Leadership Expedition to Patagonia

Leadership Expedition to Patagonia

Leadership Programs is excited to announce the fourth annual Johnson Leadership Expedition to Patagonia. Students will travel to Patagonia, Chile, from January 3-16, 2016, where they’ll test and enhance their leadership skills in an unpredictable, challenging, and dynamic wilderness environment.

Students can expect to:

• experience ambiguity and adversity;
• be forced to make decisions with incomplete, inconclusive, and/or conflicting information;
• take turns assuming full responsibility for the entire group; and,
• receive real-time feedback and coaching on their leadership efforts.

In short, this is a chance to practice, rather than just talk about, real leadership.

Students will also be expected to support each other’s leadership development and will be guided, in real-time, on how to give effective feedback and coaching to the rest of the team.

Read about (and see photos from) past Patagonia Leadership Expeditions in the Cornell Enterprise here and here, on the Johnson website, on the Johnson Leadership blog, and on the NOLS blog!

Interested?
If you are interested in learning more about this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, please carefully review all of the following information and join us at our information session on Thursday, September 24th at 3:30 p.m. in Sage Hall B11.

Patagonia
Patagonia is a remote wilderness of isolated mountain valleys, ragged icy peaks, turbulent rivers, and island archipelagos. This is a land that demands exploration, and students will experience some of its dramatic landscape firsthand. The hallmarks of a NOLS Patagonia course are remoteness, fickle weather, and exploration.

The Johnson team will begin in the Aisen Region of Chile, where they’ll start and end the expedition at NOLS’ main base camp—a working farm of several hundred acres set in a beautiful landscape near the city of Coyhaique.

National Outdoor Leadership School
For the fourth year in a row, Johnson is partnering with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) to plan and execute this expedition. NOLS is an internationally-renowned leadership training institute with 46 years of wilderness training experience. NOLS believes that "what [it] teaches cannot be learned in a traditional classroom or on a city street. It takes...time to develop leadership. The backcountry provides the ideal setting for this unique, experiential education—NOLS classrooms are some of the world’s wildest and most awe-inspiring locations."

 Leadership Expeditions

Leadership Expeditions are a chance to leave Ithaca and dig in, full-time, to your leadership development. Expeditions are designed to give students the opportunity to go through the Johnson leadership learning cycle of instruction, experience, and review multiple times in an intensive, condensed timeframe.

 Logistics
Dates: January 3-16, 2016, inclusive of travel time. The expedition dates are January 5-14, but students must arrive in Coyhaique, Chile no later than the evening of January 4 (please note that to do that, you will most likely need to depart the United States on January 3). Students will be able to depart Patagonia on January 15 (most likely arriving in the United States on the 16th). (We're sorry, but this expedition is not open to Exchange Students.)

Note to First-Year Johnson Students: If you are planning on participating in a Johnson Immersion, your Immersion dates will most likely conflict with the dates for this Leadership Expedition. First-year students doing a customized Immersion will not have an academic date conflict. Please check the dates for your spring academic plans carefully if you are a first-year student who is interested in participating.

Academic Credit: Participation in the Patagonia Leadership Expedition (which will include a few mandatory pre-and-post trip classroom sessions in Ithaca and some reflective written work) will count as 1.5 academic credits on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis.

Program Fees: The cost of the expedition includes a program fee to the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) of approximately $2,200, plus round-trip airfare to Balmaceda, Chile (the airport identifier for Balmaceda is BBA), lodging in Coyhaique (one night each at the start and end of the expedition), and a few miscellaneous meals and incidentals in Coyhaique. Students are also responsible for preparing personal gear for the expedition (such as good hiking boots, rain gear, etc.). The amount students will have to spend on gear will vary depending on what students already own; this will be discussed in detail at our information sessions. (For your reference, the 2015 Personal Gear List is attached to this announcement; we do not expect gear requirements to change for 2016.)  Please note that all meals during the expedition, as well as all group gear (such as tents, cooking stoves, etc.) are covered by the program fee. Leadership Programs recommends that students budget approximately $4,000-$5,000 in total to participate, as airfare can vary widely from year to year and is difficult to predict. Some students might qualify for student loans to help cover the costs of the expedition since this is an academic class, but you must make an appointment with Lisa Pastrick, financial aid officer, to find out if you qualify.

Next Steps

• Please review the attached deck from our Information Session.
• Sign up here on Tuesday, September 29th at 8AM if you are ready to commit to the expedition.
• If you are planning to sign up, we strongly recommend you reach out to your primary care provider to schedule a physical now. (It's fine if your appointment is for after you sign up on Tuesday, but schedule it now as you can't buy your plane ticket until you are medically cleared.) Take the NOLS Medical Form with you to your appointment. (Form is attached to this announcement.)
• Questions? Please reach out to Jerry Rizzo or Ingrid Jensen. 

File Attachments: Patagonia fall 2015 info session.pdf, 2016_Patagonia Expedition Medical Form.pdf, Patagonia Gear List -- 2015 Expedition.pdf