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Academy Juniors Face A New Kind of Challenge in Low-Ropes Course

August 29, 2011 | News, People, Staff, Student Life | No Comments

by Erin Walch, Academy Avatar

Finish off Adventure Week activities, juniors, seniors, and residential counselors alike traveled to WKU’s low-ropes Challenge Course on the outskirts of campus to put their leadership and team working skills to the test.

Students were asked to perform tasks that required communication and–at times–more than a little humility. Activities were designed to push students to work together and pool their collective strengths together to become an effective team. The challenge for these intellectual Automatons came in the form of accepting assistance and veering from the constant choice of independent problem-solving habits.

One of the most important lessons students at the Gatton Academy must learn in order to become successful in our academic and residential environments is asking for help. No matter a students’ test scores or GPA, every student requires advice, encouragement, tutorship, and support sometime in their stay at the Academy. This important fact is hard to understand, and many students are uncomfortable with admitting their imperfections and shortcomings. Here, the challenge course comes into play to effectively introduce students to the dynamics of student interaction at Gatton.

Tasks at the course included blindfolded students being directed through noodle land minds by fellow students, balancing a gigantic seesaw with approximately twenty students atop it, and blindfolding students to enter an inescapable maze: a circle of rope. This activity in particular was quite frustrating for juniors and seniors alike, who spent nearly an hour trying to figure out why they could not finish the maze.

The most interesting part of this task was that students could ask questions of the instructor, but could not converse together. Eventually, students grudgingly came to the realization that the only way to escape the maze was to ask the question, “Can you help me?”

Adrian Gregory, a member of the Class of 2013, added that it was a difficult question to ask.  “When we had to go through the maze and ask for help, we all realized that sometimes there is nothing else that you can do but admit to yourself that you need help,” he said.

Most of the students agreed that this task was their least favorite and most frustrating because they had to admit their inability to complete the maze. “We are all so used to doing everything by ourselves, and we are really stubborn,” added Gabrielle Hamilton, who is also a member of the Class of 2013. “The maze showed us that sometimes we can’t do everything by ourselves.”

Other lessons learned by students at the challenge course included effective communication, having confidence in your own skills when working with a group of leaders, expressing humility when accepting others ideas, and working as hard to help others as to help oneself.

Residential Counselor Ian Oliver noticed that “It becomes very easy to identify who is an unexpected leader, and who can step up when needed.”

All of these qualities embody the spirit of students at the Academy, and improve the chances of success of the student body. The lessons learned these past two days at the challenge course will especially prove important as a new semester starts and students venture into the great adventure that marks Academy life.

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By Corey Alderdice

Academy Juniors, Community Leaders Tackle Challenge Course

August 25, 2009 | News, Student Life | No Comments

A Human Knotby Rohith Palli, Academy Avatar

Laughter rang out across the forest this morning as The Gatton Academy’s newly-arrived juniors and Community Leaders converged upon the low ropes challenge course of Western Kentucky University.

The course is designed to improve teamwork and leadership; it consists of a wide variety of team-building exercises.  From lifting people up walls to putting themselves in line by their birthday, the training worked to mold the class into a functioning team.  In the words of Whitney, a coordinator at the challenge course, “Communication is the key to every exercise. It’s what we try to promote. Teamwork. We want people to really keep others in mind and effective communication is what works.”

“I think experience activities, metaphor activities as I call them, are the best way to learn group dynamics,” said Tim Gott, the director of the Gatton Academy, when asked what he hoped the juniors would gain from this experience.

Students took that message to heart.  Anthony Bates, a quick learner, answered speedily in his group that “teamwork and communication are key.” Later, when asked to describe what he gained from this experience, he noted lessons from the day are an important part of the Adventure Week experience. “I think I learned a lot,” Bates said.  “It really reinforced Pokey’s [ Bowen, assistant director of counseling services] ideas about how we have to work together to succeed and that if one person only thinks about themselves there is no way the team can succeed.”

The Wall

Each activity was designed with a purpose.  In one activity, a favorite according to the coordinators, students allow themselves to fall backwards into the waiting arms of their peers.  This exercise teaches the students to trust each other.  Students are not, however, required to participate in any activity.  This “challenge by choice” creates an environment in which all the students are enjoying themselves and working together.

As the day went on, and groups got closer together, there was more and more joking around and laughter within the juniors, and between the classes.  Hunter Smith put it best in saying “I found that this challenge course is a very effective resource to help with the junior’s interclass trust and friendliness.” He went on to mention the skills that the seniors learned in the previous year.

One group that has clearly learned these lessons already is the community leaders; the difference in their demeanor from only a year ago is very apparent.  These students, many of whom were very shy and anxious a year ago–similar feelings to this year’s juniors–have become amazingly comfortable with themselves.

“There’s definitely a greater confidence and less hesitance and doubt, better vision of what it’s supposed to be,”  Gott said of the difference in how the community leaders approached this year’s challenge course.  He elaborated with a specific example; “Ballard [Metcalfe] was very quiet last year, and was a major force this year; he talked and he helped and guided.”

At the end of the course, students left better leaders, and everyone was very excited about the new year.  In the wise words of Gott : “I’m incredibly excited about this group and the mixture of the first and second years to see the synergy that develops.”

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By Corey Alderdice