Outdoor Leadership Skills

Facilitating field research or teaching field classes can require leadership skills that go beyond the expectations of a lab instructor or classroom teacher. This whole manual attempts to provide a comprehensive resource for helping faculty learn more of these skills. Many other organizations, both on and off campus, offer much more in-depth training. The UCSC Outdoor Recreation Program sponsors the Experiential Leadership Program (ELP), which offers many relevant classes and a certificate program to anyone (students, staff, and faculty) who wants to improve their group leadership skills, particularly in an outdoor context. See recreation.ucsc.edu/certifications/elp1/index.html or contact ELP director Miranda Allen at 459-4006 or miranda@ucsc.edu. 

An excellent written resource is the NOLS Leadership Educator Notebook, which can be ordered from the NOLS online store (www.nols.edu). Much of what is written in this manual was adapted from NOLS (the author was a NOLS instructor for many years).