Sophomore Intentional Communities are changing their criteria. The program is on its second year and continues to improve.
The SICs were originally created by Jordan Bunch (’12) to get sophomores more involved in the ACU community. Erin Daugherty, area coordinator for Sikes and Morris Hall, has since taken over and revised the program.
Daugherty said she wanted to redesign the SICs to be more appealing to freshmen applicants.
“I want it to be something that is exciting for them to have the opportunity to be a part of, something that really helps them learn what it means to work with a group of people to be hospitable,” Daugherty said, “to get to know the people that you’re living around and to model Christ-like behavior as a member of a community, so that they’ll be able to take that out into real life after college when they’re living in a neighborhood with other families.”
Last year, the involved communities of six to eight students were required to form and complete their own service project. These projects included activities both in the residence halls and around the Abilene community. The students were also responsible for creating rules for their project and enforcing consequences when a requirement was not met.
This year, the participants must focus on facilitating a community specifically in their dorms. Each group is expected to plan monthly activities for their hall and assign responsibilities to each community member. The planned activities, which are up to interpretation by each SIC, could range anywhere from thoughtful notes to movie nights. The main goal of each SIC and planned activity is to encourage and support fellow residents in each hall.
“The idea behind it was that it’s difficult to build community in sophomore halls,” Daughtery said. “The goal is for the residents themselves to work toward making a sophomore residence hall a fun place to live and that can be more effective than RAs trying to do that.”
Residence directors in each dorm will serve as the SICs’ mentor leaders, helping to answer questions that the students may have and guiding them in the program. They are required to meet once a month and present their hall activity ideas.
As a result of Barret Hall becoming a women-only residence hall, the men’s intentional community was moved to Edwards Hall.
Zane Witcher, sophomore biblical text major from Georgetown, and his SIC have to adjust from switching from Barret to Edwards. They also have the additional challenge of learning to work with the SIC already established for Edwards Hall.
“We’re going to take the best run at it that we can,” Witcher said. “I really do strongly believe in the ACU community, its why I’m here and it’s why I’m still here. Me and my guys are happy to try and make that even better.”
