Alumni and Student Profiles

Marion Holmes McClure, ’11 MS 

I was born in Exeter, New Hampshire and grew up in Massachusetts. My family are life-long Appalachian Mountain Club members and I spent most of my summers hiking around the White Mountains of New Hampshire with them.  I attended Harvard University for my undergraduate degree and received my B.A. in the History of Science.

When I wasn't pouring over the archives in Harvard's libraries, I could often be found working with the Harvard First-Year Outdoor Program (FOP).  I was a FOP participant, leader, leader trainer, and logistics worker as a student and after graduation.  I was also an active member of the Harvard Mountaineering Club and Harvard Outing Club.  I spent my summers working outside, leading backpacking, canoeing, kayaking, and climbing trips in New England and in Spain.

After graduation, I worked at an outdoor school in Southern California and as a summer camp coordinator in Western North Carolina.  I also found my way to UNH for a summer to work as a research assistant, studying outdoor orientation programs.

I decided to return to UNH to pursue a Master's degree in Outdoor Education to learn about how to be an effective coordinator of outdoor programs for high school and college students.  While at UNH I continued to work as a research assistant studying outdoor orientation programs and co-authored several articles on the subject.  I became immersed in the history and theory of outdoor education while simultaneously honing my outdoor, research, and leadership skills.  I also had the opportunities to instruct and TA with the Outdoor Education department and to work as a facilitator at the Browne center.  My experiences at UNH confirmed for me that teaching and coordinating outdoor trips in a college or university setting was where I wanted to be!

Luckily enough I found a job doing just that!  I currently work as an Assistant Director with the Venture program at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.  I am primarily responsible for organizing Venture's trips program and for teaching backpacking classes with the Kinesiology department.  The knowledge and experiences I gained at UNH are absolutely invaluable and essential for this job and I feel grateful for my time at UNH!

Jessie Beightol, '08 MS

Born and raised in the great state of Minnesota, I was introduced to wild places at an early age.  Summer trips to the Boundary Waters Wilderness instilled in me a love for the outdoors and adventure. This passion led me to pursue a BS in Outdoor Education at Northland College in Ashland, WI.  Instructing for Wilderness Inquiry, Wintergreen Dogsled Lodge, Eagle Rock School, and the National Outdoor Leadership School has enabled me to pursue my passions and develop my skills as an outdoor educator.

I decided to pursue a Masters degree at the University of New Hampshire because I was interested in helping to make outdoor education more accessible to a wider audience.  While at UNH I served as the Graduate Assistant for the Outdoor Adventure program, worked as a research assistant, presented at numerous conferences, co-authored articles, and wrote my thesis on the effect of an experiential, adventure based “Anti-Bullying Initiative” on levels of resilience.  This experience helped me develop the skills necessary to succeed in my current job as the Wilderness Program Instructional Specialist at Eagle Rock School in Estes Park, CO. In this position I will manage all aspects of the adventure curriculum which includes conducting 25-day wilderness courses and integrating adventure activities with traditional classroom subjects.  In my free time I enjoy dogsledding, fly fishing, whitewater paddling, and telemark skiing.

Nate Fitch, '07 MS
I am a master's student in Outdoor Education.  Prior to returning to UNH, I was faculty at the Santa Fe Community College, working in the Outdoor Education Leadership and Physical Education departments, had a small climbing guiding business, and worked at my favorite place in the world; Hueco Tanks State Historical Site.  I hold a BS in Outdoor Education from UNH and a BS in Economics from Union College. 

I decided to return to UNH to continue as a life long learner and develop into a better rounded educator. I am really excited to be back at UNH.  My student colleagues and the Faculty in the program continually challenge me to develop new knowledge every day.  Prior to graduating in the spring of 2007, I hope to complete a project which analyzes and inventories adventure programs at colleges and universities.  In my free time, I try to climb or mountain bike as much as possible.  I reside in Durham with my wife Trista and dog Dunner. 

