ASK QUESTIONS – MAKE FRIENDS – BUILD COMMUNITY
FRIENDSHIP TRAINING TEAM
USC students leading training sessions for student club leaders, RA’s, USG leaders, Greek life leaders, etc, in the arts of encouraging friendship, conviviality, and compassion on campus.
CAMPFIRE TRAINING in the arts of friendship and conviviality – Thursdays, 6:30 pm, URC 203 – – OPEN TO ALL STUDENTS — This weekly student-led “campfire” explores ways that clubs, residence halls, fraternities/sororities, and other groups – as well as individuals – can create the conditions for friendship and conviviality to thrive on campus. Student org leaders are especially encouraged to attend on a drop-in or regular basis. Among the topics: facilitating club/group-wide intimacy, mindfulness in group settings, hosting meaningful and cool parties, friendship in the great outdoors, etc.
To set up a special training session for your group, contact team leader Isaac Gilles.
You see somebody randomly in class, and then see them randomly in your residence hall and say “hi”, and then you randomly discover you are both rock-climbers. You start to hang out together on campus, and then the two of you make day-trips to the mountains with other climbers. You randomly slip on a rock and break your ankle, and this person stays overnight with you in the hospital. You realize that your climbing buddy has become your true friend.
This friendship, like most among Trojans, happened by accident. But how much friendlier would USC be if we created the conditions for it on purpose?
The Friendship Training Team is a group of students working to make it more likely that students will become friends – and to make USC an even more convivial and compassionate community than it already is. It is all about students taking friendship seriously, and having a seriously good time doing it!
Every group and dorm on campus is different, so the Team will tailor a training just for you. Training topics:
- How to structure groups, meetings, etc, so that students will get to know and trust each other, in depth, over time. How to hold “campfires” in your group, to encourage conviviality
- How to create a culture in which student participants will feel encouraged and empowered to be supportive presences for each other in times of vulnerability
- How to invite students to share personal stories and experiences with each other, in an emotionally-safe manner, in meetings, classes, programs, and events – in an ebb and flow between “intensity” and “space”
- How to turn a club or a class into a real community of mutual support – a network of strong, positive personal relationships
- How to sustain a community of friends for the long term through the development of “servant leadership” and lifting up the value of belonging/participating as being just as important as leading
- Mentoring for friendship: intentionally pairing seniors with frosh to build community and also to develop leaders for the club’s future
- How to party: the art of structuring a party or celebration to encourage real fun and true conviviality
