What Will You Do with What You’ve Been Given?

Fall Sullivan Weekend | October 9–11, 2026 | Lake Junaluska, North Carolina

Some students arrive at Sullivan Weekend because they have an idea. Others come because they don’t. Some know exactly what problem they want to work on, while others are still trying to decide what matters enough to deserve their time.

Faculty arrive with questions of their own. Sullivan Fellows return carrying work they began months earlier. Alumni come with the advantage, and sometimes the burden, of knowing what happened after college. They are at different points in their lives, but there is something many of them have in common.

They are not entirely satisfied with the idea that what they have been given is theirs alone.

That conviction is at the heart of Fall Sullivan Weekend, October 9–11 at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina, where students, Fellows, faculty, staff and alumni from across the Sullivan network will gather for three days of learning, reflection, relationship-building and work.

Sullivan Weekend is not a single program. It is a shared gathering built around several distinct experiences, each serving people at a different point in their development.

For some students, the Ignite Retreat will be an introduction to questions of purpose, leadership, service and action. For Sullivan Fellows, the Fellows Summit is part of a longer developmental experience built around Agency, Relationships and Contribution. Faculty and staff will gather for the Faculty Forum, creating space to learn from one another and strengthen the environments in which students develop.

And uniquely in the fall, the Alumni Assembly brings Sullivan Award recipients and past program participants back into the conversation, not simply as observers, but as participants, mentors and fellow members of the Sullivan community.

“What makes Sullivan Weekend special is that you have students, Fellows, faculty, alumni and people from different schools all in the same place, but they are not all there to do the same thing,” said Steve McDavid, president of The Algernon Sydney Sullivan Foundation. “Each group has its own work to do. Then we bring everyone together at different points during the weekend, and you begin to see relationships form across programs, schools and generations. That is when the Sullivan network becomes something you can actually see and experience.”

That may be the strongest argument for bringing these different groups together. A student who is just beginning to think seriously about service can meet someone who has spent decades practicing it. A Fellow struggling with a project can discover that someone from another campus understands the problem.

An educator can exchange ideas with another faculty member who has been wrestling with the same question. An alumnus can see that the values recognized by a Sullivan Award years ago are still being explored by students today.

And sometimes the most useful moment of the weekend is not on the formal schedule at all. It happens after a session, across a table at dinner, during a walk, or in a question that continues longer than anyone expected.

Lake Junaluska gives those conversations room. The setting matters, but not because a mountain view changes someone by itself. It matters because Sullivan Weekend creates a temporary community outside the normal rhythms of campus and work, giving people time to listen longer, ask another question and remain in conversations they might otherwise leave too soon.

All around them, different versions of the same larger questions will be unfolding: What do I care about? What am I responsible for? Who do I need beside me? How can I help someone else grow? What have the years taught me?

And ultimately:

What will I do with what I have been given?

“We want people to leave Lake Junaluska with more than a good memory,” McDavid said. “We want the student to have a next step, the faculty member to have an idea they can take back to campus, the alumnus to see a meaningful way to stay involved, and everyone to feel that they are part of a larger community committed to service and contribution.”

That is the aim of Sullivan Weekend: not identical experiences and not identical answers, but people leaving with a clearer sense of what comes next.