May Tan, '05 MS
My undergrad work was at Loughborough University, UK, in Physical Education and Sports Science. While I was at UNH, I was a graduate assistant at The Browne Center. I felt very welcomed by the staff and made many good friends with the facilitators. As an international student, there were many things totally new to me, like driving in a snow storm, shoveling to get my car out of the driveway, doing cross country skiing, going winter camping. If you haven't guessed by now, there is no snow in Singapore!

I now work on the Academic Staff at the School of Sports, Health, & Leisure, Republic Polytechnic, Singapore. I started on my Ph.D. studies in January 2006 in Singapore. My areas of interest remain in adventure programs and what impact it has on youth. In my Masters thesis, my study was conducted on Outward Bound Singapore participants, measuring the positive changes in the life effectiveness of the students. In my Ph.D., I hope to gain a better understanding in some of the factors which contribute to changes in the lives of the youth.

Matt Liddle, '06 MS
Hey!  Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I spent a good deal of time tramping around in the mountains.  As I was finishing up degrees in Chinese and Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh in 2000, I realized that the outdoors were the place that I wanted to work as well as play.  After a happy but destitute year spent organic farming, I found the Pressley Ridge DaySchool, a school for emotionally disturbed youth in Pittsburgh that had an experiential education program integrated into the curriculum.  This program delivers experiential programming in wilderness and classroom-based settings, and was a great place for me to learn the ropes and begin to develop program ideas and approaches of my own.  After 4 years with these amazing kids, I realized that program development and leadership was the path for me, and found my way to the UNH master's program in the fall of 2004. 

My research at UNH investigated the effects of short-term wilderness programming on therapeutic alliance (the working relationship that develops between clients and counselors in treatment), a powerful predictor of treatment outcomes.  While at UNH, I continued to work with Pressley Ridge in a research and development fellowship that allowed me to work on experiential projects at an agency level.  Surprisingly, this work took me to Budapest, Hungary in the winter of 2005 to offer experiential education training for teachers, social workers, and psychologists.  The success of this trip - and a blossoming love affair with Budapest - evolved into a permanent job offer that saw me moving to Budapest in August of 2006.  As a program coordinator for Pressley Ridge Central and Eastern Europe, I'm working on several projects right now.  We are developing an experiential youth leadership program for Roma (gypsy) youth, piloted an adventure curriculum in a school for troubled teens, providing ongoing training and supervision for professionals interested in experiential education, and actively seeking funding to build our own outdoor learning center (think the Browne Center, but with more gulyas).  I just finished writing a book on experiential education practice in school or institutional settings that is being translated into Hungarian and Portuguese, and will be the first work on experiential education in either language.   It's thrilling to be in a place where the field is just finding itself, and my work here is full of surprises, success, improvisation, and most importantly - learning. 

Justin Talbot, '06 MS
Before I came to UNH I worked for several years as an instructor for the National Outdoor Leadership School leading climbing and mountaineering courses in Wyoming and Arizona. I decided to go back to school to get my graduate degree in Outdoor Education to broaden my theoretical knowledge of experiential education, and to learn the skills necessary to be an effective program administrator.

Thus far, the Outdoor Education program at UNH has exceeded my expectations. For my advanced studies project I am collaborating on a book that will aid adventure programs in writing and revising their policy and procedure manuals by highlighting administrative practices of accredited adventure programs.  

Amy Climer, '01 M.S.
Growing up in Orlando, FL meant that my first exposure to outdoor pursuits was in high school when I attended a North Carolina Outward Bound course.  This amazing experience led my to get my undergrad degree at University of North Carolina at Charlotte where my official major was biology, but my unofficial second major came from leading and facilitating with the excellent campus-based outdoor program called Venture.  I spent the next two years gaining more trip leading experience before heading to UNH for my Master's degree with the hope of expanding my skills to learn more about program administration and outdoor education philosophy.  The grad program at UNH was a great fit for me and has led to many opportunities. 

