13 ms·

Penn State's 98-Year-Old Outing Club Is No Longer Allowed to Go Outside

187 points by apsec112 9y ago

cryptoz 9y ago
Sounds like they sure can go outside. The written issue seems to be that the school is keeping them on a cell tower tether. That is weird. Are underground parking lots also banned if they are off school property? No cell coverage, likely higher probability of injury/robbery etc. I wonder if "safety" is a dog whistle for something else. Or will the admin reverse its decision if every student gets a satellite phone, or goes with a team of professional trained guides?
- metei 9y ago
  Honestly, probably just best for the club to shut down and reform as a Venturing Crew. Same concept, much more independence, and you get access to the properties and resources that Scouting International and the Boy Scouts of America both offer. I've yet to run into any issues going on trips as a gay couple in crew, its solidly not bad. Much more of a collegiate atmosphere than Boy Scouts too, and no uniform requirements or competitions either!
  - wlesieutre 9y ago
    There’s at least one Venturing Crew in the area already (https://www.facebook.com/Venturing21/ https://www.facebook.com/Venturing21/) and I’m sure Venturing is a fine option, but it’s ridiculous that they would need to go that avenue. I’m also not sure what equipment has been purchased over the years, but reforming as an unassociated group would mean losing that. Also their ability to reserve rooms on campus for meetings, have a table at the “Involvement Fair” where incoming students can scope out all the clubs, no office space or storage in the student union building (not sure if PSOC has this or not, but many clubs do), etc. Given what PSU is demanding here maybe BSA would be a more useful parent organization, I just can’t believe they even need to consider it. Going hiking in central PA is not a complicated endeavor. You can drive 15 minutes off of campus and you’re out in the woods with poor cell coverage, that’s just how things are.
    - wlesieutre 9y ago
      Venturing is also age capped 14-21 which would potentially block people in their senior year or anyone who’s going to college later in life. Maybe better to be unaffiliated and more inclusive.
  - avhon1 9y ago
    "Venturing is an inclusive program through the Boy Scouts of America for males and females aged 14-21 (or 13 and completed the 8th grade)." [0] A Venture crew would not be accessible to many juniors, most seniors, or (almost) any graduate students. [0] http://www.venturing.org/learn-more.html http://www.venturing.org/learn-more.html
    - skissane 9y ago
      Scouts Australia runs a program called "Rovers" for 18–25 year olds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rovers_(Australia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rovers_(Australia) Maybe there is no equivalent in US Scouting.
      - avhon1 9y ago
        The Boy Scouts of America offers 3 coed programs for teens/young adults (in addition to its well-known "Scouts" program): * Venture Scouting (aged 14-21), * Exploring (aged 10-20) [0], * and Sea Scouting (aged 14-20) [1] However, there are plenty of university students that would be too old to take advantage of programs that had an upper age limit of 25. [0] https://www.exploring.org/about-us/ https://www.exploring.org/about-us/ [1] http://join.seascout.org/join/ http://join.seascout.org/join/
- ttsda 9y ago
  That's was what immediately came to my mind, are a couple of iridium phone subscriptions too much for a university budget? Especially for something as important as keeping contact with nature that is so often missing in the modern urban life, which should be heavily promoted by them, not dismissed as "risky".
strstr 9y ago
Sounds like the university doesn’t want the liability. Students can just do things anyway, so long as it’s not under the university’s purview. Annoying, but not that bad.
- autarch 9y ago
  It's more than just annoying. Schools typically offer opportunities for funding to official clubs. I'm guessing this club needs to pay for things like rental fees for equipment, equipment purchases, etc. Now students who want to engage in these activities have to self-fund, which may not be possible. Meanwhile other students can engage in much more dangerous activities (downhill skiing, football, etc.) with school funding. That makes no sense.
  - jimmaswell 9y ago
    What is an outing club going to buy? Bug spray?
    - bsder 9y ago
      The northern third of Pennsylvania is almost all forest and is really rural. It's very easy to get lost. GPS trackers would certainly be something I would have for every member of the club.
      - megaman22 9y ago
        Its pretty hard to walk more than a few hours in a straight line anywhere on the east coast without hitting a road of some sort. Even the so-called 100 Mile Wilderness on the AT in northern Maine is crisscrossed with dozens of logging roads. Basic map and compass training would be better than GPS
        kwhitefoot 9y ago
        > Basic map and compass training would be better than GPS Surely any kind of hiking should include at least a little informal training in using a map and a compass. I had that in primary school in the UK. Mind you that was in the early sixties. Here in Norway children get an early introduction to simple woodcraft (shelters, fire, tools, maps, compasses) in primary school and have outings into the woods. My children would come home with a brief letter saying that a trip to the woods was planned and could we make sure that they were supplied with sausages to cook over a fire and a knife to cut sticks with to make the fire and a rudimentary shelter. And they did it before mobile phones were common too. One of my sons was accidentally cut by a classmate but we didn't sue and he came to no lasting harm. The trip was not called off, the teacher simply and effectively bandaged it up and they all carried on. If primary school children can manage then surely 20 year olds can.
megaman22 9y ago
Sounds like the university is using their power of the purse in a shitty overbearing way. Fortunately, college students are adults, and they can just form their own unofficial organization and do what they want, particularly since it's a perfectly legal set of activities.
hprotagonist 9y ago
college football, of course, is completely safe in all respects!
- i_am_nomad 9y ago
  Unless you’re an underage boy. Then Penn State football is quite hazardous.
  - chimeracoder 9y ago
    Can we please keep rape jokes off of HN? Thanks.
    - sgtmas2006 9y ago
      It's unsafe without the connotation of a rape joke, but it was still funny.
    - wnoise 9y ago
      There are a variety of rape jokes; some, like most prison rape jokes signal approval of rape. This one does precisely the opposite.
    - imglorp 9y ago
