HCAT hosted its annual writing retreat once again in the lap of beautiful mountains of Park City, Utah. The lab has historically hosted the writing retreat in October during the fall break but this year the retreat was November 4th-7th. We tried to make it convenient to travel to Utah for our extended lab members as NCA (National Communication Association) convention was held in Salt Lake City (November 8th-11th). This was the first time, we rented the same house for our retreat in two consecutive years– Adobe house! Dr. Jakob D. Jensen, Dr. Lisa Guntzviller, Dr. Kevin Coe, Dr. Kevin K. John, Dr. Sean Upshaw, Elizabeth Giorgi, Liane O’Neill, Rachael Katz, and Danny Liao were in the attendance this year.
Dr. Jensen dressed as Dr. Strange’sen! Dr. Strange’sen motivated us to dig deeper in our thoughts and complete one huge task rather than multiple smaller tasks, so we did not use post-it notes on the wall to track our progress (as we normally do in writing retreats). Dr. Guntzviller led a workshop in Moderation analysis (was very helpful!) Jake (Dr. Strange’sen) hid five 2-dollar bills (and later two more 2-dollar bills) and we all spent some time searching. Dr. Guntzviller, Dr. Coe, and Dr. John were able to find one bill each; rest of us tried our best!
Overall, this writing retreat was very productive and I finished the first draft of the third study of my dissertation. Every year, in addition to getting so much done in those 4 days, I am inspired to be better scholar and colleague. I feel so lucky to be a part of this academic family! Thank you for creating this space, Dr. Jensen!
Manu Pokharel 