Speaker:  AJ Heil

Room: 316

Description: What keeps people from registering for trips and programs? It turns out, most of those things are connected to $$$ in some way. Let's talk about money, financial barriers, and how to directly help participants join your programs using scholarship programs. If we want to make inclusive environments and truly boost participation of under-represented people in our trips and programs, we need to take real action. There are multiple forms of evidence that point to financial barriers as the biggest single thing that we address in order to provide better access to outdoor recreation.

This workshop is formatted to be completely 'practical and tactical'. We will be providing you with lots of proven ideas for how to find money and give it away. We will also provide a healthy, productive conversation about other ideas you may have to share.

Speaker:  Sam Bragg

Room: 317

Description:  Are you wondering how hearing organizations can become more inclusive for Deaf and Hard of Hearing folks? In this workshop, you will learn the steps you can take as an individual or within your organization to create more inclusive and accessible spaces for the Deaf community in the outdoors with technology and communication access. Participants will learn about risk management from Deaf lenses in the outdoors along with data from the community.

Welcome & Deaf community: an introduction [10 minutes]
Inclusivity vs. accessibility [30 minutes]
Deaf perspective and risk management approach in the outdoors: research and data from the community [40 minutes]
Q&A [10 minutes]

The main focus of the workshop is discussing the barriers and discrimination that Deaf and Hard of Hearing people still face within the outdoor industry. Deaf and Hard of Hearing people are amongst one the most marginalized and underrepresented groups within the outdoor industry.

Speaker:  Raeanna Anglen
Room: 318

Description:  Whether we are highly experienced backcountry ski guides, taking students on a field trip to the local swimming hole, or working in organizational management and leadership roles, the success of our programs-and even the lives of those entrusted to us??rests on the intentional development of our emotional intelligence. By understanding the role that emotional intelligence plays in cultivating inclusive environments and forming effective risk management practices, we better serve our market, employees and participants. Research shows that emotional intelligence is at the heart of creating sustainable cultures of inclusivity, diversity, equity and belonging; therefore, it is also paramount for the development of risk management practices. In this presentation, we will learn how the four facets of emotional intelligence are foundational to building inclusive organizational cultures, integrating wholehearted DEI efforts and developing effective risk management practices for outdoor education opportunities. Expect in depth discussions, case studies to learn from, and interfacing with personal and organizational development of skills.

Speakers:  Candace Brendler, Trey Smith

Room: 319

Description:  Ideal learning environments are filled with activities and participant engagement, yet many of us default to lecturing from slideshows when presenting information. In this presentation we will put our money where our mouths are and NOT lecture. Instead, we will facilitate an experience in which the participants use a variety of active training strategies that can be applied to any number of topics. The facilitators will use common outdoor education training topics to demonstrate these strategies. Topics may include wilderness first aid skills, understanding expedition behavior, teaching stages of group development, etc. Participants will also be given time to brainstorm and share out ways that they can use these strategies within their own context.

Additionally, thoughtfully selected games and energizers will be incorporated throughout in order to develop community and act as a companion to the learning strategies.

All of these strategies are practical for use in an outdoor setting and do not require the use of technology beyond paper and markers. Ideal for anyone working in a training/instructing capacity (ex. outdoor educators, camps, and college recreation training programs).

Presenters: Jeremy Jostad, Jeff Turner, Kellie Gerbers, Brent Bell, Will Hobbs & Elizabeth Andre

The focus of this research presentation will be about the findings of a census of 'outdoor academic programs' across the United States. An understanding of enrollment trends, curriculum requirements, administrative support and more will be gleaned through this research.

