Olin College of Engineering approached its Coalition work from a foundational conviction: that students, faculty, and staff possess inherent agency and a sense of purpose, but that conventional higher education often obscures rather than cultivates these qualities. Its initiative centered on a candid, face-to-face retreat bringing together students, faculty, and staff from multiple institutions to share educational experiences and reconnect with their identities as learners and educators.

A key finding from the retreat was the power of what researchers call “third spaces” — environments outside the structures of normal academic life where participants can explore and reconstruct their identities freely. For students from non-majority backgrounds in particular, these spaces offered something rare: room to show up as their full selves while developing a stronger sense of purpose, agency, and belonging.