Bearkat Camp Parent Portal

Dear newest SHSU Parents/Guardians:

Congratulations on joining the Bearkat Family!

Our goal with Bearkat Camp is to help your student successfully transition into the campus. We strive to accomplish this with two main goals in mind:

• Find a sense of community. Finding a sense of community and friends is vital to the transition process into a campus community. Our goal is for each student to leave with at least one person they can consider a friend and source of companionship and support on starting this new journey. We want your student to find other students like them to attend events with and have familiar faces in the dorms and dining halls.
• Experience the Spirit, Pride and Tradition of Sam Houston State University. Your student is the spirit, pride, and tradition of SHSU. We want your student to experience and feel that spirit, develop that pride, and learn the traditions they are now a part of. We don't want your student to just go to school, we want them to be a Bearkat!

So how do we do this?

Activity based programming: This isn't a sports camp, but we do use activity to help students engage on a deeper level. Why? Typically, when we are engaged in activities and play, we are our most authentic selves because we aren't thinking about saying the right thing or looking a certain way. When we are our most authentic selves, we are more capable of making meaning connections with others.

Counselor Mentors: Our volunteer counselors are committed to helping your student have a safe and fun experience at camp. Students are put into groups with two counselors and those counselors assist students in discovering the spirit, pride, and tradition of SHSU both in themselves and others. The counselors also aid those students that need a little extra help in coming out of their shells to make those peer network connections. Our counselor mentors are also available to students after camp and during the school year for questions your students may have and periodically reach out to check on the students as they navigate their first semester at SHSU.

How do we know Bearkat Camp works?

99% of former campers would recommend Bearkat camp. Our campers are also more likely to stay and graduate from Sam Houston State University. Why? Because over 90% of our campers surveyed say they fostered interpersonal relationships at BKC, they felt better prepared to be a student at SHSU, and felt this program generated a sense of pride in SHSU.

What can you do as a parent to help your student prepare for a successful first semester?

Register your student for Bearkat Camp! We talk to many students during every camp season, and while many of them are excited about being at camp, so many students state that their parent/guardian made them come to camp. I would say a majority of those campers that were made to come to camp had an incredible experience and do not regret being forced to come. Which I then get to promote parents/guardians as rock stars that sometimes do in fact know what you need despite what you might want. Check out our student testimonial from our former camper/counselor/lead staff member Julia Garcia below to read her story.

Visit our Parent FAQs for questions we commonly receive and if you have additional ones, please reach out to us at 936-294-CAMP or bearkatcamp@shsu.edu

Thanks,

The Bearkat Camp Team