From the Text to the Trail
April 30, 2009 • By Katie Thisdell, The Breeze
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A new Honors Program seminar on the Appalachian Trail will give students a different Maymester experience
HARRISONBURG, Va. — Sneakers, wool and nylon socks and moleskin? Check.
Raisins, nuts and granola? Check.
Sleeping bag, tent and a sense of adventure? Check.
Eight students and their professor are almost ready to go hiking. But they’re not just going for a stroll one sunny Saturday afternoon — they’re doing it for course credit.
Professor Kate Kessler, of the school of writing, rhetoric and technical communication, is leading a three-week Maymester course on the Appalachian Trail (AT) as an Honors Program seminar. With readings, research and experiential learning on the trail, students will learn the unique community of the AT through an interdisciplinary approach.
“I’d like to see them develop a spirit of inquiry and rise to a challenge, both physical and psychological,” Kessler said about her students. “Your comfort zone should be stretched… to the point of experiencing new things… and to me, that’s part of academics.”
Kessler completed the AT as a section hiker over a period of five years and she plans to begin the trail again this summer. The approximately 2,178-mile trail, which runs from Georgia to Maine, passes through the nearby Shenandoah National Park.
“It’s practically in our backyard,” Kessler said.
The students won’t just be hiking every day — there will also be an academic aspect to the course. They’ll begin on May 18 in Hillcrest House to learn the basics and get equipment from UREC.
During the first week, the group will hike for two days and spend one night on the trail. Then, the week of May 25, they’ll hike for three days and camp for two nights. The last week they’ll hike for four days while camping for the three nights. Kessler said the group will hike between seven and 10 miles per day so no one overexerts themselves.
“It’s a sampler,” Kessler said. “I didn’t want anyone to drop out and I didn’t want anyone to come back and go, ‘That was horrible.’ I want them to progressively get used to it and enjoy it so they’ll want to do more.”
This is the first time the Honors Program has offered such a course, according to Director Barry Falk. He hopes the program adds more experiential learning courses in coming years.
“I’m hoping [the students] realize how many disciplines contribute to understanding what the trail is all about,” Falk said. Kessler is “trying to structure this in a way that doesn’t have so much structure that students can be open to all these different disciplines… and find what excites them about the trail.”
Said Kessler: “It would be really hard to offer this in any department, because you have to justify it according to clusters and objectives and all sorts of things. And the Honors Program is just so wonderful because as long as you can prove its worth, academically and experientially, they’ll let you do creative things.”
Freshman Mat Cloak said he was recently admitted to the Honors Program, and is excited to take a class that is so different from typical ones.
“I like the outdoors, and I like to camp,” said Cloak, an English and media arts and design major. “I live in Virginia and I think this would be a great way to familiarize myself with, basically, the mountains I go to school in.”
Freshman Steven Irons, a technical and scientific communication major, said he also enrolled in the class because of its interdisciplinary nature.
“To me, hiking is therapeutic,” Irons said.
On the trails, the class will write journal entries and participate in discussions and group readings.
Freshman Alex Haney, an engineering major, didn’t want to pass up the opportunity, and this will be his first time on the AT.
“I want to learn as much as I can because I live around here… but I’ve never done anything with it,” said Haney, a Bath County native. “I don’t really know much about it, but there’s a lot of local history that relates to it probably.”
GETTING READY
It takes some work to prepare for such a hike. Some students are already practicing by carrying packs filled with rocks across campus or through the arboretum.
Cloak, a Richmond native, said he’s not an avid hiker, but he doesn’t think that the trail will be too difficult.
“I think the most challenging part will be the days where it gets really hot and we’re hiking and wearing those huge packs,” Cloak said.
Kessler explained that everyone will carry at least one quart of water in their packs, which she recommends weigh less than 20 pounds. She will purify water along the trail and teach students how to take care of themselves to prevent dehydration or other diseases.
“We had to work up some pretty good consent forms,” Kessler said. “The trail is much safer than walking across campus, for heaven’s sake, but there’s so many things that could happen, and I feel very, very responsible.”
Falk said that he was impressed with how Kessler prepared her students and how she responded to initial safety concerns.
ACADEMICS
Literature related to the trail will be an important aspect of the course, and students will hike with Leonard M. Adkins, author of two of the books the group will use.
Students will also read Bill Bryson’s informational, yet comedic, “A Walk in the Woods” and Cindy Ross’ “A Woman’s Journey.”
A final academic requirement is independent research along the AT, which the group will then use to create a project to present at the National Collegiate Honors Conference in Washington, D.C., in November. Students can choose their topics, and depending on what it is, will complete research on the trail and throughout the rest of the summer.
With students from diverse academic backgrounds — from international affairs to music to nursing — Kessler said she expects the projects to take many forms. So far, she said students have expressed interest in learning about the unique flora along this section of the trail, bear or deer populations and about the community of hikers on the AT.
“I hope to make a short documentary on the reasons people hike the trail, because we will encounter through-hikers with valuable insight during May,” Irons said.
Kessler hopes that, if successful, the course will be offered in future summers.
Contact Katie Thisdell at breezenews@gmail.com
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Could you give me Kate Kessler’s e-mail ? I’d like to suggest a book for her to read. Thanks !