WWC to Add Immersion Semester to Outdoor Leadership Curriculum
Jasper Everingham | April 4, 2024
Changes are coming to the Outdoor Leadership Department (ODL) at Warren Wilson College (WWC). An 18-credit immersion semester filled with ODL classes is going to be offered starting in the 2024 fall semester.
Matt Vossler, an ODL professor at WWC, said the college used to offer a similar course and is excited to bring this one to life.
“We used to have a course that we ran in conjunction with North Carolina Outward Bound School (NCOBS) that was focused around instructor development,” Vossler said. “With the impact of COVID, we were unable to keep continuing that relationship with NCOBS, and so we took an opportunity to rethink it, redesign it and bring it more in-house. There are a few other programs that have this around the country, but not many.”
The immersion semester program will comprise six ODL classes: Backcountry Skills & Technique, Leadership for Adventure Education, Challenge Course Facilitation and Management, Intro to Whitewater Canoeing, Intro to Rock Climbing, and a Wilderness First Responder certification class. Additionally, it will feature a 14-day backpacking expedition and a 7-day expedition. Vossler said that because the immersion semester blends all of its classes and outdoor education experiences together, it is able to create a program much greater than the sum of its parts.
“It's not that all six of these classes are different, like one day you're doing this class, one day you're doing that class, although some days that will make sense,” Vossler said. “It's really an enmeshment of these to try and provide a more authentic experience for folks that are anticipating going into the outdoor field.”
Kaleb Bucht, a first-year ODL major, said he is excited to participate in the immersion semester program next fall. Among his own highlights, Bucht noted increased ropes course facilitation, overnight trips longer than a weekend, and bonding with the same cohort of peers over the course of the semester.
“I'm really, really excited for the longer expeditions; we're able to do more than we're able to do during a weekend class trip,” Bucht said. “I feel like ‘more meaningful’ isn't the right phrase or way to say that, but I think you're able to get more out of it, you're able to work on more like skills, and dive deeper into the things than if you only had a weekend.”
Vossler expressed a similar sentiment, adding that an immersion semester's academic and interpersonal depth is difficult — if not impossible — to achieve in a more typical class environment.
“I think that after a good immersion semester, your soul is just unable to fit back in the original container,” Vossler said. “So the type of growth that we get to see from folks in an experience like this feels much different than what I'm able to do in just a chunked-off class.”
Bucht said he is excited to participate in the “pilot episode” of the immersion semester program.
“I’m excited to see it continue and grow as a program because this is the first time that we've done something like this, so I think it'll be cool to see how it's gonna change and evolve,” Bucht said. “It's gonna be really cool to expand on the programming that we offer here.”