‘Adventure learning’ provides unique free service to any student group

Blindfolded and dangling in the air with only a thin wire to hold her, all Air Force Maj. Heidi Hackbarth could do was put complete trust in her partner guiding her and her two spotters 20 feet below her.

“I was pretty much reliant completely on my partner to tell me what to do. It was scary having to put that much trust in one person,” Hackbarth says. “However, it definitely brought us a lot closer.”

Hackbarth, along with her Air Force ROTC team, made it safely through the Adventure Learning Programs (ALPs) high rope course, thanks to teamwork and trust – two things the program works to infuse in all participants.

ALPs is a student organization at UW–Madison that helps other student groups and teams become more unified through hands-on activity such as ice-breakers, workshops, and high and low rope courses.

“ALPs is an outlet for experiential education on campus,” says co-coordinator Noah Annes. “We provide team building and rope course workshops to any and all student groups and student organizations for free.”

Co-coordinator Maren Bean adds: “ALPs enhances group dynamics� It helps different student groups work together better to be more effective leaders and achieve their goals.”

ALPs is effective in part because of its unique approach to team-building. While the rope courses offer a physical challenge to participants, the ground workshops include a distinctive mental challenge. In one workshop activity, an ALPs facilitator creates a color pattern out of balloons. The group then has to try to guess the pattern. If they are wrong the facilitator pops the balloon and the group must start over.

“It was hard to work together and listen to one another because everyone wanted to do their own thing and pursue their own ideas,” says Missy Haehn, who organized a ground workshop for the Biomedical Engineering Society. However in the end, Haehn says, “It was a really satisfying feeling when we were successful.”

ALPs’ approach to team-building is also unique because it designs each group’s workshops to focuses on distinct goals and needs.

“ALPs designed a unique program for us that was geared toward helping us accomplish our goal,” said Hackbarth. “We went to the program a quieter group, not so sure of how to interact with each other. By the end of the day, we were laughing and joking together as if we had been together and a group for a long time.”

Although ALPs served nearly 2,600 students this year, the program started out small in 1995, when a group of students created ALPs in response to the lack of unity within campus organizations. In 1998, ALPs received segregated fee funding and since then has taken off. Each year, the program serves more than 100 student groups, including sports teams, student clubs, fraternities and sororities, residence halls and academic classes.

The program was given the second highest approval rating of any student service on campus by the 2004 Dean’s Survey. Its success continued this year when the Student Organization Office named it the Program of the Year for Fall 2005. However, ALPs leaders say the greatest success is measured in the number of student groups that are repeat customers.

For 2006, ALPs is looking to increase the number of groups it serves from 120 to 140 overall. For more information on ALPs, including how to schedule a workshop, email alps@das.wisc.edu, call (608) 263-4663 or stop by the ALPs office on the second floor of the Red Gym, 716 Langdon Street.