Archive for the 'Field Studies' Category

Our third leader interview is with Liz Kantack, who has been a member of the full-time Overland staff for a year and a half.  In 2009, she led Rockies Service and Alaska Explorer.  During April of 2010, Liz traveled to Tanzania to scout Field Studies Tanzania with her co-worker and former Overland leader, Alec Norton, and in December of 2010, she traveled to New Orleans, Louisiana to scout Gulf Coast Service.

1. How did you first learn about Overland, and why did you choose to apply to be a leader?

I heard about Overland from Harris Paseltiner, a multi-trip Overland alum and a fantastic four-year Overland leader.  Harris was a classmate of mine at Williams and my co-leader for a first-year orientation trip.  He spoke constantly of his great experiences with Overland as a student and a leader and encouraged me to apply to lead.  I was thrilled to be offered a position leading Rockies Service and Alaska Explorer in 2009, and, almost simultaneously, received a full-time job offer to work for Overland.

2. What are your responsibilities in the Overland office?

My primary responsibility is to coordinate program logistics. I am in charge of planning our seven service programs, our two writing programs and our Field Studies Tanzania program.  I also help with leader recruiting, work on producing our catalog in the fall, and manage Overland’s social media outlets.

3. What is the most important quality that you look for when hiring successful Overland leaders?

When I interview someone, I think, “If I were a kid on his/her trip, would I have fun with this leader?” and “If I were a parent, would I feel comfortable dropping my child off with this leader?”.  The application provides us with a lot of information, so when we meet candidates in person, it’s a combination of reading people’s personalities, learning about their motivation for working with kids and gauging how responsible and reliable they’ll be with 12 students in their hands this summer.

4. What do you like about living in Williamstown, Massachusetts?

I grew up in a small town so Williamstown has always felt a little bit like home to me. I enjoy spending time outdoors in the Berkshires—running, hiking, skiing, swimming—and Williamstown is the perfect place to do those things.

5. During the last year and a half, you have created two new programs—Field Studies Tanzania and Gulf Coast Service—what goes into planning an Overland program?

Liz and Alec in the Serengeti in April 2010

For both programs, I began with doing a lot of research about the city/country we were interested in running a program in and spent a lot of time emailing organizations we could partner with for service projects, finding options for group accommodations and making contacts who could answer my questions or point me in the right direction.  Our number one concern is safety so before committing to a program, we make sure that we can stand behind the program and feel 110% confident about sending 12 students to a new city or country.

In my very lucky case, I’ve gotten to travel to Tanzania and New Orleans to do on-the-ground program planning which is invaluable.  To be able to stay in the hotels, bunkhouses, dormitories and campgrounds that our students will stay in, walk the streets they’ll walk, volunteer where they’ll volunteer and see where they’ll hike and explore is the best way to be completely confident in the product we offer—amazing summer experiences.

As a former Overland leader, I know what to look for and what makes an Overland program (particularly a service program) great: reliable and engaging service projects, fun opportunities to get outside and explore, and a comfortable, safe place for our group to live and cook their meals.  Once I cover all those bases, I go about committing to projects, making reservations and scheduling activities.  Finally, I write a set of trip notes (a 15-20 page document with everything the leaders need to know about the program), a trip narrative (a day-to-day itinerary for the groups). My goal is to give the leaders of my programs an itinerary that is as bullet-proof as possible, so they can focus on their kids and making their trip a success.

6. You led a hiking trip, Alaska Explorer, and a service program, Rockies Service—in what ways were your leading experiences similar? Different?

My first trip was Rockies Service.  Our group of 10th graders worked with the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative (CFI) on a trail building project on Mt. Massive in Colorado.   We were working above tree line every single day with incredible views of the Rocky Mountains, and we were also rebuilding a really beautiful and important part of the hiking trail.  When you build a trail well, people stay on the trail while hiking.  When you build a trail poorly, it degrades and erodes, and hikers often wander off-trail, creating new paths, leading to more erosion, and, in cases above tree line, destroying rare plants that struggle to grow in the harsh alpine climate.  It’s important to build sustainable trails that will last forever.  Our group loved the project, and after volunteering for nine days with the top of Mt. Massive in view, reaching the summit on our last day of hiking was sweet!

