Sample Route

Student leaders, who are selected from a group of highly competitive applicants, are the backbone of the LandSea program. This past year, 18 students accepted the responsibility of co-leading a patrol. The leaders serve as the front line of the program by facilitating the participants’ experience, offering support, teaching skills, and role modeling. They encourage the new students to challenge themselves to attempt things they do not think they can do, reflect on their passage from high school to college, open themselves to others, build effective relationships, and take responsibility for themselves. Click here to learn about becoming a LandSea leader.

The tools used to build the leaders’ skills and support them in their important role have improved considerably over the past decade. All leaders earn a Wilderness First-Aid Certificate from SOLO, a national organization we hire to come to campus for a 20-hour weekend training session each spring. The Essential Leader, the newly completed third edition of the leaders’ handbook, devotes 70 pages to philosophy, goals, and leadership skills, another 70 to wilderness skills, and contains 30 pages of appendices. This is our bible. Tom Breznau, Suzanne Dorf (K’99), and Andy Miller (K’99) authored it with hundreds of hours of work and research.

Prior to the arrival of the students at Killarney Provincial Park in Ontario for the start of LandSea, the leaders spend an intensive 11-day training period, known as Leaders’ Week, with the guides and adjunct guides at a camp on the edge of Killarney Park. During Leaders’ Week, time is spent honing both wilderness and leadership skills as well as providing leaders with positive and developmental feedback regarding their skills and leadership behaviors. The result is a high-performance team totally committed to the goals of LandSea and ready to lead the program.