Student Involvement: Critical Concerns of Outdoor Orientation Programs.

Outdoor orientation programs have been operating in colleges and universities in the United States since 1935, when Dartmouth College ran its first precollege trips for first-year students (Hooke, 1987). Although this program provided an effective transitional experience to Dartmouth, 33 years passed before another college or university, Prescott College, implemented a wilderness orientation program in 1968. The Prescott program was more heavily influenced by Outward Bound (OB) than the Dartmouth trips (Prescott College, 2007). The ensuing 10 years (1968–1978) saw significant growth in outdoor orientation programs, mainly at private colleges and universities across the U.S. These programs developed largely independent of each other, under the leadership of a few key personalities within an institution, rather than out of a national conversation on orientation practices and principles.