      It's highly germane this time, because it illustrates the lengths the school was willing to go to protect its football program: the pres, vp, and were charged with perjury and obstruction, etc. So back to OP: TBIs, spinal injuries, child abuse (and all the related crimes), all are acceptable damages when talking about football. But if someone might turn an ankle in the woods, hold on a second.
pjc50 9y ago
This is the kind of dishonesty that gives risk assessment a bad name. Note that they weren't even allowed to see and contest the assessment, and Alpine ski racing was allegedly deemed safe.
- Zak 9y ago
  > Note that they weren't even allowed to see and contest the assessment I don't know much about how risk assessment in large organizations is done, but that strikes me as an illegitimate attempt to stifle debate. Are there any legitimate reasons the university administrators might keep the risk assessment secret?
  - Spooky23 9y ago
    Risk assessment is often a politically heavy org that sometimes writes the report before assessing. In some organizations they quack like auditors, but aren’t really auditors. Usually if they are involved, a big shot doesn’t want to do something. In terms of legitimate reasons, there may be discretionary expenses relating to insurance that can be cut for clubs, but not for sports.
    - Zak 9y ago
      Using risk assessment as a political smokescreen is illegitimate from my point of view. > In terms of legitimate reasons, there may be discretionary expenses relating to insurance that can be cut for clubs, but not for sports. This could be a legitimate reason to cut a risky club while allowing a similarly risky sport; it is not a legitimate reason to hide the report.
  - avs733 9y ago
    Because university administrators are often (not always but often) absolutely terrible managers, terrible leaders, and have really no clue how many of the organizational things they are in charge of work. I don't think its malicious I think its...just lack of thinking. I don't mean that as an insult, sincerely. They are typically very very good at what they are trained to do - research - they just aren't trained for this. It is unfortunate that the programs that do exist for training them often do not deliver meaningful training. Some schools have even stopped giving (unless requested) quarterly statements on grant accounts to faculty. I was told that such things were 'difficult' for faculty to understand and led to many questions and confusion. As an example: The Big 10 Academic Leadership Program Seminar https://www.btaa.org/docs/default-source/leadershipdev/seminar-i-agenda-2017.pdf?sfvrsn=a2955b89_59 https://www.btaa.org/docs/default-source/leadershipdev/semin... 2.5 days First day (12pm-8pm): a 45min 'conversation' a 1hr talk on 'the pragmatics of leadership' a 1:15 panel on the role of the arts in diversity and inclusion everything else is social. Second Day (8am-9pm): 1:15 Issues confronting US universities 1:45 freedom of expression and inclusive campus 1:15 public engagement in academia 1 hr 'conversation' with University president. The rest is social, breaks, field trips, tours, etc. TL:DR: in 2.5 days, there is approximately 8 hours of content most of which is just someone in a position of authority's opinion/experience.
bytematic 9y ago
That sucks. Wisconsin could never touch the hoofers
cm2187 9y ago
Another meaning for "safe space" in college!
xg15 9y ago
> I'm furious that Penn State administration allows indoor activities but has hobbled healthy, outdoor leadership and controlled risk-taking opportunities Easy solution. Forbid indoor sports activities as well and mandate that students spend all their freetime in the safety of their homes browsing reddit.
tptacek 9y ago
They're not keeping students from going on hikes or going caving, right? They're just keeping them from doing it as an RSO?
- larkeith 9y ago
  Which presumably prevents them from using university resources and funding. It may also limit their ability to recruit and hold meetings on the campus, depending on Penn State's policies. So yes, this is still a fairly big deal for the Outing Club.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    Is the flip side of this official funding and support coin the fact that the University's insurers will be on the hook for anything bad that happens during one of these expeditions? In which case this isn't about helicopter parenting so much as simple risk management. I imagine the insurance situation for Penn State extracurriculars is already problematic, given the recent history.
    - larkeith 9y ago
      As user Zak noted elsewhere in this thread [1], "> In terms of legitimate reasons, there may be discretionary expenses relating to insurance that can be cut for clubs, but not for sports. This could be a legitimate reason to cut a risky club while allowing a similarly risky sport; it is not a legitimate reason to hide the report." So yes, this definitely cpuld be an acceptable reason, but there's no way for students to know without the minimal transparency of publishing the risk assessment. As long as the report remains private, it may be assumed that "student safety" is a smokescreen for a political or similar reason to cut the club. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16899232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16899232
    - snowwrestler 9y ago
      I don't find the insurance argument compelling because so many other colleges and universities have official outing clubs that are covered by the institutional policy. It's not an unusual addition to a college insurance policy.
nimish 9y ago
This is almost surely related to the insurance policy PSU has for official clubs. If the Outing Club could get liability insurance for itself, I doubt that PSU would care. If it wants to use the university's policy, it plays by the university's rules, no matter how stupid they are, because it's really the insurance company's rules. Because the university is a giant cash cow that's target #1 if anything goes wrong, and what the Outing Club does has a high chance of injury (try getting travel insurance that covers what these guys do -- it's way more expensive). This article just feels like clickbait. No analysis of why the university might have taken a decision that on the surface is bizarre but is reasonable given a moment's thought.... ironic given the name of the site.
- snowwrestler 9y ago
  If it is related to insurance, I don't think that makes Penn State look any better. Far smaller universities and colleges have outing clubs that are covered by the institutional insurance policy. Some schools like Middlebury even run officially sanctioned and organized outings for matriculating students. This is not impossible or expensive coverage to get.
  - nimish 9y ago
    PSU has unlimited coffers as a state school and the Outing Club is very popular, and also run by amateurs. A perfect storm for e.g. a rich international student to get injured or killed and then have their parents sue Pennsylvania for megabucks. This is 100% related to liability reduction. No insurance company would cover a high-risk activity group without demanding conditions like being able to call 911 or medevac. The condition demanded here is 100% reasonable given the risk. Reason is complaining about people wanting to do risky things and have other people pay for them which is par for the course for libertarianism these days, I guess.
