National Collegiate Honors Council
Honors in Practice Online Archive
Date of this Version
2025
Document Type
Article
Citation
Honors in Practice (2025) 21: 81-100
Abstract
Honors students are goal-oriented, motivated, and engaged achievers. As such, they often experience heavy course loads, manage multiple responsibilities, have limited free time, and sacrifice their health (relationships, sleep, nutrition) in pursuit of their goals. This essay presents an evidence-based wellness retreat designed for honors students at a medium-sized university. The authors describe the retreat’s inception, development, curricular advantages, and administration, with specific examples of targeted evidence-based programming. Eight workshops, designed to build resilience and coping skills, address mental agility and mindset, emotion regulation, social connection, and wellness habits. The authors observe student efficacy in the development of skills and point to positive feedback from participants (n = 17). The results indicate that experiential wellness programming can play an important role in promoting stress resilience among honors students. The authors suggest that the flexibility of a retreat model makes it especially adaptable for honors programs throughout the country, thereby contributing to a growing effort in honors to nurture student mental health and well-being. Detailed descriptions of workshops and assessments are provided and limitations are addressed.
Included in
Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Educational Administration and Supervision Commons, Gifted Education Commons, Higher Education Commons, Liberal Studies Commons
Comments
Copyright 2025, NCHC and the authors. Used by permission