By Genevieve Marchand Chair of Research and Publications Committee
Greetings from the Research and Publications Committee! As we get into the Holidays, it seems like a perfect time to look back at what we accomplished in 2015 and what is ahead of us for the New Year and beyond.
Our committee exists to support the AORE endeavor, which ultimately is all about supporting practitioners in advancing the outdoor recreation and education industry. At the Atlanta Conference, it became even clearer how intertwined we all are with each other. As we discussed topics such as social justice, leadership development and program outcomes, the importance of supporting and documenting what we do becomes vital to our wellbeing. However, the connection between practice and research is not always evident and easy. After all, most of us prefer dreaming outdoor trips and running our own adventures than visualizing outcome
assessment surveys. So, how do we do this?
In the last year, the RP committee worked on bridging that gap and bringing us closer to
understanding the essential questions of our field. For one thing, we continued
encouraging research and dissemination through the Research Symposium. This year, we capitalized on last
year’s momentum and substantially raised the number and quality of applicants for the 11th year in a row. We also continued encouraging students by rewarding their literary efforts, both as graduates and undergraduates.
There is no doubt that the proudest accomplishment of the committee was to coordinate and distribute the largest research grant in the AORE history. While the amount is important, the meaning behind the amount is where the victory lies. For many years the committee had been advocating the importance of supporting research, and giving researchers the means to produce quality research that would help advance the AORE. As a committee, we developed a proposal that detailed the cost of such endeavor and received the trust of our association to go ahead with this grant. We are excited to report that the first team of researchers to receive this grant is under the supervision of Dr. Alan Ewert. Multiple organizations are involved with this project, including Indiana University, Summit Adventure, UC Santa Barbara and Asuza Pacific. In the next year, this team will study multiple facets of outdoor adventure programming on college campuses, including climbing wall motivations, freshman orientation efficacy and stress reduction through short outdoor trips. The findings from this study will give us new understanding of our work and hopefully
clarify the
benefits and
motivations
of our
participants.
This grant is
no small feat.
And it is one
step in many
that the
AORE and its
constituents
must take to
move forward
with the
process of
assessing our work. We must be ready to answer many tough questions from our institutions and landowners. Questions like: Why should we give you funding? Why do you need this facility? What differences do you make in the lives of students? Can you do more with less?
To find answers, we have at our disposition an amazing resource that we continually underutilize. That is everyone one of us. We are sitting on a gold mine, including thousands of participants, hundreds of leaders and organizational members and millions of participant hours of outdoor experiences. Because of that and the needs that we face, we must dream up assessments the same way we dream up trips. We need to find easy ways for all members to report their outcomes. And finally, we need to work together to produce reports that will be used for generations to come, as we build upon our success and grow from our experiences.
During the 2015 AORE Conference, one Summit Series presentation discussed the steps needed to make this happen. Many others discussed the misinformation
concerning our work and our
facilities. Let’s make sure that we don't wait until 2016 to discuss this topic again. As an AORE member, you can play a role in making sure that AORE builds upon this momentum. You have the power to let your association know how important this is to you. And you can join us in dreaming assessments and research projects that will help advance our field.
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Moving Research Foward