    - wtallis 9y ago
      You might want to look into the insurance coverage that the Boy Scouts of America has, with what is a shoestring budget by comparison. There's no way reasonable insurance is difficult for Penn State to obtain or afford.
nwhatt 9y ago
I think we’re not getting the full story. This same university tolerates fraternity culture that literally killed someone last year. What ever actuary looked at the outing club had to have looked at the fraternities too. I wouldn’t be surprised if some kind of hazing or even worse behavior is the real reason for the shutdown.
- wishinghand 9y ago
  I don’t think it’s as sinister as you say. Plus they also allow football and that’s far more dangerous.
  - nwhatt 9y ago
    Full disclosure I live in State College. Football is a dangerous sport yes - but we have bears here. Both football and all activities the Outing club did can be safe. The same can be said for fraternities, if responsible people are involved it can be a rewarding experience for all. I'm trying to point out that there may a larger crackdown at foot, and if the clubs were involved in especially risky behavior, or hazing or worse we probably won't hear about it. Here's some frat crackdown news: https://onwardstate.com/2017/11/08/another-one-bites-the-dust-10-of-49-penn-state-fraternities-now-suspended/ https://onwardstate.com/2017/11/08/another-one-bites-the-dus... And some moving reporting about the fraternity death. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/a-death-at-penn-state/540657/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/a-death...
foota 9y ago
I wonder if this is related to the incident at a different School where a kid got locked in a cave for several days?
- wishinghand 9y ago
  How does one get locked into a cave?
  - avhon1 9y ago
    This was at Indiana University (in Bloomington, Indiana) in Fall 2017. The Indiana University Outdoor Adventures club went on a hike through a nearby cave. To prevent vandalism and overtraffiking, the cave has a locking gate inside the entrance. (Far enough inside that there is no cell signal at the gate.) (I believe the key can be checked out from the park office.) One new member fell behind the group, and: * his assigned buddy completely forgot about him, and * the club leaders failed to account for him at an end-of-hike headcount. Later that weekend, somebody who was on the trip (I think it was his "buddy") realized what had happened, contacted a club leader, and they drove out to the cave. They found him just inside the entrance. He had spent about 2 nights inside the cave with no food and little water. He was fine, but it caused a bit of a ruckus in the news. FWIW, the Indiana University Outdoor Adventures club continues to operate as a university student organization. [0] [0] https://imu.indiana.edu/activities/outdoor-adventures/index.html https://imu.indiana.edu/activities/outdoor-adventures/index....
bsder 9y ago
I suspect it's about legal liability for rape. And they know that any "legitimate" reason they cook up is going to apply to some other club or sport so they're keeping the report secret.
Johnny555 9y ago
If lack of cell service in case of emergency is really the reason for denying backwoods hikes, can't they just carry an emergency personal locator beacon?
- 83457 9y ago
  or even satellite phones which aren't that expensive
GCA10 9y ago
Pete Hautman wrote a satirical novel about a decade ago, called "Rash," in which a spirited teenager defies the very cautious norms of "The United Safer States of America." Our hero gets sent off to a penal colony north of the Arctic Circle, where he must make pizzas all day. Without giving away too much, the system does not crush his spirit. It's a weird book, but when well-meaning grown-ups are putting the squeeze on adventurous students, I'm glad that such books (still) exist. Hope they don't get banned. A link is here: https://www.amazon.com/Rash-Pete-Hautman/dp/0689869045 https://www.amazon.com/Rash-Pete-Hautman/dp/0689869045
wlesieutre 9y ago
I’m a Penn State grad and have been hearing about this from a couple of people, glad to see it’s getting wider attention. If the “no cell service” issue is really the problem, this is even more embarrassing. Satellite phones are a thing, and if they can’t afford the subscription for that, then get a subscriptionless emergency satellite beacon instead. They cost a few hundred dollars. It’s even run by an international treaty with many satellite networks listening for these alerts and forwarding them to local authorities. Works pretty much anywhere in the world and costs less than most cell phones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Cospas-Sarsat_Programme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Cospas-Sarsat_Pr... Risk management my ass. If they were really concerned about the safety of students it wouldn’t be a football school.
- stephencanon 9y ago
  Yup. My wife and I have both led trips into deep backcountry at a few schools; risk management made us bring along a sat phone, that was that.
- wlesieutre 9y ago
  >Cospas-Sarsat was conceived and initiated by Canada, France, the United States, and the former Soviet Union in 1979. Maybe I should write the risk management people a letter in case they haven’t heard about this yet.
- crankylinuxuser 9y ago
  > Risk management my ass. If they were really concerned about the safety of students it wouldn’t be a football school. But, what about all that sweet, sweet sportsball money? Oh yeah, TBI? Nahh, the helmets are "safe".
  - noobermin 9y ago
    Snark aside, I think you hit on the main point. Bean counters have a two columns whenever they assess something, the value in profit a venture brings and the potential costs. They find the profit they derive from football more than covers the cost that they have to bear, while allowing students (adults, mind you) to go on outing trips has more potential cost than profit. So, under the system we've given them, they made a rational decision.
outside2344 9y ago
But concussions by the football team, almost guaranteed to be happening on a game by game basis, are totally ok (because money).
- Balgair 9y ago
  To be fair, PSU is not known for smarts.
- foxyv 9y ago
  Because football is a profit center and is already handled by actuarial analysis for insurance purposes. Clubs on the other hand are risky non-profit centers that are notoriously hard to insure. Just ask any council member for the Boy Scouts of America about insurance...
imjustsaying 9y ago
