The Villa Writers Project involves weekly conversation groups where students and elders participate in storytelling and discussions focused on topics such as aging, identity, compassion, and significant life events. Project goals include improving students’ abilities to listen, converse, and write as well as expanding the diversity of the people with whom both populations regularly interact.

As part of their College Writing class, students produce essays relating to their inter-generational Villa conversation groups and share these papers with the Schowalter Villa community. Select writings are included in an annual campus forum and submitted to the Mary Miller Library archive. Courses in Hesston College’s Sociology and Psychology departments also collaborate with Schowalter Villa.