Last year was the first to interrupt a reoccurring event that took place annually for years and years, the senior retreat. Seniors look forward to traditions that culminate their year, and the pandemic interrupted one of their favorites: the senior retreat.  Luckily, it was nothing more than a quick bump in the road, and this year the school was able to perform a quick turnaround and replicate the retreat as closely as possible. 

The senior retreat was traditionally held in Galena at the Eagle Ridge Golf Resort. “What’s nice about Galena is everything is there for us,” Joe Bruno, Upper School Dean of Student Life, said. The Ridge holds everything — the meals, meeting spaces, town homes, a general meeting area, a canopy on the water, and numerous more lovely features. 

The challenge of having to include all of these elements at an alternative venue included many layers. “We had to replicate an entire venue that’s massive into one large room at Theater on the Lake,” Bruno said. Although difficult, Bruno believed it could be done successfully.

Certain details about the senior retreat have always been kept under wraps. This is done in an attempt to keep the retreat special for seniors each year, and it was no different this year. “We kicked it off with some rotations– one group did team building, one group worked on a collective class mural, and the other group did an introduction to life after Parker from the alumni association,” Bruno said. Following this came various activities, some of which are shared openly, but others that each student will have to wait to be exposed to until they’re a senior.”

Consolidating the typical venue into a much smaller place was a large challenge, but it was doable. The only thing Bruno suggested is that he would have “ordered more iced coffee for the coffee bar. That’s all I would have done differently.” 

Senior gradehead Yadineer Sabir placed more of her focus on the events after the retreat, including both Prom, and College Shirt Day. “We had booked a boat tour for the afternoon on Friday, [but] because of the rain and the water, the company cancelled,” Sabir said. She suggested a Plan B, but other than these two miniscule hiccups, one slightly more substantial than the other, the entire retreat flowed smoothly.

As for the students, the retreat was seen as a huge success. Elliot Landolt, a senior, can attest to the success. “Everybody had a newfound appreciation for each other after spending those two days, and then having Prom and the next morning doing the college sweatshirt photoshoot,” Landolt said. One could expect the senior class to feel down about the retreat after missing so many vital parts of their senior year, but “everyone really bought into it,” Landolt said. Both Bruno and Landolt suggest that everyone was just happy to be together, as it was the grade’s first time being gathered together in person in over a year. 

“They basically packed the retreat into one day,” Landolt said. During a typical year, the seniors would depart on Wednesday afternoon, and return at 11 a.m. on the Friday before Memorial Day, kicking off the long weekend. The seniors had a week packed full of activities from the retreat to prom to college shirt photos, while the freshmen, sophomores, and juniors all had a regular week. 

Regarding next year,  there is hope that the retreats will be able to return to normal, and if not, at least have a similar form. “We are so hoping. We might have to go to a different venue and shorten it up, but we are trying to have that same retreat next year,” Victoria Lee, sophomore Grade Head said. 

Some students have wondered why other grades could not have had their retreats this year, and there is a simple answer to that: “It’s the seniors’ last year, so we wanted to give them something,” Bruno said. The freshman, sophomores, and juniors all have at least another year of time to make up lost time, lost retreats, and lost events. The seniors do not. “These students’ time was quickly coming to an end, so we wanted to make sure that they felt a sense of community and celebration around the time of their graduation,” Bruno said.