A public university in Vermont will host a weekend retreat for Caucasian students during the 2018-19 school year where participants will spend three days focusing on topics related to white privilege.

The University of Vermont has renewed their annual “Examining White Identity: A Retreat for Undergraduate Students Who Self-Identify as White” weekend event for the upcoming school year. According to the event website, participants will be treated to a variety of events designed to ensure that they understand the impact that their white privilege has on the University of Vermont community.

Students will have the opportunity to “conceptualize and articulate whiteness from a personal and systematic lens, recognize and understand white privilege from an individual experience and the impact of white privilege on the UVM community and beyond,” the retreat description reads.

Throughout the weekend, students will focus on a variety of questions related to their “whiteness,” including complex queries such as “what does it mean to be white?” as well as “how does whiteness impact you?”

The retreat website also features glowing testimonials from a small number of students who attended the retreat in previous years. According to some of the reviews, students were delighted to find that they were able to access a “safe space” to discuss complex issues related to “privilege” and “oppression.”

"I enjoyed the Examining White Privilege Retreat (EWPR) because it provided a safe space to learn about yourself and others and how we experience and understand privilege and systems of oppression,” said Cora, who attended the retreat in 2015. “The activities were engaging and challenged me as a participant to be open-minded and see different perspectives.”

Another student named Emily gave a glowing review of her experience at the weekend EWPR because it provided an opportunity to discuss issues of social justice and ways that students could work to bring about change on their campus.

"EWPR gave me the chance to explore my own identities more deeply, to learn more about systems of privilege and oppression, and to connect with other students who are interested in discussing social justice and working to create change here on our campus," said Emily, who also attended the retreat in 2015.