Liz with her co-leader Jake and a student on Rockies Service 2009.

The day we finished our trip in the Rockies, my co-leader and I flew to Alaska, and a few days later, we met our new Overland group.  Alaska Explorer is like a buffet of the best of Alaska.  You backpack, hike, raft and sea kayak.  We saw SO much of Alaska in three weeks.  We had a wonderful group of 9th – 11th graders, and everyone enjoyed the broad range of activities.  My favorite part of the trip was our Kesugi Ridge backcountry hike.  For three days, we hiked the Kesugi Ridge south, covering 10 miles a day, with Mt. McKinley on the horizon alongside us.  Despite the differences in location and focus, both trips were amazing, and our leading experience was similar because we had such great kids.

7. What current Overland program do you wish that you had the chance to lead? Why?

That’s a tough one! I’m partial to the Tanzania program because I planned it and would love to go back.  European Explorer always catches my eye—four weeks backpacking in Spain, Italy, France and Switzerland.  Can’t beat that!

8. What are two things that you learned through leading Overland programs?

Leading Overland trips has taught me a lot.  Two things stand out:  (1) when to step up and take the lead and when to let others take the lead—as a leader for my groups it was inevitable that many things were for my co-leader and me to handle, but as we met our students and got to know them, we quickly figured out what they were capable of being in charge of—whether it was choosing dinner for the group, taking the hiking map for the day or choosing our campsite at night. Oftentimes leadership isn’t actually leading yourself—it’s helping others become leaders. (2) How to motivate others in the face of challenges—whether it’s a rainy day, a challenging service project or a long day of hiking, learning how to get others to love it ALL and turn negative possibilities into positive experiences was a huge part of what I picked up while leading.

9. This is your second season of coaching the Mount Greylock Regional High School (Williamstown, Mass.) Nordic Ski team—what do you enjoy about coaching? Do you incorporate any of the skills that you learned while leading Overland programs into your coaching?

I love coaching—it’s so much fun to ski with the kids every day, to watch them get excited about races, to laugh with them, to learn about them and to help them become better skiers.  I think back to things I learned while leading Overland programs all the time—most often how to get younger kids to listen to you and respect you, but on a broader scale how to connect with different types of people.  There are over 60 kids with a wide range of personalities, abilities and ages on our team.  In a given day, it can be hard to have a perfect practice that is effective for every person on the team, but trying hard to connect with each kid to help them enjoy the experience is important.

We also just have a lot of fun!  While I’m a coach, I also feel like I’m on the team—I think I enjoy practice and races as much as they do.  That echoes Overland in a lot of ways.  While you’re in charge as a leader, you’re also a member of the group—hiking the same mountains, kayaking across the same bays and building the same section of trail.   At the same time you are a leader and a participant—to see it from both sides is important.

10. List your top three Overland moments.

1. Reaching the summit of Mt. Massive with our Rockies Service group. At 14,428 feet, it was the highest elevation anyone in the group (my co-leader and I included) had ever been to, and our whole group was stoked!

2. Backpacking in the Chugach Mountains on Alaska Explorer. The Chugach is vast, and the sun barely sets in Alaska during the summer months, so we had long days of beautiful mountains in front of us and amazing dusk-like evenings that lasted forever.  It was beautiful!

3. Kayaking the Prince William Sound in Alaska. Seeing how massive a glacier is and hearing ice calving off into the ocean was unreal. Though the weather wasn’t perfect during our kayaking trip, it was still a phenomenal experience.

Overland sent two groups of students to Tanzania in 2010.   Middlebury College graduates Liana & RD, leaders of Field Studies Tanzania “B”, reflect on their five weeks in Africa.

