Students learn how to be a leader and how to develop their leadership capacity as they participate in shared experiences or learning communities, many of which are facilitated by student affairs professionals through campus activities programs. For large numbers of college students, their first learning community, and subsequent path to future…

In this article, we explore features of a summer program intended to support the personal and academic development of non-dominant high school youth. We focus on one particularly robust practice in the program known as encuentros -- daily gatherings intended to build community and collective sense-making. We draw on field notes and videos to…