Several Bates Bonner Leaders, along with Harward Center staffer Ellen Alcorn, kicked off the summer by attending the Bonner Foundation’s annual Summer Leadership Institute at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. For several days in June, our group gathered with hundreds of other Bonner students from colleges and universities across the country for workshops, place-based learning, and community building. Below are some reflections from our Bates Bonner Leaders about their experience at the conference.

Feray-Thea: Attending the Bonner SLI easily became one of the highlights of my summer. Since this was my second time attending a national Bonner Gathering, I knew what to expect. Still, the work that we do in our communities and the love we share never fails to impress, inspire, and motivate me. I am incredibly grateful and excited to bring the amazing ideas and concepts I learned and discussed back to Bates.

Maria Clara: This was a great learning experience because Bonner schools across the country have widely different programs. I learned about some specific initiatives at Rutgers that I’m excited to think about how to adapt for our community. Some of the workshops also made me reflect on how we as Bonner Leaders can be more intentional and think bigger about our role at Bates. 

Aahana: It’s great that at Bates, we already implement a lot of the core values of critical community engagement that many other schools are still catching up on, such as “engagement” instead of  “service” and the importance of recognizing our own privilege. I’m excited about some of the ideas I encountered at the conference, such as having each class year of Bonner Leaders focus on a particular project that rolls over with them through senior year and then is undertaken by the incoming first-year class. 

Anna: The 2026 Bonner Conference was my first, and I certainly hope it won’t be my last!  Across every session, meal, and activity, I was reminded that the Bonner capacity for leadership, colaboración, and open-mindedness has no definable limit.  During every conference block, I witnessed our ability to listen, affirm, question, and push one another. Although brief, the weekend served as a testament to the incredible feats that Bonners accomplish when placed in the same room.

Asha: Attending the 2026 Bonner SLI was my first experience, and I really valued being surrounded by like-minded individuals while learning how different Bonner and community engagement programs operate. Sessions on framing community engagement for graduate school applications helped me recognize the value of experiences I had previously overlooked, and a workshop on coalition-building gave me new ideas for strengthening resources and collaboration at Bates. Overall, the conference left me feeling more intentional about how I approach both my work and future goals.