I didn't expect this from Reason, a libertarian magazine. Libertarians tend to support free and voluntary association. The college is not stopping these students from voluntarily hiking together. The college is simply saying: we don't want to get eaten alive by the potential liability if you hike together with our organization's name attached. If anything, you'd think Reason would applaud the college for not strapping the non-hiking student with the increased insurance costs of allowing the hiking group to continue.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- sfRattan 9y ago
  You're missing that the Student Activities Fee or equivalent at most American universities is not voluntary. Students pay it (often several hundred dollars or more) on top of tuition and other fees, and have only limited or indirect control of where the fee goes. Here, the administration is giving a flat "no" rather than seeking a way to make things work (insurance or a satellite phone for the club). That paternalism infantilizes the adult students and encourages a childlike mindset of seeking safety in exchange for submission to an authority and its power over you rather than an independent minded, solve-it-yourself, get-up-and-go ethos more conducive to a free society.
  - noobermin 9y ago
    Libertarians often retort that the fees are not really involuntary, you can either go to the college or not. I think this has more to do with libertarians are often finding themselves taking sides in the culture war for some reason.
    - sfRattan 9y ago
      Culture is tremendously important. And it's not a contradiction for libertarians to advocate for a particular kind of culture which they (and I) might believe is more conducive to a free society (or to advocate against a particular kind of culture which might threaten the survival of individual rights). That's your 'some reason' for libertarian participation in the culture war---the belief that, with respect to liberty, some kinds of culture are invigorating and others are corrosive---and we (libertarians) don't come down uniformly on the left or right, or even uniformly with each other. I do so all the time, and as long as I'm not employing violence in my advocacy, I don't see a conflict with my moral and political principles. In the context of being in college, the fee is usually either mandatory or required to participate in any activity at all, whether it's the bible study that reserves rooms and gets no money from student government, the film series that spends like mad bringing in 35mm and 70mm prints, or something in between. At best, that's an extremely poor gradient of control over your own money and a consequence of centralizing control of funds in a way that many libertarians would likely oppose.
dzdt 9y ago
It reminds me so much of the 1990's when they ripped all of the tall slides and monkey bars, all of the fast merry-go-rounds, etc. out of playgrounds for younger kids. It is just moving up the chain. Where can it go next? Employer-sponsored health insurance will require members not to participate in certain activities?
- Namrog84 9y ago
  I believe that's already a thing. In that some explicitly refuse to cover certain dangerous activities
crikli 9y ago
Ludicrous. You can buy a Garmin inReach Explorer Plus for $450, pay $25/month for a subscription, and have two way messaging via Iridium/GPS/GLONASS satellites, mapping, position sends every 10 minutes to an interactive map on the website, and an SOS button that sends the cavalry if the shit really hits the fan.
Macha 9y ago
As a non-American, Penn State didn't immediately register and I was thinking this was about an organisation similar to scouts (i.e. for kids) and was thinking this was already harsh. Then halfway through it dawned on me that this was a university club and it seemed downright crazy.
DoreenMichele 9y ago
Maybe they can take virtual reality walks in a padded room—provided there's cell service. We may need a great many more padded rooms if such insanity continues in the world. It has never been easier to rescue someone in serious trouble in a remote location, cell phone or no cell phone.
bovermyer 9y ago
As a former student of Drexel, across the street from Penn State, this doesn't surprise me.
- grzm 9y ago
  That's UPenn in Philly. Penn State is in State College.
  - bovermyer 9y ago
    Well crap. Sorry for the misidentification.
ggm 9y ago
I think the club should disband, and just happen to meet as individuals at the walk venues.
bkohlmann 9y ago
Last year at Stanford, the Business School Kids Club (the org for families with kids) attempted to do an outdoor "water" event featuring water balloons, squirt guns, and sprinklers that kids could play with. Part of the event was to have open 5 gallon containers of water so the kids could refill their squirt guns. The whole event was killed by the administration because the open water containers posed a "drowning hazard." As a number of commentators have mentioned, this was driven by the school's insurance policy. A few weeks later, they hosted a professional birds of prey experinece - including faclons, eagles, etc for the kids to engage with. The Admin again banned it - but the organizers put it on anyway.
jopsen 9y ago
> Student safety in any activity is our primary focus
- crystalmeph 9y ago
  Maybe it’s time to rethink our collective focus on safety as the most important attribute in everything we do. We in the “first world” live in the safest period in human history, but we are constantly being fed the idea that we are not safe enough, and we always need to do more. The UK is collectively freaking out about knives and other implements that are only “weapons” if you squint just right[0], and parents in the United States risk being arrested for letting their children walk to the park[1]. I’m not saying we should start freebasing (either kind) on the side of an active volcano, but as safe as we are, we could accomplish amazing things in space flight, medical technology, and food production if we just allow, or even encourage, more informed risk taking. [0]https://mobile.twitter.com/mpshackney/status/562993045759856640?lang=en https://mobile.twitter.com/mpshackney/status/562993045759856... [1]https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/13/parents-investigated-letting-children-walk-alone/25700823/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/13/parent...
  - jopsen 9y ago
    My thought was more that schools should focus on teaching as a first priority.
mcguire 9y ago
"...the angry alum who alerted me to this travesty,..." Is there a version of this article not written by the professionally offended?
joeevans1000 9y ago
This will reduce environmental awareness. The school is being terrible. There is no doubt the trips will resume eventually and these administrators will be laughed at. This bad and comic action may well the legacy for a couple of them.
lmilcin 9y ago
This is administration in action. These people are bureaucrats. They should be doing what they are doing best, ie. pushing paper. Instead they are allowed deciding how the students should be shaped and this is wrong on so many levels.

