Adventure at Oliverian:

This year students in our adventure program will have the opportunity to experience our on-campus challenge course, flat and moving water canoeing, bouldering and rock climbing, all-season hiking and backpacking, adventure racing, basic back country survival skills including map reading and orienteering, alpine and Nordic skiing, snowboarding, winter travel and camping, and search and rescue. Students will participate in adventure athletics for no less than two hours every other week day afternoon and during weekend days. Students will participate in at least one weekend overnight trip each month. Adventure programs are carefully integrated with academic concepts and personal growth goals.

At Oliverian we have carefully designed an adventure program that promotes student growth in three main areas: the development of awareness and efficacy within one's self, the ability to negotiate shared values and set goals among peers, and the achievement of deep academic understanding and a capacity for reflective learning. For more information on our adventure program, see our section on this site.

Some recent on-campus events related to the adventure program include:

• Completion of the Adventure Education Program Policies and Procedures Manual in consultation with Jayson Seaman and Kathy Doherty, who are both accomplished outdoor educators and have been part of outdoor program accreditation committees for the Association for Experiential Education.
  
• Thompson Island Outward Bound has just arrived on campus and will be using some of our facilities as a mobile site for their summer programs. In return for use of our campus, they provide equipment for our use during the school year both on our campus and on their island off the shore of Boston. Our two organizations will also utilize each other for staff training's and program consultation. We will be working closely with Outward Bound during the school year in an attempt to develop a collaborative summer program based at Oliverian for Summer 2005.
  
• Completion of our annual challenge course inspection.
  
• Our adventure faculty members have started to put some energy into developing the adventure education program curriculum in preparation for a team dialogue in August during our three-week faculty training and orientation.
  

Our "faculty of the week" are Michael Ackerman and Kathy Doherty.

Michael Ackerman has been leading and educating students in the outdoors for almost a decade. He completed his B.A. at Prescott College, majoring in Eco-centers Adventure Education. He has taught social studies, science and Language Arts in both public and private settings. Most recently Michael served as the director of the Tributaries Alternative Education Program at Kennett High School in Conway. Complementing his classroom experience, Michael is a certified outdoor instructor and professional mountain guide. He is a nationally certified ski patroller and has extensive training and experience as a professional search and rescue technician. A member of Oliverian's social studies department, Michael also participates in the school's adventure program.

Kathy Doherty comes to the Oliverian School as a consultant with fourteen years of experience working in both public and private educational institutions. Her experiences range from instructing for the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School and teaching for The Mountain Classroom program at Proctor Academy to being a faculty member in the Outdoor Education program at the University of New Hampshire and being the Director of Outdoor Programs at Dartmouth College. In addition to these teaching and administrative roles, Kathy also serves on accreditation review teams for the Association for Experiential Education. Her academic background includes a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from Denison University and a Master's degree in Outdoor Education from the University of New Hampshire. Currently, Kathy is pursuing a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies at Antioch New England Graduate School in Keene, NH.