After leaving UNH in 2001, I moved to Madison, WI and for almost three years was the Assistant Outdoor Program Director at University of Wisconsin Madison. My past research included studying the leadership training methods of students in college outdoor programs and this fit well with the program at UW. After about three years in that role I moved a few buildings over to develop leadership programs at the UW School of Business.  I then took a sharp turn and became a self-employed artist exhibiting at art fairs and galleries, which I did full-time through 2007, and now I enjoy it on a much smaller scale.

Since getting involved in outdoor education in 1995, I have had the opportunity to facilitate at over eight challenge course facilities around the country and seen top-notch programs (like The Browne Center) and ones that had a lot of room to grow.  I am an American Canoe Association certified paddling instructor and recently became a Lead Instructor for LeaderShape, Inc.  In 2005 I worked for Semester at Sea which traveling around Europe and Russia for 10 weeks.  My adventure trip highlights include sea kayaking the Florida Everglades and the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior, bike touring around Maine and Nova Scotia for five weeks, solo backpacking trips in Colorado, and multiple trips in New Hampshire and North Carolina.

I am currently an Adventure Education Instructor at Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO.

Kel Rossiter, '99 MS
I'm on the faculty in Lyndon State College's Recreation Resource & Ski Resort Management Department (another great adventure studies program!). My background in formal education includes a B.A. from The College of William & Mary (Philosophy & Political Science), a M.S. from the University of New Hampshire, and professional certificates from Georgetown University in Non-Profit Management and Leadership Development.  I am currently a doctoral student at the University of Vermont, focusing on the role of education in recreation ecology.  My outdoor background focuses on alpine mountaineering and sea-kayaking.

I am a member of the Association for Experiential Education, Association for Outdoor Recreation and Education, Appalachian Mountain Club, Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics, National Association for Search and Rescue, and the American Canoe Association, and I hold the following training/certifications: Wilderness First Responder, Coastal Sea Kayak Instructor, Swiftwater Rescue Technician, Leave No Trace Trainer, Top-Rope Climbing Instruction, Search and Rescue Technician 3, and Master Gardener. 

In the local community I provide support with the Kingdom Trails Mountain Bike Patrol, the Upper Valley Wilderness Response Team's Hasty and High Angle Rescue Teams, and D Acres Farm & Educational Homestead Board of Directors.

Bill Jacox, '02 MS
Bill Jacox graduated from the Masters Program in 2002.  After leaving UNH he worked for the Semester at Sea program where he met his wife Sunny.  Bill then moved on to become the director of the University of California Irvine's Outdoor Recreation program. 

When asked about what aspects he valued most about his choice to attend UNH, Bill says the OE program was "Invaluable in helping me transition away from full-time field work into the university outdoor programming scene.  The credential has opened up many professional doors.  The knowledge gained has helped me succeed on the other side of those new doors."

Ben Clapp, '96 BS and '03 MS
Ben Clapp is now director of the Robinson challenge course at Stratham Middle School, but his path in the outdoor field has been a varied one. A dual bachelor's degree in outdoor education and social work led him to an internship at the New Outlook teen center in Exeter, employment while a student as a Hurricane Island Outward Bound instructor, and a post-graduate internship at the Sante Fe Mountain Center, where he worked with many Latino populations. He credits the Sante Fe experience with developing his facilitation skills and raising his cultural awareness about new populations.

Ben returned to his home town to become the Goffstown YMCA teen center director for two years, before heading to the Reading, MA YMCA as its youth development director. In addition to running the teen center for three years, he also managed its day camp (200 kids a week), challenge course, and waterfront.  He describes the Reading experience as "intense" business training, adding, "I've learned a lot from a lot of different people. Beyond a degree, there is so much more. It's much more than safety on a trip or being able to facilitate an experience. The Y cemented my business management skills, including budgeting."

He returned to UNH for his master's degree in Outdoor Education, where he re-focused on leadership development. He maintains strong connections by offering placements to OE students in the Leadership Practicum course, which offers a great opportunity for students to continue developing their challenge course facilitation.  He married Lisa Hughes in July 2004.