Speaker:  Jon Heshka

Room: 316

Description:  This presentation will be about how risk is communicated to participants pre-trip, media relations immediately following a critical incident, and overall crisis communications to participants, family members, and internal within the organization post-incident. In guiding situations, there may be a false belief, reinforced by subtle choices of language, that a guide is there to keep clients safe. In more experiential education settings, the expectation of participants may be that they'll be safe because they've never been told the truth about the risks. Dealing with the media after a critical incident is a fine line to walk balancing safety with residual risk and explaining risk management in 15-second soundbites. Lawyers have historically advised their clients ? 'Don't apologize, it can be construed as an admission of guilt in litigation.' With the advent of apology laws however, it is possible in those jurisdictions to apologize and not have that it misconstrued as an admission of fault or liability. This presentation will argue, controversially to some, that communicating ? rather than circling the wagons, building firewalls, and saying little if anything at all ? with those affected by a critical incident helps in healing, resolving conflict, and restoring relationships.

Speaker:  Steven Koster

Room: 317

Description:  As outdoor professionals our organizations' programs and services are very dependent on our local environments, governments, and lifestyles. While national conferences and resources can provide us with good standards and benchmarks, the value of connecting with organizations and professionals in our own region can add familiarity and details to those resources that are invaluable. In this presentation we will explore frameworks and benefits of local and regional conferences, recurring roundtables calls, and creating local professional networks.

Speaker:  Scott Gray

Room: 318

Description:  The last decade has seen a paradigm shift in how we as professionals discuss and navigate diversity issues in the outdoors. However, as our field moves toward inclusion and away from the assumed outdoor identities of the past, there is often one group left out of the conversation.

Secular, Atheist and Agnostic practitioners and participants alike are often left out of the conversation or still face active/passive discrimination in a number of programs nation wide. This includes programs that claim to be universal in their values and receive government funding. This is ironic given the rise in Americans that self-identify as having no religion on recent surveys.

The focus of this session is to first articulate the various viewpoints of secular individuals in general and to rethink the many stereotypes that surround non-believers. The conversation will then shift toward the cultural construct of the 'outdoors' as a spirit-filled space and how religion has shaped the outdoor experience in western culture. Finally the session will conclude with a number of real world strategies to meet the needs of secular people in the outdoors while staying true to one's own world view, whatever that might be.

If our programs are going to exist and be relevant in the future, we must continue to evolve to meet the needs of as many populations as possible. Thus it is critical to have good-faith discussions about this and other diversity based topics moving forward.

Speaker:  Sasha Griffith

Room: 319

Description:  The overall goal of this session is to help you add to your 'bag of tricks.' Whether you lead trips, meetings, or challenge course programming, you will be able to leave with multiple ideas of how to get a group get up and going. This session will focus on participating in games, deinhibitizers, and ice breakers. We will briefly discuss modifications or variations to games to fit different groups. This workshop will cover a variety of ice breakers and short games to wake a group up or get them to laugh at a frustrating time so they can move forward.

Presenters: Eric Frauman

This presentation attempts to show how one's political identity (e.g., Democrat, Republican) may have critical implications for college outdoor programs and their parent universities in how they communicate climate and natural resource concerns to the people they serve. With the increasing polarization of the 'climate crisis' among the general public, it seems prudent to examine how today's college student thinks and feels about the climate and nature as both can play a critical role in a satisfying outdoor recreation experience. If college outdoor programs seek to provide climate and nature-related information during trips, and there is a level of skepticism among some college students about its importance, they need to be cognizant they could lose some students considering participating in a future trip and in other outdoor program offerings.

Presenter: Guy deBrun

Description: Scholars and practitioners lack a reliable tool designed to measure leadership outcomes of outdoor programs. The goal of this presentation is to share results of a study of a method and instrument designed to measure leader's ability to apply Situational Leadership to decisions made in the field. Participants will learn: 1. Why measurement of leadership is important 2. How rubrics and authentic assessment tasks may be used to measure leadership 3. Conceptual challenges of the Situational Leadership Model 4. Implications for further research on leadership measurement 5. Implications for practitioners training student leaders

Speakers: Ben Johnson US Forest Service, Sam Rider US Forest Service, Matt Blocker Bureau of Land Management, Krista Sherwood National Park Service

Room: 316

Description:  Federal public lands and waters offer great opportunities for high quality outdoor recreation and education experiences. However, these lands and waters are under increasing pressure. Federal land managers are being called upon to expand outdoor recreation opportunities to meet significant increases in recreational demand, and to do so with fewer staff and less resources. Fortunately, the federal land management agencies are taking a proactive approach to addressing these challenges, in some cases rethinking their recreation management strategies in ways that could have far reaching implications for recreation users. Join us for a discussion of these initiatives with representatives of the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service. We’ll focus on how recent initiatives will impact guided recreational access and talk about how you can tailor your programs to support the agencies’ transformational efforts.

