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Discover the heartbeat of Juneau's cultural and community landscape with 'Capital Chat.' This series explores the vibrant world of the community, arts, and dynamic cultural and social events happening in Alaska's Capital City. Tune in to 'Capital Chat' for your essential guide to the pulse of our community, where every story is an adventure and every voice matters.
And now Capital Chat on KINY, where we connect you with Juneau and Southeast Alaska's community organizations only on KINY.
Speaker 2:Joining me is Kevin Crine, Kevin Meyer, and Sage Chavez. Good morning. Good morning. Okay. So we have two Kevins here.
Speaker 2:I'll try and keep this straight. So, Kevin, you are outdoor study program professor. Give give me your whole title.
Speaker 3:Sure. Sure. Well, I'm I'm the director of the uas outdoor studies program.
Speaker 2:K.
Speaker 3:But then I'm I'm also a philosophy professor. And so I teach courses in regular, you know, kind of straightforward philosophy. I'll be teaching an introduction of philosophy course in the fall and existentialism in the spring. And then I also teach outdoor skills courses, avalanche and mountaineering type courses. And then I think my favorite ones are actually we teach a number of courses that blend academic work with time in the field.
Speaker 3:So for example, we teach a mountain studies course that Sage was in this year. And students are in the field skiing or climbing every one day a week, and then they're also in the classroom for three hours doing academic work related to the kind of history and literature and philosophy of climbing. And Kevin and I taught that together. So
Speaker 2:Very cool. Yeah. Okay. Kevin, number two, professor of English and your role in this program, by the way, which just finished, Salmon Sport and Society.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So I'm officially a professor of English, but I think of myself as more of an environmental humanist. And so I teach environmental studies classes, some outdoor studies classes. And, yeah, this spring, I taught both the mountain studies class that Kevin was talking about and another called Salmon Sporting Society, where we link up some skills. And in this case, in the latter case, it was fly fishing with big academic questions about how in the salmon class, how people have and should relate to to fish.
Speaker 4:So it ended with a week in the field and the aqueduct.
Speaker 2:Well, you're you're brave inviting Sage here who just took the course and has a very personal critique potentially of of what that experience was like. Sage, first of all, thank you for coming, and congratulations on graduation.
Speaker 5:Oh, thanks.
Speaker 2:So what was the course experience like for you, and where is this taking you in the career that you wanna have?
Speaker 5:So the so I was not in the Salmon Sport and Society class. My partner was, and he absolutely loved it. He really enjoyed being in Yakutat and interacting. So what they did in the class was they went to Yakutat and they basically taught some outdoor skills to the middle schoolers and high schoolers there, which I know was a really important experience for everyone involved, including the students at uas and students in Yakutat. I did the mountain studies course this past spring, and it was probably the coolest class I have ever taken and will ever take unless the ODS program tops it.
Speaker 2:And what surprised you about it and why was it so cool?
Speaker 5:Well, the main part of the course, at least in my experience, was skiing, and I had never skied before. So I'm from the Midwest. I'm from the city of Chicago, and I had never thought in my entire life that I would ever be on a set of skis. And by the end of the semester, both Kevin's ended up teaching me how to ski and I feel decently confident in my ability to get myself down a mountain and survive if I really, really needed to out in the backcountry. And we just we just had so much fun.
Speaker 5:It was it was a really interesting experience because we had a couple of students who did not ever ski before, and I was one of them. And by the end of the semester, after skiing for a couple hours once a week, we all got pretty good. We all were able to ski a a Black Diamond, which was something I never thought I would be able to do, but I was able to do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Skiing was there. I I would write help on the bottom of my skis. That's how good I was. So the, where is this headed now?
Speaker 2:Is it connected to the the vocation and career that you wanna eventually have or or experiential for the purpose of taking
Speaker 5:It is for my development as a person. I eventually want to be a therapist, of some kind. I'm not sure entirely what I wanna do just yet, but I think the more I experience in my life, the better I'll be able connect with people. And I eventually want to tie nature and just experiencing the outdoors into therapy because I think that is a really profound experience for a lot of people, especially in their in their healing journeys. So eventually, I would like to tie that in.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love that. Kevin Kryan, the the upcoming fall semester, what's what's planned there?