187 points by apsec112 9y ago

Sounds like they sure can go outside. The written issue seems to be that the school is keeping them on a cell tower tether. That is weird. Are underground parking lots also banned if they are off school property? No cell coverage, likely higher probability of injury/robbery etc. I wonder if "safety" is a dog whistle for something else. Or will the admin reverse its decision if every student gets a satellite phone, or goes with a team of professional trained guides?

metei 9y ago
Honestly, probably just best for the club to shut down and reform as a Venturing Crew. Same concept, much more independence, and you get access to the properties and resources that Scouting International and the Boy Scouts of America both offer. I've yet to run into any issues going on trips as a gay couple in crew, its solidly not bad. Much more of a collegiate atmosphere than Boy Scouts too, and no uniform requirements or competitions either!
- wlesieutre 9y ago
  There’s at least one Venturing Crew in the area already (https://www.facebook.com/Venturing21/ https://www.facebook.com/Venturing21/) and I’m sure Venturing is a fine option, but it’s ridiculous that they would need to go that avenue. I’m also not sure what equipment has been purchased over the years, but reforming as an unassociated group would mean losing that. Also their ability to reserve rooms on campus for meetings, have a table at the “Involvement Fair” where incoming students can scope out all the clubs, no office space or storage in the student union building (not sure if PSOC has this or not, but many clubs do), etc. Given what PSU is demanding here maybe BSA would be a more useful parent organization, I just can’t believe they even need to consider it. Going hiking in central PA is not a complicated endeavor. You can drive 15 minutes off of campus and you’re out in the woods with poor cell coverage, that’s just how things are.
  - wlesieutre 9y ago
    Venturing is also age capped 14-21 which would potentially block people in their senior year or anyone who’s going to college later in life. Maybe better to be unaffiliated and more inclusive.
- avhon1 9y ago
  "Venturing is an inclusive program through the Boy Scouts of America for males and females aged 14-21 (or 13 and completed the 8th grade)." [0] A Venture crew would not be accessible to many juniors, most seniors, or (almost) any graduate students. [0] http://www.venturing.org/learn-more.html http://www.venturing.org/learn-more.html
  - skissane 9y ago
    Scouts Australia runs a program called "Rovers" for 18–25 year olds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rovers_(Australia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rovers_(Australia) Maybe there is no equivalent in US Scouting.
    - avhon1 9y ago
      The Boy Scouts of America offers 3 coed programs for teens/young adults (in addition to its well-known "Scouts" program): * Venture Scouting (aged 14-21), * Exploring (aged 10-20) [0], * and Sea Scouting (aged 14-20) [1] However, there are plenty of university students that would be too old to take advantage of programs that had an upper age limit of 25. [0] https://www.exploring.org/about-us/ https://www.exploring.org/about-us/ [1] http://join.seascout.org/join/ http://join.seascout.org/join/
ttsda 9y ago
That's was what immediately came to my mind, are a couple of iridium phone subscriptions too much for a university budget? Especially for something as important as keeping contact with nature that is so often missing in the modern urban life, which should be heavily promoted by them, not dismissed as "risky".

strstr 9y ago

Sounds like the university doesn’t want the liability. Students can just do things anyway, so long as it’s not under the university’s purview. Annoying, but not that bad.

autarch 9y ago
It's more than just annoying. Schools typically offer opportunities for funding to official clubs. I'm guessing this club needs to pay for things like rental fees for equipment, equipment purchases, etc. Now students who want to engage in these activities have to self-fund, which may not be possible. Meanwhile other students can engage in much more dangerous activities (downhill skiing, football, etc.) with school funding. That makes no sense.
- jimmaswell 9y ago
  What is an outing club going to buy? Bug spray?
  - bsder 9y ago
    The northern third of Pennsylvania is almost all forest and is really rural. It's very easy to get lost. GPS trackers would certainly be something I would have for every member of the club.
    - megaman22 9y ago
      Its pretty hard to walk more than a few hours in a straight line anywhere on the east coast without hitting a road of some sort. Even the so-called 100 Mile Wilderness on the AT in northern Maine is crisscrossed with dozens of logging roads. Basic map and compass training would be better than GPS
      - kwhitefoot 9y ago
        > Basic map and compass training would be better than GPS Surely any kind of hiking should include at least a little informal training in using a map and a compass. I had that in primary school in the UK. Mind you that was in the early sixties. Here in Norway children get an early introduction to simple woodcraft (shelters, fire, tools, maps, compasses) in primary school and have outings into the woods. My children would come home with a brief letter saying that a trip to the woods was planned and could we make sure that they were supplied with sausages to cook over a fire and a knife to cut sticks with to make the fire and a rudimentary shelter. And they did it before mobile phones were common too. One of my sons was accidentally cut by a classmate but we didn't sue and he came to no lasting harm. The trip was not called off, the teacher simply and effectively bandaged it up and they all carried on. If primary school children can manage then surely 20 year olds can.

megaman22 9y ago

Sounds like the university is using their power of the purse in a shitty overbearing way. Fortunately, college students are adults, and they can just form their own unofficial organization and do what they want, particularly since it's a perfectly legal set of activities.

hprotagonist 9y ago

college football, of course, is completely safe in all respects!

i_am_nomad 9y ago
Unless you’re an underage boy. Then Penn State football is quite hazardous.
- chimeracoder 9y ago
  Can we please keep rape jokes off of HN? Thanks.
  - sgtmas2006 9y ago
    It's unsafe without the connotation of a rape joke, but it was still funny.
  - wnoise 9y ago
    There are a variety of rape jokes; some, like most prison rape jokes signal approval of rape. This one does precisely the opposite.
  - imglorp 9y ago
    It's highly germane this time, because it illustrates the lengths the school was willing to go to protect its football program: the pres, vp, and were charged with perjury and obstruction, etc. So back to OP: TBIs, spinal injuries, child abuse (and all the related crimes), all are acceptable damages when talking about football. But if someone might turn an ankle in the woods, hold on a second.

pjc50 9y ago

This is the kind of dishonesty that gives risk assessment a bad name. Note that they weren't even allowed to see and contest the assessment, and Alpine ski racing was allegedly deemed safe.

