New Outdoor Leadership Minor

The Adventure Education and Outdoor Leadership (AEO) minor launched to the CSS community this fall.

Although this minor is new, Outdoor Pursuit has a long history of developing outdoor leadership at the college. Through the program, students learn the skills they need to lead fellow students on outdoor adventures that range anywhere from a few hours to a week long. The minor builds off of this foundation.

“For ten years we’ve talked about having an academic program related to the outdoors and what Outdoor Pursuit does. We have a lot of students who are volunteering to lead trips. In the process, they’re learning how to be leaders, learning how to manage risk. Many of those things fit within the college’s mission anyway, so one of the goals with the minor is to take what they’re doing there and give them more of an official pathway to give them academic recognition,” said director Sean Olesewski.

Although the programs are closely connected, students don’t need to be involved with Outdoor Pursuit or have a specific major or career path to pursue the minor.

“The skills are applicable to anybody. I had a nursing student who talked about how when they went into an interview they used their experience leading trips, their risk management, their ability to analyze a situation and make decisions, and that was what set them apart from their peers,” said Olesewski.

Sophomore nursing student Ivy Janzen works as the student coordinator for Backcountry Saints, the branch of Outdoor Pursuit that trains student guides. Janzen took up this minor to grow their skills as a guide and also to develop a unique professional skill set.

“It’s a fun thing to do, but it’s also going to aid me with nursing. The idea of being in a hospital all day for essentially 80,000 hours of a career is not appealing to me. I’d like to do wilderness medicine, nursing in contexts that are more outdoors related, slightly more dynamic. I just feel like the minor is really going to help me with that,” said Janzen. 

Olesewski emphasized that this major is applicable and beneficial for all types of majors, and is also designed to easily fit in with different academic paths. 

“Almost every student here is already taking one or two classes that qualifies towards the minor which is why, oftentimes, a student can get it just by taking two additional classes and a practicum,” said Olesewski. 

The minor requires a foundation course that explores the history of outdoor recreation and builds the baseline skills that outdoor leaders need, like risk management and problem solving. For the foundation course currently in progress the students elected to focus on building rock climbing and mountain biking skills.