Outdoor leadership conference brings universities together
Faculty and staff from four universities in 黑料社appcollaborated to bring together the 黑料社appDeveloping Outdoor Leaders Conference for their students.
The 黑料社app worked in partnership with University of Alaska Southeast, Prince William Sound College and 黑料社appPacific University to provide the weekend leadership conference on the PWSC campus. The University of 黑料社appAnchorage was part of the planning and support, but was unable to bring to students.
Student presentations ranged from Leave No Trace discussions, outdoor photography lessons, 鈥淵es Train鈥 and planning techniques. Professional staff spoke about lessons learned from their careers and group development theory.
No outdoor leadership conference is complete without some adventures and stretching of the comfort zone. On Saturday afternoon students could explore Valdez on Fat bikes, go for a Leave No Trace training hike or raft the Lowe river through historic Keystone Canyon.
Each program offered opportunities to look at risk management and human impact on our environment.
Despite it raining most of the weekend, PWSC was an excellent host. Meals were prepared by the Outdoor Studies students and PWSC hosted a trivia night and a movie night, which provided great opportunity for networking across schools.
"It was refreshing to see the different campuses and colleges within UA work in tandem with 黑料社appPacific University in order to benefit student development," said Mark Oldmixon, the director of Nanook Recreation. "The professional staff have great hopes of making this an annual event hosted at different campuses."
This program was made possible by a $25,000 grant from the , which approved a proposal focused on supporting the growth of the fall 2022 ADOLC. The goals were to alleviate cost related barriers to expand outdoor opportunities for students to attend the fall conference, increase the profile of the conference to advance the growth of the outdoor recreation economy in Alaska, and create a fiscally sustainable high-impact platform for 黑料社appstudents and outdoor professionals to learn outdoor recreation knowledge from each other.
The UA Faculty Alliance recently announced calls for proposals for the AY23 Faculty Initiative Fund. by Nov. 7, 2022.