Zak 9y ago
> Note that they weren't even allowed to see and contest the assessment I don't know much about how risk assessment in large organizations is done, but that strikes me as an illegitimate attempt to stifle debate. Are there any legitimate reasons the university administrators might keep the risk assessment secret?
- Spooky23 9y ago
  Risk assessment is often a politically heavy org that sometimes writes the report before assessing. In some organizations they quack like auditors, but aren’t really auditors. Usually if they are involved, a big shot doesn’t want to do something. In terms of legitimate reasons, there may be discretionary expenses relating to insurance that can be cut for clubs, but not for sports.
  - Zak 9y ago
    Using risk assessment as a political smokescreen is illegitimate from my point of view. > In terms of legitimate reasons, there may be discretionary expenses relating to insurance that can be cut for clubs, but not for sports. This could be a legitimate reason to cut a risky club while allowing a similarly risky sport; it is not a legitimate reason to hide the report.
- avs733 9y ago
  Because university administrators are often (not always but often) absolutely terrible managers, terrible leaders, and have really no clue how many of the organizational things they are in charge of work. I don't think its malicious I think its...just lack of thinking. I don't mean that as an insult, sincerely. They are typically very very good at what they are trained to do - research - they just aren't trained for this. It is unfortunate that the programs that do exist for training them often do not deliver meaningful training. Some schools have even stopped giving (unless requested) quarterly statements on grant accounts to faculty. I was told that such things were 'difficult' for faculty to understand and led to many questions and confusion. As an example: The Big 10 Academic Leadership Program Seminar https://www.btaa.org/docs/default-source/leadershipdev/seminar-i-agenda-2017.pdf?sfvrsn=a2955b89_59 https://www.btaa.org/docs/default-source/leadershipdev/semin... 2.5 days First day (12pm-8pm): a 45min 'conversation' a 1hr talk on 'the pragmatics of leadership' a 1:15 panel on the role of the arts in diversity and inclusion everything else is social. Second Day (8am-9pm): 1:15 Issues confronting US universities 1:45 freedom of expression and inclusive campus 1:15 public engagement in academia 1 hr 'conversation' with University president. The rest is social, breaks, field trips, tours, etc. TL:DR: in 2.5 days, there is approximately 8 hours of content most of which is just someone in a position of authority's opinion/experience.

bytematic 9y ago

That sucks. Wisconsin could never touch the hoofers

cm2187 9y ago

Another meaning for "safe space" in college!

xg15 9y ago

> I'm furious that Penn State administration allows indoor activities but has hobbled healthy, outdoor leadership and controlled risk-taking opportunities Easy solution. Forbid indoor sports activities as well and mandate that students spend all their freetime in the safety of their homes browsing reddit.

tptacek 9y ago

They're not keeping students from going on hikes or going caving, right? They're just keeping them from doing it as an RSO?

larkeith 9y ago
Which presumably prevents them from using university resources and funding. It may also limit their ability to recruit and hold meetings on the campus, depending on Penn State's policies. So yes, this is still a fairly big deal for the Outing Club.
- tptacek 9y ago
  Is the flip side of this official funding and support coin the fact that the University's insurers will be on the hook for anything bad that happens during one of these expeditions? In which case this isn't about helicopter parenting so much as simple risk management. I imagine the insurance situation for Penn State extracurriculars is already problematic, given the recent history.
  - larkeith 9y ago
    As user Zak noted elsewhere in this thread [1], "> In terms of legitimate reasons, there may be discretionary expenses relating to insurance that can be cut for clubs, but not for sports. This could be a legitimate reason to cut a risky club while allowing a similarly risky sport; it is not a legitimate reason to hide the report." So yes, this definitely cpuld be an acceptable reason, but there's no way for students to know without the minimal transparency of publishing the risk assessment. As long as the report remains private, it may be assumed that "student safety" is a smokescreen for a political or similar reason to cut the club. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16899232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16899232
  - snowwrestler 9y ago
    I don't find the insurance argument compelling because so many other colleges and universities have official outing clubs that are covered by the institutional policy. It's not an unusual addition to a college insurance policy.

nimish 9y ago

This is almost surely related to the insurance policy PSU has for official clubs. If the Outing Club could get liability insurance for itself, I doubt that PSU would care. If it wants to use the university's policy, it plays by the university's rules, no matter how stupid they are, because it's really the insurance company's rules. Because the university is a giant cash cow that's target #1 if anything goes wrong, and what the Outing Club does has a high chance of injury (try getting travel insurance that covers what these guys do -- it's way more expensive). This article just feels like clickbait. No analysis of why the university might have taken a decision that on the surface is bizarre but is reasonable given a moment's thought.... ironic given the name of the site.