Speaker: Jenna Celmer

Room: 317

Description:    Direct, tactical, and personalized answers to your questions about job seeking, hiring, or breaking-in to the outdoor industry. After helping hundreds of job seekers and hiring managers find clarity and confidence via zoom, Jenna is bringing her popular weekly advice sessions live to the AORE conference. Using exclusive expertise and unique insights gained from co-founding and stewarding the industry’s biggest and best professional network and career forum, Jenna’s advice is optimized to help:

• Job seekers successfully navigate the hiring process;
• employers attract and retain stellar candidates;
• industry-curious folks find their place & passion-led role;
• current employees navigate sticky situations 

Part of the  Future of Facilitated Recreation Series

Speakers: Abby Rowe, Garnet Moore, Kelly Reynolds

Room: 318

Description:  The outdoor industry has a surplus of certifications and training. While many outdoor facilitators may be struggling with the required time, financial resources, and access to acquire these certifications and training, certification providers also face many challenges of the outdoor industry - hiring, pay, certifications, training, risk and liability, and sustainability. Is it a dying industry?

Speaker:  Sasha Griffith

Room: 319

Description:  The goal is to inspire others to get outside and try something new. How? This workshop is intended to get the practitioner thinking about when they first started in the outdoors and think about ways to share their story with others. This is SUPER important for a multitude of reasons, but in summary all it takes is a personal invite to get someone to try something new, especially in the area of outdoor activities, are you up for the challenge? The other take away would be to articulate the value of what we do as outdoor/experiential educators, because it's all just fun and games until someone realizes they learned something.

Presenter:  Sydney Murray

Description:  Educational and recreational nature-based programs are effective opportunities for promoting nature-relatedness, particularly amongst youth. Nature-relatedness, also known as connection-to-nature, can be defined as 'the cognitive, affective, or experiential connection between humans and the natural environment' (Molina-Cando et al., 2021). Studies show that the development of this connection early on positively links to pro-environmental attitudes and behavior (Farmer et al., 2007; Whitburn et al., 2019), as well as psychological ease and restoration (Kaplan, R., 1973), and prosocial behavior (Izenstark & Ebata, 2017). However, research on nature-relatedness amongst racially diverse communities remains underexplored. More specifically, there is a significant paucity of research investigating Black youth nature-relatedness through nature-based programming.
Therefore, this qualitative research study investigates the experiences, opportunities, and barriers for Black youth participants in nature-based programs to develop and/or maintain nature-relatedness. The goal of this session will be to share findings from the study that demonstrate 1.) increased knowledge on the complex and multifaceted role(s) of family in Black youth participation in nature-based programs ; 2.) Black cultural contextual elements that promote nature-relatedness; and 3.) challenges and successes in nature-based program racial diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts to engage Black communities specifically.

Results from this study will contribute to the ongoing discussion in adventure and outdoor recreation and education on the importance of reckoning with historically-based social-psychological processes that contribute to the current experiences, barriers, and opportunities for Black nature-relatedness through nature-based programs, and effective ways to do so.

Presenter: Patrick Lewis

Description: This session will connect research to practice, specifically addressing the development of accurate self-assessment. Schumann, Sibthorp and Hacker's 2014 paper, The Illusion of Competence: Increasing Self-Efficacy in Outdoor Leaders has informed practice at Ithaca College. This session will connect features and themes from this work with the development of a field assessment designed to improve student self-assessment. Schumann and colleagues warn of inaccurate self-efficacy beliefs, this session will address proposed sources of these inaccurate beliefs as well as strategies for improve assessment accuracy. Finally, Challenges and opportunities for future practice are presented as well.

