2nd Info Session: Patagonia Leadership Expedition

Info Session: Leadership Expedition to Patagonia

Join us for an Info Session on the 2015 Johnson Leadership Expedition to Patagonia. Travel to Patagonia, Chile from January 3-16, 2015, where you'll test and enhance their leadership skills in a classroom unlike any other in the world.

2nd Info Session
Thursday, September 25th, 3:15PM in Sage 134.

Please RSVP to this event if you plan to join us at the info session or if you can't make the info session, but want to receive more information about the Patagonia Expedition.

About the Expedition 
Students who join the Johnson Expedition Team 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. The expedition is a part of a 1.5 credit academic class that will be graded on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis.

Read about (and see photos from) past Patagonia Leadership Expeditions in the Cornell Enterprise, on the Johnson website, 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 info session.

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 third 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, 2015, inclusive of anticipated 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).

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 $2,100, 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.  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. Many students may be eligible for additional financial aid to cover the costs of the expedition since this is an academic class.

Next Steps

• RSVP here to join us at our first info session ion Monday, Sept. 15th at 5:15PM in Sage B01.
• Questions? Please contact Jerry Rizzo. Interested students should feel free to book time on Jerry Rizzo's Outlook calendar to discuss the expedition, including any questions they might have about costs, gear, etc.