Penn State's 98-Year-Old Outing Club Is No Longer Allowed to Go Outside
reason.com
reason.com
If the “no cell service” issue is really the problem, this is even more embarrassing. Satellite phones are a thing, and if they can’t afford the subscription for that, then get a subscriptionless emergency satellite beacon instead. They cost a few hundred dollars.
It’s even run by an international treaty with many satellite networks listening for these alerts and forwarding them to local authorities. Works pretty much anywhere in the world and costs less than most cell phones.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Cospas-Sarsat_Pr...
Risk management my ass. If they were really concerned about the safety of students it wouldn’t be a football school.
But, what about all that sweet, sweet sportsball money? Oh yeah, TBI? Nahh, the helmets are "safe".
So, under the system we've given them, they made a rational decision.
PSOC is a convenient soft target without anyone on the payroll to defend it, so risk management is in a position to do whatever they want.
If only Penn State had a recent highly publicized event regarding its staff and deans that probably should have killed their football program forever - from a risk assessment pov at least.
The actual risk has nothing to do with this, only perception of it.
My school organized trips to wilderness and I took part in it when I was 9. There were no phones, no satellites. This was cold war Poland and the bears and wolves were present in the woods. Yet I never heard anything really dangerous happening to anybody unless you ask for problems (like climbing a steep rock face without safeties). You are probably safer in the wilderness than on the city street.
Penn State is a university for adults, no? Not a nursery or something.
Young men and women may be of legal age but are not at all independent financially or mentally from their parents.
Financially, it is more and more difficult with each year as education costs inflate, to be able to afford education yourself. There were times when you could get a job and be able to survive through university but I think this is past.
At the same time parents became crazy for safety and behave overprotective of their kids. This means it is more difficult for the young adult to take independent decision and when faced with conflict they will more likely yield to parents. The parents themselves, being crazy for safety, are less and less approving of any activities that may be contrived to be unsafe for children. Your kids sensibilities can be hurt? That's a no no... Lack of cell coverage... don't even think about it.
Maybe I should write the risk management people a letter in case they haven’t heard about this yet.
This article just feels like clickbait. No analysis of why the university might have taken a decision that on the surface is bizarre but is reasonable given a moment's thought.... ironic given the name of the site.
Far smaller universities and colleges have outing clubs that are covered by the institutional insurance policy. Some schools like Middlebury even run officially sanctioned and organized outings for matriculating students.
This is not impossible or expensive coverage to get.
This is 100% related to liability reduction. No insurance company would cover a high-risk activity group without demanding conditions like being able to call 911 or medevac.
The condition demanded here is 100% reasonable given the risk.
Reason is complaining about people wanting to do risky things and have other people pay for them which is par for the course for libertarianism these days, I guess.
This is true of hundreds, maybe thousands of colleges and universities in the U.S. It's not unusual to have a college outing club that is led by students.
> No insurance company would cover a high-risk activity group without demanding conditions like being able to call 911 or medevac.
This is just incorrect. Backcountry activities are not necessarily higher risk than other activities, and insurance companies will certainly cover such activities. Again: many, many colleges and universities already have coverage for their outing clubs.
If the outings club were able to obtain such insurance and get trained supervisors for their outings I doubt they'd have trouble getting the official seal of approval.
I don't know much about how risk assessment in large organizations is done, but that strikes me as an illegitimate attempt to stifle debate. Are there any legitimate reasons the university administrators might keep the risk assessment secret?
In some organizations they quack like auditors, but aren’t really auditors. Usually if they are involved, a big shot doesn’t want to do something.
In terms of legitimate reasons, there may be discretionary expenses relating to insurance that can be cut for clubs, but not for sports.
> In terms of legitimate reasons, there may be discretionary expenses relating to insurance that can be cut for clubs, but not for sports.
This could be a legitimate reason to cut a risky club while allowing a similarly risky sport; it is not a legitimate reason to hide the report.
I don't mean that as an insult, sincerely. They are typically very very good at what they are trained to do - research - they just aren't trained for this. It is unfortunate that the programs that do exist for training them often do not deliver meaningful training. Some schools have even stopped giving (unless requested) quarterly statements on grant accounts to faculty. I was told that such things were 'difficult' for faculty to understand and led to many questions and confusion.
As an example: The Big 10 Academic Leadership Program Seminar https://www.btaa.org/docs/default-source/leadershipdev/semin... 2.5 days
First day (12pm-8pm):
a 45min 'conversation'
a 1hr talk on 'the pragmatics of leadership'
a 1:15 panel on the role of the arts in diversity and inclusion
everything else is social.
Second Day (8am-9pm):
1:15 Issues confronting US universities
1:45 freedom of expression and inclusive campus
1:15 public engagement in academia
1 hr 'conversation' with University president.