Speakers: Ben Johnson US Forest Service, Sam Rider US Forest Service, Matt Blocker Bureau of Land Management, Krista Sherwood National Park Service

Room: 316

Description:  Federal Lands and waters play an important role in the lives of many outdoor leaders. These inspiring landscapes and waterways provide an ideal classroom for learning, challenge, and adventure. In the minds and memories of students, these places are an inseparable part of the experiences they have outdoors. Join us for a lively and informal conversation with some of the people who manage these lands and waters, and in doing so make it possible for outdoor leaders to provide those memorable experiences. Representatives from the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service will be on hand to answer your questions about how the agencies manage these lands for access and sustainability in the face of rapidly increasing recreational demand.

Speaker:  Abby Rowe and Tim Slusser

Room: 318

Description:  This workshop will provide program managers with the tools needed to keep their staff's wilderness medical skills well-tuned and accessible. Wilderness Medicine training is an important part of risk management for outdoor programs and leaders. Regardless of the duration of a certification, wilderness medicine schools recommend that program managers facilitate periodic review sessions with their team, equipment, and environment. This workshop will apply the concepts of spaced learning, in situ practice, and cognitive offloading to help program managers help their staff transfer lessons from their wilderness medical training courses to the parameters and scope of the program they serve. This workshop will serve outing clubs, college and professional outdoor programs, professional guide services, military recreation departments, summer camps with tripping programs, etc.

Part of the  Future of Facilitated Recreation Series

Speakers: Ambreen Tariq, Jeremy Jostad

Panelists: Karel Hilversum, Joey Parent, Garnet Moore

Description: 

Speaker: Abby Rowe

Room: 316

Description:  The Wilderness Medicine Education Collaborative (WMEC) was formed in 2010 to provide a forum for discussing trends and issues in wilderness medicine and to develop consensus-driven scope of practice documents (SOPs) for Wilderness First Aid (WFA), Wilderness Advanced First Aid (WAFA), and the Wilderness First Responder (WFR) certifications. Our mission is to elevate wilderness medicine education and set standards for common field certifications. Collectively, the WMEC schools have trained over 800,000 students in the past four decades. Please join us to review major themes in the recently revised WFA and WAFA SOPs and an overview of supporting documents and some factors that have driven the creation of these documents.

Part of the  Future of Facilitated Recreation Series

Speakers:  Brad Garmon, Nathan Reigner, Carolann Ouellette

Moderator: Jenna Celmer

Room: 317

Description:  This panel will feature directors from offices of recreation, including Maryland, Michigan, Maine, and Pennsylvania. Panelist will speak to the needs, opportunities, and feedback on participants facing workforce development in their state. They will cover what they are doing, what is working, what are the gaps.

Speaker: Jacob Rex

Room: 318

Description:  Many collegiate outdoor adventure programs face an existential crisis inadvertently created by Gen Z. Young adults are expressing less and less interest in collegiate outdoor programming and the university path in general, resulting in dropping registration rates. As schools make hard choices about priorities, university administrators admittedly may not always see the value in kayaks and backpacks alone. Nationally, adventure programs may begin to lose support and funding, more professionals will leave the field, and students will get fewer opportunities to grow outside.

Jacob T. Rex is a Gen Z coordinator that understands this age group. He has analyzed 10 years of registration data and talked with professionals across the country all experiencing the same troubling trends. He wants to share the steps Adventure WV at WVU is taking to stay ahead of the curve to not just survive but grow as a program. Traditional adventure trip models, outdoor education philosophy, and collegiate programmatic structures need to be scrutinized. Each university program needs to ask itself some hard questions. How we choose to act now as an industry will determine whether collegiate outdoor programs are here to stay or are labeled as just a passing trend.

