Bliss Goes to Base Camp
"It was great! I didn’t want to leave." Students’ enthusiastic response to Base Camp, a four-day camping and adventure sports trip, was universal.

As a new addition to the first-year Natural Law Seminars program, Base Camp creates an environment for students to mix and meet with faculty on a more personal level. At the same time students receive academic credit for required physical education courses. "I had such a great time. I even had some extra rest—and for academic credit!" said Anna Przybylski, a transfer student from Minnesota.

Held the last week of September, the course hosted most of this year’s 90 freshman students - the highest under-graduate intake in almost ten years—to hiking, canoeing, caveing, and mountain biking. Senior staff and faculty tutors joined the students in the trip to the Current River in the beautiful Ozark Mountains, Missouri—one of the most popular places in the nation for canoeing. "I loved it. It was awesome! The canoeing was my favorite…I’m ready to do it again," said Californian Sommer Fitzgerald.

"Base Camp lets first-year students, tutors, and University Council members spend time together," said Ken Daley, head of the University’s Exercise and Sports Sciences Department, who organizes Base Camp and the University’s highly successful Adventure Sports program. "You can feel more comfort-able approaching a tutor, or even the Dean of Faculty, when you’ve seen them tip over in a canoe or helped them set up camp."

Dean of Faculty, Dr. Sam Boothby, is equally enthusiastic and agrees it will become one of the highlights of the first year. "We’re fortunate to already have very dedicated and accessible professors here, as well as a great faculty to student ratio. But we also want to make sure students take advantage of this and interact with their professors as part of their education. Something like this creates a genuine bond between everyone."

Anna Przybylski also sums up the experience of many students here. She had been enrolled at a good college, with a generous scholarship, but to her something was missing. She was looking for some-thing more. "I had no idea that I could be so happy here. I am much more fulfilled at this university… It’s so nice to know that you’re going to a college that’s very dedicated to improving the individual as well as a greater purpose."

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