The rest is social, breaks, field trips, tours, etc.
TL:DR: in 2.5 days, there is approximately 8 hours of content most of which is just someone in a position of authority's opinion/experience.
Part of the event was to have open 5 gallon containers of water so the kids could refill their squirt guns. The whole event was killed by the administration because the open water containers posed a "drowning hazard." As a number of commentators have mentioned, this was driven by the school's insurance policy.
A few weeks later, they hosted a professional birds of prey experinece - including faclons, eagles, etc for the kids to engage with. The Admin again banned it - but the organizers put it on anyway.
I wonder if "safety" is a dog whistle for something else. Or will the admin reverse its decision if every student gets a satellite phone, or goes with a team of professional trained guides?
I've yet to run into any issues going on trips as a gay couple in crew, its solidly not bad. Much more of a collegiate atmosphere than Boy Scouts too, and no uniform requirements or competitions either!
A Venture crew would not be accessible to many juniors, most seniors, or (almost) any graduate students.
Maybe there is no equivalent in US Scouting.
* Venture Scouting (aged 14-21),
* Exploring (aged 10-20) [0],
* and Sea Scouting (aged 14-20) [1]
However, there are plenty of university students that would be too old to take advantage of programs that had an upper age limit of 25.
I’m also not sure what equipment has been purchased over the years, but reforming as an unassociated group would mean losing that. Also their ability to reserve rooms on campus for meetings, have a table at the “Involvement Fair” where incoming students can scope out all the clubs, no office space or storage in the student union building (not sure if PSOC has this or not, but many clubs do), etc.
Given what PSU is demanding here maybe BSA would be a more useful parent organization, I just can’t believe they even need to consider it. Going hiking in central PA is not a complicated endeavor. You can drive 15 minutes off of campus and you’re out in the woods with poor cell coverage, that’s just how things are.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some kind of hazing or even worse behavior is the real reason for the shutdown.
I'm trying to point out that there may a larger crackdown at foot, and if the clubs were involved in especially risky behavior, or hazing or worse we probably won't hear about it.
Here's some frat crackdown news: https://onwardstate.com/2017/11/08/another-one-bites-the-dus...
And some moving reporting about the fraternity death. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/a-death...
Libertarians tend to support free and voluntary association. The college is not stopping these students from voluntarily hiking together. The college is simply saying: we don't want to get eaten alive by the potential liability if you hike together with our organization's name attached.
If anything, you'd think Reason would applaud the college for not strapping the non-hiking student with the increased insurance costs of allowing the hiking group to continue.
That paternalism infantilizes the adult students and encourages a childlike mindset of seeking safety in exchange for submission to an authority and its power over you rather than an independent minded, solve-it-yourself, get-up-and-go ethos more conducive to a free society.
I used to be the treasurer for the Urban Gaming Club and got them UPAC funding for "Nerf capture the flag" events run on Friday/Saturday nights in the student union building. We had inflatable paintball bunkers and maybe 10 loaner blasters, most of the recurring attendees brought their own. Fun times.
EDIT: link for reference http://www.studentfee.psu.edu/university-park/up-how-the-fee...
With the $54.13 per student and an undergraduate population of roughly 46,000 on main campus, UPAC is allocating a budget of nearly $2.5 million per year.
https://www.rei.com/product/843146/ for example. Buoyant, waterproof, and transmits a GPS location (some don't, and are only triangulated to a few km by the receiving satellites). Costs $270.
For actual student safety issues I would bet the top three are sports, drinking, and street crossings (especially Atherton).
http://www.collegian.psu.edu/news/crime_courts/article_9f27f...
>Josef Blunschi , a Ph.D. student and part-time university employee, was crossing the intersection of East Park Avenue and McKee Street around 6:50 p.m. when he was struck by a vehicle travelling westbound toward Atherton Street, police said.
>Three other pedestrians have been killed crossing streets on the north side of campus in the last 20 months, State College Police Chief Thomas King said at a press conference on Thursday.
And it's not a contradiction for libertarians to advocate for a particular kind of culture which they (and I) might believe is more conducive to a free society (or to advocate against a particular kind of culture which might threaten the survival of individual rights). That's your 'some reason' for libertarian participation in the culture war---the belief that, with respect to liberty, some kinds of culture are invigorating and others are corrosive---and we (libertarians) don't come down uniformly on the left or right, or even uniformly with each other.
I do so all the time, and as long as I'm not employing violence in my advocacy, I don't see a conflict with my moral and political principles.
In the context of being in college, the fee is usually either mandatory or required to participate in any activity at all, whether it's the bible study that reserves rooms and gets no money from student government, the film series that spends like mad bringing in 35mm and 70mm prints, or something in between. At best, that's an extremely poor gradient of control over your own money and a consequence of centralizing control of funds in a way that many libertarians would likely oppose.