Part of the  Future of Facilitated Recreation Series

Speaker: Karel Hilversum

Description: 

Cornell Outdoor Education has been implementing and testing various DE&I initiatives to engage and serve the whole of Cornell's diverse student body. This presentation provides some insights and key learnings worth sharing with any program in the process of diversifying its participants and staff.

Speakers:  Christina Spohn, Josh Elder

Room: 316

Description:  Getting the right permit for a non-profit or educational group can be a challenging task for the average outdoor educator. The AORE Access Committee completed a fact-finding mission in 2022-2023 around the need for Commercial Use Authorizations (CUAs) from different National Park Service (NPS) units across the country. This presentation will highlight some of the themes from a focus group held by the committee. It will also detail some of the action steps for simplifying the process for nonprofits and educational groups in the future.

Speaker:  David Secunda

Room: 317

Description:  We already know that practice and role plays make for highly effective training for outdoor educators. Critical Incident practices are no exception and can provide a lived-experience foundation to respond to difficult situations as they occur in the field. In this session, you will learn how to facilitate your own Critical Incident Simulation, including assessment of training needs, crafting of a scenario to actualize learning objectives, logistic organization and outreach, coordination with outside agencies, social media simulation, and debriefing. Examples of actual simulations will be presented and a review of incident command structure will be discussed.

Speakers:  Jeannette Stawski, David Wheatley

Room: 318

Description:  Why does transitioning to a leadership position require such a dramatic shift in thinking?  Often the success that elevated an individual into a leadership position is unable to be sustained when they lead others.   This transition is hard - for the leaders AND their people -  and it is necessary for a leader to ensure they bring out the best in their people- wherever they lead.   Let’s get curious about service and questions rather than control and answers. 

Speaker: Garnet Moore
Room: 319

Description:  It's important to stay up to date on the latest risk management and operational trends and practices for managing your climbing wall. Join Garnet Moore from the Climbing Wall Association for a discussion on the most recent developments in standards, incidents, and staff training in indoor climbing. Come prepared with advice for others, questions on what you should be doing, and brilliant ideas for what you'd like to see in the future.

Part of the  Future of Facilitated Recreation Series

Speaker:  Lainie Gray and Brad Garmon

Room: 320

Description:  To ensure the sustained health of the industry, it is critical we evaluate the state of the outdoor workforce and identify upcoming challenges and opportunities to solve together. Outdoor Recreation Roundtable (ORR), the nation’s leading coalition of outdoor recreation trade associations and organizations representing over 110,000 businesses across the outdoor recreation economy, has spent several months soliciting feedback from industry stakeholders across sectors to understand how we can come together as a collective to identify key opportunities for further research, partnerships, and investment.

Speakers:  Kellie Gerbers, Jeremy Jostad, Jeff Turner, Brent Bell, Will Hobbs & Elizabeth Andre

Room: 316

Description:  In 2022, researchers completed a national census of undergraduate outdoor academic programs (OAPs), resulting in confirmation of 128 programs offering some form of credential (e.g. academic major, minor, certificate, etc.) across the country. During the analysis phase, the researchers observed that of the 128 confirmed OAPs, the titles of these programs varied widely. For example, some programs are titled 'outdoor education,' while others are 'adventure recreation' or 'wilderness leadership,' among others.

Based on these findings, does the variety of program titles have unintended consequences for our profession? For example, does variation among program titles?
Create difficulty for prospective students in finding/identifying these programs nationally?
Create confusion among potential employers in terms of what these graduates are prepared to do?
Create fractures/silos within our profession, limiting our political power and advocacy efforts?

With these issues in consideration, names hold power and are a way for programs to demonstrate their values and create clear ties to specific sectors within our profession.

This presentation is an opportunity for the researchers to share observations based on the census data collection. Furthermore, the presenters will facilitate a conversation among attendees?likely program administrators, students, and employers?to determine if there are future recommendations for outdoor programs to help bolster our visibility and credibility within the higher education landscape. Conversation may cover:

• What are the perceptions that administrators, students, and employers have of programs based on their titles?
• If students aren't pursuing specific degrees in OAP, where/how are they are they getting hired? What are priorities for employers?

