spiritual answers entirely outside of traditional religions.

And, as far as we can tell, the Inward Bound experience has demonstrated how much these students can benefit from the SKS process of encouraging students to push their limits, to examine their lives and their values with brutal honesty, to come together with other students for community and peer support, and to learn from mentors and teachers who have encountered similar challenges and opportunities.

Still, given what we have learned through Inward Bound, there are things we could do better...

First, even though we think we know what we mean when we tell people what we're about, we need to do a better job of articulating the SKS, our fundamental principles and goals, and the different aspects of the process that we encourage. In our publicity, we thought that when people heard and read that Inward Bound would be "intense spiritual exploration," that it was for students who wanted to "push the limits," that it would involve students "examining and sharing their values and how they're doing living up to them," and that it featured the range of guest speakers that it did, people would have a fairly good idea of what to expect. Instead, most attendees came in without any idea of what to expect from Inward Bound, and some attendees were surprised by what they encountered and experienced. We are committed to better articulating our mission and process and have gotten a lot of help with this so far.

Second, even if we do the best job in the world of articulating what we're about and what's going to happen at our conference, many people still arrive not knowing what to expect. Some students came to Inward Bound because a friend told them they should. Some came because they weren't doing anything else for Fall Break. Some came because they were part of a class. Some came because it was "a free trip." We therefore need to do a better job of laying out ground rules at the beginning of the conference when everyone first gets together. Students also had a wide range of experiences with their respective facilitators, and clearer ground rules would provide one way in which some of these conflicts could be addressed up front. People need to be clearer on what to expect from the process, and confident that the process is one they can trust—or respectfully opt out of—which leads us to our third lesson.

Third—and we've always known this but it was reinforced by Inward Bound—what we offer isn't for everyone. Most students loved the process of Inward Bound, and quite a few pushed through moments of discomfort to arrive at wonderful experiences (see stories from students like Katia Falcey from Goucher, Larry Whitney from Ithaca, or Bonnie Early from Michigan State). Still, we need to provide better ways for students to respectfully "opt out" of uncomfortable situations and activities. Some students were extremely upset with various parts of the Inward Bound experience. We are very grateful to those educators who helped their students through some of these challenging experiences and who helped ensure their students' voices were heard. (see video from the last day)

In addition to these, there were a number of other pieces of feedback that we are thinking over...from the need to better integrate the educators to the fact that some comments by speakers offended specific groups of people...from the need to more clearly and consistently define the role of the facilitator to feedback that the religious language employed in the Cup of Trembling article turned some people off...from greater visibility for young organizers to making Inward Bound even more diverse than it was.

Again, this is just a sliver of what we've learned from and been challenged to think about since Inward Bound. We don't think we can conclude, however, without briefly addressing a subject which we've learned is not only a fundamental part of what students are looking for, but which is also a fundamental part of the process of spiritual transformation itself: RISK. In the world of higher education, as far as we can tell so far, risk is a very dangerous word. It's scary to take risks, because by definition risk involves "the possibility of suffering harm, or loss." We took many risks ourselves in putting on Inward Bound, and we also asked students to take risks while at Inward Bound. We asked students to articulate and stand by their values. We asked them to face their fears, to share them with their fellows, and to make commitments to live a better life both for themselves and the benefit of others. These were risks. We have always known that it is important to manage risk and to treat it responsibly. Even more than ever, we have learned that it is crucial to, as one educator so eloquently put it, "create a safe place from which people can choose to take risks."

But the day that SKS activities become 100% safe is the day that Ed and I fold up shop and look for other work. We want to be on the edge, and so many students tell us the same thing. Without risk, without commitment and putting oneself on the line, and without getting outside of one's comfort zone, a valuable part of the growth process is missing. For us, Inward Bound has been a perfect illustration of this process. Because all of the risks involved, we ourselves have experienced the full gamut of both inspirational, uplifting moments and intense moments of pain and self-doubt. It's been agony and ecstasy, and it has provided one of, if not the, most valuable learning experiences ever for each of us individually, and for our organization as a whole. This is an issue that we will continue to examine and seek to understand, because while we want every single student who attends an SKS program to have a positive experience, we also want what we do to be real. And the one thing we're sure of is that Inward Bound was real.

We thank you again for your participation and your feedback and we look forward to working with you all again in the future.