Applications for the Princeton Rose Castle Society cohort for the 2023-2024 academic year are now open!

The Princeton Rose Castle Society (PRCS) grew out of a fall break trip to the Rose Castle Foundation in Cumbria, England in 2019, sponsored by the Office of Religious Life.  In Cumbria our student delegation experienced a transformative curriculum rooted in encountering difference, engaging through conflict, restoring relationships and reimagining society, all with the purpose of facilitating reconciliation and restorative justice where there has been harm or impasse.  Our group decided to share the skills it had learned with other student members of the Princeton community, hoping to expand the circle of people committed to dialogical and relationship-based approaches to finding ways to live justly and well together in spite of violent histories and/or foundational disagreements.

The PRCS meets every several weeks over dinner for discussion and reconciliation-focused exercises.  We develop our own skills for the practice of reconciliation, and we create opportunities for those who are not members of our Society to participate in ongoing dialogue groups on particular topics such as the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, abortion, etc.  

All current undergraduate and graduate Princeton University students are welcomed to apply for membership in the Princeton Rose Castle Society.  We seek individuals who are committed to dialogue, to engaging differences of every kind, and who are eager to grow their own skills for being life-long agents of reconciliation in whatever settings they will find themselves.  Membership in the Society requires attendance on our fall break trip to the Rose Castle in England (October 14-22, 2023), at dinners at 5:30 pm on Thursday Oct 26 and Sundays Nov 19, Feb 11, Feb 25, March 24, and at any public programming we may sponsor during the year.  There is no financial cost to members for the Society’s activities, including for the Fall Break trip.    

To apply, please send an email to Dean Alison Boden ([email protected]) with the following information:

• Name
• Class year
• Hometown
• Intended or declared concentration

Please include in the email a link to a video in which you provide brief answers to the following questions, OR type your answers to these questions in your email:

1. Why would you like to be a member of the Princeton Rose Castle Society?
2. What do you think of when you hear the terms “dialogue” and “reconciliation”?
3. Describe a situation in which you intentionally––if imperfectly––set aside your discomfort with someone else’s beliefs, attitudes, or values in an effort to have a productive or restorative dialogue. What strategies worked, and which didn’t?
4. What is an assumption about you, your background, or your beliefs that people tend to make? How do you dialogue and interact with people whose assumptions about you might affect the way they interact with you?
5. Which, if any, groups are you affiliated with or planning to become involved in on campus this year?

Please send your email to Dean Boden by September 8, the application deadline.  Dean Boden is happy to answer your questions at any time.