» Summer program http://sca.blogs.wesleyan.edu A place for news and information about rare books, manuscripts and university archives. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:38:41 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Great Hollow Wilderness School: Wes in the Woods http://sca.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2009/04/30/great-hollow-wilderness-school-wes-in-the-woods/ http://sca.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2009/04/30/great-hollow-wilderness-school-wes-in-the-woods/#comments Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:17:50 +0000 Kate Levy http://sca.blogs.wesleyan.edu/?p=188 I recently came across an interesting collection of the Great Hollow Wilderness School, a Wesleyan run summer wilderness program for disadvantaged youth.  In the late 1960s, a 1,440 acre wildlife preserve on New Fairfield  (almost on the New York-Connecticut border) was will to Wesleyan and in 1969, the Great Hollow Wilderness School was created.  The program was created as a sort of combination of  Upward Bound and Outward Bound.  Wesleyan was invested in the project in many ways, including staffing the program with students and even creating a graduate level class in outdoor education leadership.

In 1985, Wesleyan decided to use the land for something other than the Great Hollow Wilderness School, and began the WOW program, the Wesleyan Orientation in the Wilderness.  Wesleyan hosted a few-night camping trip for incoming freshman.  The majority of the collection, besides some files with program information, is made up of the paraphernalia from both the Great Hollow Wilderness School and WOW, including the very 1980s t-shirts from the summer program, some goofy hats, and the WOW water bottles given to the participants of the program.

Now knowing about the Great Hollow land, I am curious as to what has happened to it.  Does Wesleyan still own it?  There is very little written information in this collection and I would like to find out more.  How long did the WOW program last?  I can’t find much about it after the mid-1990s, but is seemed to be a success.  Do we use the land for anything, even perhaps for field work during the year?  What has happened to the Wilderness School?  I should only hope that the school is using such a great piece of land appropriately and I would encourage the reinstatement of a program like WOW.

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