The Fraternity’s Horizons Huntsman Leadership Summit has hosted three of its five 2016 sessions so far, with 144 rising underclassmen leaders benefitting from the leadership development program’s teachings. Taking place in Snowbird, Utah, the program transports participants to a setting of mountainous vistas where they work alongside other promising freshman and sophomore brothers for six days to enhance their leadership abilities before returning to their home chapters.
“Horizons is an incredibly formative and introspective program that taught me all sorts of things about personal development and refining myself as a man,” says Jon Raasch, PEPPERDINE 2019, who participated in this year’s Horizons session from May 22 to 29. “Being in the vast beauty of the Rocky Mountains makes it easy to connect with nature, with God and your inner self. It’s very conducive to being thoughtful and serious.”
Once onsite, participants take part in activities designed to encourage outside-the-box thinking, some of which take place inside the facility’s conference rooms and others that happen outside amid nature. One new module to the 2016 sessions puts participants in the role of aid workers assisting in a mock search-and-rescue mission; in it, brothers must strategize and use teamwork to figure out how to best get “injured” victims across obstacles who are restricted from using their eyesight, their arms or their legs throughout the excercise, depending on the type of faux-injury they have suffered.
“The feedback we received from the undergraduates [about the search-and-rescue module] showed us that the participants really benefitted from the opportunity to discuss different plans for clearing obstacles, test them out and decide on a plan of action,” says Order of Constantine Sig Mark Galbo, SAN JOSE STATE 1982, who volunteered as an alumnus facilitator at this first of this year's Horizons Huntsman Leadership Summit sessions. “It was a wonderful chance for them to communicate effictively and take the time to consider different opinions on how to proceed.”
Thanks to funding on the part of the Sigma Chi Foundation and the Sigma Chi Canadian Foundation, all who are accepted into Horizons are able to attend free of charge.
For more information about the program, contact Andrew Jung, DEPAUL 2015, leadership programs coordinator at Sigma Chi International Headquarters, at (847) 869-3655, ext. 224.
