Community Outdoor Education Series Begins

Published: January 13, 2010 | Read Time: 2 minutes

Given its close proximity to 11 different national parks and monuments and unique academic outdoor programming that includes national parks partnerships, Southern Utah University is the idyllic setting for an outdoor education.

So it comes as little surprise that the SUU campus attracts some of the region’s most knowledgeable outdoor education faculty and staff. To showcase the breadth of such talent and to help others gain a similar appreciation for the region’s unparalleled scenery, Southern Utah University has created an Outdoor Education Series (OES) which will run through the spring semester. A community outreach program, the OES will offer a series of weekly one-hour sessions presented by outdoor experts that will include topics ranging from archaeology to Dutch Oven cooking – all designed to highlight outdoor opportunities and information.

Sessions will be offered each week for the next 14 weeks on Thursdays at 11:30 a.m. in the SUU Outdoor Center. Admission is free and open to the public.

Presenters for this first series of OES classes include SUU faculty and staff as well as public lands administrators and members of the community. The first session begins Thursday, January 21, with a presentation of “The Outdoor Vision of SUU” by Dr. Bradley Cook, SUU Provost.

The sessions were organized to improve access to outdoor information and opportunities for SUU students, faculty, staff and the local community. Increasing outdoor experience is a primary institutional goal at SUU, seeking to capitalize on its unmatched location.

To this end, the past few years have seen the University develop the SUU Outdoors program, build a Challenge Course, open a four-year degree in Outdoor Recreation in Parks and Tourism, install an indoor climbing wall and offer many outdoor activities for students and the community.

The OES is sponsored by The Outdoor Recreation in Parks and Tourism program (ORPT), The College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and SUU Convocations. The lecture and activity series will complement the current Convocation schedule that offers a “Feast of Ideas.” For those taking Convocation for credit, the Outdoor Education Series can be used as makeup credit.

The Spring 2010 Outdoor Education Series schedule is available online.

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