The Student Government Association (SGA) recently passed a resolution to seek financial and organizational support from the administration for an improved outdoor orientation program. The passing of this resolution gives a committee run by senior senator Anne Runkel ’11 the authority to take action on behalf of the student body.
The resolution, which was written by Runkel, passed almost unanimously.
“We outlined in the resolution exactly what we were looking for, the hope being that all students could attend if they wanted to, that there would be trips that would be outdoor as well as interest trips and that it could be pre-orientation,” said Runkel.
The main goal, however, is for the administration to resume funding of the program.
“The Middlebury Mountain Club (MMC) really stepped up,” said Runkel. “Lisa Luna [’13], Marty Schnure [’10.5] and Pier LaFarge [’10.5] were to my viewpoint some of the most integral people.”
Runkel emphasized that she was not solely responsible for this project, only for taking action in the SGA.
Middlebury has had an outdoor orientation program since the 1980s when Middlebury Outdoor Orientation (MOO) began. As a consequence of the financial crisis, College funding for an outdoor orientation program was cut in 2008. Outdoor Introduction for New Kids (OINK) ran for one year without official support from the SGA. In 2009, the SGA decided to provide funding for OINK from the SGA reserves starting in 2010.
“OINK is a program that was designed as kind of an in-between step,” said Runkel. “The SGA funded OINK for a total of three years including this year and the next two years. No matter what happens in the next couple months in working with the administration and trying to get them to fund the program later on, there will be OINK for two more years.”
Despite the lack of direct administrative support, “this year's OINK program was a big success,” said Marty Schnure ’10.5, head guide in the MMC. “It was exciting to be able to accommodate all new students who were interested.”
The OINK program this year had 165 available spots and 165 applications, resulting in a full program with no students turned away.
“All 23 trips were successful and we heard nothing but stories of fun upon their return,” said Schnure.
The MMC and the SGA are taking action now in order to get administrative support for OINK before 2012, which will be the last year that the SGA funds the program.
“My biggest reason for jumping on it right now is that I am one of the last classes in which there was full fledged orientation,” said Runkel. “The fact that the student voice behind it is going to go way very quickly I think has made it a very important decision to be talked about right now … while we still have the people who know how to run these programs here.”
Runkel expressed concern that information on how to run the program will not be passed on once current leaders graduate.
“It just doesn’t seem like a viable system to me to have it run primarily through a student organization,” she said. “They have done a great job and the MMC is outstanding, but from an organizational and monetary perspective I think having the outdoor orientation programs funded via the school makes a lot more sense.”
Runkel pointed to the fact that the College’s peer institutions all have thriving outdoor orientation programs.
“The important point here is that no other school cut their outdoor introduction programs besides Middlebury,” she said. “Our financial situation is also far better than many of our peer institutions and to me there is no reason to continue with this particular cut. It maybe was fair and reasonable at the time, but at this point it is something that definitively needs to be brought back.”
One of the major changes that this resolution proposes is moving the trips to a time before orientation and making them longer. OINK currently runs during the first weekend of school and involves only one overnight.
“Our hope is that [the trips] will be three days and two nights; that would be the shortest duration,” said Runkel. “I think programs with longer trips produce a much better result as far as the interactions amongst people.”
Trips occurring before school begins also tend to attract and keep more students, according to Schnure.
“The biggest weakness of this year's program was participant attrition, which is high when the trips happen after school starts and low when they happen prior to orientation,” she said. “One-third of the trip participants dropped out of the program during the first week of school, just days before the trips went out.”
The improved orientation program will also feature some added “interest trips.”
Examples of past interest trips include meditation, yoga and cooking.
“The reason that is included is that there are students who come to Middlebury who aren’t necessarily wild about going hiking in the outdoors and sleeping in a tent,” said Runkel. “It is an important component to also include more community-based trips.”
Schnure noted that the students involved in the endeavor have not yet decided on the specifics about how the program would be run.
“There are elements of this year's program that worked better than past years and vice versa, so the next program will be a thoughtfully-designed combination of the best parts of each of the past iterations,” she said.
“At this point we have a lot of administrative support and support within the community of Middlebury,” said Runkel. “Most people think this is so important. I haven’t really come across anybody who doesn’t support it.”
Runkel’s next moves involve working as an ad hoc committee to set up meetings with administrative staff, she says. “Once that happens we will obviously have to have some pretty serious discussions about what the program is going to be like.”
The success of this initiative will have a considerable effect on students in the coming years.
“It is important to have the general student body aware if what is going on because having that will give a lot more push behind what the SGA committee and I have to say,” said Runkel. “We want it to be something the general student body is supportive of.”
Outdoor program gets SGA support
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