We stepped through the front gate of the Living Water Children Centre and were met by 50 smiling Tanzanian children. Within minutes each of our students had at least three little friends eager to hold their hands, play on the swings, or juggle a soccer ball.  In this moment we knew that the next nine days would be a life changing experience for our 11 high school students.   Our favorite moments as leaders were to watch our students pour all of their energy and enthusiasm into those less fortunate children.  We finished every day exhausted, but our students acknowledged how fulfilled they felt knowing what a difference they were making.  They fully embraced every opportunity they had to make a child laugh or feel loved.  All of our students were changed by the experience of witnessing first-hand how fortunate they are to have grown up with the life and education they have had, but that at the heart these children were no different than any one of them.  It was during these nine days that our group truly came together to work towards something greater than themselves.

During our six day climb of Kilimanjaro during our final week in Tanzania, our group supported each other in this culminating group challenge.  While this was perhaps the greatest mental and physical challenge each of our group members had ever experienced, through determination and teamwork we succeeded in reaching the summit as a complete group.  We laughed, we cried, we attempted to breathe, we ate some Skittles, and acknowledged our group achievement.  As leaders on this maiden voyage to Tanzania we were proud to culminate a phenomenal five weeks with an incredible achievement.

-Liana Sideli, Middlebury College ’08 & RD Jenkinson, Middlebury College ’10.5
Field Studies Tanzania 2010, section B

Alec Norton & Liz Kantack recently spent three weeks in Tanzania on a scouting trip for our Field Studies: Tanzania program.  Alec reflects upon their experience:

Four feet separated us from the lion.  From the safety of our safari vehicle we could see the muscles in the front legs ripple as it crouched to lap up water from a puddle.  The lion paused and looked up, but ignored the idling vehicles and their human occupants.  On its own time, it gracefully stood up and slowly wandered off, disappearing into the tall grass to either side of the road.  It never once showed the slightest concern or sign of having recognized our presence, letting it be known without a doubt, who was king of the Serengeti.

Rewind a week earlier and the scene is different: myself and co-worker Liz Kantack are covered in stickers, gifts that had been passed out to the children at the Living Water Children’s Centre in Arusha, but were quickly put to use as ornamentation.   Liz has a blueberry-scented sticker on her forehead and a grinning seven year old is wearing bananas as earrings.

Another two days before:  our first view of Kilimanjaro.  We’re rolling North on the Dar to Arusha highway, whizzing by Masaai herders, wrapped in their purple and red robes, running errands on bicycles.  The road snakes its way along the very edge of the Masaai plains, hugging the Usambara Mountains – rolling green hills comparable to Williamstown’s own Berkshires.  The flat plains and green mountains are no place for the tallest peak in Africa.  Yet at the very northern edge of the Usambara range lies Kilimanjaro, its snow-covered Uhuru Peak rising high above the plains.

Tanzania is all three of these images – the grace and strength of the lion, the smile and friendly nature of the seven year old, and the majesty of Kili.  After our three week scouting trip we can say that Field Studies: Tanzania will be an adventure:  it will be the adventure of stepping off the plane in a new place.  It will be the adventure of exchanging pleasantries in Swahili with a 16-year old Tanzanian student.  And it will be the adventure of seeing a lion wander off into the plains.

- Alec Norton

As the logistics coordinator for our new five-week program, Field Studies: Tanzania, I will be traveling to Tanzania later this month with Alec for a scouting trip.  The goal for the two weeks in Africa is to return with a totally bulletproof itinerary for our two groups and four amazing leaders.

In Dar es Salaam, we’ll pay a visit to the US Embassy, where our students will have the opportunity to meet government officials who will brief them on the challenges facing Tanzania.  We’ll meet the head of the language school we’ve partnered with for introductory Swahili lessons and check out our group’s accommodations in the city. In Lushoto, we’ll scout the day hikes and find the best markets for our groups to shop for groceries at.

While in Arusha, we’ll meet with the company who is coordinating our Kilimanjaro climb, spend a few days on safari checking out the campsites our group will stay at and finally we’ll get to know the head of the orphanage where our students will volunteer in July to discuss projects that we can help with.

In short, it’s a lot of logistical details and this scouting trip is the perfect way to tie it all together. For the two groups of twelve teenagers who will join us for five adventure-filled weeks in Tanzania, my job is to give them all the tools they’ll need to have the experience of a lifetime.  Want to join them?  Two spots remain so give us a call and I’d be happy to answer any questions you have about this incredible new program.

-Liz Kantack