Being an accomplished outdoorsman or athlete is no longer the necessary qualification to lead a Dartmouth Outing Club trip. The DOC Trip directors are trying to recruit a more diverse pool of applicants to lead the wilderness adventures that begin most students' first-year experience.
Martha Douple '94, last year's trips director, and Gen Kanai '95, director of the 1994 DOC trips, are making presentations to student groups like the Korean American Students Association, the Afro-American Society and Native Americans at Dartmouth to explain the need for a more culturally representative group of trip leaders.
"What we're trying to do is meet with different groups on campus that don't tend to be associated with the trips program at all," Douple said. "We just want to increase awareness of what the program is and convey that the position of trip leader is similar to that of the UGA or Older and Wiser."
Trip organizers have spent a lot of time considering the role they play in introducing students unofficially to Dartmouth because of the increasingly large numbers of students who participate.
"Fifty-five years ago when the trips program began, it was small enough that it was basically an introduction to the DOC," Kanai said. "Recently, with close to 90 percent of the incoming classes taking a trip and more than 150 leaders, it is an introduction to Dartmouth. The makeup of the leadership must evolve to represent the makeup of the campus."
DOC members said concerns about diversity are not new ones.
"Diversity has always been an issue," Douple said. "We are doing well with participants in terms of the male-female ratio and students of color, but it would make the experience a more appropriate introduction if there were more students of color leading trips."
About 300 students applied to be trip leaders last year and 150 were chosen, only six of whom were students of color, according to Douple.
Douple attributed the homogenous group of trip leader applicants to the popular assumption that leaders must have a lot of outdoors-type experience.
"The trips are closely aligned with the DOC and could not exist without it and its equipment, but students should not feel like they have to be accomplished outdoorsmen," Douple said.
Burgie Howard '86, associate director of alumni affairs, was the only African American trip leader this past year. Howard said in addition to his love of the outdoors, he chose to lead a trip because he feels as a person of color it is important to him that incoming students be aware of the diversity existing in the community.
Howard said the lack of diversity among trip leaders creates a cycle in which people of color decide the trips are really not for them.
"Minorities are under-represented in the leader pool because many of them did not go on trips themselves, or if they did, they didn't see anyone like themselves they could relate to," Howard said. "Unfortunately, people pick up on those subtle clues, and then they get the impression that the program isn't for people like them - which couldn't be further from the truth."
Safety is an important factor in the selection process, but Douple said the "hard" skills can be learned easily.
"Anyone can learn the 'hard' skills like reading a map or lighting a stove, but the 'soft' skills like leadership and fostering group dynamics are becoming increasingly important," she said. "And this is what students from all over campus can do."
Douple and Kanai are speaking with campus groups now so that interested people have time before the Fall to get involved with the DOC and start learning some of the "hard" skills, Douple said.
During the selection process, the trips director, the chiefs of the Hanover and the Moosilake Ravine lodge crews, the safety director and the leader training director review each application.
The application readers look for first aid certification levels, prior experience in the wilderness, in leading trips and in leading groups in any venture and the level of involvement in extra-curricular activities at Dartmouth, Kanai said.
Training involves first aid refresher courses and emergency scenarios, practice in "hard skills" and a lengthy discussion of "soft skills," Kanai said.
Kanai said the reaction of minority students in campus organizations has been very positive so far.
"People are now clearer about the fact that one doesn't have to be a mountain man to lead a trip especially when the bulk of the trips are rated mild," Kanai said.
The changes to the trips program are timely in light of the emphasis placed by the administration on examining all aspects of the first-year experience.
Both Douple and Kanai are on the committee charged with this task but Douple said the efforts of the DOC came from nine students associated with the program during an introspective retreat,
Douple said, "I am glad it is all happening at the same time because it is reinforcing the fact that this is something deserving of attention."