With regard to culture though, I think a culture of being less fearful tends to be conducive to the political viability of libertarian policies. There's a trend, as the world becomes safer for people to treat risks that were previously regarded as reasonable, or that were simply unavoidable, as unreasonable. I hope that walking outdoors where there isn't a cell signal doesn't start to be widely regarded as an unreasonable risk.
So yes, this is still a fairly big deal for the Outing Club.
I imagine the insurance situation for Penn State extracurriculars is already problematic, given the recent history.
"> In terms of legitimate reasons, there may be discretionary expenses relating to insurance that can be cut for clubs, but not for sports.
This could be a legitimate reason to cut a risky club while allowing a similarly risky sport; it is not a legitimate reason to hide the report."
So yes, this definitely cpuld be an acceptable reason, but there's no way for students to know without the minimal transparency of publishing the risk assessment. As long as the report remains private, it may be assumed that "student safety" is a smokescreen for a political or similar reason to cut the club.
In fact, I don't even see anybody referencing the specific "helicopter parenting" until you brought it up.
Easy solution. Forbid indoor sports activities as well and mandate that students spend all their freetime in the safety of their homes browsing reddit.
We may need a great many more padded rooms if such insanity continues in the world. It has never been easier to rescue someone in serious trouble in a remote location, cell phone or no cell phone.
It's a weird book, but when well-meaning grown-ups are putting the squeeze on adventurous students, I'm glad that such books (still) exist. Hope they don't get banned. A link is here: https://www.amazon.com/Rash-Pete-Hautman/dp/0689869045
Is there a version of this article not written by the professionally offended?
We in the “first world” live in the safest period in human history, but we are constantly being fed the idea that we are not safe enough, and we always need to do more. The UK is collectively freaking out about knives and other implements that are only “weapons” if you squint just right[0], and parents in the United States risk being arrested for letting their children walk to the park[1].
I’m not saying we should start freebasing (either kind) on the side of an active volcano, but as safe as we are, we could accomplish amazing things in space flight, medical technology, and food production if we just allow, or even encourage, more informed risk taking.
[0]https://mobile.twitter.com/mpshackney/status/562993045759856...
[1]https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/13/parent...
And they know that any "legitimate" reason they cook up is going to apply to some other club or sport so they're keeping the report secret.
* his assigned buddy completely forgot about him, and
* the club leaders failed to account for him at an end-of-hike headcount.
Later that weekend, somebody who was on the trip (I think it was his "buddy") realized what had happened, contacted a club leader, and they drove out to the cave. They found him just inside the entrance. He had spent about 2 nights inside the cave with no food and little water. He was fine, but it caused a bit of a ruckus in the news.
FWIW, the Indiana University Outdoor Adventures club continues to operate as a university student organization. [0]
[0] https://imu.indiana.edu/activities/outdoor-adventures/index....
Meanwhile other students can engage in much more dangerous activities (downhill skiing, football, etc.) with school funding. That makes no sense.
People can still donate to the club, and IMO tuition money should not be going towards other people's hobbies. Tuition is high enough as-is.
Of the three listed activities, two have notable costs associated with them, while even hiking requires transport, food, and, depending on the hike, sometimes more specialized equipment.
GPS trackers would certainly be something I would have for every member of the club.
Even the so-called 100 Mile Wilderness on the AT in northern Maine is crisscrossed with dozens of logging roads.
Basic map and compass training would be better than GPS
Surely any kind of hiking should include at least a little informal training in using a map and a compass. I had that in primary school in the UK. Mind you that was in the early sixties. Here in Norway children get an early introduction to simple woodcraft (shelters, fire, tools, maps, compasses) in primary school and have outings into the woods. My children would come home with a brief letter saying that a trip to the woods was planned and could we make sure that they were supplied with sausages to cook over a fire and a knife to cut sticks with to make the fire and a rudimentary shelter. And they did it before mobile phones were common too.
One of my sons was accidentally cut by a classmate but we didn't sue and he came to no lasting harm. The trip was not called off, the teacher simply and effectively bandaged it up and they all carried on. If primary school children can manage then surely 20 year olds can.
In addition, GPS works fine in the standard conditions where you can't see very well (heavy rain, snow or fog) which would make figuring out where you are pretty stupidly difficult. This is extremely helpful even when using a map.
Teach people to use a map and compass? Absolutely. However, GPS is really useful.
> One of my sons was accidentally cut by a classmate but we didn't sue and he came to no lasting harm. The trip was not called off, the teacher simply and effectively bandaged it up and they all carried on. If primary school children can manage then surely 20 year olds can.
Most people think like this. The problem is that if even one parent/student winds up winning a big lawsuit, it ruins it for all the sensible people.