Speaker 3:Well, so we'll have a brand new group of students coming in. And if any, I mean, for listeners of people who are interested in registering for courses, they can do that now. They can also apply for We have three different academic programs. We do a one year certificate program in outdoor skills and leadership. Sage will actually be completing that in addition to her bachelor's degree.
Speaker 3:And then we also have a BA in environmental studies with an emphasis in outdoor studies. So students who are a little bit more science oriented can take that course and do environmental studies and environmental science courses in conjunction with outdoor skills courses. Then we also have a bachelor of liberal arts in outdoor and adventure studies. And students in that course, that's a little bit more humanities oriented. But yeah, registration is is now open and students who wanna do any of those those degree programs, there is an application that that students have to fill out and do that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we'll we'll be courses are actually filling up, right now fairly quickly in in in our field. Yeah. Kevin, do you have anything to add to that?
Speaker 2:Let me ask you a question about that before you go, Kevin Kevin Meyer, who's a professor of English. Is because I'm curious about if there's one thing, one skill, one hack that you can verbally share in a community where we have so much great hiking here in the winter. Obviously, people are are still enjoying the great outdoors. That they is essential for survival if you're out longer than you expect. I I mean, is there something that you can you can share other than having to take the course at this moment?
Speaker 2:I'm just curious to know if if there is, you know, that one go to that everybody should remember.
Speaker 4:Boy, I I mean, I I think we say in avalanche education in a lot of these situations that the most important tool is is your brain. Right, and just being thoughtful about where you are and not panicking and going slow and remembering that our bodies can do things that we don't always think that they can. I mean, Sage's story is representative there. And if you slow down and walk and think about where you're walking, you're gonna be better off than if you freak out and start running around. And I have a very poor sense of direction, and I often find myself deer hunting, wondering like, wait a second.
Speaker 4:Was I just here, or did I go down a different thing? And usually for me, it's slowing down and and pausing and thinking about where I am and
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And using my head.
Speaker 2:Good tip. Yeah. Is there anything you wanna add to, Kevin's narration of of what's coming up in the new year?
Speaker 4:Yeah. Kevin didn't mention the the the specific classes. So in, in fall term, we typically have a introduction to rock climbing class, and we do this year, an an introduction to backpacking. I teach an introduction to fly fishing. There's an outdoor leadership class, and, there's a sea kayaking class.
Speaker 4:And these often lead into second term classes. So in the winter then, you could move from rock climbing to ice climbing. You could move from backpacking to winter backpacking. And so the idea is that you develop these skills over a year. And all of our degree programs also importantly require academic classes.
Speaker 4:So Kevin teaches one called philosophical perspectives on the natural world. I teach one called literature and environment. And our kind of big picture argument for the for the program is that you need both of these things to really truly appreciate what's going on outside, but also to just be better members of the community and better able to do the jobs that you want to do. And Sage's example of going into therapy and using these skills in the really holistic ways is I think what distinguishes our program from others that are much more skills or we're gonna be developed leaders. We're trying to ask big philosophical, historical, cultural questions about all of these pursuits.
Speaker 2:And for information about all of this, go to the uas, website, and they'll they'll find all the information there. Right?
Speaker 3:Yes. K. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Thank you all for coming in. And and, Sage, good luck in the next certificate program. And I I love the I think it's inspirational that that you're choosing, and and maybe it's generational. And I hope that it is because I think we're in better hands because the generation happening right now is certainly screwing things up. But the fact that you are building, your skills as a human, I think, is a wonderful attitude, and I wish you all the best.
Speaker 5:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you both for coming, and thank you all for coming in. Kevin and Kevin, thanks for being here today.
Speaker 3:Cliff, thanks a lot.
Speaker 2:Alright, guys.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to Capital Chat on KINY.