Currently accepting inquiries for upcoming events
A campus does not foster change in under an hour
Our residency is designed to help students and campus leaders explore how leadership develops through dialogue, reflection, cultural connection, and shared responsibility.
The Format
They intentionally create multiple points of entry for engagement through public dialogue, leadership workshops, mentoring, cultural experiences, and institutional partnerships.
Programming combines public engagement, leadership development, cultural connection, and institutional capacity building through executive coaching and practitioner support.
Students continue conversations after events, seek mentorship, and engage difficult questions about leadership, identity, and responsibility. Many attend more than one experience, moving from public dialogue into deeper leadership conversations and mentoring opportunities.
Collective Wisdom, Collective Justice™
The framework draws on lessons from the Civil Rights Movement, traditions of community dialogue, and leadership practices grounded in listening, reflection, and shared responsibility.
Leadership that advances justice is rarely the work of a single individual. It emerges when communities create spaces where people can listen deeply, reflect together, and draw on shared experience to move toward collective action.
Centered Leadership encourages individuals to remain grounded in their values while listening deeply, learning from others, and acting with integrity in moments of uncertainty. It is the foundation for cultivating collective wisdom and advancing collective justice.
Listening Before Leading
Leadership begins with listening. Communities often hold deep knowledge about their own experiences, challenges, and aspirations. Leaders who listen carefully are better able to recognize existing wisdom and build trust with those they seek to serve.
Collective Reflection
Shared dialogue allows individuals to explore complex questions together. Reflection helps people examine their assumptions, clarify their values, and develop a deeper understanding of the challenges they face as leaders and community members.
Cultural Connection
Cultural traditions such as music, storytelling, and shared rituals have long helped communities sustain courage during difficult times. These practices remind people that leadership and social change are not only intellectual exercises but also deeply human experiences.
Courageous Action
Leadership ultimately requires action. Listening, reflection, and cultural grounding help individuals develop the courage needed to make difficult decisions, navigate uncertainty, and work toward positive change in their communities.
Kalamazoo, 15 years apart
In spring 2011, Kalamazoo College made Sandra Barnhill its first activist-scholar. She'd been running Foreverfamily for twenty-four years. She started writing a book there, and it took another thirteen years to finish.
In April 2026 she came back and ran a residency.
“The Arcus Center is where I got my start, so I just want to thank them for giving me the opportunity 15 years ago to step away from the work and to reflect. A lot of gratitude there.”
Sandra Barnhill, WWMT, April 2026
COMMUNITY FEEDBACK
“Students appreciated the opportunity to reflect on their work and think about how to sustain themselves over time.”
Campus Partner, Kalamazoo College
“Sandra's visit was excellent for campus and reinforced something I continue to believe: our students are a source of tremendous hope.”
Provost, Kalamazoo College
Our Recent Residency
Nine engagements over one week reached students, faculty, staff, senior administrators and community members.
Programming ran through the Intercultural Center, the Center for Civic Engagement and the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. The President, Provost, Dean of Students and Football Coach each took part. The musical pop-up recorded twenty-two campus interviews on its own.
Students stayed after events to keep talking, and several asked for mentoring afterward. Coverage ran on Kalamazoo television, in the student paper and in Rolling Out.
The people who stay
A residency ends. The people running your centers don't. At Kalamazoo the week reached students, faculty, senior leadership and three separate centers, and the coaching was built for whoever carries the work afterward.
Students Who Came Back
Many students attended more than one engagement. Several stayed after events to keep talking, and asked for mentoring once the residency was over.
Center Directors
One to one executive coaching, ninety minutes, structured off a written reflection completed first. At Kalamazoo two directors took it, from the Center for Civic Engagement and the Arcus Center.
Senior Leadership
The President, Provost, Dean of Students and Football Coach all took part directly, including in the recorded campus interviews.
Three Centers at Once
Programming ran through the Intercultural Center, the Center for Civic Engagement and the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, so no single office carried it alone.
Residency framework
How the week is built
Cultural
Grounding
The residency begins with experiences that invite students into community, reflection, and cultural connection. Through gatherings and cultural activation moments held in high-traffic spaces, students engage with themes of identity, community, leadership, and social change in accessible, relational ways, establishing the openness and trust that the rest of the week depends on.
Food for the Soul · Dialogue & reflection
Sonic Justice · Storytelling & engagement
A Shared Meal
The Community Dialogue and Book Discussion creates space for students and community members to engage in collective reflection together. The setting allows participants to explore ideas from Tough Mind, Tender Heart while connecting them to their own lived experiences, deepening reflection through dialogue and beginning to surface the wisdom a community already holds.
Community Dialogue & Book Signing · Leadership & storytelling
Small Learning
Communities
Workshops with Civic Engagement Scholars and Student Leaders provide more structured opportunities for students to examine their own leadership practices. These sessions run smaller and more intensively, emphasizing self-reflection, peer learning, and practical application, and they are where participants move from reflection into personal insight and leadership practice they can use.
Civic Engagement Scholars Workshop · Civic leadershipStudent Leadership Workshop · Intensive leadership development
The Keynote
Positioned later in the residency, the keynote serves as a synthesizing moment that names and connects what students have already begun to experience. It articulates the Collective Wisdom, Collective Justice™ framework, connects cultural practices, dialogue, and leadership development, and reinforces themes of moral courage, community responsibility, and civic engagement.
Keynote Address · Leadership & justice
Continued
Reflection
One-on-one conversations allow students to further process what they have experienced and consider how to apply it in their own leadership contexts. Targeted identity-based spaces create opportunities for deeper reflection and peer accountability, affirming identity as central to leadership and connecting community and self-awareness in ways that translate into lived leadership practice.
Man-to-Man Conversation · Masculinity & belonging
Diva Brunch · Intergenerational reflection
Mentoring conversations · Voluntary, following residency events
Executive
Coaching
Beyond student programming, individualized 90-minute executive coaching sessions run with the leaders of campus centers. Each session is tailored through a structured pre-reflection process to address leadership opportunities, institutional realities, and professional growth, building institutional capacity and giving practitioner support to the people who carry the work after the residency ends.
Executive Coaching · Leadership capacity building