Westmont Magazine Be Our Guest

AFTER A QUIET 2020, WESTMONT WELCOMES NEW SUMMER GUESTS IN 2021

For decades, Westmont hosted mostly the same summer conference guests each year, including Snow Valley Basketball Camp, Pacific Coast Japanese Conference, OMS (Oriental Mission Society) and Armenian Christian Community Conference. Then President Gayle D. Beebe saw an opportunity to increase non-tuition revenue by developing the program and reaching out to new groups. In 2012, Melinda Moers Harriman ’87 returned to Westmont as director of conference and event services and campus scheduling and began working on expansion plans.

By 2014, she had reached an agreement with the Music Academy of the West to house their musicians each summer, beginning in 2016. This group has become Westmont’s biggest client, bringing in 150 people for eight weeks. Their musicians take voice lessons on campus, providing a soothing summer soundtrack.

Melinda continued building the program and was preparing for a busy summer when the college had to suspend operations in March 2020 due to the pandemic and the closure of campus. Westmont hosted only two small groups that year: a handful of high school students attending the Gaede Institute’s Trailhead program to experience college life; and Berridge Programs, which relocated its art camp for high school students from a chateau in Normandy.

Students returned to campus in September 2020 with a mixture of outdoor and remote classes. Would summer conference groups come back in 2021? Melinda usually lines up most of her returning clients by late October or early November, but she waited to see what happened, willing to sign up guests much later than usual. “When I first took this job, I decided that until we closed up shop at the end of the summer, we’d take a new group if we had space for them,” she says. “That approach proved especially helpful during the pandemic.

“Our regular big groups cancelled activities for a second summer,” Melinda says. “But we drew others that usually hold their camps at public universities, which remained shuttered in 2021. We stayed flexible and signed some groups late in the spring.” Trailhead returned and so did Berridge, which brought two groups, one for a week and one for three weeks.

Other new groups included the NIKE soccer camp, relocated from UC Santa Cruz, and Camp New Heights, a six-week health and wellness program for about 40 teenagers. West Coast Connections, a high school student travel and pre-college program, normally offers 90 camps throughout the world. They moved 150 students mostly from New York and New Jersey to Westmont from their traditional site at UCLA.

“We ended up being really full in 2021,” Melinda says. “Despite starting five weeks late because of all the uncertainty, we earned a gross income equal to a normal summer. And we did it without a single COVID-19 case on campus!” In general, summer conferences run from mid-May to mid-August at Westmont.

A full conference season requires a good partnership with the college’s housing office and the physical plant staff, who work throughout the summer to repair and prepare the residence halls for students in the fall. Melinda schedules groups around the renovation schedule. “This takes a lot of planning and coordination,” Melinda says. “It’s the single biggest challenge we face.”

That work has already begun for 2022 summer conferences, which Melinda hopes will start on time and include more first-time clients. She has already received numerous inquiries, including interest from five new groups. She has started roughing out the schedule on a Google Sheet. “It becomes this great puzzle,” she says. “We put potential groups in gray and confirmed ones in color. It’s incredibly challenging to figure out how to fit all the groups in when they vary so much in size, needs and goals.”

Next summer, Berridge Programs plans three sessions at Westmont and hopes to collaborate in some way with the college’s art and theater departments. The organization serves aspiring artists (typically teenagers), emerging artists and also established artists with their creative programs. Melinda thinks one or two of the new groups from 2021 could return to Westmont.

She hires ten to fifteen full-time student workers during the summer, who prepare rooms and spaces for guests, serve as liaisons with the guests or handle administrative duties. Four staff members, Melinda, Lisa Vincent, Austin Harmon ’17 and Annelise Daley ’21, work year-round, managing scheduling and providing support for events during the school year. Some students continue on part time when classes resume.

The addition of the Global Leadership Center and its two large residence halls has made it easier to attract more professional retreats and programs, thanks to the en-suite rooms, air-conditioning, elevators and Ritchie’s Place, the popular coffee shop. The adjacent conference rooms and the ability to create hotel-style rooms with queen beds add to the appeal.

For example, Westmont can now host its annual Lead Where You Stand leadership conference entirely in the Global Leadership Center, with attendees staying in the comfortable rooms and attending sessions in the large conference room. The college plans to hold the program in person in June 2022 after cancelling in 2020 and offering the conference remotely last year.

Melinda seeks to increase the number of companies using Westmont as a location for conferences and retreats, and she especially encourages alums to consider the campus for their own organizations. “Give us a call,” she says.

In addition to attracting new clients, Melinda has also reached out to alums with bed and breakfast specials during certain weeks. Some alums hold family reunions on campus, which offers a more affordable option than staying in a Santa Barbara hotel. For example, Cathy ’69 and Lee ’69 Swanson celebrated their 50th anniversary by bringing 40 family members and guests to the Global Leadership Center.

“It took a monumental effort to gather family from several different states in the middle of a pandemic, but it happened — and it was worth all the effort,” Cathy says. “Melinda Harriman was incredibly helpful and instrumental in making it successful. The facilities exceeded our expectations: The rooms didn’t feel like dorm rooms, the beautiful grassy areas enabled endless family games and fun, the food service offered us lots of choices and we did absolutely no cooking or cleaning, which in itself was worth the price! On the morning of our departure, the parting words were: Sign us up for the next time! We made many happy memories!”

“If we have space available in the GLC, we can rent rooms to alums anytime in the summer,” Melinda says. She notes that some individuals come to campus for silent, solitary retreats or to focus on their writing. Of course, many come to spend time in Santa Barbara, one of the most desirable destinations in the world.

Newer groups include the Calligraphy Society, which met for decades at the Casa De Maria Retreat Center in Montecito. But they now gather at Westmont as the center suffered serious damage during the 2018 mudflow. An Al-Anon group for women with spouses who are alcoholics found a refuge on campus.

Westmont continues to attract churches and Christian organizations for retreats and programs, such as Valley Vineyard in Reseda, Trinity Episcopal in Santa Barbara, Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship faculty, Gateway Seminary, Oaks Christian School and Catholic Engaged Encounter for couples planning to get married.

Looking toward future summers, Melinda and her colleagues envision new creative possibilities, such as a possible marriage retreat with Campus Pastor Scott Lisea ’88 and his wife, Jaime ’88, coordinator of church community relations and special assistant to the campus pastor. The college could also set aside space for graduate students working on their dissertation (ABD) to stay for a week or two to focus on their work. In addition, Melinda would like to see more pastors and church groups come for retreats.

Interested in bringing your business or organization to Westmont for a summer retreat or gathering?
Reach out to Melinda at mharriman@westmont.edu soon and explore the possibilities. The schedule is filling up.