Speaker:   Jessica Lambert

Room: 317

Description:  Across the United States, there are thousands of places and geographic features with derogatory names. Racial and sexual slurs, places honoring perpetrators of violence, and other hurtful and inappropriate names stain our public lands. These names perpetuate prejudice and racism and create an unwelcoming environment for already marginalized communities. If America’s public lands are to be truly inclusive, these place names need to be changed and the history of pain and trauma addressed. The Wilderness Society has been working with a coalition of partner organizations to build a coordinated campaign to change racist, derogatory, and offensive commemorative place names across the United States. Come to this session to learn more about this important issue, the campaign, and how you might be able to get involved.

Speakers:  Jeannette Stawski, David Wheatley

Room: 318

Description: Leadership, in any environment, is about the choices we make that influence the people around us. Leading at work.  Leader in our community.  Leading in our lives.  Each choice you make lays a brick on your leadership pathway.. What kind of path you build will determine how much and how far people want to follow you. This session will explore the difference between two common leadership paths and how a simple framework can guide us to be more influential leaders at home, work and our communities.

Speaker: Todd Grier

Room: 316

Description:  Today's program administrators are juggling mountains of details; employee training and certification expiration dates, vehicle reservations, PPE inspection reports, marketing descriptions and deadlines, just to name a few. Rarely do our tech systems talk to each other and it quickly becomes tough to keep it all straight. This presentation will show some tools that have helped quiet the storm/confusion, created coordination, and freed up time to program instead of copy paste from one excel sheet to someone else's google sheet.

The presentation will highlight a handful of critical planning tools we've built to centralize our planning, automations we're using to help us not miss a deadline or overdue inspection, and some tips we've learned in developing them for our program. We also hope to steer you clear of pitfalls of hopeful 'silver bullets' that never panned out and ultimately were a time sink. Finally we plan to have attendees share common planning headaches that plague their programs before demonstrating some ways to build a tool that can ease 1 to 3 of these shared issues (depending on complexity).

Examples which will be shared/demoed using our Airtable workspace:

• Staff Database (training tracking, certification expiration tracking, Emergency Contact, Dietary restrictions, trip vitae, etc)
• Program Planning (program outcomes/pricing/staffing needs, venue details for institution travel paperwork, trip feedback, vehicles, trip financial reports, staff assignments)
• PPE Inspections (equipment inventory, inspection reports, calendar of due dates, automated reminders and report emails)
• Route planning (route cards, route distribution dashboard)

Speaker: Bruce Martin

Room: 317

Description:  This presentation will offer an overview of the role that ecotourism can play in promoting economic and community development in postindustrial regions of rural America. The presentation will accomplish this first by situating ecotourism in rural America in its broader global context. The presentation will highlight traditional efforts of developing countries around the world to leverage the potential of ecotourism to promote community and economic development. It will then highlight more recent efforts to do the same in rural communities in the United States. The presentation will focus on two cases in particular, the development of the ecotourism industry in Botswana as compared to more recent efforts to cultivate the ecotourism industry in southeast Ohio. In doing so, it will highlight the role that both academic and co-curricular university outdoor recreation programs can play in contributing to these efforts.

Speaker: Jeremy Jostad

Room: 319

Description:  For particular outdoor leadership based positions, 'outdoor resumes' are either preferred or required in order to demonstrate pertinent experience, skill sets, or certifications. Unfortunately, many young professionals make the mistake of developing an outdoor resume after they have accumulated so much field experience they cannot recall certain information or many beginning professionals do not feel they have enough experience to develop an outdoor resume.

The goal of this session is to help professionals understand the purpose of an outdoor resume, the types of information that should be recorded, and how to properly format/communicate that information most effectively for targeted professional positions. This session may also be useful to program managers as they consider if they require an outdoor resume in their hiring practices or the type of information they might want to see in a prospective employee's outdoor resume.

