ENS 285 Outdoor Leadership and the Liberal Arts
This course will equip you to function as an outdoor leader in the specific context of a liberal arts institution. The aim is to integrate your academic life with your experience of nature and to learn how to facilitate, as a guide, that type of integration for others. You will acquire the skills necessary to assess risk, navigate in the backcountry, become certified to address medical issues in emergency and remote contexts, and understand outdoor equipment systems that allow students to safely explore the natural world. These skills will be acquired within a context that employs the interdisciplinary and integrative nature of the liberal arts: you will not only learn how to be a guide who possesses traditional outdoor leadership skills, but one who has considered the historical, ethical, aesthetic, environmental, and philosophical dimensions of the exploration of nature. Absolutely no prior wilderness or outdoor experience is necessary.