Durango – Fort Lewis College will begin offering an Adventure Education degree next year focused on “human- powered” pursuits such as rock climbing and kayaking.
College president Brad Bartel, who intends to make Fort Lewis into a premier four-year liberal arts college, rejects the notion that the new degree reinforces the stereotype of “Fort Leisure,” a school attended as much for outdoor fun as for its academics.
“(Adventure Education) is squarely a liberal arts program. It combines so much history and science in one multidisciplinary program,” Bartel said. “But I don’t see how we can live in an area as beautiful and diverse as the Four Corners and not use it as a living laboratory.”
The program, approved by trustees last week, will fully launch next fall as part of the exercise science department.
The course work will vary, but students can expect to spend up to half their class time outdoors learning about the environment and developing their skills in problem solving, communication and leadership, said program director Bob Stremba.
“We’re not preparing students for seasonal jobs and for living out of the back of their cars,” he said. “We’re not preparing people to be summer rafting guides. We’re preparing them to be the people who hire the rafting guides. … It isn’t just camping for credit. There is a lot of reading, writing and research.”
Some courses will be similar to those in the well-established outdoor-education curriculum at Western State College.
Fort Lewis is building on the 30-year-old foundation of its popular Outdoor Pursuits program, which has helped outfit and stage adventurous activities for students from Silverton to Russia. It also gives students access to $250,000 worth of outdoor gear owned by the college, said coordinator Chris Nute.
“Over the years, there always has been the intention of adding a degree program for outdoor pursuits,” Nute said.
Along with teaching technical skills in mountaineering, Adventure Education will offer courses in leadership, philosophy and education theory. Auxiliary requirements will be met by completing courses in some of the following: biology, geology, ecology, astronomy, psychology, tourism management and so on.
“The program is a new amalgam of classic disciplines,” Bartel said. “Some people will look down their noses at these amalgams. But the multibillion-dollar outdoor recreation and ecotourism industry in Colorado needs people to work in it.”
It is a new wrinkle in education, said Jur gen Herbst, a former University of Wisconsin professor of education history.
“Liberal arts schools have traditionally prepared students for graduate or professional schools,” Herbst said. “There is a great deal of vocational element in this.”
Good marketing is increasingly important in higher education, said Judith Reynolds, a journalist and former professor in Michigan and New York.
“This is very smart on (Fort Lewis’) part,” Reynolds said. “But it is also a risk for a school that has been trying like crazy to shed its nickname.”
Bartel said the decision was partly market-driven.
“It would ring untrue if I didn’t say ‘Yes,”‘ he said. “Every single degree we look at, we have to ask if it has enrollment sustainability. Tuition revenue is the only predictable source of funds for colleges in Colorado.”
Staff writer Electa Draper can be reached at 970-385-0917 or edraper@denverpost.com.
