At Gettysburg, community isn’t just where your story begins—it’s what shapes where your story goes. Through shared experiences, mentorship, and meaningful connections, students build relationships that grow into a powerful network, opening doors long after graduation.
During Get Acquainted Day in the spring of 2015, Caroline Glennon ’19 was walking Gettysburg’s campus with her parents, unsure where her journey would take her next. A student stopped them to help with directions for the next scheduled event.
Not long after that activity finished up, that same student saw Glennon and her family again, strolling on the edge of the fountain by Masters Hall. The student quickly asked, “Did you find it? How did it go?”
“I had been there an hour,” Glennon recalled. “I knew no one here, and now I saw this young woman who offered to help us twice. By lunch, I was sold. I decided right there I wanted to go to Gettysburg, and that spirit of community helped carry me to that decision.”
It was a small moment—easy to overlook. But it was also the beginning of something much bigger. Because at Gettysburg, that’s how a student’s journey starts.
“You come to Gettysburg, and you find your people,” said Bill Heyman ’74, P’13, a member of the College’s Board of Trustees and longtime champion of student mentorship. “That’s your community. Over time, that community becomes your network.”
For prospective students, that idea is more than a philosophy—it’s part of what we call the Gettysburg Approach: an experience designed to help students explore their interests, connect across disciplines, and build meaningful relationships that shape what comes next.
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Where you find your people
At Gettysburg, community doesn’t look the same for everyone, but it forms quickly, often in ways that stay with you long after you leave.
Ashley (Fendrick) Cush ’10 grew up hearing about Gettysburg through her father, James Fendrick ’84, P’10, P’19. By the time she enrolled, the College already felt familiar—less like a place she was discovering and more like something she belonged to.
Once on campus, that sense of belonging took shape through a series of overlapping experiences—her residence hall, the tennis team, Chi Omega sorority, and academic work as a management major. “Those are the little groups that I would consider my Gettysburg community,” said Cush, vice president at Rockland Immunochemicals, Inc.
“You come to Gettysburg, and you find your people.”
– Bill Heyman ’74, P’13
Those smaller circles didn’t exist in isolation. They overlapped, expanded, and connected—creating a sense of belonging that felt both personal and shared.
For Sharon (Hilgen) Willis ’88, that process started early, arriving before the academic year to attend marching band practices. Willis’ community continued to grow when classes started through her chemistry major. She spent the summer between her junior and senior years on campus conducting research, living in the Gettysburg community, and developing social ties that have continued through the decades.
“Between my band friends and my chemistry friends, that was really the solid foundation of my community on campus,” said Willis, co-founder and vice president of sales and customer relations at Integral Molecular.
Kevin Kennedy ’11 found that same sense of connection on the basketball court, where shared goals and accountability shaped his experience. Kennedy’s arrival coincided with back-to-back appearances in the NCAA Division III Tournament and a Centennial Conference title in 2009. Two years later, the management major served as team captain, building on the leadership of those student-athletes who came before him.
“This community extended beyond the court to include administrators and alumni who consistently checked in on us,” Kennedy noted. “It felt like a brotherhood where everyone was invested in your success as both an athlete and a person.”
For Glennon, an international and global studies and Spanish double major, it was the combination of everything—service, academics, and student organizations—that made the difference.
“Everyone was involved in something,” she said. “The Venn diagram just gets bigger and bigger with the overlap and connections.”
How community opens doors
As those relationships grow, so do the opportunities they bring.
At Gettysburg, that transition—from community to network—doesn’t happen by chance. It’s intentionally built into the student experience through the College’s Guided Pathways, which connect students with alumni who can help them explore careers and navigate their next steps.
For Alexis Auman ’27, a psychology major from Reading, Pennsylvania, that process is already underway. Through the Alumni Mentoring Program, as part of the Guided Pathways, she connected with Cindy Berríos ’02, interim CEO at On the Margins, whose guidance has helped her think more deeply about her goals and how to approach them.
“She is not just a mentor; she is an inspiration for what my education can allow me to achieve,” Auman said. “Connecting with her as a person has also deepened and reaffirmed for me the importance of human connection in the professional career space.”
“Working with a Gettysburg student is special because there’s an automatic tie that binds us.”
– Cindy Berríos ’02
For Berríos, who double majored in French and political science, that relationship reflects something distinctive about Gettysburg.
“I think of community as something you feel and network as something you use,” she said. “At Gettysburg, the two overlap in a really unique way. It doesn’t feel transactional. It feels like an extension of the community.”
That same sense of connection is what brought Cush back into the Gettysburg network in a new way. Years after graduating, she found herself connecting with Willis through shared professional interests in the biotech space. What began as a simple alumni connection quickly grew into something more collaborative.
“I think of my community at Gettysburg as the people who I interacted with directly,” Cush noted. “But then the network in and of itself is this big bubble that everybody's bouncing around in and you'll inevitably bump into through other career or personal relationships.”
Together, Cush and Willis have worked with the Center for Career Engagement to expand opportunities for students—helping to organize industry treks, networking events, and connections that introduce Gettysburg students to careers in science and technology. Their work reflects the same pattern that defines the Gettysburg experience: relationships that begin in one place and expand outward.
“I tell people to pick one event and go meet one new person,” Willis said. “I think networking can feel intimidating, but really, most people in the world are good people who want to help other people succeed. You just have to go out there and start by meeting one new person.”
The people who help you find your way
What turns these relationships into something more—into direction, opportunity, and growth—is the people who invest in others along the way.
For Glennon, that person was Heyman, who helped her translate her interests into a path forward and introduced her to opportunities she might not have found on her own.
“I told him all of the things that I was interested in, and he gave me all of the options back,” said Glennon, senior account manager at CORE IR & PR. “He just had that network.”
More importantly, he showed her how to use a professional network.
“That’s what the network is supposed to do,” Heyman said. “It’s not just about who you know. It’s about helping the next person find their way.”
“She is not just a mentor; she is an inspiration for what my education can allow me to achieve.”
– Alexis Auman ’27
Today, alumni like Kennedy, Cush, and Willis are continuing that cycle—mentoring students, creating opportunities, and strengthening the connections that define the Gettysburg Network.
“I aim to keep the cycle going,” Kennedy said. “By helping them now, we ensure the next generation is ready to do the same.”
For Berríos, that responsibility is deeply personal.
“I believe in mentorship throughout the life cycle,” she said. “Working with a Gettysburg student is special because there’s an automatic tie that binds us.”
Where Gettysburg can take you
What begins as a simple interaction—a student offering directions, a shared class, a conversation after practice—doesn’t stay small for long.
At Gettysburg, those moments build on one another. They grow into relationships that expand across time, across industries, and across generations. A first conversation becomes a friendship. A friendship becomes a connection. A connection becomes an opportunity.
And somewhere along the way, it all comes full circle.
“It starts with relationships,” Heyman said. “If you build those the right way, everything else follows.”
Start your journey in a community that grows into a network of opportunity.
By Corey Jewart
Photos by Sofia Gutierrez ’26, Caroline Glennon ’19, Kevin Kennedy ’11, Tyler Caruso, Career Engagement, Jason Minick
Posted: 04/22/26