snowwrestler 9y ago
If it is related to insurance, I don't think that makes Penn State look any better. Far smaller universities and colleges have outing clubs that are covered by the institutional insurance policy. Some schools like Middlebury even run officially sanctioned and organized outings for matriculating students. This is not impossible or expensive coverage to get.
- nimish 9y ago
  PSU has unlimited coffers as a state school and the Outing Club is very popular, and also run by amateurs. A perfect storm for e.g. a rich international student to get injured or killed and then have their parents sue Pennsylvania for megabucks. This is 100% related to liability reduction. No insurance company would cover a high-risk activity group without demanding conditions like being able to call 911 or medevac. The condition demanded here is 100% reasonable given the risk. Reason is complaining about people wanting to do risky things and have other people pay for them which is par for the course for libertarianism these days, I guess.
  - wtallis 9y ago
    You might want to look into the insurance coverage that the Boy Scouts of America has, with what is a shoestring budget by comparison. There's no way reasonable insurance is difficult for Penn State to obtain or afford.

nwhatt 9y ago

I think we’re not getting the full story. This same university tolerates fraternity culture that literally killed someone last year. What ever actuary looked at the outing club had to have looked at the fraternities too. I wouldn’t be surprised if some kind of hazing or even worse behavior is the real reason for the shutdown.

wishinghand 9y ago
I don’t think it’s as sinister as you say. Plus they also allow football and that’s far more dangerous.
- nwhatt 9y ago
  Full disclosure I live in State College. Football is a dangerous sport yes - but we have bears here. Both football and all activities the Outing club did can be safe. The same can be said for fraternities, if responsible people are involved it can be a rewarding experience for all. I'm trying to point out that there may a larger crackdown at foot, and if the clubs were involved in especially risky behavior, or hazing or worse we probably won't hear about it. Here's some frat crackdown news: https://onwardstate.com/2017/11/08/another-one-bites-the-dust-10-of-49-penn-state-fraternities-now-suspended/ https://onwardstate.com/2017/11/08/another-one-bites-the-dus... And some moving reporting about the fraternity death. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/a-death-at-penn-state/540657/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/a-death...

foota 9y ago

I wonder if this is related to the incident at a different School where a kid got locked in a cave for several days?

wishinghand 9y ago
How does one get locked into a cave?
- avhon1 9y ago
  This was at Indiana University (in Bloomington, Indiana) in Fall 2017. The Indiana University Outdoor Adventures club went on a hike through a nearby cave. To prevent vandalism and overtraffiking, the cave has a locking gate inside the entrance. (Far enough inside that there is no cell signal at the gate.) (I believe the key can be checked out from the park office.) One new member fell behind the group, and: * his assigned buddy completely forgot about him, and * the club leaders failed to account for him at an end-of-hike headcount. Later that weekend, somebody who was on the trip (I think it was his "buddy") realized what had happened, contacted a club leader, and they drove out to the cave. They found him just inside the entrance. He had spent about 2 nights inside the cave with no food and little water. He was fine, but it caused a bit of a ruckus in the news. FWIW, the Indiana University Outdoor Adventures club continues to operate as a university student organization. [0] [0] https://imu.indiana.edu/activities/outdoor-adventures/index.html https://imu.indiana.edu/activities/outdoor-adventures/index....

bsder 9y ago

I suspect it's about legal liability for rape. And they know that any "legitimate" reason they cook up is going to apply to some other club or sport so they're keeping the report secret.

Johnny555 9y ago

If lack of cell service in case of emergency is really the reason for denying backwoods hikes, can't they just carry an emergency personal locator beacon?

83457 9y ago
or even satellite phones which aren't that expensive

GCA10 9y ago

Pete Hautman wrote a satirical novel about a decade ago, called "Rash," in which a spirited teenager defies the very cautious norms of "The United Safer States of America." Our hero gets sent off to a penal colony north of the Arctic Circle, where he must make pizzas all day. Without giving away too much, the system does not crush his spirit. It's a weird book, but when well-meaning grown-ups are putting the squeeze on adventurous students, I'm glad that such books (still) exist. Hope they don't get banned. A link is here: https://www.amazon.com/Rash-Pete-Hautman/dp/0689869045 https://www.amazon.com/Rash-Pete-Hautman/dp/0689869045

wlesieutre 9y ago

I’m a Penn State grad and have been hearing about this from a couple of people, glad to see it’s getting wider attention. If the “no cell service” issue is really the problem, this is even more embarrassing. Satellite phones are a thing, and if they can’t afford the subscription for that, then get a subscriptionless emergency satellite beacon instead. They cost a few hundred dollars. It’s even run by an international treaty with many satellite networks listening for these alerts and forwarding them to local authorities. Works pretty much anywhere in the world and costs less than most cell phones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Cospas-Sarsat_Programme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Cospas-Sarsat_Pr... Risk management my ass. If they were really concerned about the safety of students it wouldn’t be a football school.

stephencanon 9y ago
Yup. My wife and I have both led trips into deep backcountry at a few schools; risk management made us bring along a sat phone, that was that.
wlesieutre 9y ago
>Cospas-Sarsat was conceived and initiated by Canada, France, the United States, and the former Soviet Union in 1979. Maybe I should write the risk management people a letter in case they haven’t heard about this yet.
crankylinuxuser 9y ago
> Risk management my ass. If they were really concerned about the safety of students it wouldn’t be a football school. But, what about all that sweet, sweet sportsball money? Oh yeah, TBI? Nahh, the helmets are "safe".
- noobermin 9y ago
  Snark aside, I think you hit on the main point. Bean counters have a two columns whenever they assess something, the value in profit a venture brings and the potential costs. They find the profit they derive from football more than covers the cost that they have to bear, while allowing students (adults, mind you) to go on outing trips has more potential cost than profit. So, under the system we've given them, they made a rational decision.

outside2344 9y ago

But concussions by the football team, almost guaranteed to be happening on a game by game basis, are totally ok (because money).