The session will begin by discussing the purpose of outdoor resumes and why pertinent experience is so critical in the outdoor recreation field. If people in the audience have their own outdoor resumes accessible, people will group up to review each others resumes. The presenter will then introduce the different types of information that may be useful to include within each skill set such as rock climbing or whitewater rafting (e.g. date, location, difficulty rating, personal/professional, etc.). Finally, we will review a number of different outdoor resumes to consider format and structure. If there is enough time, the groups can discuss their own outdoor resume once again with this new information.

Speaker: Will Reilly

Room: 316

Description:  Overall Focus: The outdoor industry is ripe with brilliant and creative minds ready and capable of elevating their entire industry. Entrepreneurship and technology have the capacity to keep our wild places wild while introducing more folks to the outdoors. There is massive upside for the world if we can get more people to love, respect, and enjoy being outside. A lot of people don't know where to start, view technology and entrepreneurship as a threat to tradition, or why tech start ups have been able to solve complex problems with simple solutions, and simple problems with complex solutions. Some of humanities best innovators are in the outdoor world. This presentations gives them tangible skills to use in their current organizations or with future endeavors.

Goal of Session: Incentivize Outdoor professionals to apply their skills to entrepreneurial efforts, specially leveraging technology and being the future of how that technology comes into existence.

Key Points: Tech + Outdoor = healthier, safer, happier, world (and all that inhabit it), Starting something that matters, applying start up knowledge to your current organization

Supporting Topics: Outdoor tech, Climatetech, edtech

Resources: A list of the best books, articles, twitter accounts, online resources, to enhance your entrepreneurial efforts

Speakers:  Coy Belknap, Morgan Haas

Room: 317

Description:  This session will explore how outdoor departments can become more than just a perceived calendar of events. We'll discuss the opportunities that are present in the current higher education environment, and how departments can leverage their expertise to become more rooted in to strategic footprint of their respective institutions. The presenters will share their successes navigating Adventure WV at West Virginia University, and the benefits of aligning departmental mission and programmatic delivery with the ever changing higher educational landscape. Discussions will also be held on the challenges and lessons learned from these efforts, and what departments could expect if they choose to take a similar route.

Speaker: Matthew Busch

Room: 318

Description:  Outdoor recreation and education programming has very traditional roots. While these programs made sense for the people they connected with at their inception (primarily white, able-bodied men), many outdoor programs and initiatives have not changed with the increasingly diverse audiences they are being designed for. Outdoor educators have a great opportunity to reimagine outdoor programming, bringing along what remains relevant from traditional roots and also redesigning structure and intention to fit diverse, cultural needs and perceptions of outdoor spaces. This presentation takes a strong research-based approach to better understanding the history, present moment, and future of what and who's culture is considered in outdoor recreation. Through this session, discover pathways to more culturally relevant outdoor programs.

Speaker: Jesse Tubb

Room: 319

Description: Despite the increased participation in outdoor activities during the pandemic, outdoor programs have seen a sharp decline in enrollment as people return to normal life. By creating micro-experiences and adventures in neighborhood parks and utilizing local natural resources, we can bridge the gap between the screen-dependent youth and the natural world. By incorporating experiential learning and activity based curriculum along with positive psychology and mindfulness, we can help children and teens develop mental resilience in a time of mental health crisis. Using the sport of adventure racing as a vehicle for instilling physical and mental resilience, come learn how one organization, GRIT Adventures, pivoted to offer micro-experiences and adventures to create a lasting impact for participants. 

Speaker: Steven Koster

Room: 320

Description:  The foundation of many outdoor programs and camps relies upon participants being outside of their comfort zones and in potentially risky or hazardous situations and environments, while being supervised by staff with very limited experience and field time. In this presentation we will explore how we create a culture of risk management and train inexperienced employees for outdoor programs and camps to be risk managers, we will also explore the research into brain science that should influence our training design.