From a Ryan Brady Photo

Cindy Dillenschneider
Professor of Outdoor Education and Program Co-Coordinator

I was born in the largest state in the union. That was true until the United States captured Alaska when I was two years old. I was raised in a rural area outside of Arlington, Texas. Arlington is now a huge city, but it was a town of 10,000 people when I was born.  My childhood memories are of riding horses, and playing with dogs, cats, ducks, rabbits, peacocks, snakes, hamsters, horned toads, and all the various critters that inhabited our home. I grew up climbing trees, fishing, and playing "Jesse James" from the back of my pony. During my grade school years, our family vacations consisted of camping trips to lake Ouchita in Arkansas. My life then, as now, was not one of following the crowd.

Upon graduation from high-school (I have skipped a few years of life, but you can ask me about those anytime), I went on a 23- day Outward Bound course backpacking in the Gila Wilderness in New Mexico.  This experience became a life changing event. Through the combination of experiences teaching swimming to kids with disabilities during my teen years and the self-esteem boost that came from my Outward Bound course, I decided that experiences like Outward Bound should be available to people of all abilities. I now had a quest to undertake; the year was 1976.

I graduated from Texas A&M with a degree in Physical Education and an emphasis in Corrective Therapy. Then I was off to Mankato State University to pursue a master's degree in Experiential Education. I completed my degree at Mankato with my master's paper Wilderness Adventure Programming for the Mentally Retarded: A Rationale and Therapeutic Basis for Program Development. (the title is not one that I would use now, but it reflects common wording of the times)

During my graduate studies and ever since I have pursued Adventure Education as a career. My employment choices have allowed me to work as an instructor for Outward Bound, the National Outdoor Leadership School, Environmental Traveling Companions, the Breckenridge Outdoor Education Center, the Woodlands Institute, Appalachian Mental Health Center, Davis and Elkins College, and Northland College, as well as several other programs. I have worked with populations of all abilities and all ages in wilderness settings. My passion is finding ways to allow people of all abilities to access the wilderness and to help them find the opportunities for learning and personal growth that exist there.

In the early 80’s my housemate had a poster on the wall of the living room. It was a picture of a person running on a path through the woods; the words on the poster stated, “Education is a Journey not a Destination.” I do not know the author of the saying, but I have carried this understanding along my path as an educator. A journey (and the picture on the poster) implies a sense of the unknown, of risk, of moving forward, of process rather than product. The journey requires a commitment to effort, exploration, and to travel beyond the immediate boundaries. The process of education is experience beyond comfort, inquiry about the unknown, and reflection on the desirability and quality of outcomes. A sustained commitment to the journey of education, as Riders in the Sky would say, “it’s not the easy way, but it is the cowboy way.”

From my commitment to the journey and the awareness that we are all fellow travelers, comes my belief that our living community is our learning community. Our classroom is wherever we are impelled to stretch our understanding, awareness, and knowledge. This can and should be, in small groups engaged in dialog, in a community agency with members of the larger community, in a library surrounded by literary works, and on the river in the midst of the rapid. College educated persons and persons pursuing a college education hold a privileged and powerful place in our society. In recognition that we exist within the context of the greater social, physical, and spiritual community, I believe it is our responsibility to share the benefits of our privilege. By taking education beyond the walls of the college and immersing ourselves and our students into solutions for sustainable and healthy communities--both human and non-human--we can use our position of power and privilege for creative, generative, and healing purposes rather than using our position in pursuit of advancement for our exclusive short-term benefit.     

Since the fall of 1989, I have worked as an outdoor educator at Northland College. Our vision, “to be the leading environmental/ liberal arts college in the nation,” attracts students who wish to change the world. Many people look at our students as idealistic and naive; I also see our students’ idealism and believe where idealism exists so exists the opportunity to make profound change. Idealism brings energy, enthusiasm, perseverance, and possibility thinking. Without the belief that we can make a difference, we become cynical and disheartened and ultimately give up. The future that can be envisioned by our students is the future that can be realized. It becomes our job as educators to be the orchestrators, mentors, and midwives to our students’ efforts in becoming colleagues and fellow creators of environmental sustainability and human justice.