Balgair 9y ago
To be fair, PSU is not known for smarts.
foxyv 9y ago
Because football is a profit center and is already handled by actuarial analysis for insurance purposes. Clubs on the other hand are risky non-profit centers that are notoriously hard to insure. Just ask any council member for the Boy Scouts of America about insurance...

imjustsaying 9y ago

I didn't expect this from Reason, a libertarian magazine. Libertarians tend to support free and voluntary association. The college is not stopping these students from voluntarily hiking together. The college is simply saying: we don't want to get eaten alive by the potential liability if you hike together with our organization's name attached. If anything, you'd think Reason would applaud the college for not strapping the non-hiking student with the increased insurance costs of allowing the hiking group to continue.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
sfRattan 9y ago
You're missing that the Student Activities Fee or equivalent at most American universities is not voluntary. Students pay it (often several hundred dollars or more) on top of tuition and other fees, and have only limited or indirect control of where the fee goes. Here, the administration is giving a flat "no" rather than seeking a way to make things work (insurance or a satellite phone for the club). That paternalism infantilizes the adult students and encourages a childlike mindset of seeking safety in exchange for submission to an authority and its power over you rather than an independent minded, solve-it-yourself, get-up-and-go ethos more conducive to a free society.
- noobermin 9y ago
  Libertarians often retort that the fees are not really involuntary, you can either go to the college or not. I think this has more to do with libertarians are often finding themselves taking sides in the culture war for some reason.
  - sfRattan 9y ago
    Culture is tremendously important. And it's not a contradiction for libertarians to advocate for a particular kind of culture which they (and I) might believe is more conducive to a free society (or to advocate against a particular kind of culture which might threaten the survival of individual rights). That's your 'some reason' for libertarian participation in the culture war---the belief that, with respect to liberty, some kinds of culture are invigorating and others are corrosive---and we (libertarians) don't come down uniformly on the left or right, or even uniformly with each other. I do so all the time, and as long as I'm not employing violence in my advocacy, I don't see a conflict with my moral and political principles. In the context of being in college, the fee is usually either mandatory or required to participate in any activity at all, whether it's the bible study that reserves rooms and gets no money from student government, the film series that spends like mad bringing in 35mm and 70mm prints, or something in between. At best, that's an extremely poor gradient of control over your own money and a consequence of centralizing control of funds in a way that many libertarians would likely oppose.

dzdt 9y ago

It reminds me so much of the 1990's when they ripped all of the tall slides and monkey bars, all of the fast merry-go-rounds, etc. out of playgrounds for younger kids. It is just moving up the chain. Where can it go next? Employer-sponsored health insurance will require members not to participate in certain activities?

Namrog84 9y ago
I believe that's already a thing. In that some explicitly refuse to cover certain dangerous activities

crikli 9y ago

Ludicrous. You can buy a Garmin inReach Explorer Plus for $450, pay $25/month for a subscription, and have two way messaging via Iridium/GPS/GLONASS satellites, mapping, position sends every 10 minutes to an interactive map on the website, and an SOS button that sends the cavalry if the shit really hits the fan.

Macha 9y ago

As a non-American, Penn State didn't immediately register and I was thinking this was about an organisation similar to scouts (i.e. for kids) and was thinking this was already harsh. Then halfway through it dawned on me that this was a university club and it seemed downright crazy.

DoreenMichele 9y ago

Maybe they can take virtual reality walks in a padded room—provided there's cell service. We may need a great many more padded rooms if such insanity continues in the world. It has never been easier to rescue someone in serious trouble in a remote location, cell phone or no cell phone.

bovermyer 9y ago

As a former student of Drexel, across the street from Penn State, this doesn't surprise me.

grzm 9y ago
That's UPenn in Philly. Penn State is in State College.
- bovermyer 9y ago
  Well crap. Sorry for the misidentification.

ggm 9y ago

I think the club should disband, and just happen to meet as individuals at the walk venues.

bkohlmann 9y ago

Last year at Stanford, the Business School Kids Club (the org for families with kids) attempted to do an outdoor "water" event featuring water balloons, squirt guns, and sprinklers that kids could play with. Part of the event was to have open 5 gallon containers of water so the kids could refill their squirt guns. The whole event was killed by the administration because the open water containers posed a "drowning hazard." As a number of commentators have mentioned, this was driven by the school's insurance policy. A few weeks later, they hosted a professional birds of prey experinece - including faclons, eagles, etc for the kids to engage with. The Admin again banned it - but the organizers put it on anyway.

jopsen 9y ago

> Student safety in any activity is our primary focus

crystalmeph 9y ago
Maybe it’s time to rethink our collective focus on safety as the most important attribute in everything we do. We in the “first world” live in the safest period in human history, but we are constantly being fed the idea that we are not safe enough, and we always need to do more. The UK is collectively freaking out about knives and other implements that are only “weapons” if you squint just right[0], and parents in the United States risk being arrested for letting their children walk to the park[1]. I’m not saying we should start freebasing (either kind) on the side of an active volcano, but as safe as we are, we could accomplish amazing things in space flight, medical technology, and food production if we just allow, or even encourage, more informed risk taking. [0]https://mobile.twitter.com/mpshackney/status/562993045759856640?lang=en https://mobile.twitter.com/mpshackney/status/562993045759856... [1]https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/13/parents-investigated-letting-children-walk-alone/25700823/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/13/parent...
- jopsen 9y ago
  My thought was more that schools should focus on teaching as a first priority.

mcguire 9y ago

"...the angry alum who alerted me to this travesty,..." Is there a version of this article not written by the professionally offended?

joeevans1000 9y ago

This will reduce environmental awareness. The school is being terrible. There is no doubt the trips will resume eventually and these administrators will be laughed at. This bad and comic action may well the legacy for a couple of them.

lmilcin 9y ago

This is administration in action. These people are bureaucrats. They should be doing what they are doing best, ie. pushing paper. Instead they are allowed deciding how the students should be shaped and this is wrong on so many levels.