From 9-10 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 9, at the McAfee commons, male resident directors hosted a roundtable event for male union students.
The roundtable, which is hosted once a semester, is designed to connect students with like-minded people who desire to strengthen their relationship with Christ and lean on each other for help.
Kevin Morgan, resident director of the men’s quads and a key organizer of the event, spoke about the impact it has on students.
“I think it gives students a springboard,” Morgan said. “Because you have to think about when’s the last time students were thinking 100% for themselves. They just got out of high school, their parents are telling them what to do; churches and youth ministries are telling them what to do; this may be the first time that they’ve gotten up by themselves and had to decide ‘who am I going to serve today?’”
Morgan, as well as his fellow resident directors David Bowman and Isaac Elliot, led devotionals, prayer circles and small groups with recommendations for books to deepen students’ relationship with Christ.
Along with providing immediate support, Morgan believes the roundtable connects faces with names and allows like-minded students to connect.
“I think roundtable gives them an idea of ‘oh sweet! I saw that guy there — he must be looking to grow,’” Morgan said. “It becomes cyclical. Every semester, we’re seeing more and more people understand what this event is for as a springboard.”
Resident advisors also helped run the event, forming prayer circles in the main commons in which students could talk about what they were experiencing.
Morgan hopes these roundtable events will only continue to grow in their outreach.
“I was talking to all of the guy RAs last semester before we did the October roundtable, and I told them to dream big,” Morgan said, discussing his desire for them to become more integral on campus. “This could be an event that people hear about before they come to Union. This could be an event that people love so much and have seen so much growth from that five years from now, this could be on a pamphlet that gets people to Union.”
Photo by David Alcazar
